I generally don't talk about it, but because you asked, I have seen a lot of anime and hate most of it. I have seen Hellsing, Hellsing Ultimate, about 9/10 of the OG run of Fullmetal Alchemist, a lot of Ranma 1/2, Serial Experiments Lain, Akira, some Death Note, La Blue Girl, some tennis one I can't remember the name of, Castlevania, a few Studio Ghibli movies, Attack on Titan S1 & 2, random episodes of Samurai Pizza Cats, all of One Punch Man, Interspecies Reviewers, Slayers, some DiC Sailor Moon, some early Pokemon, and a few Dragonball, YuGiOh, Digimon, and Naruto episodes.
I don't count early GI Joe or Transformers even though they're technically anime, but I didn't like those either.
Of those, I liked Interspecies Reviewers, about 1.5 seasons of OPM, 1 season of Castlevania, and Hellsing Abridged (because it's fucking hilarious).
Here's a random top 10 of reasons:
- Anime has a horrible habit of having a great premise, a lot of repeated setup, and then zero payoff followed by a new season escalating with the same. In short, great at premise, poor at developing it into a story. And endings? They have no idea how to end a series except for fighting bigger bad guys...
- And that's IF they can even be arsed to finish a series. I'm aware of the timeframe dynamic between manga and anime. It fucked over Game of Thrones too. Maybe we just agree not to start a show before the source material is done?
- Much of the animation looks abysmal and the "serious" ones seem to have an awful habit of just... panning over a background or frozen characters in a scene for fucking ever to fill time. I made note of this during Serial Experiments Lain to my friend who was making me watch it and it basically ruined the show for him. It completely wrecked the pacing and was done CONSTANTLY. There were 45 second pans (which I would start audibly counting after 10 seconds) while the main character just monologued "I'm 12 and this is deep" bullshit that was nearly completely disconnected from the plot. There was no reason to do this. Even recent shows like Castlevania did this.
- Shit just happens that doesn't make any sense in context of the world they've set up. This is endemic from anime I've seen. Anime fans think that randomness is "creative" instead of just "throwing shit at a screen because the writer had a fever dream and it doesn't matter at all if it makes any fucking sense". Spirited Away is basically just this. No, randomness is not creativity, Katy the Penguin of Doom.
- They're just a different set of tropes than American cartoons, many of which I find to be nonsensical, twee, or cringe-inducing. Bloody nose when you get a boner trope, I'm looking at you.
- I fucking hate Japanese voice acting (and often for the most part the Americans who dub it, especially in kids shows). This started when Sailor Moon came over and I wanted to kill everyone in the immediate vicinity whenever most of the characters spoke. That shrill panic screaming that was in SM and Pokemon was awful.
- In the same vein, I also can't stand constant "reaction sounds". Someone saying something mildly surprising that you should have easily realized 10 episodes ago isn't an excuse to stare blankly and make an "AH", "OH", or "UH" noise (sometimes followed by a small choking sound) roughly four hundred times per episode. Humans don't do this.
- They make movies that just do random shit and don't have anything to do with the show (if not outright contradict the show). Dragonball is especially notorious for this.
- A really weird number of them throw in Nazis seemingly at random, appropriate time and setting be damned. Need a bad guy? Fucking Nazis!
- I am constantly inundated with friends that like anime telling me that I should watch whatever their new anime obsession is despite it conforming to 3/4 of bad things on this list because obviously I just haven't watched the right anime.
- As someone who runs an IT firm, I'm in agreement that all of those country-based firewall policies are bad EXCEPT in the case of actual defence of the internet (things like DDOS attacks, active hack attempts, etc.). Some of the businesses we manage have users that travel abroad, so I feel China is raised more as a concern because it's the most... overreaching in what they block and is in the top 3 for executing the most cyberattacks worldwide (along with Russia and, since the war, Ukraine). In the case of the Chinese great firewall, not only is the content blocked, but it's one of the the only places where you can also be flagged as a user for trying to access some pretty common data which has some ramifications I really don't care for. It's similar to rules in place for North Korea, but they have more talented SysAdmins and better equipment in China by a long shot, so getting around things is harder.
