derek
All people are born ignorant to their material circumstances and the conditions necessary for them. Disadvantaged folk often have a more difficult path out of that ignorance. Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides some insight into why: one rarely has capacity for deep introspection when they've been deprived of basic needs.
The US Military (among others) purposefully recruit more heavily in economically depressed areas. This has been true for decades. These two facts are correlated. Couple this with American Exceptionalist propaganda which created the myth and social elevation of the American Soldier as the ultimate freedom fighter / patriot and maybe you can sympathize with those who enlist.
My point is not that individuals should be excused from being taken to task for their actions. Nor is it that all those who enlist are duped into it. It's this: people are rarely lost causes, are often unguided, and live unexamined lives. So when confronting anyone: their personal context matters. When I'm struggling to find empathy I look to Daryl Davis. When we encounter ignorance, hate, and bigotry, we are right to oppose it. Always. How we do so should be conditioned, and possibly tempered, by the fact that we ourselves are ignorant to the context of the neighbors assigned to oppress us.
Do not dismiss out of hand the power of speaking to reason and empathy in the face of violence and hate. Take them to task with the intention of educating a lost comrade. We must defend ourselves when the need arises but, prior to that Rubicon, we ought to acknowledge that were it not for circumstances outside our control so too could we have remained ignorant and been persuaded toward hate.
There is no more stalwart an ally than one who has been given the tools to free themselves from chains they were sold as armor.
They aren't daily updates. They are weekly. The program is called "AMA Update: Public Health Insights". I don't know why the OP is an imagine or why the info isn't accurate but the sentiment rings true.
Here's a link to the playlist containing all the videos published so far: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7ZHBCvG4qsdahOWgVvBlJdK1qe-j3LZw
Fiat currency is just as silly. As is all money, really.
"I trade numbers for food. The numbers are accessible via a magnetic strip on some plastic in my pocket." or "I trade paper for clothing but the number of papers isn't as important as the number printed ON the papers." Both of these realities are absurd. :)
As a store of value representing labor rendered: neither of those are terrible systems and most people don't understand either of them anyway. Fiat seems "normal" because we grew up with it. That said: I'm no apologist. Popular crypto currencies offer little novelty for the layperson, no true improvement on the concept of currency generally, and cost orders of magnitude more to maintain their required infrastructure. I fail to see the appeal.
There are some projects which focus on the practical utility of decentralized currency (I remember thinking Nano (wikipedia.com) was cool back in the day) but they don't get the same kind of attention as meme coins because they can't be abused as easily. I've heard stories of these kinds of tools facilitating commerce in places where the local currency collapsed. Neat as that may be it isn't revolutionary... Still more convenient than bartering via cigarette though.
I'd like to tack on that this point can be used to highlight why this is so. It's a deep concept that can be explained simply and produces a lasting positive impact.
Everyone has fantasies. Sometimes we want them to be realized. Most often: we don't. Many people carry internal shame because of their fantasies and some of those people have difficulty with intimacy because of it.
Good sex with other people requires our investment in their comfort and pleasure. This can be emotionally complex and fulfilling to navigate. Masturbation is free of those complications but we often make up the difference via fantasy. This is normal and there's no need to confuse one space for the other. Masturbation and sex may fulfill similar basic needs on the surface but, in practice, they are very different exercises. It's normal for one's preferences to be different for each and for those preferences to shift over time.
Don't worry about "normal". Focus on having a healthy, honest, and emotionally aware sex life instead.
Signal.
Wired had an interview with Signal's President last year that I found enlightening and provided an entry point for me to self educate further. Here's an archive.org snapshot of it: https://web.archive.org/web/20240828100224/https://www.wired.com/story/meredith-whittaker-signal/
For the click-averse here's an excerpt I find compelling:
Going back to your sense of Signal’s new phase: What is going to be different at this point in its life? Are you focused on truly bringing it to a billion people, the way that most Silicon Valley firms are?
