blarghly

@blarghly@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Unless she goes through a particularly weird rebellious phase and has other cubans to integrate with, with her pedigree, she will be very white. Outwardly, she will likely just look like a tan white girl. Socially, based on the international mixing and gay integration in your family, she will be socialized as a part of the globalization class, who give up any real cultural identity in the service of improved integration with people of many diverse cultures - and this class is predominantly inhabited by white people. She might go through a phase where she wants to learn more about her cuban heritage. But being part of the globalization class, she will identify the living elements of cuban culture as trashy, and will quickly (though discreetly) reject them - if she ever comes into contact with them at all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How to turn the phrase "The 1%" into a grawlixed slur?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Welcome to lemmy

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the deal with AI datacenters using water for cooling?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Followup: what are the impediments to using, say, seawater instead?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who's in the wrong here?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The impression I get is that teal and grey have been hooking up casually for a while and have been open in their discussions about actively looking for other people. Teal’s “thank god” is a call back to grey’s consistent difficulty finding s suitible partner or complaints about being unable to find one. Grey then responds with faux outrage.

  I’ve had these sorts of message back and forth with fwbs before, but even meaner. They’re hilarious

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨average twitter political discussion⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Tbf, they did get Russia epic wrong

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Streamers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Female is used as an adjective here. Its fine. It isn’t a dirty word.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Real shii...⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Usually people with back pain have back pain due to muscle spasms/tightness/knots which are the back trying to protect itself from a percieved threat. The solition is to make the back stronger so it can handle more load, and train the mind to not percieve regular stressors as threats.

  Hence, poor posture is not the cause of back pain, but an effect of the same source - lack of strength in the back musculature.

  A heavy backpack should train you over time to be stronger to handle the load, so it is actually good for you.

  And your sleeping posture exerts almost no load or pressure on the back at all, and should literally be irrelivant.

  Actual solutions to back pain:

  1. As another poster commented, get some magnesium. Magnesium is an electrolyte that allows your muscles to relax, and a magnesium deficiency can cause chronic muscle tightness and knots - which may manifest as back pain. Magnesium supplements are an option, or you could try just eating some spinach.
  2. After decades of research, the science is clear - almost all chronic back pain is psychosomatic, or at least, can be resolved via psychosomatic therapies. Get a copy of the book The Way Out, and use the techniques described. It is available for free from the usual sources.
  3. Get stronger. If you have significant, debilitating back pain, you should start under the supervision of a physio. However, if you just have occasional annoying tweaks, then you can start by just looking up some exercises online, going to a yoga class, starting lifting (with reasonable weights), or simply going for a daily walk. The stronger you get, the more resistant you will be to back pain in the future, all other things being equal.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨when my ex's dad told him this, this is unironically what i thought about⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You can continue congratulating friends like this.

  The implied meaning is that he is lucky because she is attractive.

  Attractive women get more interest from more guys, so any individual faces more competition. So what you are really saying is “good work on making yourself attractive and putting yourself out there.”

  But as you are complimenting your friend, you are also subtly complimenting his new girlfriend. Protip: people like being told they are attractive. And anyone with half a brain knows that people find other people attractive regardless of relationship status.

  So yeah, there’s a subtext. It’s a compliment for both people. People like compliments. The only people who wouldn’t like a compliment like this are terminally online lemmings with insecurities about their attractiveness and weird sexual hangups.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Deal with it, Libby.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly, I’d be stoked to own a house like this. Tin roof will last 60+ years with no maintenance. Classic country aesthetic with a nice big front porch. Nice woods to walk around in. Bonus points if it has a wood fire stove - free fuel when I do fire mitigation on the property, and when I’m out of that, pellets are dirt cheap. Obviously the decor could use an update, and some paint would be a nice touch. Though… if the siding is still in good shape, I think maybe a nice summer oak stain would make it look real nice. Then build some bird feeders. Bat boxes. Plant some fruit trees. Solar hot water on the roof. Then lay a big sheet of plywood out in the front yard on some cinderblocks as a table and invite all my friends over for a potluck. Drink wine. Play music. Have a bonfire. Good times…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨wish i wasn't 3 15 years ago⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Now trying to turn this into a PCM

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Borders⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Checkmate, anarchists!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨First the frogs turned gay and now this⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, you’re a fiction writer!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Story of How Learning to Juggle Changed My Life⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Slow clap

