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Neo-Nazis Are All-In on AI
  • Sounds like something an AI-loving Nazi would say!

    Seriously, though, yes. This was exactly my first thought. There are plenty of reasons to be apprehensive about AI, but conflating it with Nazis is just blatant propaganda.

  • Experience: I gave birth to my granddaughter
  • Cute, heartwarming, yay modern science, all that. But that name. Ekko.

    Unique names do not guarantee unique children. If anything, they reduce the chance your kid will be unique, 'cause they already feel special due to their name and so won't strive to differentiate themselves from the crowd.

    Not like it really matters compared to the importance of good parenting; I'm just annoyed with this trend of making up silly names for kids, especially ones with unintuitive spellings. That kid is gonna have to spell out their name for people so many times in their life. And they'll definitely get made fun of for it in school.

  • Tobacco-like warning label for social media sought by US surgeon general who asks Congress to act
  • What an absurd, ignorant notion. Of course social media has a negative impact on developing minds, but forcing sites to display warnings would have zero positive impact. Browser extensions would immediately pop up to hide those warnings, and if anything, the presence of such warnings would increase kids' use of social media, since the danger is something even adults had a hard time understanding and kids love to rebel against oppressive systems. The warnings would turn into memes.

    The only answers to this problem are to break up and ban social media companies (not possible) or get parents to actually be parents and teach their kids about the pitfalls of social media.

  • Starfield will get at least one more expansion after Shattered Space, Todd Howard says
  • I hate to say it, 'cause Bethesda has been very influential throughout my gaming life, but it's too little too late. Starfield is entirely unsalvageable without a complete overhaul and re-release using an upgraded engine that can actually handle the scope of the game.

  • The truth...
  • Incorrect. This post is literally saying exactly what it's saying and nothing more. That's what "literally" means.

    What it's implying is that the reader, who supposedly rooted for oppressed proletarian resistance groups fighting against evil empires in various famous movies, contradictorily and blindly roots for evil empires oppressing proletarian groups in real life.

  • Pronouns and tribal affiliations are now forbidden in South Dakota public university employee emails
  • English is my primary language, so yes, I'm aware of the historical use of they/them as a non-gendered pronoun for hypothetical people.

    I'm also aware of the fluid nature of language. I'm still salty about "literally" becoming its own antonym, but I have to accept it because it's now part of English.

    That being said, it's never been socially acceptable to use they/them for a known person of a binary gender, and I'd argue that it's even less acceptable now, thanks to the common adoption of they/them as a personal pronoun for known persons of nonbinary gender.

    It'd be much less confusing if there was an entirely new pronoun for enbies. Or, better yet, if there were never any gendered pronouns to begin with. But this is the world we live in, and we all have to find the best way to navigate our own paths without kicking up dirt onto others'.

  • Pronouns and tribal affiliations are now forbidden in South Dakota public university employee emails
  • I completely agree. Gendered pronouns are not helpful and at this point only confuse things. I'm just glad English doesn't have gendered nouns, too, like Latin-based languages.

    Anyway, the fact is that they/them has become "gendered" in the sense that it's now a preferred pronoun for a lot of people, mostly androgynous enbies, so its implicit meaning has changed. Sure, it's still used as a non-gendered pronoun for hypothetical people, but when used for a real, known person, it has the same implication as he/him or she/her - that they appear to be a certain gender, enby in this case.

    I'm a clearly masculine person - I've got a beard and I wear masculine clothes. I personally wouldn't be offended, but I would think it very odd if someone saw me and thought they/them was an appropriate pronoun for me. If masculinity was as important to me as it is to most men, I could see myself getting offended at someone implying that I appear androgynous. Same as if an enby was referred to as he/him or she/her. Cisfolk's emotions are just as valid as valid as enbies'.

  • Pronouns and tribal affiliations are now forbidden in South Dakota public university employee emails
  • Please don't do this. This is just misgendering by default. The vast majority of people are exactly the gender they appear to be on the surface, and if they aren't, they'll let you know. I've only known one person who wasn't the gender they appeared (a very masculine-presenting enby), and they weren't offended at all when I misgendered them at first; they corrected me, I apologized, and that was the end of it.

