SirEDCaLot

@SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This Apple Lie at the grocery store⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah it’s awful.

  I actually found the best peanut butter at a local store. They have a machine that looks like a drink dispenser but it’s full of different kinds of peanuts- you grab a jar and push the button and it grinds the peanuts into peanut butter right there in front of you. Resulting machine looks something like this.
  There’s a few different options like plain, honey, spicy, etc. I just get the plain one and stir in some salt when I get home.

  If you let it sit for a while it separates (the oil comes to the top and solids sink) but you just stir it up and it’s fine.

  Funny thing is- flavor is actually a good bit better than most of what you get in the jar. And there’s zero bullshit, just peanuts and salt to taste which are all you need for great peanut butter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  More like

  • sell company to Sony for hugely inflated price promising to be the linchpin of their live service strategy

  • have one game that does okay, another game that everybody hates

  • leadership bleeds money through a fire hose

  • everyone is surprised when this doesn’t work

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I wanna know what’s happening with all those finished wafers they bought.

  If they aren’t being made into memory modules I think someone should go to jail.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The best answer to "when did Star Trek get woke?"⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  And that is exactly my point.

  You think The Expanse would be better if Avasarala was a strong woman leader fighting to make her mark in a male-dominated world? I think not. The whole thing that makes her so great is that she can be herself, by not needing to prove herself worthy she proves herself worthy. Or Bobbie Draper- if she was the GI Jane, struggling to be taken seriously in a male-dominated MMC? No, then the story stops being about a badass woman being badass, and starts being about the men who don’t recognize that badassery. And that’s a MUCH less interesting story. Or Drummer- I’ve not yet read the books but I understand TV-Drummer was a combination of two characters-- after the mutiny on Tycho she’s wounded, someone tries to help her up but she pushes them away, grabs the guys sidearm, blasts the two mutineers, and hobbles off to the infirmary on her own… would that scene be better if someone was saying ‘I guess women can have balls after all’?

  No, the way you fight patriarchy, or racism, or homophobia, isn’t to fight patriarchy or racism or homophobia. It’s to show people what happens after patriarchy, racism, and homophobia are defeated, and let people decide that’s the world they want.

  The Expanse took great strides to fight a number of prejudices. But never once was it ‘woke’.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The best answer to "when did Star Trek get woke?"⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  due to the complex storytelling of earlier series, there’s a large contingent of the fanbase that didn’t realise their progressive nature, and are objecting to how it’s woke now.

  Hard disagree.

  People are criticizing 'woke’ness- you’re assuming that’s idiots who don’t want to see progressive storylines but somehow didn’t notice that Uhura was a black officer when it was assumed black people couldn’t do much more than cook and clean.

  I think the reality is that people are happy to take progressive storylines, but people strongly resent the specific combination of progressive storylines delivered ham-fisted which one might call ‘wokeness’.

  I’m saying that for myself too. I am STRONGLY in favor of inclusion. I have NO problem seeing any race, gender, sexual orientation, etc of character on screen, and I want to see all groups represented fairly.

  A great example of that was The Expanse. It’s part of the overall series plot that since humans went to space, former national borders no longer applied much so cultures mixed together. So you get this major disconnection between name ethnicity and physical appearance ethnicity (IE, Japanese guy with a French name, Black character with a Japanese name, etc) and nobody bats an eye. One of the first plots revolves around a man and his husband who are going to retire together and nobody gives a shit they’re gay. Like it’s not even brought up, it’s just ‘me and my husband are going to retire on Mars’ and this is treated as a perfectly normal thing that a man of advanced years would say.

  Like myself, I bet you’d find a lot of the same people unhappy at ‘wokeness’ in Trek have NO problem with The Expanse- because it’s not woke, it’s inclusive.

  Now full disclosure- I’ve not actually seen any of the new Trek- didn’t have Paramount+ until my partner wanted to watch Landman and nothing I heard about any of the new stuff made it sound like a must-watch. So I’m speaking conceptually on wokeness.

  But in my experience, wokeness is pretty much the same no matter who’s writing it or in what venue. It’s NOT the same as inclusion.

