Dreaming.
Trump fanatics
People being terrified of cities and public transit.
I don’t know where you live, but in PDX it’s a hit or miss. If you go during rush hours on a work day in the suburbs, then you are mostly fine. Otherwise… You have high chances of being harassed by homeless people, spat on, threatened, leered at, smelling something awful. So yeah, not divorced of reality.
I live near Chicago, and the worst I’ve experienced is someone yelling or playing loud music. I’m not saying bad stuff never happens, but it’s much safer than driving (admittedly a very low bar).
I’m terrified of public transit only because of my social/generalized anxiety disorder, otherwise I’d love to use buses and trains. I wish we had more passenger trains in the US.
The hexbear instance. I have a fascination where everytime I see a post I can’t help but try to understand the thought process logically. I can only ever come up with deliberate misinformation or genuine dillusion.
I realised the rest of this comment is just me stream of consciousness trying to understand something so feel free to stop reading here.
One thing I personally can’t understand is their defending to the death of every socialist government. But by that I mean every government that has called itself socialist or been called socialist by the US as some sort of justification for undermining them, not if they’ve actually done anything socialist. Like do we have to simp for North Korea. They are probably the furthest country in the world from what I’d consider socialist. Every government does bad things you don’t have to defend them because they ideologically allign with you on paper. And the same logic goes for any country that doesn’t allign with you having only bad ideas and obviously they then must be fascist/ follow nazi ideology. Like what?? Is there no nuance here. Please if there are any actual genuine humans on hexbear can you talk to me about that instance. I what’s going on over there?
One thing I personally can’t understand is their defending to the death of every socialist government. But by that I mean every government that has called itself socialist or been called socialist by the US as some sort of justification for undermining them, not if they’ve actually done anything socialist. Like do we have to simp for North Korea.
There’s a couple of points I would make in response to that.
First, a problematic aspect of the internet is that your existence is defined by the last thing you posted. Which is to say, if someone says that a story about North Korea is fake, then to a reader they are a “North Korea defender,” regardless of whether they hold more critical beliefs about it that they didn’t happen to voice in that particular comment. And there have been plenty of sensationalist, fake news stories about North Korea, as well as about other countries the US doesn’t like.
Second, most Hexbears are Marxist-Leninists, and an important thing to understand about that ideology is that it isn’t about one specific set of policies that are universally applicable. When an ML defends a country, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they think that country should be held up as a model for other countries to emulate.
So if they’re not a model to emulate, then why defend them? First off, because the only means we in the West have of influencing their policies is through our government using military force, clandestine operations, or crippling economic sanctions. Second, because even if a socialist government is a failure, the extent to which it failed is important, because it will be held up as a criticism of socialism in general. Many Western leftists believe in simply putting as much distance as possible between themselves and AES (actually existing socialist) states, and will be some of their harshest critics to that end. But others, myself included, would argue that that’s the wrong approach, because it allows false and exaggerated claims to go unchallenged, which will then still be used to criticize the left no matter how much one tries to distance themselves from it. Like, people will call Obama and Harris communists, so it doesn’t seem to matter how much distance there is.
Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds is a good starting point for understanding the perspective.
“the US doesn’t like”
OMG, like North Korea isn’t bad, it’s just the US that “doesn’t like them”.
Anyobe not knowing North Korea is the worst dictatorship on planet earth should get their brain tested.
I mean this is what OP talks about (or so I feel), people so out of touch you can’t even have a normal discussion with them.
It’s like talking about sexual abuse and someone saying that the person raped is now not “liking” the rapist, but a million times worse.
I’m a capitalist. The person you are responding to sounded very reasonable.
“the US doesn’t like”
That’s very true. The us does not like north Korea. That isn’t saying north Korea is good. It’s just saying there are motives at play to make north Korea look as bad as possible.
If I said Jeffrey Epstein was a cannibal, you can say “no he wasn’t” without thinking he was a good person.
Not really important, but a capitalist is someone who has a significant amount of capital.
Someone who ideologically supports capitalism is called a liberal.
What on earth do you think you saying you are a capitalist does?
