libra00
@libra00@lemmy.world
- Comment on Does the average person have no critical thinking? 2 weeks ago:
The first step is not accepting everything you read at face value. Start investigating the claims you see on the news or social media and you will develop a sense for which ones tend to be bullshit and which ones tend not to be, you will learn to recognize the bullshit ideas not because they’re obviously bullshit at first, but because they’re surrounded by the kind of language that bullshit claims are often smuggled into. It’s just pattern-matching, it’s a skill like everything else and you can practice it and get better. One way to do this is to just find a news article, scroll to a random point in it, highlight a sentence that makes a truth claim about, and go ‘That seems like bullshit, I’ll look for corroborating sources’ and then go do find 3-4 other sources that talk about the same thing and see how they shade tings differently. Aside from learning to match the pattern you also learn which sources are more or less reliable, more or less biased, etc. A good tool for this specifically for news is GroundNews, every article they show includes ratings for how biased the source is, a list of other sources that also report on the same incident and what their biases are, etc. Plus it’s been my experience that looking at things from several angles is kind of like drawing a circle around the truth - the more of the circle you draw the easier it is to find the center. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.
The second and perhaps most important step is being willing to be wrong, especially in public. Be concerned not about whether or not you will look bad but whether or not you are putting good information out there. Develop the habit of stopping in the middle of your political rant or whatever and going ‘Wait, am I sure about this? I should check.’ In a similar vein, get into the habit of providing sources for your own claims, even if only because that reinforces the habit of checking yourself. I discuss politics a lot online and have often found myself going ‘Oh yeah, well <this> is how the world really works!’, then I go looking for a source to cite and discover that I was wrong. Don’t flee from that uncomfortable feeling, swallow your pride and embrace it. The more you get into the habit of checking yourself the easier it becomes to remember to check others too, and again, the more familiar you become with what truth and bullshit look like from the inside and from the outside. It will also help you develop a bit of humility, which is unrelated but still a good thing to have.
- Comment on What are some good examples of "Where the fuck do you go" kind of games? 2 weeks ago:
Been playing Diablo 2 Resurrected again, so… Diablo 2. Especially on higher difficulties some of those areas (Durance of Hate, f.ex) are extremely maze-like and the only reliable way to navigate it is to just follow the left wall no matter what.
Otherwise, I played a demo for a game years ago that I can’t remember the name of anymore that was built around non-Euclidian geometry, so walking through a door in one direction would take you to one place, but walking back in the other would take you somewhere else instead of back to where you came from and such.
- Comment on Does the average person have no critical thinking? 3 weeks ago:
I find the right balance (for me) to be actively seeking out conversations that challenge my beliefs and worldview, being open to being wrong, and developing a good bullshit detector. I guess growing up during the Cold War helped instill in me a fair amount of distrust for authority of any kind helped. Even still I believed the propaganda about the US being a beacon of freedom and democracy until I was exposed to the truth of the matter, but still, I sought out counter-narratives and listened to the weight of evidence and was willing to admit to being wrong and changing my views, so… shrug
- Comment on Game design question : how to make a "trapped" player character? 3 weeks ago:
Yeah, you could maybe combine the sliding-tile-puzzle thing with the beneficial spell so you’re not just sitting there watching everything play out with nothing to do (though autobattlers are apparently a thing so maybe that’d be fine?)
Also, if you happen to find that game based on Game of Life I’d like to give that a shot, sounds interesting.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
I wasn’t disputing it, just marveling at how long it’s been since I’ve heard someone use the term.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Oh, interesting. Fair enough, that seems like a useful service then.
- Comment on Game design question : how to make a "trapped" player character? 3 weeks ago:
What is the core gameplay loop you envision here? Cause I can come up with a few ideas, but if you have specific ideas they probably won’t apply. Also there’s a particular balance to be struck: if you hamstring the player too much it won’t feel like a game, and if you give them too much leeway they won’t feel trapped.
