vonbaronhans

@vonbaronhans@midwest.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does it seem like many Americans have an arrogant personality trait?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d like to add some nuance to your observation.

  We Americans, most of us anyway, went to public school. And in our history classes, we teach what has been called the “Standard American History Myth” by YouTube channel Knowing Better in their video on American Neo-slavery.

  In short, America is founded on many ideals (freedom, liberty, etc), and we generally write our histories as if we have always believed in and acted according to those beliefs (with slavery being a “failure to live up to those ideals”). That’s the simple history we teach our kids here, it’s what we grow up believing, and the only people who ever really learn anything different had nontraditional learning opportunities (e.g. local experts in black history, American Indian history, etc), studied history at a university, or nowadays maybe learned from social media (like the above Knowing Better channel).

  Manifest Destiny is a big example. We teach that America believed in their divinely inspired right to the American continent, from sea to shining sea. We do mention the Trail of Tears, but it’s taught as a brute fact at best, and as punishment for standing against America at worst. There’s no emotional processing that we did a bad thing and that we shouldn’t do that thing anymore. Most Americans would do it all again given the opportunity.

  And that’s the big thing. We just… simply don’t have any sort of national level conscience. If we did something bad to someone, no we didn’t, and if we did, they deserved it.

  I only really came to grips with America’s dark side in grad school by reading, listening, and watching interviews with black people who protested Jim Crowe and Asian Americans who told their experiences living in concentration camps (euphemistically “internment camps”) during WW2.

  That, I think, is the biggest problem in the American psyche. Not only have we “never done anything wrong, really” but we’re also pumped up on religious symbolism (we’re a beacon on a hill, a light into the world, etc).

  “Divinely inspired” crybully, basically. There’s a reason Trump resonates so strongly here. He’s the embodiment of “I am the best, I never did anything wrong, and fuck you for trying to insinuate otherwise, you ungrateful traitor.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Chat, is this true?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  At this point, I don’t know if America can heal with Mt Rushmore still there. I’m not saying we would blow it up, but I do think it might be good if it was blown up.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨HELP! How do I help educate my son about his body when I know nothing about boys??⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you think “frank” means “without nuance or care for how what I’m saying could be misconstrued as bigotry”?

  Like, literally the only change I know I’d like to see is “there are some women who” and like… that’s hardly an imposition, y’know? Definitely not a “40 page essay” either.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨HELP! How do I help educate my son about his body when I know nothing about boys??⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Weirdos end up on Lemmy. Many of us are a splendidly wonderful, if pedantic, sort.

  And then there’s the weirdos that… aren’t that. The ones who never built social skills or the ability to look at the world from beyond their own limited experiences. The ones who extrapolate with reckless abandon, usually in the traditional directions of punching down.

  I’m sorry if they or someone they know got baby-trapped, but that is DEFINITELY not the usual nor should it be phrased like it is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨anti-evolutionism⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Oof. Yeah they’ll get ya like that. I’m certainly not immune.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨anti-evolutionism⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  So, I gave this a cursory read.

  The discussion of essentialism mostly makes sense, if a few weird red flags scattered throughout. But I was curious at what point it would be turned into, as promised in the intro, that essentialism is a fundamental flaw of “wokeism”, and apparently specifically Critical Race Theory.

  And uh. That connection was poorly made, in my humble opinion. It’s a lot of philosophical history and bluster to then just sort of… miss the point and mischaracterize the quotes being put on the table.

  My apologies, I would be more specific and pointed in my critique here, but I’m on mobile and I usually need a better setup (e.g. on PC) to lay out these thoughts with more precision.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it a pattern that every time a movie, show or animation that doesn't have a white person as the protagonist is attacked by right-wingers?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  As an aging anime fan… I tend to agree with Miyazaki’s take that anime is made by weird people for weird people.

  Sometimes being a bit of an outcast gives you perspective and you take that and make someone great.

  Sometimes it turns you into an incel who creates characters that totally aren’t pedophile bait, no sir, they’re 2000 years old! They just so happen to have the body of an 8 yr old.

  The conservative anti-woke scum of the Internet who love anime can’t tell the difference between the two. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why We Love to Get Lost in Games: The Enduring Appeal of Metroidvanias⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think I’d put it this way - I like adventuring, exploring, and finding my way through an immersive world. I don’t like when I can’t seem to stumble into the exact right clue or secret passage or interactable and waste up to possibly hours scouring the same locations over and over.

  That said, metroidvanias are my favorite videogame genre. I just had to accept that it’s okay to look up a guide or wiki before I get fully tilted.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does this pic show that Elon Musk doesnt know SQL?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, I think this is twice in the same thread where my intuition was considerably off base. Lesson learned, I suppose.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does this pic show that Elon Musk doesnt know SQL?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Just read that, and it says they’ve only issued 453 million numbers so far. Huh. I really thought it would’ve been a lot more than that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does this pic show that Elon Musk doesnt know SQL?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We have 350 million people in this country literally right now. I don’t think “350 million born since 1933” makes sense. There gotta be a lot of churn just from early deaths alone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does this pic show that Elon Musk doesnt know SQL?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We have over 300 million people in the US right now. Social security started in the US in 1935 with just over 127 million people then.

