TranscendentalEmpire

@TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rip lol⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m convinced divers just used it so they could sound even more elitist and like astronauts when they’re just dudes with a few grand and nothing better to do.

  Hey… Some of us just like blowing bubbles and hanging out with fish.

  It is pretty fun, but to be honest not worth the money if you have to pay for the training yourself, especially if you don’t live near a good diving spot.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New JFK theory dropped!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  People don’t generally know that Irish heads are larger to fit enough explosives in them to just do that sometimes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nerve-controlled prosthetics⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah… Prosthetic companies spend lots of money on marketing to make people think we’ve advanced a lot further than we have.

  Myoelectric limbs have been around for decades, and though the terminal devices have gotten more life-like, it’s arguable if they’ve gotten any more functional.

  Myoelectric limbs are just exhausting to use for more than a couple minutes at a time. You have to concentrate and flex individual muscle groups in your forearm to get a controlled response.

  I have patients with mechanical upper limb prosthetics that are a lot more functional than I’ve ever seen anyone with a powered limb.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nerve-controlled prosthetics⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Technically all prosthetics are “nerve controlled”, but what you are describing is called nerve integration. Which is possible, but very rare and mostly experimental when it comes to prosthetics.

  What she is wearing is called a myoelectric prosthetic, and they have been around since the late 70s. The myoelectric sensors require a healthy muscle group that the user can activate by flexing. This is a problem with a lot of amputees, as some may be missing from traumatic amputations, and the rest tend to attrify over time.

  Myoelectric prosthetic are not reflexive, and you do have to consciously flex the individual muscles to make the terminal end device function in a specific way, and it does take a lot of concentration and practice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨snow isn't real⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They don’t want you to know about the lost expedition of 1524. This map is the only surviving evidence of when the famous explorer from Genoa The Barone Giusseppe Palloncino took his high altitude hot air balloon over the entire northern hemisphere.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Double Plug Experiment⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve seen similar things with homes with water damage. One of the shitty things about water damage is that you have to redo a lot of the electrics throughout the house because it can cause corrosion. Corrosion in connectors in things like outlets increases resistance and can become a fire risk.

  I’m guessing the whole wall got sustained water damage causing corrosion in the outlet, increasing resistance, which caused it to throw off some heat. The heat dried out the plaster and prevented mold growth.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  People in China definitely don’t live scared to criticise the government, I’ve had plenty of Chinese exchange students and discussed openly politics with them and they have no problem doing so. In fact, people in China have a much better opinion of their system of governance than we do anywhere in the west:

  I think it’s kinda a more complicated subject than anyone’s presented in this argument. There are plenty of people who are afraid of criticizing the government, but they make up a tiny minority of the actual population and are more than likely ethnic minorities.

  The overwhelming majority of Chinese nationals have very positive views of their government, which makes sense considering the advances this government has made over the last 50 years.

  In my experience if you have talked to exchange students who are critical of the Chinese government, they are typically from Hong Kong, or from very wealthy families who would prefer a more hands off approach when it comes to the government’s involvement in economics.

  Queer rights need improving but are not horrible, people are free to have a relationship with whomever they want (though older generations may not understand it and may show prejudice)

  Thats a bit of an understatement. As an Asian dude I can attest this isn’t an issue unique to China but, it’s a problem in any Asian country where Confucianism was prevalent in their history. You may be “free to have a relationship with anyone you want”, just so long as you are not loud about it. You will face discrimination in things like employment and housing, and more than likely be disowned from your family. Though the only time the government will really get involved is if you participate in activism.

  and thankfully China has no threat of a right wing party taking away the rights once they’re earned!

  I think this is a common misconception held by westerners, who typically associate cultural conservativism with economic liberalism. While there may not be a party representative of the economic right, that’s really detached from the cultural mores promoted by the government.

  All Eastern countries are more culturally conservative than most all western nations. And the values that the west associates with leftism are not typically aligned with what a country like China views as leftist policy. In fact, I would say the current make up is more culturally conservative than they were in the late 90 and 00s when they decriminalized thing like homosexuality. They are currently going through a bit of a nationalist streak, and with that are more culturally involved with promoting ideologies like Confucianism.

  While I don’t think they will recriminalize the LGBT community, their engagement with more typical leftist economic policy is no real indication of that. In fact, I think the more they utilize nationalism to promote their economic policy, the more likely they will emphasize their traditional cultural values, making it harder for lgbtq citizens to thrive within their communities.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨question for the culture⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think one critique I would add is that your previous statement of it being a social normative is likely a lot more accurate than blaming the state or religion. There are a ton of different states and religions where monogamy is the social norm, and we can even see it reflected in nature as well.