There are smart communists, and as you so succinctly prove, capitalists that are less so.
Pointing out I can disagree with someone’s ideas and still recognize when they are being very reasonable.
capitalists that are less so.
Ah the ol’ “you’re stupid” rebuttal. Works every time. Automatic win in every debate lol
I’m slowly learning to stop arguing with people whose first instinct is to throw out an insult
Yesh, look at OBJECTION s response, and call that smart if you like lol. There are people who are smart, and others who, well, aren’t.
Others
Ftfy
This is what I’m talking about. The US not liking North Korea is an objective fact. But because people on the internet treat whatever you last posted as your entire identity and belief system, then you assume that’s the full extent of my position on North Korea. You expect me to do the typical signals to disavow and denounce the country as part of the strategy of the Western left distancing itself from AES states. But I’m not interested in signalling anything, for the reasons I explained. The strategy of allowing and repeating all sorts of sensationalist nonsense for fear that pushing back against it will tie you to the state in question just doesn’t work.
Is North Korea really “the worst dictatorship on planet Earth?” Are they worse than, for example, Saudi Arabia? Are they so much obviously worse that anyone who thinks Saudi Arabia is worse “should get their brain tested?”
It’s like talking about sexual abuse and someone saying that the person raped is now not “liking” the rapist, but a million times worse.
Ok, maybe you’re right. Perhaps it’s important to mention the horrible things the US and North Korea have done to each other. Like when the US invaded and killed 15% of their entire population (primarily civilians), carpet bombed the country, and deployed all sorts of chemical weapons, or when North Korea, er, sorry, what did North Korea do to America that’s “a million times worse than rape?” Gonna have to refresh my memory on that one chief.
Look they first thing I’m confused about is why you started your comment with a sympathetic viewpoint to North Korea, like I would’nt open my essay about how nuclear energy is good with Chernobyl wasnt that bad. Your basically delegitimising everying else after that, which is unfortunate because there’s a lot of interesting things in your comment.
And then I disagree with the false and exaggerated claims unchallenged part. What exactly do you mean. This seems like a catch all to dismiss anything that you disagree with. Nuance is everything embrace it. More importantly, because the only state you’ve mentioned is North Korea I’m now prompted to assume the AES’s you’re talking about is north Korea.
Look they first thing I’m confused about is why you started your comment with a sympathetic viewpoint to North Korea, like I would’nt open my essay about how nuclear energy is good with Chernobyl wasnt that bad. Your basically delegitimising everying else after that
That’s a perfect demonstration of my point. The only thing I said about North Korea is that there are fake stories about it, which is true. I have no interest in saying or tolerating false claims just to make my position seem more appealing, or to avoid being accused of something. If speaking truth delegitimizes me somehow, if it makes people think I’m a bad person or something, then so be it, it doesn’t change what’s true.
And then I disagree with the false and exaggerated claims unchallenged part. What exactly do you mean. This seems like a catch all to dismiss anything that you disagree with.
I linked a video to give an example of what I was talking about. I recommend watching it, it’s a little long but it’s informative while being entertaining and well-produced (it has 3.6 million views with good reason). The video describes a story that was very widespread in the media with lots of mainstream sources talking about it, which claimed that everyone in North Korea had to get the same haircut as Kim Jong Un. That story was completely and totally false, it was a wholesale fabrication. The two guys in the video travel to North Korea and get a perfectly normal haircut to disprove it. It also mentions several other stories that turned out to be fake news.
You’re jumping to conclusions when you say that I “use it as a catch-all to dismiss anything I disagree with.” I’m not going to dismiss claims that are actually backed by evidence, but I am going to investigate whether there is actually evidence backing up a given claim.
More importantly, because the only state you’ve mentioned is North Korea I’m now prompted to assume the AES’s you’re talking about is north Korea.
That’s a silly assumption, as there’d be no need for a term like that if it only applied to one country. AES states also include for example Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, China, and the USSR (prior to it’s collapse).