- I'd agree that SOME of the people are responsible for their elected officials in democracies - namely the ones who voted for that leader. I'd also agree that people are responsible for not having better options by allowing two-party systems to continue (though I'm not sure how to get rid of those parties at this stage). In that same vein, I'd also hold the people responsible in dictatorships as they haven't overthrown the government that claims to speak for them. In some cases, leaders can not roll back policy implementation from a past leader due to the way the political system functions or due to treaties as I said. In the US, they kinda ARE Israel's bitch because Israel is theirs. It's the only safe US foothold in the area and keeps Iran in check and allows for a base of operations. An overwhelming majority of the weapons being shipped to Israel aren't even in use against Palestine; they had all they needed to do the horrible shit they're doing at the outset. The weapons are being used for other purposes, be those future conflicts, or to have a cache of weapons should the US need them for future issues. Is it a bad look? Sure. Is the US still going to try to exert control? Also sure. That's how geopolitics works at present. We don't have to like it, but everyone does it to some extent. It's not good, but again, I don't know how to remove it, and there are certainly worse systems.
- I totally agree that it may be heavy-handed. It also only applies to US government-funded agencies. At present, these new samples seem to be a carrot to help relax the restrictions, and it may work as researchers are quite unhappy with Wolf since the US isn't funding missions like they once did. Who knows if they'll relax restrictions, but ODS data shared with other countries is freely accessible to China through those other countries, so it hasn't been much of an issue beyond the initial grandstanding. For example, if the US shares ODS data with Canada, and Canada gives data to China, the data shared is the same. China simply can't make requests for non-shared data (again, like ballistic schematics) or be a full partner in US projects without FBI approval. How much does that matter? I legitimately don't know. Samples have never been affected by Wolf, however, and have been shared freely upon request to my knowledge.
But they are portrayed differently and there are entire threads about how "modern audiences" don't like the American Pie way.
The three things you mentioned there in The Boys were not for titillation, they were played for humor or shock as was the (overwhelmingly) male nudity. And the actions are mostly done by the bad guys. A butt shot of a Starlight body double in the most recent season isn't comparable and is a stinger to someone being raped. Sex and sexuality is portrayed poorly and as kinda gross throughout.
American Pie had a scene for titillation and the actions were carried out by the protagonists. Sex and sexuality is portrayed as fun, nothing to be ashamed of, and a normal part of life.
The OP is correct. It was never about not being able to reference creepy sex practices by bad people. That was never off the table.
Things are different now, and I would argue in a very unhealthy way.
So... a few things in order to actually change your view. Some of these may sound like snark, but I promise they aren't. I love CMV threads and sometimes the best way to do that is to show a weak or broken logic chain and I know those can look like an attack.
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This may be a "politicians" thing, and not a "the West" thing. Every political leader denounces things that other countries shouldn't do and turns a blind eye to things their friendlier countries do. Hell, every religion does it too. So do political parties. And friend groups. And marriages. No country is innocent because humans can be fucking monsters and can excuse things from the devil they know.
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Somewhat conversely, I don't know how much you can hold current people accountable for previous regimes. If you can, how far back? Is Biden responsible for things Trump did? How about for Nixon? How about for Taft? How about the Native tribes who were at war and trying to genocide other tribes and take slaves long before white settlers arrived? I bring this up because I've known a good number of diplomats and many of these political deals (one of which being providing weapons to Israel currently) was a previous regime. Breaking those agreements make you a bad "partner country" to deal with. Breaking a treaty deal is... bad news internationally. The country you broke that deal with may also have leverage on you to make sure you keep it as well. Maybe things the public doesn't know about. You also can't come out and say that the only reason you're abiding by the treaty is so as to not piss off other people because it makes you seem weak internationally.
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Data sharing in astronomy seems like a universal win and NASA does share date with China. The US shared data and samples from lunar missions past at the time. China is just barred from joint-ops missions from government-funded agencies without FBI approval which is not the same thing. This was due to some suspicion of previous data requested that weren't about space or a mission, but about rocket launching tech that was then put into use for armaments. "It was alleged that technical information provided by American commercial satellite manufacturers to China in connection with satellite launches could have been used to improve Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile technology." Sharing ICBM information with a hostile foreign government is generally a poor move, defensively.
Are any of those seeming like something you'd like to discuss further?
Now this is going to be largely anecdotal as many of the places I'm speaking about don't allow studies for things like this, but... Having now lived in over a dozen countries and been on scores of ExPat compounds the world over, I can safely say that every country and race on the planet has those that think they are superior to everyone else. This isn't an exclusive thing about the West. Heck, Canada and the US aren't even in the top 3 worst examples I can think of. I've seen it in a much stronger form in Saudi Arabia. We're talking US slavery-era levels of racism there, and that's currently.
