null_dot
@null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- Comment on Why did/do sites such as the pyramids in Egypt or the Roman colosseum end up in an abandoned state, only to be "rediscovered" later? 5 hours ago:
I don’t think the peak is the original cladding.
The lower levels had smooth limestone I think.
That top part had that silver and gold alloy I think?
- Comment on Why did/do sites such as the pyramids in Egypt or the Roman colosseum end up in an abandoned state, only to be "rediscovered" later? 5 hours ago:
Yeah the pyramids at giza used to have an outer layer of white limestone (was it? Or maybe marble…) which was taken and used elsewhere.
- Comment on adhesive tape to the buttocks 2 days ago:
What is a cot though?
- Comment on What mythologies have poor representation in media, in your opinion? 4 days ago:
Interesting.
I think this is a better link.
I don’t know anything about any of this other than the 2 minutes I just spent reading wikipedia.
My guess would be that Griaule overlaid a contemporary understanding of astronomy on top of their mythology, either through ineptitude or as a way to procure funding for more expeditions.
What I mean is, it’s infinitely more likely that their mythology was “we are the descendants of the brightest star we can see”, than they are actually descended from refugees from sirius.
- Comment on What mythologies have poor representation in media, in your opinion? 4 days ago:
I’m sure this also happens in Australia with our indigenous but I don’t interact with them enough to observe directly.
- Comment on Why do news articles and such call the governments of countries/groups of countries after the capital? 4 days ago:
I think it just makes the article more engaging, less mechanical, more human. It places the article geographically rather than these things happening in an aloof intangible other place. Remember that the article has an audience both within, and outside, the borders of the country it’s describing.
For example, I live in the south west corner of Western Australia. Our political capital is Canberra, not far from Sydney, which must be at least 3,500 km from here. It may as well be several countries away. The landscape is different, the flora and fauna are different, the people are concerned with different things.
It’s quite common for people to refer to “Canberra” in lieu of “the government” to emphasize that geographic and cultural separation.
For example, like most countries I guess we have an app that you need to use to identify yourself to government websites. In the course of my work I often find myself helping people through the process of installing it and setting it up. It’s common enough for someone to complain “I guess this seemed like a good idea to someone in Canberra”, instead of saying “the government is out of touch if they thought everyone could do this”.
As regards South Africa, I didn’t know the branches of government had different capitals there. I guess you’d just refer to whichever one was responsible for the particular action you’re discussing? Or maybe you just wouldn’t use this phrase.
- Comment on Why aren't there mass protests in the USA? 5 days ago:
That’s… not really what I was getting at.
- Comment on Why aren't there mass protests in the USA? 5 days ago:
Loads of people in this thread saying they’re happening but media not covering them…
I don’t think that’s really what is meant by “mass protests”. In the not so distant past I would have thought every american man woman and child would be weeping in the streets at the corruption and despotism.
There are protests, and maybe they’re not being covered, but it’s not the type of civil unrest I would have expected honestly.
- Comment on Is this true? Software companies had diversity quotas to meet, and realized it was easier to turn autistic men into women than it was to turn women into software engineers 5 days ago:
No.
- Comment on [deleted] 6 days ago:
There’s some great ideas in this thread but sadly I think most of them are fairly high risk.
Doing anything in this kind of scope is going to cost a lot of capital. If it goes wrong all that money is gone.
I would lease it to a farmer.
Maybe reserve a corner where you can build up some basic facilities. I’m not sure what’s popular where you are but here in Australia you can find places like this on hipcamp where you can camp for a few dollars a day.
Use your income to build basic facilities over time. Toilets, showers, kitchen, solar.
- Comment on Are old people usually attracted to other old people? 1 week ago:
Great answer!
As a 40 something this pretty much matches my thoughts.
I would add that my hormones have settled down in the last 20 years as well. Like when you’re 20 there’s this “imperative” to pursue sexual encounters. Now it’s still there but it’s just more sensible.
I’ll also add that I think around 30 is the most appealing age. I probably thought that when I was 18 too.