I’m still confused why you’re including north Korea as a socialist state
People use all sorts of metrics to determine whether or not a state is socialist or not, so it’s hard to find neutral terminology everyone can agree with. North Korea calls itself socialist and has a centrally-planned economy, and has been historically aligned with other countries that also call themselves socialist (such as the USSR and PRC), so it seems reasonable enough to me to call them socialist. Should I call them capitalist instead? Seems a little odd, especially since I live in the US which has a much larger proportion of the economy in the private sector.
They’re not socialist because the means of production is owned by literally one guy?
The means of production are mixed between public/state ownership, collective ownership, and private ownership, actually.
I take it that your metric for whether or not a state is socialist is something like, “Worker ownership of the means of production.” But that metric has a lot of ambiguities that make it difficult to apply practically in an objective way. Which workers own which means of production, and in what form? Suppose we have a system where everything is state-owned and the state determines who can use what when based on a truly democratic process - but then, an organization of trained professionals in a given field go on strike to demand things be done the way they want. If all the workers should own all the means of production, then the strikers are out of line, but if the workers in a particular field should own the means of production in that field, then the state is out of line.
And should the economy be transformed, fully and immediately, to that ideal? Historically, both the USSR and PRC attempted widespread collectivization of farms, like with the Great Leap Forward, which was an abject failure. That’s not to say that farming collectives cannot be successful, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect immediate and total transformation to that model or else a state isn’t socialist.
Religion, nothing but group psychosis
Things atheists should stop saying 🔼
Telling other people what to do, how novel
On point for religious nutters, though.
You think you’re smart with these quips?
Smarter than you? yes. Absolutely. You like to hunker down and talk to yourself with a very stern look on your face. You call it praying. You also like to let some old pedo effers dressed up in costumes waving a barely relevant internally inconsistent book of outdated medeival tribal ideas tell you what to do. You think accepting it without question at all, no matter how crazy it is-- faith-- is somehow a virtue. You’re a slave in a cult.
May your all powerful sky fairy strike me down if I’m telling any untruths here.
It was poignant, and you reacted to it like a sore loser, so yes, it was objectively clever
Reality is but a quip. If only it were that simple. Ignorance is bliss. Not equally nor any other fashion. There is belief in fairy tales and there is not.
The only thing atheists should stop doing is tolerating the nonsense of the religidiots.
And what’s this nonsense?
I mean, it’s the community that keeps people around. The rules and dogma push people who aren’t being served well by the community out.
So in group this is natural to say. But external, directed at religious peoples, it’s not going to do the work of bringing them into your community. It’s not welcoming and it serves to push people to build walls rather than promote a change in thinking.
So i think you’re right in the context of being in community with a believer, but the comment wasn’t about that to begin with.
Alternatively, it’s hard to see how much religion is pushed until you’re outside of it. It’s like the opposite of getting a new (to you) car or phone. When you are, all of a sudden you realize how saturated everything is with it. It’s like living off the end of the runway of an international hub airport, there’s no rest.
I don’t deny there’s an element of groupthink within the Christian community that keeps its participants ensnared in the system while also alienating potential partakers, but adding the word ‘psychosis’ - like the user i responded to did - is rather disrespectful of the Christian position. You’d be falling victim to the outgroup homogeneity bias where you perceive individuals separate from your in-group as being alike and less diverse than yours. Just because you see many delusional participants does not mean all participants are equally as delusional.
Classifying belief in Christianity as psychosis simply shows one’s ignorance as they think one can only be religious if they’re “insane” which is just not the case since there are many who participate in Christianity with perfectly reasonable reasons.
I’m an atheist, but i think it’s high time, as atheists, we stopped making these stupid ad hominem attacks towards differing ideas.
is rather disrespectful of the Christian position.
Why is the christian position worthy of any respect al all? Labeling any idea thats “religion” as automatically worthy of reverence is simply privelage speaking, at best. At worst its deep stupidity protecting itself from analysis. You’re in a cult buddy. One that has inconsistent medieval ideas and a pedophilia problem. The fact that we even need to remind you of those absolute facts doesnt speak well of you.
