sugar_in_your_tea
@sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on Anon doesn't fit in 9 hours ago:
Yeah, Paradox games are great!
- Comment on 'My Advice to Users Is to Accept Reality and Tune, or to Not Play' — Randy Pitchford Is at the 'Get a Refund From Steam' Stage of the Borderlands 4 PC Performance Backlash 1 day ago:
Yeah, learn to tie them if you’re going to make it part of your personality.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 5 days ago:
there’s a very wide middle ground of options between “do nothing” and “take all guns away”. This is not a binarry issue.
Sure.
However, most of the gun-related “solutions” I’ve seen wouldn’t actually solve anything, or there’s very little supporting evidence that they’re actually effective (see this Twitter post by the RAND Corporation, media bias for RAND Corporation).
When it comes to suicide prevention, the most effective solution I’ve seen presented and implemented are red flag laws, yet suicide and mass shooting rates don’t seem particularly impacted by that. It turns out people are really bad at taking advantage of those laws, and there’s always the risk that innocent people get hit as well.
We already have laws in place in most (all?) of the country that, if actually followed, would prevent a lot of these cases (not suicide, but access to guns). You already can’t own guns if you have a felony, if you’re on certain medications, or have a history of mental illness. The problem is that many people don’t actually get officially evaluated for mental health, don’t report medications, etc, so the laws end up missing the very people they’re intended to prevent from getting guns.
And then when we look at suicide statistics, the US isn’t all that different from European countries at 15.6 per 100k, France at 16.6, Germany at 12.9, and Belgium at 18.4 (IIRC, guns are largely banned in those countries). The US is higher than its neighbors (i.e. Canada has 9.4, and Mexico has 7), but I don’t think that’s a smoking gun here since Europe also has a wide range (UK is 9.5 and Spain is 8.7). Guns existing doesn’t seem like a major factor in suicide rates, it just happens to be the most convenient method so it gets used the most. If guns were effectively restricted from suicidal people, the biggest change we’d likely see would be shifting from firearms to other methods of suicide, not a significant drop in overall suicide rates (though maybe an initial drop due to delayed suicides).
Real solutions here are hard, and banning guns is comparatively easy, but I really don’t think it would actually solve the problem.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 5 days ago:
Sure, and sensible things like barriers at bridges makes a ton of sense because doing that doesn’t negatively impact anyone and merely gives people more time to rethink their choice.
That said, even with those safeguards, tons of people kill themselves. I had a friend do it by hanging, others use drugs, and some use cops.
If we look at statistics, the US has 15.6 suicides per 100k, compared to 18.4 in Belgium, 12.9 in Germany, and 16.6 in France (not trying to cherry pick here, please look up the stats yourself). Each of those countries has (largely) banned guns, yet the US’s numbers aren’t all that different, so surely guns aren’t a major contributor here.
What we need is to address the core issues here, such as access to mental health resources, more social interaction, etc. Banning guns isn’t going to meaningfully impact suicide, it’ll just shift the statistics to other methods and maybe delay it a bit. People like easy solutions, and treating the symptoms is very attractive, but it’s not a real solution.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 6 days ago:
If you’re referring to the Kirk shooting, this was before that.
- Comment on anon discusses car dependence 1 week ago:
Something like that, yeah. Costco is more like 10 min, and I’ve done runs to both on my bike.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 1 week ago:
Idk, I’m not a psychologist, but I have looked at studies on video games and there hasn’t been a causal link between violent video games and IRL violence. You’d think that with so much focus on age ratings and whatnot that we would’ve found something, yet that’s not the case. My understanding is the largest contributing factors are childhood abuse, social groups (esp. anonymous online groups), and bullying. I suppose some of that could happen in video games (i.e. in-game chat), but then it’s not the game itself causing violence, but the interaction w/ other players.
So no, I haven’t seen any evidence that violent video games contribute to anything. The best argument is that people who have violent tendencies tend to play violent video games, but the reverse has little to no evidence.
- Comment on Anon doesn't believe 1 week ago:
How about this: release the files so we can know instead of speculating. If he’s in the files, let him explain himself in front of a judge.
- Comment on Anon doesn't believe 1 week ago:
And as the saying goes if 9 people sit at a table and a paedophile sits down and none of them say anything, there are 10 paedophiles at the table.
I really don’t like this argument. There’s a big difference between not reporting something and being complicit in that something.
For example, my neighbor smokes pot, and likely does so illegally. If I don’t report them, does that make me a pot smoker? No, that’s absurd! I personally don’t agree w/ the drug law despite having no desire to use marijuana, so there’s absolutely no reason for me to report them.
That said, if my neighbor was a pedophile, I would report them. Why? Because I want to protect kids, and getting the police involved is the best way to do that. So if there are 9 people at a table and a pedophile sits down and none says anything, there’s still one pedophile, but also 9 pedophile enablers. I don’t think those people should be guilty by association, but I do believe they are shirking their moral responsibility.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 1 week ago:
Because those are separate problems with separate solutions.
If people use guns to kill themselves, will they stop killing themselves if we take the guns away? Maybe some will, if the alternatives take so much more time, but the impact won’t be massive. Instead of making suicide harder, we should be treating the root cause of suicide, which is desperation (i.e. have a decent social safety net) and depression (make mental health resources widely available).
