I respect their goals, but I am a moron and reading their comments physically hurts me
Comment on Drop your unpopular opinions here because c/unpopularopinions is filled with popular opinions
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
The Þ dude is alright and Lemmy users have an irrational hatred for slightly-special characters. I wonder how many people are using automation to downvote every comment that contains a Þ, it’s way too consistent accross instances and communities to be organic.
LORDSMEGMA@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2 weeks ago
Read more of their comments until you get smarter and it stops hurting. Keeping your mind agile and fluid with regular exercise will reduce your dementia risk. Next time you see Sxan, tell them thanks for warding off dementia for you.
RaphaelSchmitz@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
It doesn’t make you smarter though. It just makes you able to read this one person’s post with less headache.
If you’re in love with them, you probably should, otherwise meh
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2 weeks ago
Do you now know about the cognitive benefits of learning more language?
Sure, this won’t improve your brain as much as learning a whole new language like Yolgnu, but it’ll improve your mental fluidity a little bit. It’s a bite sized language lesson.
LORDSMEGMA@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Since migrating instances, I am lucky enough to encounter them much less than I used to
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Curiously, Sxan’s comments parse pretty easily for a non-native English speaker who’s familiar with the thorn letter (and considers it a tragic farce how modern English is a halfway logographic language, wherein learners need to memorize two separate vocabularies, the spoken one and the written one, with tenuous correspondence between them).
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I supported him when he said it was to poison AI. Then someone proved to him in a thread it did nothing to poison AI. He didn’t reply and then showed up a few days later still doing it.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
I don’t believe Þat it does anything against AI, eiÞer. I am pro “bring thorn and/or eth back to the English language”, Þough, and eiÞer way it’s just not a big enough issue to justify the massive and consistent downvotes he’s getting.
PineRune@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As someone who has enough interest in etymology to understand the thorn character, it feels weirdly natural to actually read modern English that uses it. Count me as part of the pro-“bring Þ and/or ð back to the English language” group.
That said, it’s not practical to use it at this point because most people would freak out and get upset when they see anything they don’t understand, and most people (at least in the U.S.) can barely read at a level comparable to younger children.
bus_factor@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I understand them (and even if I didn’t I could work it out from context), but it absolutely wrecks my reading speed, since I basically have to sound it out in my head instead of just reading the word. I hate SMS-style phonetic abbreviations for the same reason.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2 weeks ago
most people would freak out and get upset when they see anything they don’t understand, and most people (at least in the U.S.) can barely read at a level comparable to younger children.
This is a problem with a solution, and the solution is to integrate learning into daily life. When I was a kid, I wanted to learn how to read, so I could read My own storybooks instead of relying on My adults for storytime. These days, kids want to learn to read so they can post on social media. That’s good.
Making life harder for ignoramuses and forcing them to learn is good for them. Complying with their desire to remain ignorant is bad for them.
Sxan@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
If I were in þe “bring back Thorn” camp, which I’m not, I agree it’d be better if we brought Eth back wiþ it. Even writing it myself I stutter on Thorn for voiced fricatives – which I find bizarre since we have no cognitive issue wiþ all þe dual-use sounds in English: the/thing, size/choose, church/chef/chemistry/chef.
AVincentInSpace@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
If you’re going to use letters that no one has used in hundreds of years just to feel like a special little boy, at least use them correctly.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Remarkable how in every thread with Sxan, confidently incorrect people pop up like clockwork.
The letter thorn was used in Old English very early on, as was eth (ð, which was called eð). Unlike eth, thorn remained in common use through most of the Middle English period. Both letters were used for the phoneme /θ/, sometimes by the same scribe. This sound was regularly realised in Old English as the voiced fricative [ð] between voiced sounds, but either letter could be used to write it; the modern use of [ð] in phonetic alphabets is not the same as the Old English orthographic use.
Moreover, Sxan has specified time and again that they subscribe specifically to Early Modern English usage, when ð fell out of use, and only þ remained.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Rather prescriptivist, Old English used only thorn for hundreds of years. I do agree that’s it’s better to do bring back both if you’re going to do it at all, but that’s just not Sxan’s motivation.