The first idea that comes to mind is: the princess is a sorceress who is trapped by magic to the tower which means she can’t leave and doesn’t have access to her full magical powers (you could include a progression mechanic where the more bosses the knight defeats, or the more magical crystals he shatters, or whatever, the more you can help him.) But she’s still scrying on him, watching his progress, throwing the occasional beneficial spell or nuking crowds of dangerous enemies before he gets overwhelmed, etc. The reduced interactivity will make the player feel trapped (and slowly less so as the game progresses). But maybe the scrying window is smallish so you can’t see the whole field at once, and it slowly grows as her power increases.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Wow, I haven’t heard the term ‘script kiddie’ since I used to hang out on alter.net/#hack on IRC back in the 90s.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Sounds like a scam to me, ‘cause all downloads are at ‘the best of your internet speed’ unless you’re doing something on your end to throttle it. Reminds me of the bullshit ‘Monster Cable’ thing from the early 2000s, it was basically an expensive ethernet cable that purported to somehow increase your internet speeds. Yeah, bad ethernet cables can reduce your internet speed, but only over longer runs (unless the shielding is visibly damaged or whatever), but this thing was only 6’ long so it was just a regular ass cat5 cable with a fancy paint-job that costs twice what a regular old 6’ patch cable would. This seems like the bullshit software version of that.
- Comment on How would you run a society? 3 weeks ago:
No, I did not have some good bases to build from. I built myself back up from a years-long depression in which I had firmly decided that I was definitely going to end my life. But when the moment came I discovered that, for whatever reason, I just couldn’t do it. At which point I was left with no choice but to start finding ways to make life a bit less miserable no matter what it took. I dug myself out of that hole not because I had ‘good bases to build from’ but because I had no other choice. It sucked a whole lot for a long time, but having come through the other side of it I can tell you that it was absolutely worth it to put in the effort. Also when I say rekindled curiosity I mean the kind everyone has in childhood. I lost it sometime around puberty (for a variety of reasons), and didn’t get it back until my 40s.
But if that’s the case re:running out the clock, let me ask you this - and I am by NO means suggesting a particular course of action here - why keep marking time? What do you gain from it that’s better than the alternative? There must be something, right? Figure out what it is and latch onto it like it’s the last lifeboat off the Titanic. The thing about life is that you don’t find meaning, you don’t get handed meaning by someone else, you make it yourself: you decide what is meaningful to you and what isn’t. If you’re content with the way things are then great, but if not then it’s on you to make a change.
- Comment on How would you run a society? 3 weeks ago:
They’re skills, they require practice like everything else.
I have been on disability and unable to work for ~14 years now, and I certainly went through a long phase of just being a big couch potato with no ambition or dream other than to do the least amount of work I could possibly get away with and still have a tolerable life. My house was a mess, I was a mess, shit fell through the cracks, etc. But it wasn’t those things that drove me out of that pit, it was boredom. I started watching youtube videos and stumbled into science-related topics and discovered that despite hating school I actually quite enjoy learning. That’s what rekindled that curiosity in me, the drive to be doing something to better myself all the time, even if it was just packing my head full of information that served no other purpose other than it just being fucking cool to know shit about the world. From there I got motivated to read (I used to read literally everything I could get my hands on, and stopped for various reasons), to start caring about my health, to take care of myself, etc, and from there I started wanting things again. I discovered that what I - a ~20-year veteran of network engineering and security - am passionate about is writing and politics, so now I divide most of my time between seeking out deep, serious political discussions/debates and trying to write a novel (emphasis on the ‘trying’; maybe it’ll work out, maybe it won’t, but in the meantime I’m writing and it’s making me happy.)
I’m not saying all this to say ‘lookit me, I’m so fuckin’ awesome’, but to say that even going from being really depressed it’s still possible to find things in the world to be interested in and if you pursue those interests you will find something you’re passionate about. If you want to.
- Comment on How would you run a society? 3 weeks ago:
Passion isn’t something you either have or you don’t, it’s something you develop by being curious about the world, by seeing a need that you could fulfill and wanting to feel useful, etc. Sitting on the couch all day is not the way to develop your passion (take it from someone who has done it). Find something you care about, find a way to help make it better. But, if everyone’s needs are met by automation I see no reason you couldn’t be a giant couch potato if that’s all you want out of life, because no contribution is required of anyone at that point. I’m not here to judge.
- Comment on How would you run a society? 3 weeks ago:
We definitely have aliens in spaceships flying around in the real world.
