In case you can’t tell, I’m passionate about rationality and critical thinking.

However, I still appreciate a freshly-baked π.

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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: September 22nd, 2024

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  • The downvotes prove your point. This topic needs more discussion, but most of the times when women bring this up, their comments get downvoted to hell. It’s quite a “gotcha” for someone to ask to see “examples” when most of the examples we’ve come across or created will be buried or have since been deleted.

    Alternative question - for those that don’t believe this is an issue, when is the last time you came across a post on Lemmy that is specifically for/about women or women’s issues (especially one posted from a woman’s perspective)? Or even better, go ahead and make such a post. Watch how fast the downvotes come.

    I expect this comment to be downvoted the same way as the parent comment was, the same way that past posts I’ve made and read about women’s issues have been downvoted on Lemmy. If men want this place to be inclusive for women, they have to do their part to support us - not downvoting our concerns, simply because they don’t experience the same issues, is the absolute bare minimum. Otherwise, why would we keep posting/commenting about our issues when doing so invites a downvote cascade?






  • The door is located after you click your username in the upper-right corner, and choose “Settings” from the drop-down. Scroll to the bottom of the page. On the left, in red, is a button to delete your account.

    I’m not sure what really happens after that, though - I’ve never gone out that door. IIRC a deletion can take time, since various servers have to sync that information.

    -Takes a bong hit-

    So in a way, a recently-deleted account continues to exist across the Fediverse for a while. It is temporarily trapped to this plane of existence, until it can complete its final mission (deleting itself) across every corner of its known Fediverse. Then, and only then, can an account truly experience deletion.

    -Passes to the left-




  • You’re definitely not alone.

    I think the key is that we are so often told what to do, but rarely are instructed on how to do it - it’s easy to give advice, but without providing the structure to actually implement the advice, it isn’t worth much. People seem to forget how much work it takes for us to do the things they suggest. Very little advice is as straight-forward as advice-givers make it sound.

    Like above, one can say “install time-tracking productivity software” but what does that really mean? To me, it means that now I’ll have to research different types of software. Which means I have to find something compatible with my devices that also: respects my privacy, is easy to use, that has a reasonable price point, and won’t bombard me with ads. If I manage to do all that without getting side-tracked for too long (which is a big “IF”), THEN I have to set up the software and figure out how to use it. Only after all that can I get to the step of actually using it… which honestly, is easy to forget to do as well.

    Point is, a lot of “simple advice” isn’t actually that simple for people with ADHD. So when people talk like an idea is some easy thing, it can leave a lot of us feeling like we can’t even reach out for help because iT’s sO siMpLe that asking for help feels embarassing. Yet without guided support, it’s much easier to discount the advice outright than to try to figure out how to implement it on our own. So we fall into that trap, and the “good advice” is ignored yet again.



  • Most children have no idea how sexuality or genders work anyway

    So all the kids who make fun of the “fairy boy” or “butch girl” don’t have pre-existing knowledge of gender and sexuality expectations?

    Then why aren’t bullies targeting girls for dressing up in boas and singing pop? Why aren’t boys made fun of for cutting their hair short and liking sports? Put a boy in the first scenario and a girl in the second, and other kids will point them out as being “different.”

    If kids have “no idea how sexuality or genders work” then what, exactly, makes this type of discrimination possible?

    On an unrelated note, your understanding of children in general is absolutely baffling. It’s clear you aren’t around kids much, don’t remember your own childhood, and know diddly squat about child development. Kids are much smarter than you think.





  • In this comic, it’s obvious somebody is telling someone else their value - and that is messed up.

    But the nuances around this topic are worth addressing. I’ve been dogpiled before for admitting that AuDHD doesn’t bring my life 100% doom & gloom. I recognize the issues that my AuDHD brings, yet some people seem to think it’s a mortal sin to say the things I like about myself that are related to these conditions.

    A lot of things suck about navigating the world as someone neurodivergent. It also sucks when someone who doesn’t know your situation tries to tell you how you’re supposed to feel about it. Which is why it’s baffling that, for some reason, some people take any positive interpretation of one’s own ADHD/autism symptoms as some sort of, “sO YOU sHoULd bE hApPy aBoUt iT!”