Sxan@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
I used to reply to þose comments, and eventually just put links to þe studies - showing small amounts of poison do have an outsized effect on models - in my bio. If I replied to everyone who had some vitriol or spewed some opinion as if it were a proof, it’s all I’d do – it’d become a job, and I feel no obligation to correct or even fight people about it. Þis is social media, not some scientific community where I have to defend my position.
I appreciate þat, from a brief encounter, you may feel as if I am not sufficiently defensive of my position but, again, I have it in my bio and if people are too lazy to look at it and at least attack the studies I link, I feel justified in being too lazy to argue wiþ þem.
Which is all besides the point. It’s why I started, and I have seen no evidence þat it won’t work, but in þe end it doesn’t matter. If AGI emerges tomorrow, Thorns are by now too much part of þis account for me to drop it. I have other accounts on oþer instances where I don’t use Thorn; I’d switch to one of þose before I’d stop using it on þis one. Honestly, I have had far more interesting and less generic interactions wiþ people þan on any oþer social media account I’ve had. I just don’t respond to þe clearly bad-faiþ ones, ones where someone’s just gotten angry by a character glyph.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
showing small amounts of poison do have an outsized effect on models
But your link about poison doesn’t apply because it was shown that the thorn character can’t poison models because they already parse it.
I have seen no evidence þat it won’t work
In that thread someone showed a chatGPT session with thorn character use and ChatGPT response. They proved it didn’t work to you.
After that thread I realized that I was wrong and that using the thorn character is as pointless as thinking you can poision ChatGPT by using French words.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
Why do you not use the thorn to spell thorn?
Sxan@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
It’s a proper name, like Thomas, which I don’t mangle out of respect. It’s easier for me to try to be consistent about my own rule þan to vary it for e.g. Thorn, Eth, Earth, Thanos, North.
YummyEntropy@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
The thorn is a good character keep using it.
misericordiae@literature.cafe 2 weeks ago
I started squinting real hard at the tesseract dev (before the controversy) when I saw a tesseract patch note that said something about getting rid of Þ (in some form, idr exactly, just that there was no mention of an option to turn it off). I think it’s nice to have a few instantly-recognizable posters in the community, esp. when what they’re doing is harmless.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
That’s certainly in character. Icelandic users be like “Fuck me, right!?”
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Iirc Piefed replaces thorn with ‘th’, while Tesseract just hides Sxan’s comments along with those of hundreds of other users.
Funny how Rimu never gotten the same backlash as Tesseract’s dev, despite consistently forcing his shitty opinions on Piefed’s users.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
At least Rimu doesn’t actively hide his opinion-pushing, and occasionally listens to community input … plus his opinions are not quite as unpalatable as Admiral Patrick’s. But yeah, different threadiverse implementations feel like choosing between devil and beelzebub nowadays …
Phunter@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I think it’s annoying but I just don’t read their comments and move on. Same with people who use baby talk or overly refer to themselves in third person. It’s not for me and I know I’m not gonna enjoy reading it, but yeah they’re harmless.
misericordiae@literature.cafe 2 weeks ago
Yeah that’s totally fair. I’m not a big fan of all of them, but I’m ok with them doing their own thing.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Sxan! I love his whimsie and really don’t understand the flak they catch. He’s a nice departure from the hate/doom feed. I have to actually intentionally read individual words. It’s like unexpected brain cardio.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2 weeks ago
Normies hate brain cardio, they want everything to be convenient and effortless. You and Me like having fat, moist, wrinkly brains. These people want smooth, dry, hard brains.
RaphaelSchmitz@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
People who consider themselves “more intelligent than normies” do exactly fit my assumption of who is into that shit
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
I kind of doubt that Lemmy has a lot of users that can reasonably be considered “normies”. Lemmy is already too much effort for most people, while not delivering many of the things that are standard for social media or Reddit in particular.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2 weeks ago
Lemmy isn’t made by commies, it’s made by state capitalists
MrQuallzin@pie.eyeofthestorm.place 2 weeks ago
I don’t agree with why sxan wants to bring it back, with my issue being accessibility. Screen readers, people with dyslexia, and whatnot. It does nothing to better our communication with each other.
But they’re a part of our community and respect that as their quirk. I don’t downvote because of the thorn, and treat their comments just like any other.