  BTW- if you haven’t watched The Expanse I highly encourage you to do so…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The best answer to "when did Star Trek get woke?"⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  But that’s just it. Pushing progressive ideas through ham-fisted storytelling is the wokeness people complain about.
  It is also when these things are blatant. Original Star Trek was progressive not because it showed a black person’s struggle for equality, it was progressive because it showed black people as equal.
  A perfect example is DS9’s lesbian kiss. The short version, Trill are a joined species consisting of a humanoid host with a standard lifespan, combined with a very long-lived symbiote that can live for many host lifetimes. The resulting personality is thus a blend of the host and the symbiote.
  In this specific episode, there is a rule in Trill society that if two Trill are romantically involved, that relationship has to end when either of the symbiotes move to a new host. The explanation is otherwise two symbiotes would just stay together forever through multiple hosts and never grow or learn. Anyway, one of the show’s main characters is a Trill female and in this episode encounters another female carrying the symbiote her symbiote was once married to. So this is a forbidden romance they are both tempted to. It’s explained that the previous relationship one of them was in a male host and the other one a female host. Now they are both in female hosts, and this is not brought up even once. The fact that they are both women is not even mentioned. It is completely and totally ignored.

  THAT is a non-woke progressive presentation of the idea.

  It’s not trying to get the audience to empathize with the black person who can’t sit in front of the bus, it’s just showing the black person sitting in front of the bus and making it not a big deal.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Supermarkets destroy food if it doesn't sell. We can always feed the world. We just don't.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  and having surplus food production capability necessarily leads to food waste.

  Nobody is complaining about that.

  The complaint is that there is surplus production, and simultaneously 1. the production is actively wasted and destroyed, while 2. people are going hungry.

  That’s like saying ‘your kid has a horrible disease, and in this syringe I have the cure for it, but I’m just gonna squirt it down the sink instead because why not’.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meow meow meow⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That says more about the training of the human than the training of the cat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has anyone else noticed the strong pro CCP and anti-west vibes here?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  American here. As we all know, America is the only important country in the world so there is little need for African content…

  Hi Joe, although with a somewhat heavy heart as I think there are some Americans who would say that seriously. I would also love more South African content. It’s a beautiful country with an interesting if checkered story and I would love to visit it someday.

  That said, there are two things you should keep in mind. First off, whatever instance you’re on has a large effect on what you will see on Lemmy, so if you want more African content you might see if there is an instance running in Africa or at least subscribe to communities on that instance. You don’t have to join that instance in order to see them, but you do have to go looking for them.

  Second, Lemmy has been largely adopted by a westernized population mostly of American and Western Europe origin, mainly because it provides a fediverse system with an experience similar to Reddit. Thus, much of Lemmy’s traffic is current or ex-redditors, which are mostly from the aforementioned demographics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨American workers are tired of waiting.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Both of your points go back to the same underlying issue- Americans don’t do their homework. Expecting the American population to do their own independent research into candidates and select the candidate that objectively best serves their interest is not a winning proposition. I really wish this was different, but that is just not a thing that happens.

  But that means that a candidate wins or loses on marketing. This marketing is a combination of having the reach, and hitting those people with the right message.

  That’s a big reason why I say DNC handed the nomination to Hillary. The DNC was supposed to remain neutral until the primary was finished, however they helped the Hillary campaign by sharing their mailing lists. So you say Bernie was unpopular, thank you if you limited that to voters who were familiar with his platform as well as Hillary’s I think you would have a different result.

  But look at Trump. He won the PR game. He said lots of crazy shit that got him constantly in the news, then when he got the spotlight he used it to say things that directly addressed the American people’s pain points. His message was that he sees the country not working for the average person, but instead working for companies that outsource American jobs. So to stop that he will throw some tariffs and bring jobs back! If you’re in American Blue collar worker or especially factory worker, that is the first time back in quite a while that a politician has said ‘I hear you, you matter and I’m going to stand up to big business and fix your problem’.