  Congrats dude/dudette/however you identify yourself now. I went through some of the same struggles, and you really hit the nail on the head. You just have to find that one thing that gives you hope and drive, and that opens the door to everything else. For me, it was backpacking, and then rock climbing. I learned a bit of juggling in college, (really, just enough to do cascade and tennis and steal a little), but I’ve been interested in picking it up again, so I have a set of balls arriving in the mail today.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨thinking outside the box⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Relevant

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨First the frogs turned gay and now this⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well of course. But some people want to hunt, and that desire can be the thing that tips the scale for them to get them to plunk down the money. Its the same reason NPR gives you a tote bag when you donate to them - people can carry noble intentions in their hearts, but they carry selfishness too. Effective fundraising targets both.

  And again, they are only killing animals which are already dying (as far as I know). Preserves keep track of the health of their lions and elephants and other large, popular animals. If a lion is on the verge of death, the preserve has 2 choices - watch it starve to death and get eaten by hyenas; or pop it with a rifle and kill it instantly. And if a rich white guy wants to pull the trigger in exchange for a pile of cash? Great.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨First the frogs turned gay and now this⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, this is a broad justification in favor of trophy hunting that applies to bucks in New Jersey as well as it does to antelope on the savanna. I’m not saying we shouldn’t fund and support the reintroduction of apex predators. But, like, it’s complicated.

  One of the biggest hurdles is that typically the rural people living in these areas don’t want these predators reintroduced. “Lions eat people” is a very reasonable concern in Africa. Ranchers in Wyoming hate wolves because the wolves will hunt their sheep and cows (though research has shown that this fear is typically overblown). And reintroducing apex predators into areas with a large and porus rural-urban interface (like New Jersey) would create a lot of problems for both residents and the predators themselves. As an example, a small rural town near me has had a rash of mountain lion attacks in the past few years, where the mountain lions would kill peoples dogs when let out in their back yards.

  We had a bill proposed in the last few years in Colorado to reintroduce wolves. I was surprised when my friend who is a wildlife ecologist was opposed to it. “Some dumbass tourist is going to try to pet them, get killed, and set the public perception of wolves back 100 years - we need to increase reintroduction efforts along contiguous wildlife corridors in sparsely populated areas, not just where voters are the most liberal.”

  So, like, it’s a good idea. But it will take a lot of time and effort, and faces significant political challenges. And in the meantime, we already have a functioning system of hunting for population control.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨First the frogs turned gay and now this⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ll respond earnestly, even if my comment won’t be taken that way.

  The point of view I try to adopt is not about who is to blame, but what should be done.

  Kept in a condition where they have to prioritize eating before conservation.

  Suppose we murder all the evil western capitalist elites keeping them in poverty. Now what? There are still millions of people who cannot be supported by the land via a hunter-gatherer or subsistence farming lifestyle. As Smith wrote more than 100 years ago in The Wealth of Nations, a nation and its people do not gain wealth by extracting things from the ground, but by adopting technological innovations and creating lasting institutions. These things take time. And during that time, the impoverished will still see poaching elephant tusks as a good way to bring their family out of poverty. So what do we do? Well, we protect the elephants until the population is not so impoverished that they gain an appreciation for elephants beyond their economic value.

  Meanwhile, the people working at the western NGOs which do a lot of the funding of these preserves (and which have done and continue to do a lot of the work to being average Africans out of poverty) do indeed care a lot about not taking a colonialist stance. But a common problem they run into is corruption. Whether you are digging wells or building hospitals or saving the lions, it is common that any given official at any given level will step in to take their cut. While NGOs will do their best to avoid these losses, they are inevitable to a certain extent. And trying to circumvent or oust government officials would be very, very colonial.

  So the NGOs play ball, and generally try to find common ground with the governments and the preserves. Of course, not all Africans are poor and nature-ambivalent, just as not all westerners are colonizers. And typically, the Africans involved with the preserves do care about protecting the animals and ecosystems in them quite a bit. And importantly, the preserves are the ones issuing the hunting permits. The locals who direct, organize, and run the preserves on a day to day basis have determined that from the position they are in right now, yes, they do want to issue these hunting permits. So challenging this issuance seems somewhat colonialist to me.

