WatDabney

@WatDabney@sopuli.xyz

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨On Fox News, Harris Proves She’s Tough⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Has anyone else noticed that the NYT’s coverage of the election lately has been more generous to Harris and more critical of Trump?

  I think a case could be made that that’s potentially an even more sure indicator that Harris has the advantage than any poll, since the NYT is so craven and cowardly that the only way they’d shift their coverage like that is if they’re reasonably confident that Harris is going to win. If they thought that Trump might win, they’d still be kissing his stinky ass.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨CEO Pay Has Risen 1,085% Since 1978, But for Workers? Just 24%⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And here we have the root cause of every other problem that plagues the US - the entire nation, socially, politically and even psychologically, has been warped towards the sole purpose of pouring as much wealth as possible into the pockets of a relative few.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it me or is everyone in hexbear insane?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hexbear is sort of like a village of eldritch abomination worshippers in a Lovecraftian horror story - isolated, insular, entirely wrapped up in their own esoteric rituals and ideas and language, and immediately and collectively hostile to outsiders.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bacon Prices and the Windmills of Trump’s Mind⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow… that’s the first time I’ve ever read an essay, liked it, looked at the byline, and seen Paul Krugman’s name.

  I’m not sure what to make of that…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The New York Times turns on Kamala Harris and slams her as 'a phony'⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The reliably liberal New York Times…

  lol

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨best GBA games? I need recommendations⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Most similar to Advance Wars:

  Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

  Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis

  Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation

  Shining Force:Resurrection of the Dark Dragon

  Just in general:

  Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

  Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2

  Drill Dozer

  Golden Sun 1 and 2

  Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

  Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town

  Guru Logic Champ

  Metroid Fusion

  Metroid Zero Mission

  Medabots RPG

  Klonoa: Empire of Dreams

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woman of the Hour (2024, dir Anna Kendrick)⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Mmm… yeah.

  I’m pretty sure that if someone had just told me the outline of this movie and that the lead actress was also making her directorial debut, I likely would’ve guessed it was Anna Kendrick.

  Something about the very serious topic of a serial sexual predator and killer and the pointedly misogynistic but still somewhat kitschy and silly idea of him actually appearing on The Dating Game right in the middle of it all - and winning - seems like just the sort of thing that would grab her attention.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The introverts are winning⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  All I see here is a selfish extrovert who resents not being able to feed off of enough other people’s energy, so is degrading and belittling introverts and trying to frame the issue as some sort of “war” that needs to be fought.

  To which I have to respond, in the baldest possible terms, fuck you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A Pattern of Lavish Spending at a Leading L.G.B.T.Q. Nonprofit | GLAAD paid for its chief executive to fly first-class, rent a Cape Cod house and remodel her home office.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It should be commonly understood that for all intents and purposes, charities and advocacy groups have an expiration date - a point beyond which they’re no longer any good.

  And that point is specifically the point at which the focus shifts away from serving the original goals of the organization and toward simply paying the salaries of an increasingly bloated staff and the ever-more outlandish salaries and perks of the executives.

  And GLAAD is apparently one of the many that’s reached that point.

  And the solution is simple - if you give money to GLAAD (or any other such organization), stop. Never give them another penny. Look around, and it’s guaranteed that you’ll find another organization - a newer, fresher, more dedicated one in which the rot hasn’t yet set in. Give them your money instead, because they’ll use it to actually serve the purpose rather than to just pay for the undeserved privilege of the people who managed to weasel their way into the executive suite.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨you can hear this image⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  An oldie but a goodie.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Live Election Updates: Trump Declines to Back Away From ‘You Don’t Have to Vote Again’ Line⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Of course he’s not going to back down - his supporters know that he really meant that there will never be another election after he and his fascist cronies and patrons “fix” things, and they like it. That’s exactly what they want.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A Pedigreed Rail Magnate Is Pouring Millions Into Electing Donald Trump⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The plutocrats want an autocracy at least as much as the christofascists do.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google Is the Only Search Engine That Works on Reddit Now Thanks to AI Deal⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wait - so now I can avoid Google and that means I automatically get to avoid Reddit too?

  Hell yeah!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How to Quit Vaping | Millions of Americans use e-cigarettes. There’s little research into how to help them stop.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Actually, most vapers I know of know exactly how to quit. It’s actually very simple and convenient.