I mean, I … Yes. But not for the same reasons. For almost opposite reasons.
Yeah. I don’t think anyone else at Signal has ever tried, at least so vocally, to emphasize this definition of Signal as the opposite of everything else in the tech industry, the only major communications platform that is not a for-profit business.
Yeah, I mean, we don’t have a party line at Signal. But I think we should be proud of who we are and let people know that there are clear differences that matter to them. It’s not for nothing that WhatsApp is spending millions of dollars on billboards calling itself private, with the load-bearing privacy infrastructure having been created by the Signal protocol that WhatsApp uses.
Now, we’re happy that WhatsApp integrated that, but let’s be real. It’s not by accident that WhatsApp and Apple are spending billions of dollars defining themselves as private. Because privacy is incredibly valuable. And who’s the gold standard for privacy? It’s Signal.
I think people need to reframe their understanding of the tech industry, understanding how surveillance is so critical to its business model. And then understand how Signal stands apart, and recognize that we need to expand the space for that model to grow. Because having 70 percent of the global market for cloud in the hands of three companies globally is simply not safe. It’s Microsoft and CrowdStrike taking down half of the critical infrastructure in the world, because CrowdStrike cut corners on QA for a fucking kernel update. Are you kidding me? That’s totally insane, if you think about it, in terms of actually stewarding these infrastructures.
Lootboxes.
Players have a random chance of getting crate while playing the game. Each crate is a pool of item cosmetics with various levels of rarity. To acquire one of them the player must purchase a one-use key with real money. Expending the key on a crate initiates a die roll that determines which cosmetic is unlocked.
That's the gambling they're responsible for. What gambling players may of afterward is not the same conversation.
Ollama has a few uncensored models listed on their search page. dolphin-mixtral fits the bill.
Some useful links: https://ollama.com/search https://ollama.com/library/dolphin-mixtral https://huggingface.co/cognitivecomputations/dolphin-2.5-mixtral-8x7b https://erichartford.com/uncensored-models
I'm not associated with any of the orgs or people linked above. I'm just a nerd passing by who happened to know where to find the answer. ❤️
I completely agree. Michael-as-clown aside his story maps to the Peter principal well enough. Other character's arcs often have "finding themselves" or "pulling the veil" curves that similarly rise and fall. The context those developments are presented in invites the mind to examine a character's worth, competence, purpose, self-perception, etc, without forcing one perspective.
I appreciate that pacing and subtlety. It acknowledges the problem without trying to solve it. That makes sense. The characters can't solve modern work or its systemic failures. The resulting tension creates space to explore both the scope and fallout of that shared cultural tragedy. The writers do so, in a comedic framework, without neglecting the initial point of intrigue: people dealing with their second families eight hours a day. Coping is subtext.
Seeing Michael in his element is poignant because of its stark contrast against how we usually see him: a lonely man, lacking common social and emotional tooling, struggling to meaningfully understand and communicate his needs.
Salesmanship leverages Michael's competencies on the same fulcrum. He gives what he's desperate to be given. The gift of being seen, understood, and accommodated. In a word: friendship.
That's damn good art.
Near as I understand it: years ago some dumb engineering decisions were made, acknowledged, and corrected. Is there some recent scandal I'm out of the loop on?
Sure! That's an SMTP Relay. A lot of folks jumped on the poopoo wagon. It's common wisdom in IT that you don't do your own email. There are good reasons for that, and you should know why that sentiment exists, however; if you're interested in running your own email: try it! Just don't put all of your eggs in one basket. Keep your third party service until you're quite sure you want to move it all in-house (after due diligence is satisfied and you've successfully completed at least a few months of testing and smtp reputation warming).
Email isn't complex. It's tough to get right at scale, a pain in the ass if it breaks, and not running afoul of spam filtering can be a challenge. It rarely makes sense for even a small business to roll their own email solution. For an individual approaching this investigatively it can make sense so long as you're (a.) interested in learning about it, (b.) find the benefits outweigh the risks, and (c.) that the result is worth the ongoing investment (time and labor to set up, secure, update, maintain, etc).