    However, if you call the wrong clearly-masculine "alpha male" or clearly-feminine "queen bitch" they/them, you're likely to get a violent reaction.

  • Tchia updated to improve text on Steam Deck plus performance improvements
  • Good! Tchia is a phenomenal, Breath of the Wild-esque, family-friendly game. My only complaint was its performance on the Deck - at medium settings, it gets 30-50FPS with occasional hitches. Performance wasn't enough to turn me off from it, but I very much welcome an improvement.

  • NSFW Removed
    Obesity is morally wrong and should be illegal in my opinion
  • There's no doubt that obesity is nothing but bad for one's health, but your opinion on the matter is irrelevant. Obesity is a measurable state, and a man simply not having visible abs is not necessarily obese, or even overweight.

  • [SOLVED] Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas

    Thought I'd make my first submission here an easy one.

    0
    Questions from a "lib"

    I keep seeing posts from this instance referring to capitalists as liberals. Since when are capitalism and liberalism related? As far as I've always known, liberalism is a social ideology, while capitalism is an economic system.

    Why do y'all refer to all capitalists as liberals when at least half (probably more, at least in my experience) are conservatives?

    I, for example, consider myself a liberal, but I'm most certainly not a capitalist. I'm stuck in a capitalist society in which I have to play by the rules if I want to feed my family, but that's as far as my support for the system goes. I'm pretty sure a lot of Americans feel this way.

    Looking it up, the definition of liberalism specifies a belief in maximum personal freedom, especially as guaranteed by a government. Considering that 90% of governments in the world are endlessly corrupt, capitalist or not, I'd much prefer one that guarantees its citizens rights as a matter of course rather than begrudgingly grants them privileges that can be taken away without public oversight.

    Do y'all really trust your governments to look after your best interests? As a U.S. American, I know I wouldn't trust my government or politicians to do anything but enrich themselves at my expense, but I don't have to; my rights are guaranteed by our constitution.

    Now if we could just get them to stop funding and committing genocide...

    EDIT: So many incredibly well thought-out and researched responses! I have a lot of reading and thinking to do, so thank you all for your input. I'll likely be referring back to this post for a while as I learn more about the world outside my U.S.-centric bubble. My biggest takeaways from all this after a quick perusal of the replies are that liberalism has a very different meaning outside the U.S. and has a lot more to do with private property, especially land ownership, than I'd thought.

    My time is limited and there are so many responses that I likely won't be replying to (m)any any time soon, but know that I appreciate all the knowledge bombs y'all have dropped.

    67
    Finding Myself Led to Finding a Community

    Just something I've been thinking about lately:

    Having been a straight-passing (I'm bi) white male in the U.S., I was part of the country's "default" community. Because of that (and because I've never really identified with classically masculine interests), I never really felt like I had any real community to call my own. I was a bit of a hermit, only interacting with others when I had to.

    But now that I've found myself as nonbinary and started presenting as such, for the first time in my life, I feel like I belong. I've never felt such a deep, intrinsic connection to strangers as when I meet another trans person. I've never felt such love and acceptance as when I first came out to my trans friends.

    So, thank you all for being who you are, and thank you for accepting me for who I am. I love each and every one of you. 💖

    3
    My Story

    Wall of text incoming. TL;DR - Love (and cannabis) can change the world

    This isn't something I'm proud of, but it's important not to deny who we were, lest we lose sight of who we are.

    I very recently had an awakening that started with self-reflection and has continued into what some might call spiritual enlightenment.

    Go back a decade or so ago, and you'd see a version of me much closer to who I am today. Somewhere during that decade, I got heavily into conspiracy theories. This put me into a very negative space, as it caused me to see everything with a suspicious eye, always looking for deeper, hidden meaning and not just accepting the chaotic nature of reality.