- Comment on I have a bunch of questions: Whats the best way to get this platform's feed to compete with reddit? 1 week ago:
Don’t try to mirror something from reddit. There’s an instance that does that, lemmit.online, and many if not most instances have defederated because it’s a blight on the land.
It’s counterintuitive but making a bot to post reddit content here acqually squashes engagement here.
The best thing to do is to post content.
- Comment on I have a bunch of questions: Whats the best way to get this platform's feed to compete with reddit? 1 week ago:
No one can speak for everyone else, but I personally would prefer reddit remains the main stream aggregator and lemmy can just rumble along.
I’d love to see lemmy mature and evolve and be awesome but IMO it’s a mistake to think that attracting reddit users is the way to achieve that.
- Comment on Why can humans seemingly only imagine like 3 different forms of government in different flavors? 1 week ago:
Another way to say the same thing: it’s confirmation bias.
Other forms have been imagined and in many cases tried but representative democracy (even when it’s really just an illusion) is the only way to organise large populations of people.
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
That’s the whole debate though. What is your responsibility as a citizen?
I’m so weary of talking about it ad-nauseam.
Ultimately these questions about jury nullification are irrelevant because you’ll never have 12 jurors who think subverting the court process can achieve justice.
- Comment on What was the 'bear vs man' controversy? 1 week ago:
Yeah I have indeed been to Tasmania.
I managed to see a platypus in the wild which is not that easy to do in the last 30 years.
It’s probably more similar to Vancouver Island than Western Australia is just because it’s a few degrees cooler than here. We both have epic forests.
- Comment on What was the 'bear vs man' controversy? 1 week ago:
Bears aside, I was looking at satellite imagery of this area a few weeks ago. It looks dreamy.
I live in the south west corner of Western Australia which is obviously different but still a sparsely populated wilderness.
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
That’s the argument.
You might feel thats how things ought to be but you’re unable to support your statement with anything other than the vibe.
We have a system for considering the justice of law. Citizens elect representatives who debate, create, and revise laws on their behalf.
If you feel that someone who kills a CEO you don’t like should be exempt from a charge of murder then you should discuss that with your local representative.
- Comment on What was the 'bear vs man' controversy? 1 week ago:
A viewpoint from someone who is a man and not a sexual predator:: this statement is so incendiary because the odds of being mauled to death by a bear you meet are so high, while the odds of being sexually assaulted by a man you meet are so low.
As someone who doesn’t live somewhere that has bears I don’t really know how it works, at first glance the phrase “come across a bear” implies a certainty of a revenant style bear fight, but I suppose if you know something about bear behavior can identify the type of bear maybe it’s not a big deal?
Alternatively, how many encounters between lone women and lone men in the woods result in sexual assault? There’s some places in my area where people walk daily. There would be dozens of such encounters, and IDK the “sexual assault rate” but it would be a big deal if someone had been raped in the woods. Notwithstanding unreported assaults, I don’t think it’s something that’s happened? I’m guessing but I wouldn’t be surprised if the rate is less than 1 encounter in a million.
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
Where the juror is convinced that the legislature did not appropriately consider the specific circumstance of the accused, the juror is constitutionally permitted to return a “just” verdict, consistent with their own morality.
As I’ve said elsewhere, this is just made up poppycock that sounds nice.
I’m sure that wherever that’s written down in the “rules” it also says all good dogs go to heaven right?
Anyhow, as we seem to have exhausted your repertoire of made up constitutional wisdom I think I’ll leave you to continue reassuring yourself that the founding fathers invented jury nullification and wanted Luigi to walk free.
While I look forward to reading your final parting dispensation of mythical wondery, I will not reply.
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
Can you clarify what you’re actually saying?
If you’re trying to imply that a more moral person would see things your way, I couldn’t care less. It’s a pretty meaningless assertion.
You seem to be suggesting that moral considerations are not relevant to legal proceedings, yet simultaneously arguing that jurors should refuse to convict on moral grounds.