  Now you can objectively point out problems in his budget proposals and his stated agendas as of campaign season, you can point to the gop’s track record of abandoning lower classes, but that all just becomes more words on a very crowded page, more talking heads. None of that overcame the power of Trump’s message.

  Obama did the same thing by the way, the whole hope, change, yes we can campaign was brilliant and it did the same thing of speaking directly to the American people’s pain points. And it was also simple enough to resonate in someone’s mind. Unfortunately Obama had the right idea and he was a good president but he didn’t have the balls needed to railroad his desired reforms through.

  My point is though, if the DNC had two brain cells to rub together they would be learning from this. You need a candidate who’s willing to stand up to big business, who is willing to ruffle feathers among the donors. That wasn’t Hillary. And it wasn’t Kamala either.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨American workers are tired of waiting.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I was not evaluating his effectiveness as a leader. Only his effectiveness as a candidate. Simple fact is, both times he pushed a message of radical reform. Both times his opponent did not. Both times he won.

  I am not a fan of his presidency for a great many reasons, and I did not vote for him either time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨American workers are tired of waiting.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m aware. I also know that the DNC (the centralized organization) has a lot of influence through things like superdelegates. Look at the 2016 primary- openly colluding with Hillary against Bernie, and it worked.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨American workers are tired of waiting.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  As opposed to nominating candidates that have actual reform plans rather than going for the ‘safe option’ Hillary/Kamala status quo candidates.

  Donald Trump was not the safe candidate for the GOP. He pushed radical reform. And it got him elected.
  Hillary and Kamala were the safe candidates for the DNC. Status quo, don’t rock the boat, appeal to the base, don’t take risks. They lost.

  The American people are hurting. The American people want radical reform. And so they vote for a radical reform candidate.

  Bernie would have wiped the floor with Trump, had he gotten the nomination. But the DNC saw him as too radical and unpalatable in the general election. How’d that work out?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Art of Surrender⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Amen to this. There’s a very few couple of good ones, but for the most part the Old guard Democrats really need to go enjoy their long overdue retirement and let some new people with new ideas and new energy carry the torch.
  The old playbook isn’t working anymore. It doesn’t resonate with voters. It doesn’t address the major problems with our country.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Court tells Subnautica 2 publisher Krafton to reinstate fired CEO and let him handle its Early Access release | VGC⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Would absolutely love that. Just split the two. Unknown Worlds cut loose, existing publishing agreements severed, they walk away with a developed game and their IP. Free to contract with Krafton or anyone else to distribute the game, or they could just self-publish pretty easily.

  Sadly I doubt that will happen but we can always hope.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Where *does* the money come from?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If they’re only spending hundreds of thousands to stop your union, you need to try harder :P

  I was once years ago talking to a guy who ran an industrial shop. In the area there were a lot of other similar shops that had gone union, his wasn’t. And when asked about it, his answer was ‘everyone around here that’s gone union has deserved it. I pay my guys above prevailing wage, I don’t overwork them, and when they need time off I give it without a ton of HR paperwork. That costs a little more but it’s worth every penny because I get the best workers, and when the union comes knocking, it’s the workers who tell them to shove off.’

  A number of years later the company was bought out. I only assume that guy left, because a Google search shows that shop is now union and employees gripe online about how management is continually squeezing their pay and working conditions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You are confusing the spread of ideology with the spread of a conquistadorial government. Remember, most of the Germans who supported Hitler didn’t realize the Jews were being massacred. And we didn’t go to war to stop Nazi ideology, we went to war to stop Germany from conquering the entire fucking world through military means.

  The problem with using force to stop an ideology is that to the people who might follow that ideology, the fact that you care enough to use force against a belief system must mean there is something important in that belief system they should be checking out. Trying to stop an ideology with force only makes that ideology stronger, gives it validation.
  If you want to stop an ideology, ridicule it. Make fun of those who believe in it. Talk about how stupid they are. Talk about how they are morons not worth your time. Don’t give that ideology the validation of deserving force.

  The other problem with violence, is it prevents dialogue. If you are hitting somebody while talking to them, they are not going to hear what you are saying.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hitler was defeated by being nice to him

  In that sense you’re right- some people only understand and respect force, and the only way to stop them is to use force against them. The analogy of Hitler might be compared to hardened criminals- being nice to a criminal won’t stop them from victimizing you.