    Despite this, I found love. I became a husband and a father.

    Then COVID hit and all my hair-brained theories and predictions started to come true, as far as I saw it.

    The Internet started to shun people like me, putting us in the same group as bigots and far-right extremists. More proof I was always right. I was effectively forced out of Reddit and into far-right forums, as they were the only places not censoring the conspiracy theory content I wanted.

    This pushed me into a much, much more negative space, as now I had my conspiracy theory discussions in the context of forums filled with bigots.

    I spent nearly every waking minute in those forums, desperately trying to find meaning in the chaos.

    Even though I still considered myself liberal-minded, and even though every person in my life was a positive, progressive influence, I started to agree with those bigots in the forums. By the end of COVID lockdowns, I was a fully-fledged transphobe, believing that the wonderful societal progress we've seen these past few years was actually a conspiracy to weaken humanity in preparation for The Great Reset.

    I couldn't discuss my theories with the people in my life for fear they'd reject me. I began to alienate family and friends, removing the last few positive influences in my life, which only pushed me deeper into my delusions.

    It took the indiscriminate love of strangers (and, admittedly, a lot of cannabis) to put me into the right state of mind to finally turn my overanalytical, cynical eye inward, and I didn't like what I saw.

    I went all-in on my first-ever Tarot reading, desperately trying to find meaning in the chaos within, and I came out the other side a new man.

    It took the unconditional love of a lifelong friend who'd recently come out as trans (and, again, a lot of cannabis) to bring me back into that receptive state of mind, and during a deep conversation with them, everything fell into place. I came out of that conversation a new nonbinary individual.

    Now I look back to the person I was, and I barely recognize him. He was filled with hate, though he thought it was love. His mind was closed, though he thought it was open.

    He was the worst version of me.

    I can't deny who I used to be. I can only learn from my mistakes and surround myself with the love of family, friends, even coworkers and strangers on the internet.

    10
    Gender Identity Scale

    I've recently begun going through a bit of a personal renaissance regarding my gender, and I realized my numbers-focused brain needs something to quantify gender identity, both for myself and so I can better understand others. I also just don't like socially-constructed labels, at least for myself.

    So, using the Kinsey Scale of Sexuality as inspiration, and with input from good friends, I made up my own Gender Identity Scale.

    • Three axes: X, Y, and Z
    • X: Man (not necessarily masculinity), 0 to 6
    • Y: Woman (not necessarily femininity), 0 to 6
    • Z: Fluidity, 0 to 2
    • X and Y axes' numbers go from 0 - not part of my identity to 6 - strongly identify as
    • Z axis's numbers go from 0 - non-fluid to 2 - always changing

    Example: The average cis-man is 6,0,0, the average cis-woman is 0,6,0, and a "balanced" nonbinary person might be 3,3,1, or 0,0,0, or 6,6,2..

    Personally, I think I'm about a 3,2,1 - I don't have a strong connection to either base gender, but being biologically male, I do identify a bit more as a man. I also feel that I'm somewhat gender-fluid, but not entirely so. I honestly don't fully understand gender fluidity yet, so the Z-axis may require some tweaking.

    Does this make sense? Can you use this to accurately quantify your own gender identity? I wanna know!

    50
    Diablo IV disappointment

    I got Diablo IV last week and played a lot over the weekend. After 40+ hours (thank you, four day weekend), I realized I wasn't enjoying myself, and was just trying desperately to justify the money spent.

    I intentionality avoided news about it, hoping to enjoy finding things out for myself. I now very much regret my willful ignorance. I definitely would've passed on the game if I'd known beforehand that it was effectively an MMO. Forced multiplayer, an open world with too many activities, content balanced for groups of players, endless side quests, and cookie-cutter dungeons. But hey, it has horses! And dodging!

    My disappointment is immeasurable and my week is ruined.

    On the bright side, it reminded me how much I love Diablo 3. I've been playing that the last couple days to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

    0
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)BU
    BumpingFuglies @lemmy.zip
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