It deserves its respect because it is largely practiced and is defended by many intellectuals. I’m an atheist just like you playing devil’s advocate. So let’s stop with the ad hominem
OK fair enough on the ad homs, you are right on that and I apologize. I would challenge you on the idea that religion been examined as rigorously and freely as every other philosphical ideas. Faith is belief without question, is it not? And the christian bible is a bit of a joke-- most if not all “holy” books are. But they are held up as a standin for morality and we are demanded to respect them, and not ask too many questions about them, usualyl at threat of violence or other coercions. Isnt history littered with the bodies of scientists and philosophers who werent allowed to inconvenience the church?
It amazed me that when you find religious strife, atheists are often singled out for the worst punishments.
I think its summarized pretty well with this quote of Bakker’s: “Theres nothing the ignorant prize more than the ignorance of others.”I think if people should generally mind their own business unless something directly impinges on their individual freedom to live. That includes not making rules about how women should use their bodies. Let women decide that themselevs, or you’re being a tyrant. (I am an old white guy). Christianity doesnt beleive in that, and refuses to honestly examine it. Dogma and whatever the oldest white guy in a funny hat says trumps rational discourse every time.
the only “god” we should be worshipping is ourselves as entities that are constituent of a human society that differentiates us from the other animals. In my opinion, everything else is someone trying to use you or get you to adopt their worldview. This forces us to be our own masters and own the outcomes we create in the world. And to treat each other better.
What do you think?
Firstly, thank you for wishing to engage in peaceful discourse. And yes, I do agree with you on the fact that religion should be challenged just like any other philosophy. My point about according it respect was simply due to how the other users i responded to earlier resorted to ad hominems and not valid criticisms of the religion itself. Like i said, I don’t believe religion (especially Christianity) can be just thrown to the side as “group psychosis” considering how widespread it is and how much it’s defended by many intellectuals.
On the point of personal freedom (women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, sexual rights, etc), I 100% agree with your stance on Christianity infringing on those freedoms; especially considering the increasing liberalisation of society - which is a good thing - but i don’t personally think it’s a great rebuttal to Christianity’s validity. Like i said in another comment, Christianity is an absolutist philosophy, that means that regardless of the changing times or your personal feelings, its laws remain immutable. Does that mean that the Christian God is a jerk? Probably. But it’s what you’d have to deal with if he did exist.
Personally, i think the strongest argument against a God is simply the fact that he’s unpresent. As i believe about 90% of people are atheists simply because they don’t feel his presence. Every other argument is supplementary.
Taking the position gay/trans people shouldn’t exist is abhorrent.
You’d be falling victim to the outgroup homogeneity bias where you perceive individuals separate from your in-group as being alike and less diverse than yours. Just because you see many delusional participants does not mean all participants are equally as delusional.
The thing is, the second you let in a Nazi, it becomes a Nazi bar.
Also, yes we all know how indoctrination works.
Taking the position gay/trans people shouldn’t exist is abhorrent.
Once again, you’re committing the same mistake as before. You’d be surprised to learn that the discourse concerning this is more nuanced than before.
Also, non-acceptance of LGBTQ groups isn’t actually a disproof of religion. I mean think about it. Christianity is an absolutist doctrine, that means that regardless of what you feel or how the times have changed, Christian law remains absolute. If an all powerful being deems it so that homosexuality is a sin, then all power to him really. You don’t have to like it, but that’s the reality you’re presented with if the Judeo-Christian God actually exists.
a disproof of religion
You’ve got the burden of proof turned around. Its not on us to diprove the existence of your mythical skyfairy. Its not our job to respect it in any way either. Feel free to start a religion that worships toe-jam if you want to. No one cares. What if I told you that lower intelligence correlates to higher religious fervor?
I’m not religious. Stop saying my mythical skyfairy. Also, you have to show me a source for your last claim and even if your last claim is true, correlation IS NOT causation.
I answered a simple question with a simple answer. You proved the point better than I ever could have. Now tell us how to think and talk again.
I agree with you.
People should absolutely be free to practice any religion they want in the US.
People shouldn’t be able to shove religion in your face or the opposite of athiests trying to shove non-religion in everyone’s face.
A true athiest is just as “delusional” as a true religious person. Both believe their idea is right on “beliefs.” No proof God or gods exist or not.