  Different relationship types are just better suited for certain animals in certain situations. Whether monogamy is still the most successful relationship type for modern humans is likely subjective.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SNSD the GOAT🫶⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Eh, you can still do a blood test in conjunction with a field sobriety test. Its not as cut and dry as something like alcohol, but to be honest it really shouldn’t be anyways considering how much more dangerous driving while drunk is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wake up sheeple⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No no no… They don’t even have waffle houses in Russia or the ocean.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We have a Secret... | JerryRigEverything [12:26]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ehh… I’ve worked in the durable medical equipment field in the past and this video is a bit misleading. The claim that they’ve saved the wheel chair community over 2 million dollars is dubious considering they are enticing people to opt out of insurance benefits to go out of pocket for covered items.

  The scene where they were asking how expensive their insurance chairs were is framing their chairs as the cheaper option…ignoring the fact that insurance chairs are paid for by your insurance?

  I don’t know what community this is really marketing too? Most people with severe mobility disabilities aren’t exactly in the financial position to spend a couple thousand dollars just to get their “custom” chairs a couple months faster.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A job's a job⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I worked with a dude when I was in college that used to buy broken TVs on eBay and swap out the guts, return them, and then sell the TVs to people on eBay.

  He was banned from a couple Walmarts around town because they caught on to what he was doing, but couldn’t actually prove he was doing fraud because we would also remove and re-solder the internal serial numbers back on the returned tv.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨That's how the world works.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Ehh… We kinda missed the boat on that by like a hundred years. Even before the Haber process allowed us to allocate ammonia chemically, we had started to worse and worse famine pop up globally. We just have more people on earth than the natural nitrogen cycle can support through agricultural means.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That was kinda my point about absolute equality. There will always be people with disabilities and therefore absolute equity and absolute meritocracies are mostly utopian philosophical concepts. Plus, if we’re doing idealist delights why bother with anything but luxury space communism?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes? I’m even friends with several queer people…shocking as that may be.

  I even know a few conservative leaning gay dudes, our gay district has a gaybar specifically for cowboys. Even they don’t hate or discriminate against flamboyant gay men. They might not seek their company or want anything to do with that particular scene, but they are still neighborly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  disclaimed explicitly that I don’t believe that speakers who use the phrase “toxic masculinity” believe that masculinity per se is toxic

  And did I accuse you of doing so?

  while I was writing, somebody else left a comment that does indeed interpret it that way.

  Yes, lemmy has a pretty established history of harboring a lot of misogynistic users which do not reflect the thoughts of everyday normal people.

  I don’t think we should be moderating our own behavior to satisfy people acting in bad faith or to the temper of bigots.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Imo an absolute meritocracy would first require a society of absolute equity. Otherwise how would you know if someone is actually more inherently better at something or if they just had more opportunity?

  I think meritocracies are a nice idea, but they’ve mostly been supported by societal elites throughout history because they know it’s easy to score when you’re born on third base.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  How did I misconstrue your statement?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  But let’s not give 'em a head start by using words that consistently turn off our audience, eh? In my experience, “privilege” and “toxic masculinity” do just that.

  Because the well funded rightwing think tanks have already started them…

  people using “evil homosexuals” don’t need to add the “evil,” because they’re bigots who believe that homosexuality is evil. Likewise, the people who use “toxic masculinity” don’t need to add the “toxic,” because they’re bigots who believe that masculinity is toxic.

  I use toxic masculinity and I don’t think masculinity is inherently toxic?

  And I don’t think a significant amount of people think masculinity by itself is toxic by itself. Otherwise everyone would be force femming their husbands, or hating any trans men choosing to express themselves.

  The only people who seem to be interpreting toxic masculinity as an implication of masculinity as a whole are people who seem to think all maledom is under siege.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  “Aren’t big fans” is not the same as being bigoted, or discriminating against…

  Do think there are some Lincoln Republic gays out their thinking Tommy is going to hell, not because he’s queer, but because he sashays too hard?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That would imply it’s the gay community itself that is not accepting flamboyant gays…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Nuance also exists…

  Also it’s not really a competition when only one group is being oppressed.

  Or are you claiming men are being oppressed by the system that was created and operated by men?

  My whole point is that women are systemically being targeted by a system created by men, specifically because they are women. While men are being negatively affected by a system built by men because of reasons besides their sex.

  I’m not claiming men do not experience hardship that is unique to their sex, it’s just not specifically being done to them because of their sex.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Nah. Many, many people who come from inside that peivilege are being naive. To think they’re trying to defend the privilege itself is exactly the problem coming from outside the blinders.

  Eh, I would say there are some people who are naive enough to not realize their own privileges. However, that itself is only possible because there are whole media systems coaching the reflective defense of their privilege in the first place.