  This is a different battle though. The small % of racists who want to burn minorities’ houses down, they must be met with force.

  Force doesn’t win hearts and minds though. Force is intertwined with fear- ‘if you do xxx, force will be used against you’. So it might stop some church burnings, but it doesn’t stop racism. Force doesn’t win ‘hearts and minds’. Force doesn’t convince a racist that they were wrong. It might make them too afraid to speak up, but it doesn’t win them over, and they will only take their message underground, where it will thrive.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Can you point to some other times in history where the threat of being beaten up has been effective in eradicating an ideology?

  I can point to plenty of instances where driving an ideology underground only fuels its growth…

  And look at the simple logic of it- if the guy in the big KKK hood says ‘the establishment doesn’t want you to acknowledge this’ and he then gets beaten up by mainstream majority people, you’ve just proved him right in the eyes of a would-be follower.

  It’s like if you found someone who knows nothing about astronomy, and told them ‘today the sun will rise at 7:15am and set at 5:43pm, and the moon is mostly made of bleu cheese’ you’ve predicted two things correctly so that gives you credibility when they consider the 3rd.
  If I said that to you, you’d say ‘you looked that up on Google, anyone can do that, and it’s well known the moon is made of rock’. But you are knowledgeable about astronomy (on a basic level at least).

  This works with the KKK person because chances are the KKK person has had limited or no actual contact and understanding with black people. So he sees news reports of inner city black people doing crimes and it becomes easy to convince him black people are somehow inferior. And ‘THEY don’t want you to know the truth’ is a powerful message for someone already interested in counterculture / dislike of the mainstream.

  That’s why Daryl Davis is effective- he sits down with the racist, who has a mental image of what a ‘black person’ is, and he’s not that. It’s like putting you on a rocket and flying you out to the moon and saying ‘okay we’re here, where’s the cheese?’

  And that’s why violence ISN’T effective- because the racist is expecting violence, so being violent only reinforces their belief.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think we need both of these —punching Nazis and talking with them to change their views.

  Can you explain to me how punching Nazis works to reduce Naziism and racism? What is the mechanism of action? Like how specifically does getting punched make someone less racist?

  That is a genuine question and I’d love an answer.

  I personally believe that punching racists only creates more hatred. The racist will be angry at the one who punched him, and thus less open to anti-racist messaging.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Control Resonant - Announcement Trailer | PS5 Games⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I general, I agree 100%.

  There’s an exception for Remedy though. They have a strong track record of not releasing underwhelming unfinished crap.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Why?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think that’s called conflict exhaustion. You’re sick of fighting, sick of holding your nose and respecting things and people you find repugnant, while there’s little/no serious progress in your direction, it seems like there’s more racism and hatred than ever. So part of you is ready to set the world on fire if it gets rid of MAGA and all the thinly veiled (or not so thinly veiled) racism and intolerance.

  Just keep in mind that the dark wolf actually serves those nazi punks. Punching them only makes them stronger.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Exactly 100%

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No worries my friend. I know it’s hard, but it’s useful to always assume good faith.

  “The monster never sees a monster in the mirror. We all have good reasons and justifications for what we do.” – J. Michael Straczynski

  That applies to us too.

  I think it especially applied in 2016, first time in my life that all pretense of respectful debate went away, replaced with ‘unfriend me if you like Trump’ as a mainstream accepted even encouraged position to have.
  I talk to a lot of people who supported Trump. Most of them talked about tariffs, manufacturing, jobs, there was a dream of bringing back American industry and rolling back outsourcing. Yes there was some assholes, but there were plenty of good American folks who just wanted to keep their jobs.
  But if you listened to Democrats, the only valid reason anyone would vote for Trump is because they are a tiki torch wielding racist misogynist sexist xenophobic islamophobic basket of deplorables. The public discourse broke down for good, it was all just insults from both sides.

