AceTKen

AceTKen, 6 months ago

My favorite Star Trek game of all time was the video board game with the Klingon host. I had everything from the Nightmare games so this was the next logical step and we loved it to even though it was cheesy as all get out.

AceTKen, 6 months ago

No matter the outcome of this, nobody is learning that lesson from this demonstration.

If you want to take a (more obvious) environmental bent, this is a terrible idea for them to do because all they’re doing is causing vehicles to have to run substantially longer.

AceTKen, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

That might be what you wish they are learning, but I assure you that’s not the case. There may be more of those Highway blocking protests that you’re thinking about, but you’re simply hearing about them spread across many, many locations. They are not occurring frequently enough in one location to warrant a change to the way people commute. I have never even heard of anybody linking those two points together before.

If they’re blocking a highway, it’s not like you can just see the protest up ahead and turn off instead instead of choosing to be stuck. Often they are held in the middle of long stretches where they will trap as man cars as they are able on both sides.

And the lesson most people learned from COVID was that there was absolutely no reason why we couldn’t work from home. Although I could potentially see a link between working from home and, when the time comes to replace the infrastructure, replacing it with something more environmentally sane… but they’d have to convince big business owners to not force people to come into work for no reason, and good luck with that.

It seems like there’s a lot of wishful thinking to get from “those protesters are blocking this street” to “man, we should completely redo the entire infrastructure of North America because of these protests.”

AceTKen, 6 months ago

Well that’s a terrifying prospect if you have any sort of opinion outside of the groupthink.

AceTKen, 7 months ago

With 400 permutations of “Fuck this clown” and “how can I block mentions of him” in the comments.

Unfortunately, shitty billionaires make the news. Get rid of billionaires and they won’t be in the news.

AceTKen, 7 months ago

The internet existed for a long time prior to monetization of it. People used to do things because they were good ideas, fun, or helpful.

Revenue streams made things worse.

AceTKen, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

• Every thread against people not strictly aligning with Leftist politics will be boiled down to: “There are three types of people: reasonable people who agree with me, crazy fascists on the other side, and lily-livered wimps who can’t pick a side (and are also secretly fascists who just won’t admit it)!”
• Anyone with passable writing skills will be downvoted because creating cogent arguments against them is hard, and heaven forbid anyone see a smart argument that doesn’t align with your views perfectly.
• In a similar vein, people will use the downvote as a “fuck you” button without commenting or adding any value to the conversation whatsoever.

(Edit: Yes, yes. You’re all hilarious. I may not have a button to hit, but fuck you too.)

AceTKen, 7 months ago

We were kidding at some point?

AceTKen, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

It really is the embodiment of that old joke about people never wanting to hear other people’s opinions, and only wanting to hear their own opinion parroted back to them by someone passably eloquent.

AceTKen, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

Hey I’m just writing the rules down, not telling you you shouldn’t be annoyed by them.

AceTKen, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

My liver may be flower-scented, but I tend to not paint situations in broad-stoke terms like “woke” that are used to dismiss valid arguments.

You can’t disprove a label (especially a vague one that someone else applies to you), however you can very much disprove points.

AceTKen, 7 months ago

Funnily enough, “not so smart joke” is the same descriptor I have for no-discussion downvoters.

AceTKen, 7 months ago

And maybe a less brutally aged console to play it on.

AceTKen, 7 months ago

If I may ask, what would you be running if you had to pick today?

AceTKen, 7 months ago

So since you’re the one providing the labour in the transaction, this means you’re getting a tip FROM the gas station, right? R… Right?

AceTKen, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

That’s not exclusive to Reddit.

Looks at 196 here on Lemmy and their massive pissy baby ban list.

Edit: If you disagree, go look at the bans and their reasoning in the mod log. It’s insane, and I mean that word in the literal sense. Some fun things: they ban people for not agreeing with them vocally enough. They’ve banned people for arguing that the world isn’t beyond saving if we try. They’ve banned because (and I quote) “Get out of here with that my children matter shit”. It’s a lunatic brigade run by a clown.

AceTKen, 7 months ago

[email protected]

They are something else. Think like TheDonald was on Reddit, but for trans people and memes.

My first exposure to them was a thread by a mod saying that you MUST post absolute and unconditional not just approval, but promotion of what they say politically or you will be banned. It was fucking wild and nearly put me off Lemmy altogether.

AceTKen, 8 months ago

It takes me no longer to gain immediate access then it does for a stream user to search and play the stream, even with rare or weird songs.

AceTKen, 8 months ago

I just looked on a VM I spun up for risky shit. It seems to be opt-in only.

Is it a good VPN? No. Is it worth the overreacting that Lemmy seems to do every time someone mentions Brave? No.

But hey, social media.

AceTKen, 8 months ago

It can and has since I started using it about 3 years ago.