  Vape juice comes in a wide range of nicotine strengths, including 0. So anyone who wants to quit can (and many do) accomplish it simply by incrementally decreasing the nicotine strength of their juice until they reach 0. Then they’re done.

  And broadly, why is it that every one of these articles is painfully obviously written by somebody who really knows next to nothing about vaping?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I don’t understand quantum physics⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m often reminded of a cartoon I saw years ago, with a stereotypical Einsteinish physicist standing in front of a chalkboard, looking at this enormously complex formula with a big blank space in the middle of it. Then he gets a “eureka” expression and starts writing in the blank space. Then he steps back, and you can see that he’s filled the blank space with “and then something happens”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Stop. Calling. Everything. AI⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m often reminded of a bit on Top Gear years ago, when they were talking about “turbo” as a marketing tool in the 80s, when you could buy “turbo” sunglasses or “turbo” watches or “turbo” after-shave.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The internet is already over (2022)⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The internet has essentially come full circle.

  In the early days, search engines were of dubious quality at best, and the only way to find really good sites was to just poke around and keep your eyes open and hope to stumble across them.

  And it’s really pretty much exactly the same today. Search engines are of dubious quality at best, since virtually all of the sites to which they might point us have been warped by money-grubbing corporate owners and/or buried under a flood of morons, assholes and bots, but once again, there are great sites and communities to be found if you just poke around and keep your eyes open.

  It’s almost as if the old internet has been recreated in little gaps and out-of-the-way corners of the new one.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Photographers Push Back on Facebook's 'Made with AI' Labels Triggered by Adobe Metadata. Do you agree “‘AI was used in this image’ is completely different than ‘Made with AI’”?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No - I don’t agree that they’re completely different.

  “Made by AI” would be completely different.

  “Made with AI” actually means pretty much the exact same thing as “AI was used in this image” - it’s just that the former lays it out baldly and the latter softens the impact by using indirect language.

  I can certainly see how “photographers” who use AI in their images would tend to prefer the latter, but bluntly, fuck 'em. If they can’t handle the shame of the fact that they did so they should stop doing it - get up off their asses and invest some tome and effort into doing it all themselves. And if they can’t manage that, they should stop pretending to be artists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why The Left Hates It When You Point Out We're 'A Republic'⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh look - oligarchic apologetics in a periodical named in honor of the country’s original oligarchists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨U.S. Sues Adobe Over Hard-to-Cancel Subscriptions⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve never really understood what the deal is with Adobe.

  They put out a couple of notable pieces of software relatively early on that have become the standards for their fields. So from that point of view, it would seem that their corporate identity should be that of a staid, venerable old institution.

  But instead, for whatever reason, the company has always been and still is more like a fly-by-night used car dealer bent only on fleecing as many saps as possible by whatever means might serve.

  They genuinely appear to be entirely and completely without ethics or integrity, entirely willing at any time to implement any scheme no matter how odious.

  It’s just weird to me that a company that could be well respected for quality software is instead run like a Nigerian prince scam.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Starfield's latest update draws player ire by sticking a bounty hunting quest behind the Creation Club paywall⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  How is anybody even surprised by this?

  This is exactly the sort of thing Beth has been moving towards ever since their first ham-handed attempt to monetize mods deservedly blew up in their faces.

  They didn’t give up on the idea - they just shifted to a strategy of doing it incrementally.

  And this is just the latest step in that ongoing process.

  Think about how bad it’s (very deliberately) going to be by the time TES 6 finally comes out…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does affective empathy work with anger?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It strikes me that I went on at great length but didn’t directly answer your main question.

  Targeted emotions felt via affective empathy (at least for me and presumably for others) can be either directed at the same target as they are for the source or untargeted.

  I think the way it works is that if I both feel affective empathy and experience cognitive empathy, then the emotion ends up aimed at the same target, since the cognitive empathy provides a framework for it. And that’s the way it is most of the time.

  And yes - if I’m the target and I grasp the idea behind it, so experience cognitive empathy, then I do become my own target.