    Bruh, I never said a damn thing about you. I can only speak for myself, and personally I like my creative abilities. I don’t like that I need to keep projects limited to things I can complete within a day (or else I lose focus forever), but it’s still really useful to me.

    Is it okay to say that? Because sometimes I think people look for messages that aren’t there. It’s ridiculous to me that being comfortable with yourself, as someone with disabilities, is seen as somehow “wrong” even in a disability-centered space. Am I not allowed to speak unless I’m bitching about my conditions? Sounds like ableist tone policing, but after that dogpile, I really don’t know what’s going on anymore.


  • I can only ever somewhat begin to understand the amount of stress that my “not normal” existence has caused my normie mom.

    Yet it must be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of stress I experienced being raised by someone who cares more about what others think when they look at her kid, than by anything her kid is actually experiencing.

    It sounds like this dad is at least trying. If my mom showed even this much ability to listen to my concerns, I’d consider it a win. Instead I just get shut down at Christmas when I respond to, “How are you?” with, “Not sleeping well, not eating well,” and when asked why, respond honestly with, “Concerned about my and my loved ones’ safety under the upcoming authoritarian regime.”

    Everyone else at the table: Knows exactly what I’m talking about. Offers understanding and support

    Mom, and only Mom: “Hey we shouldn’t talk about politics at a party, it makes people uncomfortable.”

    Everyone else at the table: Acquiesces


    I mean, we picked the discussion back up as soon as she left to go home, but it’s still disheartening to know that my mom would rather appeal to “not offending” imaginary people who aren’t even at the table, than to listen to the valid concerns that threaten her own child. Even my dad came up to me after this and offered tangible support. It’s just my mom, my “apolitical” mom who truly believes “bOtH siDeS sAmE” and refuses to entertain the slightest political thought - no matter how close to home it hits.

    It doesn’t surprise me that fascism is winning, when I consider that there are millions of people across the U.S. who view “politics” through the same lens she does: Can’t rock boat. Must blend in. Silence those that don’t comply, before they can threaten our own safety.


  • In dark times of desperation, seeking help on the internet, I sometimes find myself tempted by the Reddit thread in the top of my search results.

    But I know that if I click it, the only thing that will happen is the familiar cross-armed Snoo popping up and telling me, “You’ve been blocked by network security.”

    It’s like a reality check for me: I don’t want to use Reddit, and Reddit doesn’t want me using it. So I’m going to need to either get better at searching for solutions, or try to solve problems in my own way.

    In the end, introducing more barriers to entry has simply reinforced my decision not to go to Reddit. Their blocking of VPNs has conditioned me to ignore Reddit links in search results entirely, mentally filtering them out the same way I do with ads/sponsored content.

    Nice work, Spez.

    BONUS: I just came across a Google support page where someone asks, “How do I Block Reddit and Quora results from all searches permanently”. The top answer is hilarious and sad.



  • critical thinking is tough

    To preface, I don’t know a whole lot about AI bots. But we already see posts of the limitations of what AI can do/will allow, like bots refusing to repeat a given phrase. But what about actual critical thinking? If most bots are trained off human behavior, and most people don’t run on logical arguments, doesn’t that create a gap?

    Not that it’s impossible to program such a bot, and again, my knowledge on this is limited, but it doesn’t seem like the aim of current LLMs is to apply critical thought to arguments. They can repeat what others have said, or mix words around to recreate something similar to what others have said, but are there any bots actively questioning anything?

    If there are bots that question societal narratives, they risk being unpopular amongst both the ruling class and the masses that interact with them. As long as those that design and push for AI do so with an aim of gaining popular traction, they will probably act like most humans do and “not rock the boat.”

    If the AI we interact with were instead to push critical thinking, without applying the biases that constrain people from applying it perfectly, that’d be awesome. I’d love to see logic bots that take part in arguments on the side of reason - it’s something a bot could do all day, but a human can only do for so long.

    Which is why when I see a comment that argues a cogent point against a popular narrative, I am more likely to believe they are human. For now.