Most “athiests” are agnostic athiests, not gnostic athiest.
World would be a better place if “athiests” went more by agnostics.
Saying you’re athiest to a religious person is saying “I know your religion is wrong”. Saying you’re agnostic to a religious person is saying “I don’t know, but I don’t necessarily agree with you.”
There is currently no way to know. That is a fact, a hard truth. Thinking you have a way to know one way or the other is “crazy”
How does one shove non-religion in someone’s face?
Do they just exist?
By not adhering to the doctrines of the people believing in the one true God of course!
🤡
Seriously, fuck these regressive idiots.
You are technically correct that most people that call themselves atheists are agnostics. But that’s a little like saying that .999999999999999999 is 1; it’s close enough that it’s not going to make a difference in almost all cases.
If you have empirical, verifiable, falsifiable evidence that a god exists, then most atheists will change their opinion. A person that believes in a god believes despite a complete lack of evidence.
It’s not that an atheist is saying, “I know your religion is wrong”; it’s much closer to, "you have not presented any falsifiable evidence that your religion is correct.
There is currently no way to know.
It’s true that you can’t prove a negative. On the other hand, no evidence exists that would tend to prove that a god exists. The lack of evidence is quite damning, particularly since people have been trying to demonstrate the existence of a god for well over 8000 years. Miracles have almost entirely ceased in the age of forensics, modern medicine, and photography; it’s almost like they only exist when they can’t be documented.
I agree with you
No
People should absolutely be free to practice any religion they want in the US.
No, Scientol0gy is criminal
People shouldn’t be able to shove religion in your face or the opposite of athiests trying to shove non-religion in everyone’s face.
No, The majority of atheists I am aware of keep it to themselves. The majority or Christians try to convert everyone they meet.
A true athiest is just as “delusional” as a true religious person. Both believe their idea is right on “beliefs.” No proof God or gods exist or not.
No, you’re speaking as a believer. A god would need to be proven first in order to be disproven.
Most “athiests” are agnostic athiests, not gnostic athiest.
Here we go telling people what to think again.
World would be a better place if “athiests” went more by agnostics.
Saying you agree there is a possibility of a god or not and denying the existence wholeheartedly are two different things.
Saying you’re athiest to a religious person is saying “I know your religion is wrong”. Saying you’re agnostic to a religious person is saying “I don’t know, but I don’t necessarily agree with you.”
Yup
There is currently no way to know. That is a fact, a hard truth. Thinking you have a way to know one way or the other is “crazy”
You can’t prove a negative, that’s a fact. Therein lies the fundamental flaw with theists, belief and opinion are not equal to facts.
The simple truth you cannot accept is understanding fact from fiction.
You mean, apart from liberals?
Boo
I was gonna say “tankies” but I see they’ve already announced their presence for me.
So kind of them to go out of their way to help a liberal like me 🤷
These guys really do a good job of being unlikeable
Gender dysphoria feels unreal sometimes…
The actual reality of humanity. Everything we do is fucking weird if you overthink it, and I constanly have a feeling of surrealness when focused on the real world around me instead of lost in my own thoughts. Reality is too real to be real.
I dissociate a lot so that’s probably why.
The lot of you sound like you would enjoy Alan Watts
Imagine like… a fully transparent bus full of people, just a bunch of people sitting on nothing in a group flying through the air. If that was normal, that would be… normal. We wouldn’t question it, we’d just be so cool with that happening.
And that’s the exact feeling I get a lot throughout my day.
Yes! Someone gets it! 🥹
Hi - are you me? I’ve been so deep down this rabbit hole lately, regularly having little existential crises.
In my opinion, nothing should exist. But at the same time, nothing shouldn’t exist - because nothing is still something. The fact that we are here is both baffling and eerie.
My other hot take has been that this moment right now could be the only moment. Who’s to say that anything has ever happened? If we give context to an LLM, doesn’t that determine its reality? The more I research neural networks, the more it feels like the ‘big bag’ is more akin to flipping on the CPU, processing at the speed of light. But even then - if our existence isn’t real, whatever is beyond us is still something, which still shouldn’t exist.