Re-appointed you! Wasn't removing for any reason other than I keep a clean house and thought you were away for a good long time.
This was actually the topic I wanted to bring out as the inaugural Steelman! I'm conflicted for a few reasons.
I'd like to know more on the subject, but there's some conflicting science on the issue. I've seen papers that discuss brain differences saying both that there are no differences between male and female brains, but in other papers that there are. Similarly, I've read papers that talked about no differences in trans brains vs. their biological sex, and also ones that state there are. It's kinda wild and I don't know enough about brains to confidently decode the research properly.
In a similar vein, I also know studies are not being funded (and at least two that were actively shuttered) due to not researching the subject in a manor that was explicitly pro-trans, which I have a problem with. Not that I'm anti-trans by any means, but I don't like "activist" research. Put another way, if neutral science and review doesn't support an issue, maybe it's not the science that's wrong.
What changed your mind?
As I said in other threads, I can't even partially understand how people don't want to have a more cohesive / logically sound opinion, so this is close to the heart for me.
I had a major opinion shift on drugs when I was in my mid 20s; I was straight-edge without knowing what straight-edge was until then. No drinking, and no drugs of any kind. My experiences with drugs were of the potheads-that-drop-out-of-school and abusive family kind. Seeing people I cared about become burnouts way too young and do themselves permanent damage really drove home how much harm they could do. As such, I used to think that there was no good reason to do so.
I had a conversation in a forum that changed things when another user spoke about something I hadn't factored in.
Art.
I had no quarrel with the majority of art that came from drugs (and to a much lesser extent, drinking) and actively loved a lot of it. Turns out it wasn't drugs or drinking I had a hate-on for, it was addiction in general.
And to answer my own question, I really want to do that Steelman group thingie if we get a few people in on it.
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This weekly thread will focus on the sometimes painful art of being wrong.
I don't mean not having an opinion and then forming one, I mean having an opinion, and then having that opinion changed with new or more accurate information.
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- When was the last time you were wrong? What about something somewhat major?
- What was it regarding?
- How did it make you feel?
- What do you feel is the best way to correct someone with an ingrained opinion?
- Is it easier online or in person?
- When do you give up on talking to someone?
- Would you be open to a new thread type here where we create a Steelman post as a group? (eg. We start from questions and end up at THE post / article for finding information on a touchy subject)
I don't know if it's the one you're thinking of, but this guy does motion comic stuff and makes fun of superheroes:
It looks like I will be nearly the only dissenter here. I didn't care for the game.
PROS:
- The music and sound design were completely appropriate and fit the world.
- An initially interesting story setup.
- Some of the planets have a SUPER cool premise and are a joy to explore.
- The DLC adds some much-needed (albeit mild) horror elements.
NEUTRALS:
- Achievements are implemented, but are mostly for irrelevant side activities. Do you like using a guide to figure out how to get all the achievements? Well, you will have to.
CONS:
- This is not an adventure game, this is a puzzle game first and foremost. If you are not down with figuring out hundreds of vague Dark Souls-style lore blurbs scattered all over in order to work out how to solve environmental puzzles to progress, do not get this game.
- In the same vein, if you are not down with having a loop end before you're done exploring an area only to have to trek all the way back there and go through everything all over again in case you missed something, do not get this game. This could be partially solved by having the logs you find on a planet permanently NOT GLOW any more after you had read their chain, or maybe a ship notice letting you know there were undecyphered texts on a planet still. I had to re-tread an astounding amount of ground just to make sure I wasn't missing something.
- When your ship directs you to a planet that you need something from, the navigation on some of them is so obtuse that I found several places I could not find again even after dozens of visits to their planets. A map or better signposting would alleviate this.
- The characters were deeply forgettable, and you are constantly inundated with dozens of gibberish alien names so unless you follow a lore guide or take notes, you're not going to figure out who did what. And speaking of...
- The story has a veneer of "pretty good sci-fi" but is told quite poorly. You will beat the game, get the incredibly lacklustre ending that doesn't close out the story in any way, and watch one of many lore explanation videos that will make things click into place. The fact that the lore videos have SO MANY HITS is endemic of the fact that this is a narrative poorly delivered. You will find the lore in random order. If spread over multiple sessions like I played, this will mean you will not make some absolutely needed connections.
