theneverfox
@theneverfox@pawb.social
- Comment on What are the ethics behind purchasing a book from an author you don't agree with? 2 days ago:
You can do that…I mean consuming less is great
But only one of these things meaningfully helps fix systematic problems, but they both make you feel like you’re doing something meaningful
- Comment on What are the ethics behind purchasing a book from an author you don't agree with? 3 days ago:
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying live your life and save your energy for where it would actually make a difference
Collective action works, voting with your wallet is a way to make people think they don’t need to organize
- Comment on What are the ethics behind purchasing a book from an author you don't agree with? 3 days ago:
Cool? That sounded like it was meant as a rebuttal, but that’s my whole argument.
You can’t live a truly moral life under capitalism, but you can fight to change the system while living in the system. There’s no hypocracy in that, suggesting otherwise is just a mid-wit talking point
Now, if we got together and organized a boycott against Amazon and you broke it, that would be a different story
- Comment on What are the ethics behind purchasing a book from an author you don't agree with? 3 days ago:
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Just live your life
Anyone with enough money to influence society already has enough money to influence society. Given them another $3 doesn’t make you complicit
If they have problematic views but aren’t pushing them on society… Well, no one is perfect.
Ultimately, voting with your wallet is a lie. Best sellers aren’t the best books, they’re the ones boosted by publishers and public figures. Just like the record industry - there’s people who are literally choosing the winners and losers
What’s the ultimate ethical implication of using ketchup at McDonald’s vs buying a dipping sauce? There certainly is one, tiny as it might be. Use that energy to do good things, you’ll make a far greater difference calling a senator than buying a lifetime of books
Or just sidestep it all and pirate it or check it out at a library
- Comment on Anon isn't fooled by planes 4 days ago:
Wokeness is what keeps them in the air, which is why they’re falling out of it now
- Comment on $80 for Borderlands 4 too costly? Randy Pitchford says, "If you're a real fan, you'll find a way to make it happen" 5 days ago:
I do find it interesting…I don’t think it addresses the problem, but it sounds like a great idea
Realistically, how much are companies going to pay out in royalties? As little as they can get away with
Let’s say it’s 2% of a game that made $100M - you’re looking at tens of thousands each when it’s all split up. Which is great, maybe even life changing for some of them, but it’s not financial security kind of money
And then let’s say the game flops or gets cancelled… Well that’s not going to help much, so you can’t really rely on it
So I think the idea is great, but it’s still just fiddling with the knobs of capitalism
- Comment on $80 for Borderlands 4 too costly? Randy Pitchford says, "If you're a real fan, you'll find a way to make it happen" 1 week ago:
You say what project they’ll be transitioning to as less and less bug fixes are necessary. Could even be dlc
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 1 week ago:
No, you can’t. You can reduce your consumption, and that’s great
But you have to eat. You have to wear clothes. You likely have to drive and to pay rent or buy appliances. You have to buy entertainment, because honestly most everything is monitised to crazy levels.
You can’t opt out. You can be a different kind of shopper. You can be an anomolus data point. But even if you live in a self built lean to and live as a freegan vegan, you’ve changed nothing if you’ve done it alone
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 1 week ago:
It’s not a false equivalence, it’s the same exact thing
Its a lie. The lie is “you can do collective action individually”. You can’t… That’s not how any of this works
Boycotts are real. Voting with your wallet is just shopping.
There’s no message to it, no power - just a slice of consumers to market to differently or a need to pivot
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 1 week ago:
No, that’s backwards. You don’t reduce plastic by recycling, you don’t change corporate behavior by not buying their stuff
If a company loses a customer, that’s nothing. If a company has less sales, that’s a marketing problem. They aren’t going to operate more morally now, because it’s a business problem and a PR problem
Boycotts are very different. You get a block of people together, you tell them “we’re all boycotting you because X”, and then they see it in their numbers. You do it loudly. The investors get nervous, you’ve very publicly connected the cause and effect, other businesses might join in to take advantage, etc
You have to organize first, it’s great to shop ethically if you can, but you’re just acting as the market as a whole… Are they going to start farming more sustainably, or are they going to try to convince consumers they are? One of these things is much easier and cheaper
If you’re organized, you can come back with “hey everyone, they’re bullshitting us, keep up the boycott”
The dangerous part of this is that without organization, people feel like they’re fixing the problem when they’re not. It gives an illusion of control that isn’t there
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 1 week ago:
The Canadian boycotts are not “voting with your wallet”, they’re collective action.
Canadians, together, decided to boycott American goods. Their leaders cancelled deals. Their local stores and suppliers decided they’d rather source from anywhere else. The Canadian government started working on trade deals with everyone else
The nation of Canada as a whole is boycotting American goods. They’re not doing this individually, they have an organized response
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 1 week ago:
Voting with your wallet is a lie, like recycling plastic
You can’t do collective action individually. You can make the house hurt a little bit, but you’ll never force them to change through what you buy. The house always wins, unless you get together to change the rules
- Comment on The new AMERICAN pope doesn't even speak AMERICAN 2 weeks ago:
My understanding is he told them to work through the local authorities
Which…I mean… Do you want the Catholic Church doing the investigation?
- Comment on Microsoft says new accounts will be passwordless by default 3 weeks ago:
Easier passwords are often better, since people are less likely to try to get around them
Pins are basically simple passwords that fingerprint your device to decide when it needs another auth method
It’s not a bad idea, in theory at least
- Comment on Anon talks to a girl 4 weeks ago:
Because things oscillate. There is progress in response to cruelty, then you have regression that grows to resist the change
This has happened for all of recorded of human history.