What'll get you in trouble regardless is being dependent on that in-house email but not making your solution robust enough to always fill its role. Say you host at home and your house burns down. How inconvenient is it that your self-hosted services burned with it? Can you recover quickly enough, while dealing with tragedy, that the loss of common utility doesn't make navigating your new reality much more difficult?
That's why it rarely makes sense for businesses. Email has become an essential gateway to other tooling and processes. It facilitates an incredible amount of our professional interactions. How many of your bills and bank statements and other important communication are delivered primarily by email? An unreliable email service is intolerable.
If you're going to do it make sure you're doing it right, respecting your future self's reliance on what present-you builds, and taking it slow while you learn (and document!) how all the pieces fit together. If you can check all of those boxes with a smile then good luck and godspeed says I.
Preface: I'm American. I grew up in a Christian Conservative home. I was homeschooled, went to Christian Conservative schools, and attended a "Bible College". I escaped after college and have been self-educating and trying to help others escape since then. The post below got a bit long in the tooth but the answer to your question is tough to explain succinctly. Bear with me if you can.
Most Americans have been coerced since birth into wage slavery that intentionally denies them any legal means of fulfilling their basic needs. This is true for "upper class" and "impoverished" Americans alike but by different methods. American corporate culture and common political propaganda brainwashes people into believing the fault for this lies with their neighbors and extended family. This has trapped many in generational self-oppression and conditioned them to believe that this is both normal and necessary either for their own survival or the survival of some principal(s) without which society crumbles.
They are discouraged from participating in deep introspection, engaging in political dialogue, keeping up with current events, etc. This is perpetuated not only by their peers and leaders (if their leaders speak to them at all) but by the same systems on which they are dependent.
Access to information leads to education and freedom. That's bad for business. It's also why almost all of the American Progressive movements (such as they are) are led by those born after Gen X (which is a topic I'll set aside for another thread).
So... What's going on?
A plan set in motion during the sixties as a response to the Civil Rights movement and integration; crystalized in the seventies by Paul Weyrich, the Heritage Foundation (yes, that one), and Jerry Falwell et al; normalized in the eighties using abortion as a wedge issue and fabricating the "right to life" movement; and has been co-opted by the survivors of the fall of aristocracy (now known as oligarchs) to seize power over the means of governance, justice, and national self-determination.
Politico has a great article from over a decade ago that covers the rise of the American Religious Right in more detail: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/
Many Americans are completely unaware of the origins and motivations for the beliefs they've adopted and now identify with. They vote along party lines without even knowing who the people they vote for actually are or what they intend to do with the power afforded them. This isn't an accident. It's a coordinated attack on the common people whose perpetrators wield the people's ignorance as an orbitoclast and treat misinformation like an opiate. Citizens can't be appalled by the behavior in that video if they never see it, can't be convinced it's real, or are deluded enough to think it's always been that way.
There's still hope but we're short on time and don't yet have effective strategies against the tacticians at the top of the pyramid. I don't know what the path out of this looks like yet but I know we're at a disadvantage, that we'll need help, and that free information and education are key parts of it. My ancestors were forced to flee from the Nazis. They wouldn't have survived without the compassion of strangers working for the common good across language barriers and disparate ideologies. I still have family in Europe who lived through that reality. I've met them and heard their stories. I know what's at stake and how bad it can get.
I've heard that small men only cast long shadows when the sun is low in the sky. I think that's true and that night is upon us. If the shadow of America hangs over the world after the sun has set then it is cast by powerful few using the husk of Liberty as a shadow puppet. Her torch a bonfire and its fuel the working class. All made fat and docile: ready to burn while blaming their friends for the inconvenience. The point is not the spectacle though. This Hydra is cold-blooded and it needs the warmth of the flame to survive. We've got to figure out how to deny it that foothold.
That's what the ever-loving fuck is going on.