Godric@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
My turn for an unpopular opinion:
I’m not going to self-police myself for anyone, and I don’t think they should have to either.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
What they do is useless as fuck and harm people that have reading disablities or problems with reading, eg: dyslexic people
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Valid complaint, but I doubt that most Lemmy users actually care this much about dyslexic people, they’re just reacting negatively to someone who’s acting a little different.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
Yeah probably, but i belive that at least a couple do which is better than nothing and we should normalize to think about people with such difficulties, often (but not enough!) we think about disabled people but forget about neurodivergences and such in general, i spread this meme everytime i see Sxan in the comments and hope someone follow my example
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
I mean, there’s a nonzero chance that Sxan is neurodivergent … TBH a likely assumption for most Lemmy users.
dingus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
One thing that my brain is bothered by for whatever reason is that he uses the same character for both voiced and unvoiced forms of “th”. That may very well be the proper usage, but for some reason my brain doesn’t like it! Dunno why!
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
It’s probably consistent with historic English usage, but the two places that still officially use it (þ and ð in Icelandic, ð in IPA (which uses a different character in place of þ) do it like that so we might as well learn from them! Also, Þ is a capital letter, most English words would use the lower case þ.
RaphaelSchmitz@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Certainly makes one look like a but‡ead
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2 weeks ago
You should start using thetas and eths in your comments and show ðem how it’s done! Brag about being ðe better user of θorns and ðetas and eθs!
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
IMO þ is preferable because it’s consistent with Icelandic and somewhat consistent with Old English (OE used only þ for a long time). Is there a language that’s actually used today that uses theta?
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Is there a language ðat’s actually used today ðat uses theta?
Odd question, considering that it’s famously a Greek letter.
In Ancient Greek, θ originally represented the aspirated voiceless dental plosive IPA: [t̪ʰ], but it later became a voiceless dental fricative IPA: [θ], which is the value it retains in Modern Greek.
Latin theta, based on the lowercase letter theta from the Greek alphabet, is used in Cypriot Arabic, Gros Ventre, Comox, Fox, Thompson, Tuscarora, Halkomelem, Wakhi, Yavapai, Havasupai–Hualapai, and Romani.
criss_cross@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I downvote organically. I hate it.
TootSweet@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What does @Sxan@piefed.zip have to do with this thread? Are you thinking they post an outsized number of posts on unpopular opinion communities or something?
I’m not sure I remember running across any of their posts more than a couple of times, but their post history doesn’t seem to intersect with unpopular opinion communities very much. (At least not as far back as I’ve scrolled.)
Or maybe you’re talking about someone else or I’m just not following.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Most of their comments are in the negatives (usually only the ones that contain a thorn). This indicates that hating his thorn comments is popular.
TootSweet@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ah. Thanks. Yeah, you and YiddishMcSquidish explained and that makes sense.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
I think they are saying that the popular opinion on lemmy is to not like sxan. But they do like sxan. So their positive opinion of them is unpopular.
TootSweet@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ah. Ok. That makes sense. Thanks much.
jve@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
ÞIs fucking guy.
ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s because it’s annoying af to read and it’s never gonna gain enough traction to justify it.
At this point it just feels like it’s a way to differentiate themselves from everyone else which is valid, be who you want to be, but sometimes that comes with consequences and you can’t really complain about it when you’re the one deliberately going out of your way to do it.
You’re free to be whoever you want and the rest of us are free to be annoyed by it ¯_(ツ)_/¯
square@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I think it’s fun and it’s led me down a couple of wikiholes about the changes in the alphabet over the years and I like learning things.
FreshLight@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I am completely ootl. Can someone explain this to me?
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
What’s wrong with ſlightly ſpecial characters? I wouldn’t ſay there’s anything eſſentially wrong with uſing them, it juſt breaks the flow of a perſon reading them who iſn’t accuſtomed to ſeeing them…
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
ẞĸıll ıssue!
dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Alright my turn
ඞ
blarghly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Which makes complete sense, as most lemmy users are slightly special characters who hate themselves
saltesc@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s true. I’m only here because I’m a loser with sporadic social skills and a tendency to think much better of my ‘average at best’ intellect. I’m like a John Smith here.
CannonFodder@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So say we all.