“But previous attempts at banning them have failed because such an official report was missing.”
Man, this is peak modern society, and the absurdity makes me laugh. I don’t mean that in a derisive way, more in a "wow, making democracy work is haaard ". Hopefully this will lead to something positive though, even if I’m anxious that banning a party like the AfD may lead to some things worsening.
The two problems have a decent amount of overlap though. For example, I recently learned that car tyres are a huge contributor to microplastic pollution. This means that improving public transport infrastructure will reduce CO2 emissions and microplastic pollution.
I did an internship at a bank way back, and my role involved a lot of processing of spreadsheets from different departments. I automated a heckton of that with Visual Basic, which my boss was okay with, but I was dismayed to learn that I wasn’t saving anyone’s time except my own, because after the internship was finished, all of the automation stuff would have to be deleted. The reason was because of a rule (I think a company policy rather than a law) that required that any code has to be the custody of someone, for accountability purposes — “accountability” in this case meaning “if we take unmaintained code for granted, then we may find an entire department’s workflow crippled at some point in the future, with no-one knowing how it’s meant to work”.
It’s quite a different thing than what you’re talking about, but in terms of the implementation, it doesn’t seem too far off.
It reminds me of how apparently firing squad executions used to have only some of the guns loaded with live guns, and the rest with blanks. This way, the executioners could do some moral gymnastics to convince themselves that they hadn’t just killed a person
I didn’t get the joke until I read your explanation, but now I do get it, I think that it’s a very funny joke.
I’ve never had things break after doing updates in Arch. Am I doing something different to most people in the “pacman -Syu” memes, or is the likelihood of breaking stuff overdone as a joke
I saw a toddler pretending to take a phone call from an imaginary phone a few weeks ago, and it really threw me that she was holding her “phone” like one would a smartphone (As opposed to putting your thumb to your ear, and outstretching your pinkie towards your mouth).
“You know how some people use a bell slowly fading out as a meditation tool? That’s the association I have for that sensation.”
Oh man, this comparison is going to stick with me; it’s one of my favourite things I’ve read in recent weeks
My first gut response to this headline was basically just straight-up victim blaming, because it’s easy to see bankers (who are typically well paid) as being immune from the capitalist bullshit that the majority of us face.
That was a silly instinct though, because whilst bankers may benefit from some privilege within the system, headlines like this highlight the need for broad solidarity. Hell, reminding these bankers how “fortunate” they are is probably one of the key driving forces of keeping people in line — convince people that they’re lucky, and that the oppression they face at this rung of the ladder is far better than what those on lower rungs face. “Precariat” is a broad category.
I think that’s okay, because that just means your answer is something like “take some time to breathe and introspect about what I care about when I am given the space to care about stuff”, or “try out a bunch of stuff I didn’t have time or money for before, to see what seizes my passions”.
I mean, it’s not okay — it’s a fucking injustice that so many of us are deprived of the opportunity to explore what we would do if we were free to live as we chose, but it’s okay in the sense that it’s not your fault, in case that’s what you were feeling
Yeah, Volition is usually the one telling me not to kill myself
Whilst automated tools can help on this, there is a heckton of human labour to be done in training those tools, or in reviewing moderation decisions that require a human’s eye. I think that in a world where we can’t eradicate that need, the least we can do is ensure that people are paid well, in non-exploitative conditions, with additional support to cope.
Actually securing these things in a way that’s more than just lipservice is part of that battle— I remember a harrowing article a while back about content moderators in Kenya, working for Sama, which was contracted to work for Facebook. There were so many layers of exploitation in that situation that it made me sick. If the “mental health support” you have access to is an on-site therapist who guilt trips you into going back to work asap, and you’re so hurried and stressed that you don’t have time to even take a breather after seeing something rough — conditions like that are going to cause a disproportionate amount of preventable human harm.
Even if we can’t solve this problem entirely, there’s so much needless harm being done, and that’s part of what this fight is about now.
They’re a minority, to be sure, but you’re right that there are Israelis who were fighting apartheid and continue to fight against the ongoing genocide. We just don’t hear about the good people who are resisting evil from within Israel, because that’s counter to Zionist rhetoric.
Edit: made it clearer that I’m agreeing with you
I heard that there were some communities where voting closed super early. Under circumstances like that, I can sympathise with people who feel that there’s no point in voting; there were people who went out to vote but weren’t able to, and that must be so demoralising
It makes more sense to me if I consider the potential impact of hypervigilance — “the elevated state of constantly assessing potential threats around you”. It’s associated with PTSD, and whilst my paramedic friend doesn’t have a diagnosis of that, I know that their family were abusive, and they identified that much of their anxiety stemmed from hypervigilance.
It makes sense to me that if someone’s anxiety is being driven by hypervigilance (a chronically dysregulated stress response), that some people may find it beneficial to put themselves in genuinely high stress situations, to sort of channel the stress into a sensible outlet.
Another related example is that I have a friend who goes for a run when she feels very anxious. She says that she’s found it ineffective to try logicking her way out of feeling anxious, or trying to calm herself down, and that going for a run feels like saying to her body “you’re absolutely right, there was something scary here, but now we have escaped it, and can relax”. I always find it interesting how people sometimes speak about their bodies and brains and existing separately from themselves, often in an attempt to reconcile the tensions between different aspects of ourselves
https://www.codingfont.com/ is a fun, tournament style quiz that compares different monospace fonts. It’s far from comprehensive, but I found it useful to gauge what font features I find stylish and readable
(For the record, my go-to font is Jetbrains Mono)
I have a good friend who is Czech and I spent a couple weeks there with her family. One of my takeaways from this trip was that Czechs like mushroom picking, and are proud of how many castles there are (Czechia doesn’t have the absolute highest number of castles, but apparently it does have the highest castle density)
Water is so cool. I like how the hydrophobic effects drives protein folding
I don’t disagree, but to lean into your analogy: I worry that we don’t have any viable long term solutions here, and I’m very nervous about how that will affect the fallout from a ban. My own stay in a mental health ward comes to mind, because it took years after that point before I was able to get the kind of support that helps someone build wellness long term. The hospital stay did the job, in the sense that I’m still alive, but my mental health was probably worse in the initial aftermath.
(This comment brought to you from the UK, where the Reform party (not nearly as bad as the AfD, but still racist shits) made heavy gains in recent local elections.)