  If I don’t have the context for cognitive empathy though, the emotion is just sort of there. I’m just aware that being in this place or around these people or whatever is putting me on edge. I don’t quite feel the full sense of the emotion then, presumably because it needs context and a target to fully manifest. Instead, I feel a vaguer, less directed form of it - like being around angry people without really focusing on it, so not getting cognitive empathy, just leaves me feeling unaccountably stressed and cranky. Or being around sad people makes me feel unaccountably melancholy.

  And along with that, one thing it definitely does is prime me to find something to direct it at. It’s not just that I feel unaccountably cranky or melancholy or whatever, but that I’m likely going to (over)react to the first thing that happens that provides something like justification for the full-blown emotion. Like once it starts, it has to find a way to fully manifest.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does affective empathy work with anger?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  For myself, other people’s anger makes me really uncomfortable, and I avoid it as much as possible, in part specifically because if I don’t, I end up sharing in it, but without a reason or a target. It’s really unpleasant because in a sense, it’s not real.

  Real anger - my own anger - feels complete. Not that it’s pleasant or anything - it’s still anger. But in a way, it’s a sort of relief to feel it, since it at least makes sense. I have a reason for it and a target for it, so it fits. Empathetic anger is weird and unsettling, since it’s just there, but it’s not a complete, sensible thing.

  And you’re right about targeted emotions, at least in my experience, and while anger is a good example, it’s not the worst.

  Grief is awful, because it’s such a horrible, desolate feeling, and just that much worse when it doesn’t even really mean anything.

  Jealousy is another bad one - in fact, thinking about it, I’m tempted to say it’s the worst of them all, because it’s so unpleasant, and in multiple ways, and it’s so entirely pointless without an actual reason or target (it’s arguably fairly pointless even with both).

  On a somewhat different note, just because I’m thinking about the trials and tribulations of affective empathy - embarrassment is weirdly bad. Partly it’s that it’s unpleasant, but more it’s that it’s such a common aspect of other people’s enjoyment - there’s a great deal of comedy that hinges on laughing at other people’s embarrassment, and it’s all completely lost on me, because I’m stuck just feeling pointlessly vicariously embarrassed.

  Broadly, the way I have to deal with all of it is to try to avoid situations in which I’m going to be subjected to other people’s unpleasant emotions, and if I find myself in one, to try to shut myself off from whatever they’re feeling. I’m okay up to a point, but I can feel it coming if I’m getting to the point that it’s going to suck me in, and pretty much all I can do then is resign myself to it or throw up a barricade and just shut it out. Which sort of ironically makes me come across as aloof - as if I’m insensitive rather than overly sensitive. That gnaws at me, but there really isn’t much I can do about it, since I already have enough to deal with with my own emotions, and just don’t have the fortitude to deal with everyone else’s as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump guilty on all counts in New York criminal trial⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Presumably because the modern conservative viewpoint only favors the rule of law being applied to poor minorities and leftists.

  Rich people, and especially rich whote people,care supposed to be above the law.

  So by the modern standard, upholding the rule of law over a rich whote person is actually not conservative.

  I’m not sure what it is then though. Maybe “woke?”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Twitter co-founder Biz Stone joins board of Mastodon's new US nonprofit | TechCrunch⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I would presume it’s not paid yet (though the CEO certainly is). That phase of the operation comes later.

  For the moment, they’re working to solidify as much control as possible of as much of the fediverse as possible, which control will allow them to gatekeep it, monetize it, extract rent from it and inevitably enshittify it. That, so it’s hoped, will be the phase during which their investment now will pay off.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Twitter co-founder Biz Stone joins board of Mastodon's new US nonprofit | TechCrunch⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So… by my count, the board of directors actually outnumber the employees.

  At a “non-profit” (until that was revoked) company that gets most of its funding through Patreon.

  Years from now (and at this rate, not very many of them), when people wonder how it was that such a promising venture that championed decentralization turned into just another enshittified megacorporation squatting over a piece of internet real estate and extracting rent to pay obscene salaries to a handful of executives - this is how. We’re watching as the foundation is being laid, right now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Opinion | Why Has Obamacare Worked?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah - I was wondering how in the hell anyone could say that it’s worked, and then when I clicked on the link, I instantly got the answer - it’s Paul Krugman, who’s made an entire career out of carrying water for the ruling class.