  Yeah, we probably have gone through 999 million options by now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨what if another country staged a coup in the US and deposed trump?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, I think we’d have to give some of the Eastern seaboard to the UK. But some goes to France, some to Spain. And tbh a lot could be reallocated back to American Indian groups and councils. Oh, and a bunch would go back to Mexico, too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the care for being not identified and covering one’s tracks provided in the above comment is a pretty obvious indicator for why their comment history is scrubbed lol.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨womp womp⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That is a much more succinct way of putting it without any real loss of accuracy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨womp womp⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m no expert on the topic, but Nature is an exception rather than the rule, given its history and prestige.

  Academic journals were around well before the Internet. Real capital investment was required to review applications, provide editing advice, typesetting, printing, and distribution. All of those are still things, now with additional online publishing, which also has its own technology costs.

  What’s wild and out of whack, of course, is that peer reviewers generally aren’t paid, submitters pay to get published, and readers also pay for access. Other than the relatively minimal office staff to keep things running, there’s very little overhead. So why is it so damn expensive?

  I think the answer is that they can get away with it. You can publish in an open source journal for free, of course, but there may or may not be quality control. Plus, it’s an attention economy. If you publish in Science or Nature, you’re almost certainly getting prestige that can turbo boost your career because that many people will see and likely cite your work.

  And on and on it goes. I think we would pretty strong regulations to stop this system.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elder Scrolls creator Ted Peterson is “glad that people are wanting to break away from” watered-down RPGs as he works on an epic Daggerfall successor⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think JRPGs do focus on choice, but usually more in terms of the gameplay and deep combat systems with weird synergies to discover. Story-wise… yeah definitely more linear.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you shop by unit prices, double check the math!⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t know what peanut butter is like in other countries. In Japan it was very different, a lot sweeter.

  What’s yours like? Have you ever been able to compare it to something like JIF?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Knowing less about AI makes people more open to having it in their lives – new research⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Here’s an important bit from the actual journal article abstract

  This lower literacy-greater receptivity link is not explained by differences in perceptions of AI’s capability, ethicality, or feared impact on humanity. Instead, this link occurs because people with lower AI literacy are more likely to perceive AI as magical and experience feelings of awe in the face of AI’s execution of tasks that seem to require uniquely human attributes.

  It then goes on to say you should target ads for AI to people who don’t know anytime about AI, since they’ll see it as magical and buy in. Kinda gross, if you ask me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TikTok users particularly susceptible to Russian and Chinese misinformation, study finds⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Comparisons to users on other social media networks would be useful, yeah.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TikTok users particularly susceptible to Russian and Chinese misinformation, study finds⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think I ever learned how to properly source information from primary works until college. I didn’t really get it until grad school.

  Kinda the same for the scientific method. In high school it was just a thing you learn and memorize, but barely ever applied, if at all, in the actual curriculum. I wish it had been impressed upon me at a much earlier stage of my life why the scientific method is so useful and how it led to the sheer boom in our knowledge as a species. Like, they do tell us… but we didn’t really get it. I’ve heard others had better teachers… But it really would be better if the system didn’t have to rely on winning the teacher lottery.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨First Look at Switch 2⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  For anyone else who was unfamiliar:

  Linear economy is a system in which people buy a product, use it, and then throw it away. The term linear refers to the straight progression that a product can follow, with a beginning, a middle and an end. There is no thought along the line regarding recycling or reuse. (per www.eib.org/en/stories/linear-economy-recycling#%….)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨if you've had or have anger issues, how did you become a better human?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Not necessarily applicable to everybody, but if you find yourself with a short fuse, I highly recommend getting checked out for sleep apnea.

  Imagine going to sleep for 8-10 hours a night but always feeling a bit tired and very irritable. Because in reality, you barely sleep at all. That’s what sleep apnea does, and I can personally start that, if that’s your problem, addressing it is a world changer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We got several more inches of snow last night after getting over seven a few days ago. I went to my local newspaper's website to find out if there was anything I should know. This was their top story.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t have this issue myself, but usually when people complain about crows it’s because they are getting into trash cans, dumpsters, etc and just making a mess of things. Presumably they think it’s fun?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I got into the wrong career lol⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Buffet cities? Every city I know has at least one buffet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon has marital problems⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I said I think it’s possible. You said “horseshit”. Not sure what you mean other than it’s impossible for a man to do that.

  I’m not saying it’s super likely or anything like that. But given this is pretty far off the path from my original comment, I’ll just drop it here.

  Best of luck out there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon has marital problems⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean… what about those actions is impossible for a guy to do?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon has marital problems⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, I agree with that 100%.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon has marital problems⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t really disagree with your overall point, I just think that’s being way over generous to the anon here.

  Like, do you think talking to your wife like she was a dude is really the only thing at play here?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon has marital problems⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Who knows, lol. But I’m more than happy to engage with people who disagree, so long as it remains relatively civil.

  I’ve had plenty of gender-coded miscommunication with my wife over the years. But that’s far, far outweighed by more individual differences (like neurotypical v neurodivergent, mismatched communication habits, and mismatched expectations from how we were raised. Hell even just regional differences.

  And when it comes to the other married guys I know, I’ve provided advice (upon request) that basically boiled down to (1) you don’t “win” a marriage, (2) treat her like a partner not an adversary (even if she’s treating you adversarially for now), and (3) be open and vulnerable when you can. It’s amazing how many of them have just… never once heard that advice from anyone else their whole life. Wild out here.