  The “evil homosexuals” comment is trying to elucidate you to that reality for crying out loud, but noooo, you just want to make yourself feel better by pretending your choice of words cannot be perceived the same way…

  Lol, I was just remarking on how the modification of words with negative descriptors doesn’t reallyatter when the ideas behind the concept were bigoted to begin with.

  Your attitude is part of the problem.

  Yes, it’s the actions of people of color who made us this way… I’ve heard that before.

  Failure to communicate is a two way street, and you arguing the exact same phrasing is somehow magically not problematic from your side while being problematic from the other is exactly the issue OC’s talking about.

  I don’t really see how I am…? My whole point was that if we stopped using terms that bigoted people dislike and made up new ones, the new words would just end up being disliked by bigoted people.

  Stop being OK with creating in groups and out groups by such simple terms as “white” or “homosexual”.

  First of all… I can’t “other” white people as a whole, I’m not powerful enough to innact systemic racial programs, nor would I want to. The term white privilege is used to describe the systemic advantages white people have enacted over hundreds of years in this country.

  Secondly… Nothing I said can be interpreted as attempting to “other” homosexuals? The only time I refreced homosexuals was when I said someone willing to use a sentence that includes “evil homosexuals” wouldn’t be made better by removing the “evil” part. For a hyperbolic example if I said “the evil homosexuals did 9/11” wouldn’t be made better if I just said “the homosexuals did 9/11”.

  . If you want to other someone simply living their life, especially over differences they didn’t even ask for, then you’re still part of the problem.

  Something tells me you didn’t stray too far away from your conservative upbringing…

  I might not have white privilege, but I am still privileged when compared to the rest of the world, and I have no qualms about recognizing that. Anyone living in a rich nation is privileged when compared to the vast majority of the world that suffers in poverty. I didn’t ask for that, but I still recognize it as a problem that we need to address.

  Maybe you are feeling a little insecure, and maybe that’s a problem you should think about?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  cis straight white males is that they don’t have to deal with racism, sexism, and bigotry over who they are and who they love

  How does that racism materially present itself? With racism it’s by decades of economic support and government programs aimed at creating wealth for a certain ethnicity over another. With sex it’s decades of reinforcing gender roles and denying educational opportunities for women. Rules about race mixing were created to deny a dilution of the ethnic collective of political power.

  That’s not a zero sum game. We can all have that privilege. That privilege isn’t what causes bigotry.

  I would argue that it shouldn’t be a privilege, but a universal right.

  But for the most part we’re fighting in large part for equal good treatment. It’s not a zero sum game.

  I think you might want to look up the definition of privilege. You can’t be privileged unless someone is being disadvantaged. If you want to get rid of privilege then what you’re saying is you want everyone to be treated the same.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Women

  • economic inequality
  • unpaid labor and caregiving
  • gender based violence
  • greater healthcare discrepancies
  • professional and political barriers
  • education barriers

  Do you see the discrepancies between the two list? Everything you listed is something that we men either do to ourselves, or is done to us by a political/economic entity that is dominated by other males. The same can’t be said for list for women.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you’re running into a little cognitive dissonance. In this scenario, the privilege is what is causing the disadvantage in the first place. You cannot be privileged in a truly equal society, therefore you can’t elevate everyone to a privileged class, you can only equal the playing field.

  It’s a zero sum game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How possibly?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  fight over the definition of the word privilege. C’mon, let’s just ditch the word, ferchrissakes! Keep the concept, call it something more relatable!

  I think it’s naive to believe whatever terminology you use as an alternative wouldn’t eventually end up with the same stigma.

  The people who interpret it as “masculinity is toxic” aren’t doing it because they have a hearing disability, they interpret it that way as a means to justify their own beliefs.

  The same goes for your example of “evil homosexuals”. Anyone who is blaming all homosexuals for something does not have to modify them with the term evil for you to know they are being a bigot.

  I don’t think it’s people fighting for social justice who get unreasonably attached to words. I think that describes the people who feign an inability to utilize context or reason when they hear them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A communist and an anarchist walk into a bar..⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I am aware, but in any kind of debate in an open forum you should avoid any position that assumes a preconceived notion. I’m not saying everyone needs to submit a works cited page, but at least giving a brief summary of the events you are using to support your argument helps eliminate any kind of miscommunication.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A communist and an anarchist walk into a bar..⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It applies to both statements. Ideally they would have posted examples of anarchists who sided with leftist and were killed afterwards, and you would have cited examples of anarchist siding with capitalists and then being betrayed.

  Tbf there are probably examples of both scenarios, as anarchist by their own nature aren’t exactly a unified political body.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A communist and an anarchist walk into a bar..⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Usually when you make a claim it’s up to you to support it with some kind of evidence.

  Asking someone to refute something they disagree with is basically asking someone to prove a negative.