AceTKen, 8 months ago

Does anybody know why Tixati is banned on private trackers? I switched from it quite a while ago but they didn’t really say why.

AceTKen, 8 months ago

No problem! It’s actually part of the add torrent dialogue and is extremely convenient!

AceTKen, 8 months ago

That’s what I hoped but the FAQ doesn’t say why. All it says is that it only accepts two clients, the S-tier ones on this list.

AceTKen, 9 months ago

Embracer still owns all the IP. It may still happen if they think it’s financially viable!

AceTKen, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

After that most recent Saint’s Row game, I can’t say I’m surprised.

It felt like it was designed by Tumblr, sold on an unpopular platform (Epic), left out most of what was good from the previous entries, was attrociously buggy, and had deeply disappointing DLC.

Nobody wanted it and it felt designed by committee.

Like Blizzard, most of the talent that made them great to begin with wasn’t there any more.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

Counterpoint: They used to be able to memorise the works of Homer.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

You’re correct that it has been overblown in the past. That does not invalidate what is occurring, doubly so since we have scientific proof now.

You are equating “Old man yells at cloud” to “hundreds of nuclear scientists says cloud of radioactive gas is harmful and here are dozens of papers proving it.”

They are not the same thing.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

I don’t know. It’s probably apocryphal, but I just stole what he had said in the title.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

My my, whoever could have seen this coming other than 99.9% of the population.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

It is getting downvoted because you are asking how to receive free money without providing absolutely anything of value.

The only people who will deliver the kind of relationship that you are looking for is probably your parents.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

I don’t have rich parents either. I got loans to pay my way through college. The system sucks.

But I didn’t ask random strangers online to just throw money my way for no particular reason.

AceTKen, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

There was no judgment being made. I simply restated what you had said in a slightly sarcastic style.

A judgment would be “What you were asking is painfully stupid and therefore maybe you’re too dumb to actually go to college.”

There’s a substantial difference.

AceTKen, 11 months ago

The reason that you are running into situations like this is because you (the meme creator position) don’t witness the Centrist also vehemently argue with right-wing policies frequently.

You only see them argue with you and therefore have a skewed view of them and their politics. If you are left wing, and argue for left-wing policies in every case, that means you will also be argued with by somebody who believes political nuance and not just waving a party flag.

The right wing also shits on centrists because they think they are secretly left-wing since they argue with some of their stupider points as well.

These people are not secretly right-wing and just don’t have the balls to say it. That is a horrendous take no matter where you fall on the political spectrum the only serves to limit conversation.

AceTKen, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

This is a bad strawman argument.

“There are three types of people: reasonable people who agree with me, crazy self-identified fascists, and lily-livered wimps who can’t pick a side!”

If someone says that they are “centrist” they are not telling you that they base all of their opinions on being in the middle of any two positions. That would be stupid and is an insane argument to put forth on your part.

They are telling you that they agree with neither major party on everything, and find that both parties have views that they don’t agree with. It’s pretty easy to come to that conclusion because the US two-party system packs in an almost incoherent mishmash of beliefs into exactly two sides.

There is absolutely no contradiction in being for police reform, and against riots lasting for days. There is no contradiction in being for gun rights, while also wanting limits on them. There is no contradiction in wanting functional government services and universal healthcare, and thinking that free markets are effective. There is no contradiction in wanting a more balanced budget, and government services to be funded.

The idea that there are only two (or maybe 2.5 depending on where you live) sides in politics is a strange delusion created by your two party system.

AceTKen, 11 months ago

One of many reasons for this could be your choice of topics, the location of the argument, and your perception. Any Centrists in the argument may be on your side of that particular issue and therefore are appearing left-leaning to you at the moment.

You not looking for them does not mean that they are not there. Them not coming out and identifying themselves continually does not mean they are not there.

Just like anything in science, your perception is not reality, especially when it seems that you are looking to enforce an opinion, not find the truth.

Most of the Centrists I’ve spoken to also tend to argue the issue, and not the side. They see sides and at-all-costs group membership as a form of lunacy.

AceTKen, 11 months ago

To quote myself above:

One of many reasons for this could be your choice of topics, the location of the argument, and your perception. Any Centrists in the argument may be on your side of that particular issue and therefore are appearing left-leaning to you at the moment. See Penn jillette, Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher and scads of psychologists authors for example of centrists who often appear to be one side or the other depending on the issue presented (and have been mislabeled as both sides by people not willing to understand nuance).

You not looking for them does not mean that they are not there. Them not coming out and identifying themselves continually does not mean they are not there.

Most of the Centrists I’ve spoken to also tend to argue the issue, and not the side. They see sides and at-all-costs group membership as a form of lunacy.

Just like anything in the world, your perception is not always reality, especially when it seems that you are looking to enforce an opinion, not find the truth.