If people get hurt due to gun accidents, I highly doubt they’d be happy if we took their guns away, since that’s like solving traffic deaths by banning cars. The better solution is to improve safety features on guns and teach people gun safety so they can use them safely, or in the car example, we should be improving road design and driving education (and making cars less necessary, but that’s a separate point).
Suicides and gun accidents are certainly interesting statistics, but mixing them with homicides just makes it harder to see what’s going on and arrive at effective solutions.
- Comment on anon discusses car dependence 1 week ago:
That’s about the same for me, but it’s about a 15 min bike ride (approx 3-4 miles away). The problem is, it would take me ~2 hours to do my 25 mile commute by transit, vs 35 min by car. In fact, I could probably bike it faster than transit.
- Comment on anon discusses car dependence 1 week ago:
Yeah, that’s just over $7/day, which is doable.
- Comment on anon discusses car dependence 1 week ago:
Get a week’s worth of rotisserie chicken. 😀
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 1 week ago:
Absolutely. There have been so many studies trying to prove a connection and failed. It’s a completely debunked argument.
- Comment on anon discusses car dependence 1 week ago:
Sure, but how much do you save long term by having those in bulk vs doing multiple trips to the store to pick up one thing at a time?
- Comment on anon discusses car dependence 1 week ago:
I’ve bought 2 and have spent ~$13k on them. I still have the first after more than 10 years, and have had the second for almost 5. The first car was ~$10k, and it had 60k miles, and I’ve put on about 100k miles.
Buying used direct from the owner has worked well for me. My parents bought my first car for me for about $1500, though my siblings also drove it. I kept it for about 5 years before buying a replacement.
- Comment on anon discusses car dependence 1 week ago:
Yeah, nearest store to me is like 30 min walk each way. Nearest Costco is about the same time in the car as the grocery store.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 1 week ago:
To be fair, a lot of POC gun violence is gang related, not mental health related, because POC tend to be stuck in poorer areas and resort to gangs to make ends meet. There is certainly white gang violence as well, but there’s also a lot of mental health related crimes that happen to be committed by white people, probably because they have more ready access to guns that the average non-gang affiliated POC.
Games are unrelated to both cases.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 1 week ago:
It really doesn’t.
The only legitimate link between violence and video games is that violent people seem to like violent video games. I haven’t seen any compelling evidence of a video game causing someone to kill.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 1 week ago:
we have the most gun violence
If we look at “intentional homicide rate” (choice of weapon agnostic), the US is 66th and just above Greenland. I think this statistic is better than “gun deaths” since it excludes suicides and accidental deaths and looks at intentional murder.
The number is way higher than it should be, but probably way better than most assume given the news.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 1 week ago:
Hey, dude was a POS but I’ll never condone violence.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 1 week ago:
I played tons of first person shooters, GTA, etc, and I also have never thrown a punch at anyone.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 1 week ago:
I live in Utah and have a coworker that was supposed to be there for class tonight. Wild times…
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 1 week ago:
We’ll get there, just give it time.
- Comment on Anon plays the lottery 1 week ago:
I’m the same way, and I don’t even know what I’d splurge on if given a bunch of money. I’ve conditioned myself to be happy with less, so any money I get goes to investments, and if I have enough to retire on my current lifestyle, I’d do that and just work on personal projects instead of going to work.
But I grew up in a middle-class household where we always had enough because my parents were careful with money. They taught me to save early on, and I was able to afford some nice things (TV and game console) with the little I earned mowing lawns and whatnot. I had great role models, and I’ve almost never had to worry about money and only needed to go into debt for my house.
I wish everyone had that kind of role model. A little financial discipline can be the difference between anxiety from living paycheck to paycheck and being able to quit your abusive job and get one that respects your time.
- Comment on Anon plays the lottery 1 week ago:
Nah, it’s gay because the GF is a femboy. Nowhere does anon say “she.”
- Comment on "Undercover Informant" 1 week ago:
Just half?
- Comment on Anon plays the lottery 1 week ago:
The organizers are the government, so surely they have a vested interest in helping their residents succeed in life…
- Comment on Anon plays the lottery 1 week ago:
It turns out there’s a high correlation between people who are bad with money and people who buy lottery tickets.
It would be awesome if the lottery winnings came with complementary financial advisement by a fiduciary for the first year.
- Comment on Anon has a problem with Bioshock 1 week ago:
Libertarian’s wet dream
Please don’t conflate Objectivism and Libertarianism. They’re different, and Ayn Rand hated Libertarians. Objectivism is all about selfishness (maximize personal benefit), whereas Libertarianism is all about minimizing harm between people (initiation of force, NAP).
Let’s use an example of someone creating a dangerous product and someone gets hurt. An Objectivist would say “oops!” whereas the Libertarian would say the seller should be legally liable for damages and criminally liable if they knew about the danger and didn’t properly disclose/prevent it, otherwise it’s an initiation of force.
Objectivists believe in maximum freedom. Libertarians believe your freedoms end where mine begin. They’re different.