That’s simply not how laws are intended to be applied. Democratically elected representatives debate moral considerations when designing laws. If you want criminal law to include an exemption for murderers of CEOs that you don’t like, you should write to your local rep I guess.
In the mean time, jurors will just have to apply the law as it stands.
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
Goodness gracious. Do you honestly think there is a thinking man woman or child alive who does not realise that legal does not mean moral and that legal outcomes are not always just?
That does not mean that Jurors can just make up the law based on the vibe of the case before them.
This may shock you, but puppies die sometimes. It’s sad.
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
Sure. The problem I have with such a “release valve” is that it would be inherently unjust. Of course some defendents of a certain race or gender or appearance would be more likely to have their case nullified.
If you think courts should be more lenient, then codify it in law. The reason why it’s not codified, is because punishments are already designed to be appropriate to the crime.
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
Yeah it “makes sense” in a fairy tale kind of way but it’s obviously not based in reality.
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
The role of the jury in criminal trials is to review questions of fact and to determine guilt or innocence according to the law.
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
what do you mean a “looser” system? Do you mean like, good baddies like luigi walk but bad baddies like mexicans or weird looking people don’t?
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
Where you, as a layperson, believes that the legislated law does not adequately address the circumstances of the accused, you are not just “allowed” to find the accused not guilty; you are morally obligated to do so.
Did you just make this part up because it sounds nice ?
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
You haven’t actually rebutted anything I’ve said.
Jurors have no responsibilities to the justice system
That’s just semantics. Jurors participate for a reason.
A system where jurors just nullify cases when they don’t dig the vibe is obviously not a justice system.
The only reason the western world is falling all over themselves to believe in jury nullification is because our justice system is completely unjust and wealthy people can just string things out indefinitely.
- Comment on Why is Jury Nullification a Thing, But You Can’t Talk About It in Court? 1 week ago:
This is a super unpopular opinion in 2025, but I’m a grown up and happy to take the downvotes.
Jury Nullification isn’t really a “thing” as in it’s not intended to be a function available to the jury.
The justice system intends for Jury’s to perform a very specific function: to find a defendant guilty or not guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
However, jurors must be able to make that determination free from any concerns as to repercussions against them. The system couldn’t work if a juror feared being held responsible for their finding. Imagine if overlooking or misinterpreting something as a juror could be a crime? It would present a very ready mechanism for corruption “Any juror that finds Trump guilty will be subject to prosecution by the next republican government”.
So, jurors have absolute protection from any responsibility as to their findings, and as such they are able to say “we think luigi probably did commit this crime but he seems like a great guy so our unanimous finding is not-guilty”.
It’s a subversion of the justice system. Jurors may take this third option without consequence but they are not upholding their responsibilities to the justice system.
My concern with jury nullification is that if jurors can decide whether the law should apply in whatever case, they’re essentially making up the law based on nothing more than their feelings about what happened. Additionally, it makes a court case more of a popularity contest than a fair application of the law.
The common rebuttal to what I’ve said is that the justice system is rarely just. That may be the case but justice is not going to be improved by moving to a kangaroo court. We may as well throw defendants in the river and pronounce those who do not drown to be guilty.
- Comment on Is it possible to switch instances without making a new account? 1 week ago:
There’s a variety of reasons.
- instances are communities, some more loose than others
- some instances have themes. lemmy.world is general, aussie.zone welcomes anyone but it’s mostly Australians or friends there-of. Having a user name/address like vvilld@aussie.zone says something about you.
- some instances have ideological alignments, lemmy.ml are tankies
- some instances de-federate from others, like hexbear is not federated by some / many instances.
- the “local” feed can be like a set of subscriptions or curated content. slrpnk.net is the best example I can think of for this, mostly environmentally conscious tech, and renewables, et cetera.
- some admins turn out to be idiots. In the early days there was some support from admins of specific / niche instances for bots re-posting content from reddit.
- there’s no good reason not to have multiple accounts. In my own case I change instances regularly. IDK why exactly, I just actively avoid allowing my account to become some kind of extension of my identity.