  Also, big game hunters are not bloodthirsty killers, they pay millions to kill animals not for bragging rights, but to help conservation.

  No population is a monolith, and people can have multiple reasons for doing what they do. Talk to a hunter in an open minded way about the last hunt they went on, and they will give you any number of reasons they enjoyed it - exercise, fresh air, camaraderie. But also possibly the thrill of the moment they successfully took the shot, and the pride they feel about the trophy they took home. Still, I don’t think this necessarily makes any individual a bad person - hunting is a ritual humans have engaged in since before we were human. And hunting has long been not only a necessity, but a mark of status in indigenous tribes around the world for millenia. Should we also cast an indigenous person who specifically pursues the largest and most dangerous boar near his villiage, so he can boast about his kill and wear its tusks as a necklace, as an evil, frothing, bloodthirsty killer?

  Just ask Don Jr.

  He also plays golf, combs his hair, and breathes air. The association isn’t a ding against your doctor, who also golfs.

  They even do a lot to minimize the suffering of the animal, out of the goodness of their hearts apparently, and not because that’s a basic rule of hunting that you have to follow if you wanna keep hunting.

  This is a norm enforced by… other hunters… Who else would enforce it? It isnt hard to go into the woods and shoot an animal in the leg and then torture it to death if you feel like it. There’s not a game warden hiding behind every tree in the forest. Really, the fact that all hunters know about this norm seems like a point in their favor.

  Those dumb Africans need sensible hunters to teach them about conservation, don’t you know?

  Well, no. The pragmatic and conservation-minded Africans reached a mutually beneficial agreement with the hunters to help fund their preserve, to protect the species there against the actions other Africans might take due to the pressures of poverty, which is a difficult and complex issue to deal with, but in which both Africans and foreign governments and NGOs have been making slow - but steady - progress on for the last half century.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨First the frogs turned gay and now this⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, I never said it did. I said that money from trophy hunting promotes conservation.

  The source you linked seems to have its own bias, in that it promotes Compassionate Conservation, which is more of an ideological argument than a conservation-minded one. I don’t have a problem with taking an ideological stance here, but I think it should be recognized as such. And it seems to me that this organization is telling some half truths in the service of its ideological goals.

  For example, the headline of the article is that trophy hunting money is not reinvested in communities. But to me, this is moving the goalposts. If the goal is to preserve lions and elephants and their natural habitat, then it is great if we can do that while also investing in local communities. But if the money flows into the pocket of some local corrupt bureaucrat, and that bureaucrat then posts guards to protect the animals from poachers and doesn’t sell the land to local farmers, then the goal of protecting the lions and elephants has been achieved. This is why I specified that we must make economic appeals to the people who control the land - which is not necessarily the general public. It is also why I specified that we do not live in an ideal world. If the idea of funding a corrupt bureaucrat while the locals around the preserve remain impoverished turns your gut… well, yeah. The world is full of injustices. We can definitely say it would be better if these people benefitted economically - but we shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Demanding that every single problem in the world be solved all at once while sitting on our couches in wealthy western nations is most likely not a great strategy for achieving any goal.

  Later, the article states that an elephant is worth more over its lifetime for tourists to see and photograph than it is worth as a trophy hunt. Which would be compelling if preserves were issuing hunting licenses on random elephants. But as far as I have heard, they don’t do this. The impression I get is that most preserves have strong ties to foreign NGOs which provide both a lot of funding and a lot of oversight. And then of course the preserves themselves know that the elephants being in a lot of tourist dollars by being alive. So of course they aren’t going to issue licenses to hunt young, healthy elephants. As far as I am aware, the licenses for hunting species like elephats are issued to individuals to allow them to hunt a single, specific animal which is sick, injured, or otherwise dying. From an economic standpoint, the animal has already provided the full benefit it would provide to the park for safari/photography money, and now the best use of the elephant is for trophy hunting money. And, again, from a humanitarian view, the elephant is being saved from a slow, painful, and often gruesome death.

  So if you want to make an ideological argument against hunting, go ahead and make it. But the arguments presented by your source seem disingenuous to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨First the frogs turned gay and now this⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Although many disagree with big game hunting all Ernie’s hunts were strictly licensed and above board and were registered as conservation in culling animal numbers

  Nothing here really indicates that the guy was a bad person, other than some vague categorizations like “he was rich” or “he was a hunter”.

