Liberals ≠ Socialists

My dude, do you know what statistics is? The paper doesn’t say anything of that sort. Measuring the proportion of people who hold a particular belief is nothing like what you describe

Solidarity fist bump.

You are committing a logical fallacy called “affirming the consequent”.

Props to you for admitting you spoke prematurely

There’s so many hard hitting quotes in this game. The one that hit me the hardest was actually the thought cabinet thought you get for trying to open the unopenable door.

Edit:

Found it.

“There is no way to open the supply depot door. Accept it. You cannot open all the doors. You have to integrate this into your character. Some doors will forever remain closed. Even if every single other door will open at one time or another, maybe to a key, or maybe to some sort of tool meant for opening doors… But this one will never accede to such commands. A realization crucial to personal growth. Crucial.”

I felt so betrayed by this. I had spent a point to unlock this thought. I waited with excitement for its completion, which would surely allow me to unlock the door. But instead, I felt more called out than I have ever felt in my life.

My car’s infotainment system (a newish Honda Jazz) is running Android (which I understand is based on Linux — this is me saying “yes, and…” to the OP). I’m unsurprised by this, but also for some reason, I find it quite funny how it doesn’t look like Android — until you go delving in the settings and hidden menus to discover that the developer’s settings (and how you enable them) is exactly the same as my phone.

They get more human written text, which is one of the most powerful things in their doomed attempt to forestall model collapse

“future regrets” is such a trippy phrase

I conclude that Yorkshire should become an independent country

That was a delightful video; thanks for sharing

I give out live usbs like they’re candy (to friends who are Linux curious)

In many ways, we’re already at that point. Crises often don’t come out of nowhere, and if we think of crisis as a sliding scale rather than a binary, I would argue we’re already in a time of crisis, and have been for a while.

That’s why I agree with you. I am often miserable and demoralised, and I often feel suicidal because of my personal hopelessness. The goodness you describe is a huge part of why I’m still here. It gives me a wider sense of hope, because many of the best people I know are just as aware of the harms caused by the unchecked power of assholes, but the worse that the world gets, the more steadfastly good they are. Most of them are as depressed as me, but they seem to draw strength from the defiance of giving a fuck about morality in a world on fire.

It invokes a sense of duty in me that helps bolster my own resilience. When I was a suicidal teen, I felt like I was staying alive solely for other people, and this wasn’t a productive or healthy way to live. This sense of duty feels different, because it’s not framed as if I am a living martyr, sacrificing my own happiness for other people. Instead, it’s grounded in the recognition that we’re all struggling, and I actively want to stand alongside the defiant good people. Given the shakiness of my resolve, I don’t feel like I have much concrete to add to their efforts, but perhaps I can show them that even when it feels like you’re losing the big fight, the very act of resistance can galvanise the hearts of people who had already given up. After all, I’m still here.

My mum discovered this firsthand when I was a silly child who tried poking stuff in the plug socket

Appreciating the UK’s plug (type G) is the closest I get to feeling patriotic.

I keep a small list titled “illegal heroes”, and these hackers are on that list. It’s bullshit that they’re being hounded like this.

We were fortunate in that there was a weirdly shaped nook where a decently large cage could fit naturally. It also helped that it had a large blanket draped over it. I imagine many people would struggle to find space for a sufficiently large cage (depending on how large the dog is), or to make it look unobtrusive.

I was less arguing in favour of dog cages, more arguing against the misuse of them.

This is a tangent but I find it so sad when crate abuse happens to dogs, because my family’s dog loved his crate as a safe space. My dad was really firm that the kids weren’t allowed to cuddle the dog while they were in their crate, because it was important that the crate remained a safe space for the dog. It was cute to see how she would run there when scared by something like thunder and how it really seemed to help her anxiety.

I like your moxie. Very cool of you to be so graceful towards an unkind comment

I disagree that expecting an apology is narcissistic. If I were being a devil’s advocate, I would ask you how expecting “actionable, notable change” is any less narcissistic than expecting an apology? I pose this question because I’m not sure I understand why you feel that expecting an apology is narcissistic (perhaps the confusion is arising from differing understandings of the word “narcissistic” — a complex word that is used in quite diverse ways)

I agree with you that apologies are, at best, insufficient — at least on their own — because even the best apologies can be invalidated by someone continuing to cause the same kind of harm they apologised for. However, when a good apology is accompanied by meaningful change, then it can really help with closure.

I have some trauma due to the stress of an extended period of disability discrimination, and sometimes I think about how I wish they would apologise. There was legal action taken, and compensation, but no apology. I can imagine a hypothetical alternate world where part of the settlement involved an apology, but that is not the outcome I crave, because that apology would inevitably just be hollow and only intended to placate me. This feels analogous to how you describe that you wouldn’t want an apology, except in my case, the apology would be coming from an organisation, rather than an individual, which would make the flavour of hollowness somewhat different.

The apology I crave is the one I know I will never get, but I would trade away most of the compensation for. It’s a silly thought to entertain, because if they had been willing to recognise the harm that they had caused me and committed to change, then it probably wouldn’t have escalated to legal action. And even if they had apologised in a way that felt genuine, I would have no way of holding them accountable to it, because I wasn’t involved with that organisation anymore. For me, an apology is about being seen. The harm that was done to me can never be undone, but recognising that harm is a necessary first step towards preventing it from being done unto others.

I think that expecting an apology isn’t a great thing necessarily. It certainly can be reasonable to expect it as a requirement to continue engaging with a person as part of an ongoing relationship of some sort, as a first step towards meaningful change. Expecting an apology is useful in these scenarios because if someone refuses to, then it lets me know early that I should not expect them to be better in future, and I can do with that information what I will. If they do apologise, then their apology exists for a while in an odd “superposition” where I’m not sure whether to regard it as a genuine apology or a bullshit one — that will depend on their future actions.

A distinct but relevant question is that of forgiveness. I’ve found that whether I forgive a person is decoupled from whether they apologise and/or improve, and I’m much healthier for it. I think of forgiveness as something that I do for myself; there’s a Buddhist line I like that says “holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”. I don’t like forgiveness being treated as if it is given in exchange for an apology and/or meaningful improvement, because even when that growth does happen, it feels like it devalues both the growth and the forgiveness to treat it as transactional. Based on your post, I suspect you would have interesting perspectives on how forgiveness interacts with apologies and/or actual change.

I am trying to reflect on whether there is anyone who has meaningfully grown or repaired their original wrong who I haven’t forgiven. I don’t think so. However, there are people who haven’t apologised (or did so insincerely, out of selfishness) who I have forgiven. I