They ain’t monkeys.

Very well put.

The Paradox of Tolerance

This is the correct response. Social media, as a construct, is not evil and dos not do harm to anyone. The commodification and commercialisation of social media by capitalistic companies is what has caused the harm we see today.

All of the harms and evils of social media can be boiled down to a single concept: the algorithm. Because algorithmic recommendation of content wants to encourage people to stay on a platform (for capitalistic reasons), and the most enticing and attention-grabbing content is hate-content, these companies have forced hate-inducing concepts down the throats of people in an endeavour to make more money and destroyed individuals and families/friends in the process.

If we regulate the algorithms, we regulate the harm without disempowering anyone. We can, and we should, regulate algorithms on social media to turn it back into what it was 20-odd years ago - a measure to keep in touch with people you know or care about.

I had like four false starts where I barely left White Orchard, but then I was in just the right headspace and spent the next few months completing every single quest and DLC in the game. It just suddenly ‘clicked’ for me. It may do so for you at some point.

Honestly, while Booking.com acted shittily here, I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who buys a home and does short-term rentals. Every investment vehicle has risks, and this woman copped the short end of the stick when it came to the risk associated with her investment choice. She chose to purchase a basic human need and try to maximise her profit from it at the expense of the average person trying to buy or rent a house and, if she didn’t want the risk of this happening, she should’ve chosen a less risky investment like bonds or a term deposit.

Landlords are bad; fuckwits who own short-stay rentals are far worse. The market distortion they create hurts so many people in so many ways. Frankly, I hope she takes this as a sign she should just sell the property and move on to something else.

As an Australian I had no idea how ubiquitous WhatsApp had become elsewhere before travelling. I downloaded it for the first time on a trip to Europe because I literally couldn’t contact certain providers otherwise and the only other time I’ve ever used it was when I was in India and was faced with the same dilemma. It was a real culture shock.

I, and everyone I’m linked in with here in Australia, only use WhatsApp to communicate with relatives overseas or don’t use it at all. We all just tend to use SMS or regular phone calls here.

Care to point to any reports that other nations are viewing those other Western countries poorly as a result of Trump’s actions?

Securing the Strait of Hormuz seems to be self-interested actions by those nations; an attempt to reduce the impact of higher oil prices on their own economies. It’s a far cry from the Western world following the USA into Iraq with boots on the ground 20-odd years ago.

Trump is eroding the idea of a USA-led Western bloc. Canada’s PM Carney is leading the charge to create new middle-power blocs to establish credibility outside of the USA’s influence. I’m yet to see reports that those measures are being viewed in a negative fashion by the rest of the world, but I’m happy to be corrected.

I sincerely doubt that’s her. Apparently she still posts on reddit (that I’ve heard; haven’t been back to that cesspool in over two years) and this person’s comment history contains nary a single poem.

Yes, and the vast majority of these memes referenced fall into the former category and not the latter. Obsession and compulsion over concepts like ordering can be a clinical symptom; preferring order is a pretty basic human condition.

This is why posts on brainrot platforms like TikTok have so many people believing that they’re neurodivergent for having preferences when they’re confusing having preferences for conditions that cause immense psychological anguish and dysfunction.

It’s like the classic situation where someone says “yeah I’m pretty OCD when it comes to _” when they have NO FUCKING CLUE what it’s actually like to live with such a disorder that impacts every aspect of your life in a quite debilitating way.

Has he really damaged Western credibility, or is he only damaging the USA’s credibility? I’ve not seen reports that Trump’s behaviour is impacting how others feel about Canada, France or Germany. Trump’s behaviour really only reflects on the global opinions of the USA, as other countries and their populations are generally intelligent enough to understand that he is only elected by one country; only represents one country; and is only the product of the population of one country.

But who is the comrade of the eye? Perhaps the other eye? We may never know.

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-service-you-bought/repair-replace-refund-cancel

These are direct quotes from the ACCC website (my bolding added for emphasis):

• When a product has a major problem, consumers can choose between a refund or replacement.

• When a business sells a product with a major problem, or a product that later develops a major problem, it must give the consumer the choice of a: refund, or replacement of the same type of product.

While I take your point, the concept of telling a lesbian that they “just haven’t had the right dick yet” is almost always used as a slant to imply that they’d actually be happier if they were straight, not if they were bi/pan. It’s more saying “you’re wrong” rather than saying “you might enjoy something else in addition”.

Being bisexual myself, I find monosexuality to be pretty weird and struggle to understand it. I tend to put people who identify as either straight or gay in the same camp - as just not being open-minded enough to explore what feels like the natural state to me; that all people are potential sexual candidates. While it’s a pretty blunt instrument, I tend to think of the Kinsey Scale as being normally distributed - that true 100% straight and 100% gay people probably exist but are extreme minorities.

Again, that’s just my opinion, and it’s not one I’d ever levy at a person derogatorily. I just think as a species we haven’t yet come to the point of thoroughly and completely deconstructing the social and biological frameworks we’ve constructed around sexuality.

Ohhhhh long johnson

Do you mean shot dead?

It is when you’re a regular citizen who doesn’t want to kill people for oil or because of the whims of a psychopathic warlord.

It isn’t when you’re the Commander-in-Chief sending people to their deaths in an unnecessary war.

Too many enjoy the (temporary) safety that Trump provides them to stand up for others. Too many still are afraid to stand up for the rights of others for fear that their rights might be taken away in response. Too many others are beaten down and exhausted from the system that keeps them oppressed to be able to stand up for what’s right. Too many have either never read or truly understood Martin Niemöller’s “First They Came”.

For a long time now, humans have been utilising machines and robots to perform tasks that humans would otherwise have had to perform - particularly when it comes to manufacturing. Occasionally, one of those machines will encounter an error or issue, and a human will need to intervene to either fix the machine or guide the process before it can resume its task.

These advancements have allowed a very small number of humans to oversee what would have otherwise required hundreds, potentially thousands of humans to do independently. Even when humans were performing these tasks, they would occasionally need someone with more specialisation or experience to help them with completing such a task.

The point of this tech - the point of all tech that I’ve described above - is to reduce the amount of humans needed to produce a given result. It’s a reduction in the need for labour. It’s a matter of efficiency, not a complete replacement of any need for any human to ever intervene under any circumstances. Under communism, or even well-fleshed out socialism, it would free up humans from having to perform menial labour to instead pursue their passions, work on vital human skills, create and consume art… just live better lives.

Now, would I ride in a self-driving vehicle? Certainly not yet. The tech still needs time to develop before I’m confident in it. As time goes on, the need for human intervention will continue to drop, and hopefully my confidence will grow.

Not sure if this is a major difference between the US and Australia, but the vast majority of jobs I’ve gone for I’ve been interviewed by the people who are the managers of the position they’re hiring for. HR tends to handle booking in interview times and what not and then onboarding once a decision is made, but the only time I’ve been interviewed by someone from HR was in a panel interview where the line manager was also present and interviewing. I’ve never worked for big business, but a lot of government and NGO roles as well as large retail chains, cafes and the like.

My armchair prediction is that even if Democrats manage to gain back control of power in the US, many countries will now be skeptical of entering any arrangements with them for longer than 2-4 years. US voters have now shown a propensity for electing and re-electing a leader that is able to come in and comprehensively dismantle decades of intense diplomacy and geopolitical navigation in a short period of time. As such, wise leaders of other nations won’t be willing to enter long-term arrangements that last beyond a given administration anymore.