  I can’t say anything about his deeds or misdeeds as a rich guy. But I feel like there should be some context added about big game hunters - namely, that they are important to conservation efforts.

  Sport hunters realized probably 100 years ago that unchecked hunting of their quarry would soon lead to the extinction of such species, and thus, the extinction of their sport. Hence, they were a big part of the early conservation efforts of the early 20th century, and typically continue to be big (and organized) advocates of conservation efforts today - supporting the protection of ecosystems and public lands.

  Of course, this isn’t to say hunters, as individuals or as a group, are without their flaws. You would likely find more than a few climate skeptics in their ranks. But it seems to me that someone who goes out to interact with nature regularly would be a far more sympathetic ear to being swayed than their cousin Jim Bob who just sits on the couch all day watching Fox News.

  In particular, there seems to be an idea that hunters are some sort of bloodthirsty killers. But most hunters will explain that they do a lot to limit animal suffering by lining up precise shots and using bullets or arrows designed to kill as quickly as possible. While most hunting done in developed nations these days is done for sport, the hunters do still eat the meat, and they are quick to point out that this is probably the most ethical way to get meat - from an animal who was able to live a good life in a natural habitat, and which then died instantly. Far better than the cow which lived its whole life in a tiny feed lot up to its knees in shit before it was turned into a hamburger. And if you ask them why they hunt, they will talk about spending time in nature, spending time with friends, and feeling like they are taking part in the circle of life in a way humans have been since we roamed the African savannah.

  And on a practical level - almost every natural area in the world needs hunters in order to control animal populations. In most areas, apex predators have been brought to near extinction by a number of factors - mostly the destruction of large contiguous areas of habitat for the purposes of farming. The result is an explosion in the population of prey species, which will then have negative impacts on the environment as a whole by overpopulating and overfeeding. Thus there is a need to regularly cull herds. We could pay land managers to do this themselves, of course. But why do that when there is a population of sport hunters willing to pay to do the job for you?

  Which brings us to big game hunting in Africa. Africa, you may have heard, is poor. While conditions are improving, Africa remains one of the biggest hotbeds of world poverty, and it is currently undergoing a massive population boom. And adjacent to these populations of desperately poor people, you have the last strongholds of some of the most incredible species on Earth. I have a friend who regularly travels to Africa to help with a small NGO he is affiliated with. As he tells it, the attitude of the average local is “I think they should kill all the lions. They eat people.” They think the land would be better used for more farms or more housing, and see poachers as just doing some honest work. African governments are similarly not very interested in protecting these natural habitats - the more democratic ones are typically mostly focused on getting people food, water, shelter, and healthcare on an extremely meager budget. And the more autocratic ones are concerned with pleasing the multinational corporations exploiting their land and quelling populist uprisings. Both the people and the governments must be given a reason to care about preserving their natural environments. An Economic reason. The cold, hard truth is that if you want to save the elephants, you must show the people who control the land that having elephants will make them more money than not having elephants.

  Enter: big game hunters. The preserves, of course, get some funding from NGOs and normal ecotourism safaris. But more money is more better, and big game hunters come with money. African preserves face the same challenges as wildland areas in the rest of the world, as apex predator populations dwindle, prey populations increase to untenable levels. They must be culled somehow, so why not let someone pay you for the opportunity? Meanwhile, the apex predators and megafauna themselves will all die eventually. And what is the fate of an aging lion with an arthritic limp? To slowly starve to death, until he is too weak to fend off the hyenas that will tear the flesh from his bones while he is still alive? Auctioning off a hunting license for a dying lion will both shorten the animal’s suffering and result in a big payday for the preserve so they can pay to protect all the other lions from poachers.

  The great irony being that whenever we see a news story about big game hunting, the comments inevitably cast the hunter as the villian - when instead, they are an active participant in preserving endangered species and limiting animal suffering. Is this exactly the world we would all like to see? No, not really. But solving problems of shrinking habitats and worldwide poverty will take a while, and protecting endangered species with bug game hunters’ deep pockets is a pretty good solution right now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The forbidden fourth leche⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I will keep upvoting this every time it is posted

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the US so into Israel?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Probably the thing to figure out is how that surface-level understanding is even formed.