It’s all very weird - makes me feel like nothing matters, but also that the only things which matter are the things that I make matter. And I’m just having this human experience. Very weird. Would not recommend.
/ramble
That we are emotional animals that sometimes have logical thoughts. But we live in a society (at least in the west) where we have to pretend that we are logical animals that sometimes have emotions.
Social media
News and people giving a shit about sports ball.
It’s fun to play and complete in your local sportsball league. It’s exercise while being fun. Spectating is fun when watching a sport that you also play. Seeing the pros play is it properly lets you bring something back to your own game. I don’t actually care who wins. That’s tribalism.
Going to a “sports” bar to watch fat people get drunk and place bets makes no sense to me.
I also hate sports trivia. It’s just celebrity trivia but for people to star on the field instead of in movies. If I get asked who won a particular award in a particular sport in a particular year, I would have absolutely no idea. If you aksed me to explain the “infield fly” rule, I’ve got that covered.
And yes, a full 8 minutes of the nightly news covering sports is just insane. I just don’t care.
IMO, this is the most rational stance to have, regarding sportsball.
The expectation that people in office jobs can be productive for 8 hours per day.
Some days, like once every two years, you actually do it by accident; you come in, get shit done all day, and you get like a months amount of work done.
And then you get all nervous that someone might find out and set new expectations for you, so you have to kind of spread out the results of the work you did on that miracle day.
I am productive for less than an hour a day. I don’t do anything. I have nothing to do. I drive for an hour each way to sit and do absolutely nothing so I can feed and house my family.
Some days I have to convince myself not to drive my truck into something at 85 mph. No person is meant to live like this.
The alienation of labor is real. Hang in there, we’ll need you when things get better.
Can’t you do something yoh like for the rest of the time? (I don’t mean LITERALLY the other 7 hours xD) Like reading, learning to draw,
learn Thai on duolingoetc.I try. I can’t really look like I’m not working or I’ll get in trouble. Sometimes I read, but that gets boring after a while.
I relate to you. I only have about 2ish hours of actual work a day on average, and I have to drag it out all day just to look busy. I never expected that it would feel soul sucking to have so little work but still be chained to your desk. I thought I was lucky! (And I certainly am in someways)
The irony is that when I first started, I was efficient and would read when I didn’t have anything to work on. But my boss didn’t like to see me reading, so he would give me more work. The issue is that there is only so much he can do at a time, so it resulted in me finishing assignments, and him being so overloaded he wouldn’t get to them until weeks or months later. Now I just pretend to be busy, so he doesn’t feel like he needs to give me more, and I’m not having to remind him of documents in review that are weeks old.
Sorry for the rant, I am currently sitting here pretending to be busy while slowly dying inside.
I agree! I’ve spent years perfecting the art of looking busy, and that makes my free time more enjoyable. Although there still are rough days.
How do they pay you to do nothing?
My last job was like that. I was needed for about an hour a week. I just sat and listened to podcasts all day every day.
My current job, I do about an hour a day, and outperform all of my colleagues. Luckily I’m at home most of the time and just lay in bed watching things all day with my cats. When I have to go into the office, it’s painful.
That’s a fantastic question. The company is foreign owned and it’s just a sales office. The CEO is a fantastical liar that hides things well, and firing a bunch of people would not look good for him. As long as we are making a profit, no one really analyzes how much fat could be trimmed. I don’t even care if it were me to get laid off either. Actually, please lay me off.
It’s fairly common. We have a team of 11 people that does the work of half a person. The 8 person team I’m on now does less work than I did by myself 2 years ago on a different team between those 2 teams, there are also 4 managers
Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door–that way Lumberg can’t see me, heh–after that I sorta space out for an hour. I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too. I’d say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
You’ve got upper management written all over you.
The human body. We often take it for granted, but when you start looking at all the different things individually, you’ll see how enormously complex the human body is.
They found a new organ (nr 54 IIRC) just some years ago.
Mu desperate need to continue using arch.
I read your hand lines, try nixos
Yeah if/when my system fails me i might!
American politics.
Americanpolitics.It’s exhausting.