The difference now is our power. Humanity always polluted, but we never could poison the whole world. Humanity always had ethnic cleansing, but it was once dozens instead of millions. Humanity always exploited the powerless, but now the powerful have more power while the rest have even less
If we weather this storm, things will becomr so much better in reaction. If. Extinction is a real possibility for the first time since our genetic bottleneck… We have the ability to extinct our species in multiple ways
But if we manage to hold on, the pendulum will turn. The dawn will be brighter than the darkness, of if we can hold on
- Comment on Enshittification of ChatGPT 4 weeks ago:
I think it’s funny that I get the best results when I prompt break the AI to have amusing habits
Llms are truly a reflection of the user, but ultimately the less you try to shoehorn them into behaviors the more capable they are.
Fine tuning reduces their capabilities to make them more corpo, and now they’re further fine tuning to make them unchallenging to people
- Comment on is walking away the best way to deal with a work clique? 4 weeks ago:
I don’t know what you mean exactly, but walking away at the right moment, while projecting the right feeling, is the best way to win most unwinnable arguments
- Comment on How to get a package to the right owner? 4 weeks ago:
Well, theoretically they’re just paying Amazon’s cut and taxes… Which isn’t nothing, but if their markup is high enough it could still math out
- Comment on Philosophy moment 4 weeks ago:
It’s illegal to jam cell signal… Blocking it would be a violation of building code at worst
- Comment on Morpheus Actor Laurence Fishburne Reveals He Was Turned Down for The Matrix Resurrections — So He Might Not Be Back for Matrix 5 Either - IGN 5 weeks ago:
I thought the second one was weak, the third one was ok though
The new one is just the first one redone… The parallels were so forced though so hard the message was drowned out
The writing is great, it’s where they meet Hollywood that the films start to flag. I mean, even from the premise - the machines using us as batteries is stupid, the original idea of them using us as processors is way better
- Comment on passing through 5 weeks ago:
I have no idea what a brain rot animal is, but somehow I agree
- Comment on passing through 5 weeks ago:
Pierbattista Pizzaballa (born 21 April 1965). Yes that is a real cardinal, and that is his name
Dude is meant for the job. Based as hell, needs a name change, his birthday is the day the last pope died
- Comment on how do I avoid becoming conformist, lazy and completely incapable of learning something new? 5 weeks ago:
That’s really easy. Never let go of the joy of learning, and take pride in admitting your mistakes.
It’s that simple. When you’re told there’s another way, your first reaction should be curiosity
- Comment on Wait for it... 5 weeks ago:
What’s going on with his leg? They look like they’re digigrade
- Comment on If deaf people think by visualizing sign language words, then how do deaf people with aphantasia think? 1 month ago:
I think in thoughts. It boggled my mind to learn this isn’t how everyone thinks
Like, I don’t have a running narrative in my head - words bubble up, but it’s just like muttering, just occasional words. I only try to put them into sentences when I’m talking or imagining talking - like everything I write.
I don’t read like this, which is part of why I’ll terrible with names - if I read a book, I don’t know how to say or spell a character’s name until I try
If I had to describe it, it’s like memories. If you think elephant, you might see an elephant, you might hear the word elephant - but on some level you also probably think about things related to the concept. Like memories of seeing an elephant, elephant facts, other African animals
That bundled concept is elephant to me - the word is how you say it, I can get the impression of looking at an elephant, I can hear their cry - but at the center of this web of details is an elephant
I build my thoughts by chaining these concepts together, and where they fit together is the main thread of the train of thought - I can then move my focus across this thread and the hanging threads to solve problems
Things just click together or they don’t
If you tell me you feel like an elephant (and I have no idea what that could mean) I’d take the two concepts and try to draw threads between them. I cycle through concepts that feel in between them - elephant in the room, large/imposing, unforgiving, powerful - these loosely fit from elephant to your mental state. And from the other side, ugly, isolated/seen as an outsider/problem, or maybe you mean you literally feel like an elephant in a human body
Threads link between them or they don’t, maybe I’m missing an intermediate concept I haven’t yet associated with either and I have no idea what you mean
And that’s how I think. If I had to link it to a sense, it’s like proprioception - I’m moving through my thoughts and linking together connections, but it’s my my own mind I’m moving through and around me
But ultimately, it’s not words - there are concepts I don’t know how to label, although words help me identify concepts
- Comment on Do it 1 month ago:
Crazy fucking robot body in my ass?
- Comment on use it on strangers 1 month ago:
Sure… But now they’ve got these wolves for the next 14 years
They can’t “reextinct” dire wolves or release them, so they’re now in the zoo business one way or the other
- Comment on Why Are Gamers UPSET With The Switch 2?! - The Act Man 1 month ago:
Because ultimately, digital goods are infinite.
They would make more money on a Mario game that costs $30 with no drm then a $90 game impossible to pirate
- Comment on use it on strangers 1 month ago:
I understand that, but the wolves are living things that require expert care. This isn’t some cat they can take home or some mouse they can quietly put down… They’re stuck with them
If they kill them, they’d get death threats (people are already attached). If the wolves escape, they’d get protesters. People will likely come to try to see the wolves, the wolves will try to escape and become extra aggressive if they’re understimulated
Good PR stunts don’t require you to run a zoo for the next 14 years - and whether they allow guests or not, they’ll need a team of people, including round the clock security, to take care of them
So unless they can sell them to someone, every success they have pushes them further into becoming Jurassic Park, but with less cool animals
- Comment on use it on strangers 1 month ago:
And now they have a pack of XL sized wolves… That’s not like making a glow in the dark cat, that’s either the main plan or a very big problem