  Nobody saw a monster in the mirror. We only saw an opposition supporting a guy who was basically openly racist and creeped on his own daughter.
  But they didn’t see a monster in the mirror either. They only saw an ivory tower elite whipping ourselves into a frenzy over which bathroom someone uses while the middle class is dying.

  That’s why, in my opinion at least, it is always vitally important to generally assume good faith on the part of your opposition. Because if there is good faith, then we repair the cracks that are dividing the country. And if there really isn’t good faith, then we are all totally fucked anyway so it doesn’t make any goddamn difference.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  People who I used to think were smart and empathetic were jumping on the “fuck your feelings” bandwagon.

  I don’t know your friends. But I’d argue there’s at least some reasoning for this.
  If trade policies like globalization have harmed your economic status, offshoring a lot of the jobs you’d previously held, and you were having trouble feeding your family, wouldn’t you vote for the person you thought could fix this? Wouldn’t you say ‘fuck your feelings, I need to feed my family so I’m sorry if you have trouble putting the sex you want on your passport I’m more worried about feeding my family’? At least in concept?

  I think that’s where a lot of that sentiment came from. The people of the nation are hurting, and part of Trump’s message always was ‘I see you hurting and I want to fix it’. Dems are totally tone deaf in their messaging. A huge % of the populace gets left out of the ‘American Dream’ and they say nothing. And in recent years they focus a lot on social justice issues and identity politics while ignoring the elephant in the room. It’s why those good people are saying fuck your feelings (IMHO at least), because if the choice is your feelings or their livelihood, then of course they’ll tell your feelings to shove off.

  Of course it didn’t work out that way- government cutbacks, tariffs, foreign policy, all handled in such a ham-fisted non-strategic way that whatever benefit might have been gained was instead lost. And now it’s the little guy suffering, so you see a lot of people renouncing their votes.

  All I’m saying is keep in mind some of those people who said ‘fuck your feelings’ thought they were fighting for a greater good. I don’t believe they turned malicious. Some did I’m sure, but not all of them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This thread got me thinking a little more about Mr. Davis.

  We talk about ‘not tolerating intolerance’ but I think there’s a second level-- there’s the intolerance (the actions of the racist), and then there’s the intolerant (the racists themselves). It’s easy and simple to group the two together- we don’t want racism, we don’t want the KKK, we don’t want KKK members, all of you go fuck yourselves with your burning cross and go die in a fire (preferably in another county).

  I don’t think Mr. Davis would tolerate intolerance any more than you or I. But I think what he does is tolerate the intolerant person, engage them in conversation, treat them like a human being. And THAT can help fix intolerance- by reaching out to the intolerant people and trying to bring them into the larger community and heal them, rather than shunning them and reinforcing their stereotypes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s BY tolerating it (or more specifically, the people who espouse it) that he fights it.

  And I think that’s the key difference- tolerating intolerance (the action), vs tolerating the intolerant (the people).

  I think we would all (probably including Mr. Davis) agree that the action of intolerance should not be tolerated. For example, if a local movie theater wants to have ‘whites only’ movie nights, that should not be tolerated and in fact we should all aggressively fight back against such things wherever they happen.

  But what of the intolerant person? What of the theater owner in the above example? Should we run him out of town? Tar and feather him? Refuse to talk to him?
  The KKK folks he encountered are used to intolerance- threats, shouting, protests, etc. They know they’re not popular, but that helps feed the belief that they are right. They’re used to it. They’re NOT used to being welcomed by anti-racists.

  And thus Mr. Davis got through to the racist- by tolerating the intolerant, not by tolerating intolerance. It’s a subtle but vital difference.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This guy obviously didn’t get that memo

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hey look, a giant sign telling you to find a different job⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I couldn’t agree more. Acting like a million dollar company is important.

  A million dollar company would recognize that reliable, continuous production and sales is more important to growth than the occasional hickup or a few extra bucks in the payroll budget. Thus, the million dollar company would hire sufficient staff that an occasional absence, even at a critical moment, would not harm production or sales.

  And a million dollar company would recognize that hiring sufficient staff is a wiser and more cost effective strategy than a possible labor lawsuit along with the associated bad PR.