I, uh… we’re gonna have to agree to disagree on that one, chief.
but you don’t get magic powers you still have to have scientist and tech bros figuring shit out and inventing new shit and YOU have to teach at least the first few generations how to do that.
But the aliens have already invented all that shit, so it seems like a real dick move to not let us use it. Especially since if we have to reinvent technology from the ground up all over again there’s a whoooole lot of people who are going to die that wouldn’t have had to otherwise, so that’s trending into ‘if god exists he’s a fucking asshole for allowing people to suffer needlessly’ territory. I’m gonna assume they’re helpful aliens, cause otherwise I’d have to pause my experiment to tell them just exactly what I think of them, but with guns instead of a few impolite words.
Why do I assume people wouldn’t contribute? It seems reasonable that at least some people will want to smoke weed instead of building houses, but idk! I literally said that I wasn’t sure and asked what the solution was because this is fun little prompt that I am curious about and want to hear everyone’s different perspectives on. I think that asking follow up questions is kinda reasonable.
That’s fair. If everyone’s needs are taken care of then there’s no requirement to contribute at all. Sit on the couch and smoke weed if that’s what makes you happy. But having done that for a few years I have to say I found it hard to not get up and do something useful on occasion. In the scenario where everything isn’t fully automated? Well, if you don’t care about your community and don’t want to make your/their lives better, why are you a part of it? Maybe you’d be happier somewhere else. Life (currently) requires effort to sustain, if you aren’t willing to put in that effort then it seems like you’re probably not terribly interested in continuing to live, so maybe there’s a conversation to be had about that.
- Comment on How would you run a society? 3 weeks ago:
Why do you imagine people wouldn’t contribute? People aren’t only motivated by money - unless I’ve somehow been missing out on getting paid for doing the dishes, cleaning up trash at the park, or helping my friends and neighbors out this whole time. People are so programmed by capitalism to stop any idea that comes into their head that might challenge the status quo and apply the ‘rugged individualism’ bullshit to it until they figure out how it couldn’t possibly work, while failing to realize that humans worked together for thousands of years before capitalism came along and taught us all that we should be thinking of ourselves first, last, and only.
But also you missed something important here, in the first two words:
Fully automated luxury gay space communism for everyone!
What contribution do you imagine is required if automation can meet everyone’s needs? This isn’t the real world, we’ve got goddamned aliens in space ships flying around, there’s no reason to believe someone with that level of technology couldn’t automate away literally everything. And even if that wasn’t the case, the point of the bit I said about education was explicitly to deprogram people who are still hung up on capitalism’s ‘fuck you I got mine’ attitude, if that’s required (the prompt said nothing about where these people come from, what their preconceived notions are, etc, so I was covering all bases.)
- Comment on How would you run a society? 3 weeks ago:
Fully automated luxury gay space communism for everyone!
Stipulations Seriously though, my goal would be to build a society that exists for and is utterly committed to providing for the needs of all of its citizens. All else is secondary. The rule is simple: have a pulse? Congratulations, you’ve won a lifetime supply of all the clean air, healthy food, pure water, sturdy and comfortable housing, quality education, and top-tier healthcare you need to live a long, comfortable life in which you can pursue whatever you’re passionate about.
Aside from teaching skills and such, education would also convey the importance of community, cooperation, helping each other, etc to the pursuit of maximizing individual liberty for everyone.
- Comment on As a child of the 90s we grew up with PC Political Correctness. Is that WOKE but just in a different form? 3 weeks ago:
It’s political correctness expanded to also care about how people talk about gender issues and such. That’s all. And it’s so hilarious to see people feel threatened by such an in offensive idea as ‘maybe respect people and how they want to be addressed or referred to.’
- Comment on Reminder if you're leaving Discord for this Revolt server ( Linux + Steam Deck devs / creators) 3 weeks ago:
Fair enough.
I kinda don’t though. I quite enjoy real-time chat and voice and video with friends. It’s not like forums don’t exist at all anymore tho - you’re on one right now. I get my forum experience from places like reddit or lemmy, and I use them for very different things, so I’m glad both exist.