  I think probably the biggest factor is simply the fact that WW2 occupies such a large space in the American historical zeitgeist. WW2 is a story that makes us look good, and we like stories that make us look good, so we keep telling them. And in the WW2 story, the jews are the victims, and their happy ending is creating a homeland of their own. So the American view, by default, is that Israel has an ethical right to exist as a home state for the jewish people.

  Many jews in the united states, especially older jews, are very sympathetic to this view. While they have never experienced systemic persecution themselves, the jewish community at large is bonded over their historic persecution and internally reinforces these norms. Meanwhile, jewish people are significantly overrepresented in the entertainment industry, in wealth, and in positions of political power. The meme of “jews run the world” is a conspiracy theory - but jews do have an outsized influence in society relative to their population. This is likely due to founders effects of immigrating with some level of wealth or expectation of wealth, compounded over time with the additional benefits of being part of a social network which advances its own. For example, a young jewish comedian will have another jewish comedian friend who has an aunt who has a friend who knows Seinfeld’s neice’s boyfriend, who can arrange for him to open at a moderately popular LA comedy club. Being part of the jewish diaspora will give you opportinities that you otherwise wouldn’t get. And so you have a lot of wealthy jews in positions of power in the government and the media, with a culturally imposed mandate to consistently remind the non-jews of the jewish history of persecution and the need to support and protect them from further persecution.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Close enough⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  *apofenia

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the US so into Israel?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not opposed. Lets do it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the US so into Israel?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I highly doubt world leaders and diplomats are high fiving in board rooms talking about their shared love of imperialism and colonialism, and how they feel a special bond because of their nations’ shared history in this respect

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the US so into Israel?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So you are playing the game, then?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the US so into Israel?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, would you prefer we bond better with the Saudis and Iranians over a history of religious fundamentalism and subjugating women? Because we can do that, too, if you’d prefer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the US so into Israel?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sure, in some parts of the country. But Jewish influence in national US politics comes more from the population’s outsized influence in wealth, certain industries, and political positions - not from the average jewish voting bloc itself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the US so into Israel?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There is a difference between the friendliness between the west and Israel, which is based on a long history of alliance and a shared culture, and the friendliness between the west and other middle eastern states, which is understood to be based entirely on economic and strategic benefits. Even if sanctions on Iran were lifted and relations were normalized, they would likely occupy a similar “friendliness level” to that of Saudi Arabia. Willing trading partners - but keeping the west at arm’s length

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the US so into Israel?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This paints an extremely bleak picture of the US population that really doesn’t match reality very well.

  To start, there are about 10 million Jews in the US, if we consider the most liberal possible definition of being Jewish, which includes even people who don’t consider themselves Jewish but who live in a Jewish household. Source. With the current US population of 350 million, that means about 3% of the population is Jewish. That is not enough to sway any real policy decisions, unless the group formed an extremely organized voting bloc, which they do not.

  Evangelical Christians make up a more significant chunk of the US population, but they tend to be more concerned with restricting women’s bodily autonomy. If you were to grab a random evangelical off the street, they might know about this rapture theory, but they would probably be like “why are you talking to me, I’m trying to buy milk”

  It is difficult to measure how many people in the US are racist or antisemetic, since such topics are taboo and people tend not to advertise their stances. But I would guess that the population of racists or antisemites who are really in the weeds enough to support Israel would be lower than the population of Jews. Most of these people are not smart enough to pull off those mental gymnastics.

  Instead, the important thing to know about the average American is that they are not keeping up with global geopolitics. They understand that part of the reason for the creation of Israel was so the Jews wouldn’t get genocided again, and they know that Nazis and genocide are bad, so they support it. They might have heard about Hamas, Gaza, or a two state solution, but they would fumble if you asked them to explain the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah, or asked them to point to Gaza on a map of Israel. And if you asked them to explain the two state solution, a lot of them would struggle to remember what the other state even is. Their main concerns if you start talking to them about the Isreal-Palestine conflict are (1) to make sure that you understand that they are not a nazi, and don’t want the Jews to be genocided again and (2) exiting the conversation as soon as possible so they can buy milk and watch Survivor.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Giant Drake ice sculpture in downtown Toronto is getting hosed down because fans were lighting fires to melt it.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A urinal has been a sculpture for a couple decades now