AceTKen, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

You are casting a broad (and incorrect) net over a wide swath of people.

I would make none of those arguments you proposed.

I have a very strong environmental bent. I feel the world should be made uncomfortable now to avoid apocalypse. I would break apart mon- di- and even tri- opolies. I would overhaul the copyright system to enhance competition specifically because we’re in a period where small companies are not capable or competing in the arenas that megacorps do. I would remove loopholes from tax and legal laws.

I would enforce corporations cleaning up after their messes. If that cleanup is too expensive for them to bear, then they should not be making those messes to begin with.

I would also refuse immigration from countries with more population than can be supported. I would push for a more cyclical global economy instead of relying on inter-governmental debt spirals. I would implement UBI.

I meet none of the standards you have laid out.

Who are you to tell me what I am, other than confidently incorrect?

AceTKen, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

I made no assumption about where you discuss anything. It was one provable example given.

I excuse none of the most vile parts of conservatism. I am not your enemy. I am not happy with status quo.

However, I hate the political “adjustment” of language, no matter which side carries it out. I hate making words more vague to try and mask reality. I hate how easily and liberally Nazi is thrown around.

I do not like polarization. I do not like driving away people who disagree with me. I do not like “cancelling” people no matter which party carries it out. I believe in innocent until proven guilty.

And I really, really fucking hate forcing people to believe what I do because their goddamn group membership word matches mine.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

They don’t have PR. They’re not a cohesive unit. I don’t generally even like calling myself Centrist because I hate labels and don’t like the way they encourage group-think. There’s probably scads of Centrists I wouldn’t get along with as well.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

I very much appreciate that. I hope to one day try.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

You are speaking a lot about what a Centrist is to you. There is an irony to that and I implore you to recognize that. They are not a homogeneous group. You don’t like the image you have of them that is largely manufactured of old pictures of your enemies spun into straw.

I’m Canadian and voted Liberal in the federal election, but I do understand US politics to a degree. I thought Trump was an absolute fool, and fools do so love their own. I understand to some degree why he won, though I feel voter apathy played as large a part as well.

Regardless, if I took a stance that would be typically right-wing, would that be me defending them? No. You can arrive at the correct conclusion for the wrong reasons. You can also follow your heart and feel that you’ve been nothing but good, and royally fuck things up.

For example, I gave the example elsewhere in this thread, but I believe in much tighter immigration controls, if not outright eliminating most of it for now. You may look at that and call me a racist. You would be wrong. The race is irrelevant, and it’s an environmental and economic stance that led me there. Our current immigration policies allow pushing down the minimum wage, makes UBI more difficult (if not impossible) to implement, and allow countries that are outstripping their resources to simply place those people elsewhere instead of dealing with their population issues in a realistic way. This is one of many things that has also irreparably damaged the environment.

Something done for good reasons is having bad knock-on effects and we should adjust things before it gets worse. In my experience, a Centrist gets to say “right idea, horrible implementation, let’s fix it” instead of just clinging to an ideal.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

I don’t like people making baseless accusations. I defend people on all sides when people are wrong about their opposition. I hate it when people think they know what others think and project incorrect (and often evil) bullshit on each other. It’s important to be right with the right reasoning and conclusion, not just one or the other.

I care when Christians purposely mischaracterize Muslims, and I am neither of those groups. I hate people being wilfully wrong because their group fetishizes a certain angle of the truth instead of the boring reality of the situation.

Ideas are important and I don’t feel we can get out of the current shitty slump we’re in politically unless we clearly identify and discuss the world. Labels and group membership make that harder to do.

So no, I don’t really identify as a Centrist, but you may think I am. I don’t “identify” as anything. I am me and I’m more complex than a few easy labels for you to slap on. Labels make it easier to dismiss people and ignore their words.

If I took the label Centrist, then that means I take the baggage you hold for the word, and I abjectly refuse to do so.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

Maybe, but I wouldn’t use the label. I want them to fight the ideas, not dismiss the label. Makes for better conversation.

AceTKen, 10 months ago

Those are examples. I’m speaking to a left wing audience and am using examples they understand. If I were speaking to a right wing audience, I would adjust accordingly.

AceTKen, 11 months ago

I was getting issues with Jerboa doing the same thing. It took like a week of using it. My upvotes and downvotes would also not register nor was I able to comment sometimes. I had to uninstall and I am now using Connect instead.

AceTKen, 11 months ago

That’s what I was wondering. I wonder if there’s any actual evidence of anything occurring, or if it’s more of a case that it would be dramatically cheaper to replace him.

AceTKen, 11 months ago

All I could find were places talking about them, not the actual messages themselves. Was it clear that he knew they were underage before he started hitting on them?

AceTKen, 11 months ago

I mean, we could play the game “what if they set a thing they didn’t say” all day long.

What if they said shoes go on your hands?