- Comment on Reminder if you're leaving Discord for this Revolt server ( Linux + Steam Deck devs / creators) 3 weeks ago:
Forums are just not great for real-time interaction like discord chat is, not to mention the integration of voice chat, video streaming, etc is just too convenient to give up without replacing it with something similar. I too wish discord/whatever replacement gets attention was more searchable and kept stuff long-term, but… if you want to post info that lasts, post it on lemme and link it on discord or whatever.
- Comment on Why are popes always really old? 4 weeks ago:
Interesting, I didn’t know that. I was gonna say it certainly hasn’t been any of the recent ones.
- Comment on Praise jeebus 4 weeks ago:
lol, thanks, on both counts. :)
- Comment on Why are popes always really old? 4 weeks ago:
Usually pick one of their own == have never not picked one of their own, right?
- Comment on Why are popes always really old? 4 weeks ago:
Because only cardinals can be pope and it takes a long time to work your way up through the priesthood into administration and such like any organization. Also, unlike most businesses or governments they never hire some young(-ish) new ceo or department head from outside.
- Comment on ‘Star Wars’ Series in the Works From ‘Lost’ Boss Carlton Cuse, Son Nick Cuse 4 weeks ago:
Can’t wait to miss that, just like I missed Lost.
- Comment on Here’s an idea 4 weeks ago:
Oh, I misunderstood, sorry. Yeah, that’s what I was getting at too.
- Comment on Here’s an idea 4 weeks ago:
Yeah and my point is that any monopoly is harmful and should be busted, but the trust-busters seem to only care about the ones that affect their rich patrons.
- Comment on Here’s an idea 4 weeks ago:
And Walmart isn’t? I bet Kroger and Aldi would have something to say about their entry into the grocery market.
- Comment on Here’s an idea 4 weeks ago:
Indeed. It’s frankly surprising that they’re pursuing antitrust cases against Google and Meta now, cause since the break-up of AT&T we’ve spent a lot of years not giving a shit about how anti-competitive giant corporations are.
- Comment on Here’s an idea 4 weeks ago:
If you want a more egalitarian workplace I’m afraid the only solution is to remove the capitalists siphoning off the surplus value created by the labor of the workers. Co-ops are one way to do this on the small scale, but especially in the US they will have a hard time competing with giant corporations which is why they aren’t common anymore: they’ve largely been driven out of most markets by much larger entities.
- Comment on Praise jeebus 4 weeks ago:
Is that blood then? Cause that’s kind of a lot of blood, especially considering the usual depiction just involves like a few trickles and rivulets, not whole-ass sheets of blood enough to cover even a startlingly short adult.
People were a lot shorter back then
Not that much shorter. The average height for men in ancient Rome, taken from remains recovered from Pompeii/etc, was ~165cm (5’6") (I can’t find a link to the study itself, but it’s quoted below), while the global average height today is 5’8", so people were only a couple inches shorter on average 2000 years ago. I suspect the range between minimum and maximum height is greater today because many people near those extremes have health problems that tend to be fatal without treatment, so that may skew perspectives.
The major samples from Herculaneum and Pompeii reveal the stature of the ancient adult body. The average height for females was calculated from the data to have been 155 cm in Herculaneum and 154 cm in Pompeii: that for males was 169 cm in Herculaneum and 166 cm in Pompeii. This is somewhat higher than the average height of modern Neapolitans in the 1960s and about 10 cm shorter than the WHO recommendations for modern world populations.
- Laurence, Ray. “Health and the Life Course at Herculaneum and Pompeii.” Health in Antiquity. Ed. Helen King. London: Routledge, 2005.
Now let’s do some pixel-counting to figure out how tall big J is in that image. The cave is 640px in height and it’s indicated that it’s 6’, while the J-man is 465px tall.
6’ *12 = 72", 640/72 = 8.89px/in.
465/8.89 = 52.3"
So shorty over there is 4’4" tall, or more than a foot shorter than the average height during his lifetime. Also, can I just say: Hell yeah, I fucking nailed it when I guesstimated 4 and a half feet tall in my original comment.
- Comment on Praise jeebus 4 weeks ago:
Those must’ve been some really long thorns if he need to be made that much shorter for his crown to fit within the allotted 6’.