- Many things do not make sense within the context of the world and there is no reason for them to be happening at the time except for the hand-waving "It's a video game" excuse, which breaks immersion. Why only now is sand being moved from one planet to another at the beginning of a cycle? Why only now is one planet being broken by lava? These (and other that I can not speak about due to spoilers) are not explained - the systems have existed for ages and would have (and should have given the environments they set up) occurred before this, but because it makes for a more interesting setup, it all happens now.
- The controls are... an acquired taste at best. Look at many of the negative reviews; many state the controls as an issue. There is a reason for this, even though I did become accustomed to them over time. I swapped to a controller and it was less bad. The keyboard and mouse controls are abysmal.
- I played the final build after the DLC came out, and even this far in development, I had some severe bugs. Controls would get "stuck" and force a game restart, achievements didn't unlock correctly, etc.
- I wound up quitting because I didn't know what to do next and didn't care to watch yet another video to figure it out. There were hundreds of text logs that may or may not have been useful, and no idea how to find what was missing to help me progress without consulting guides, and it became too much. I eventually realized that I was just throwing time into a hole with nothing to show for it. It genuinely felt like it wanted me to give up and I couldn't help but oblige. I just... stopped. I hated it. I kept doing the same thing over and over and eventually felt that I wasn't enjoying anything. I hate the very concept of repetition as a game mechanic unless executed well; this wasn't executed well.
- Despite quitting, I have seen all the endings. The real ending is legitimately nonsense and is basically an appeal to emotion while leaving the reality of the universe behind. It abandons the premise with what can only be described as a narrative hug that does essentially nothing, but presents the veneer of "feel good." It is nothing. It is empty. Everyone but me loves it for this, and I can't figure out why.
CONCLUSION: Meh? I really don't understand the adoration people have for this game. It's a mediocre non-combat roguelike with about 3 hour of content they've spread over 20 hours. It feels very much like a case of style over substance. This game genuinely makes me sad. I really wanted to like it, but... ugh. It feels like work.
They are? Where? I mod a Community and I've never seen anything that isn't explicitly for Admins that can see them.
For my community ( !actual_discussion@lemmy.ca ) I would adore this as long as it's available to Mods of the community the downvotes are in and Admins of that instance only. It should absolutely not be visible for normal users.
We are hit with downvotes nearly every time we post a new thread on anything even remotely controversial so it would really help us filter out people who simply downvote to bury the thread and contribute nothing whatsoever to the discussion.
Heck, we made it a rule to not downvote unless the user is not adding to the discussion, and that it should not be used as a disagree button. People generally ignore this, however.
That or just add the moderator option to disable downvotes for Communities. It would be an incredibly handy toggle.
EDIT: For an example as to why it should be implemented, see this post you're currently viewing where I give reasons, how it's been impacting us, some alternatives, and people hit the "fuck you" button with zero discussion and that's all. This is the problem.
Figured I'd make a new reply in hopes the system notifies of a response.
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It'd be cool to do an instance, but I don't have the time (or maybe resources) to manage such a thing. Even getting help to manage one Community is hard. We have had two mods vanish, and I can only imagine running an instance being much harder. Our largest issue is actually getting replies instead of drive-by-downvotes. New threads that aren't pretty obviously tuned to the attitudes of Lemmy at large get buried quickly in no-discussion downvotes. For example, the thread about overpopulation was insanely downvoted, with very little actual discussion occurring. It was reported to admins, and I was told multiple times that it was a fascist dogwhistle. I have no idea how or why this is, because nobody explained it or responded to questions. I replied with data, and was told in no uncertain terms to fuck off in PMs. People don't respond because they don't see the thread due to downvoting, won't reply if they do see it due to dogpiling, or can't back up their opinions and stop responding after making insults. This has been my experience of trying to discuss anything of substance on Lemmy. It's a huge problem. I would absolutely help run a new instance, but I couldn't spearhead the effort.
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I like the multiple vote system, but my preference would be to simply disable downvotes altogether and leave it at "upvote only." I don't think we'll ever get through to users that a downvote isn't a "disagree button" to many people. Disabling downvotes would have to be done instance-side, or so I've been told. I don't think the entire instance wishes to do that however. I've requested more Community controls, but there's been a distinct lack of them at present.
I'm totally open to any ideas to help though!
A trash heap where it fucking belongs.
There isn't a thing that you can put ketchup on that a good BBQ sauce or hot sauce isn't better on. I will die on this hill.
Hey! I wish the damn system would notify me when a post is made in the community, so we can start that as a wishlist feature right now. It makes it hard to engage and grow a Community when you don't even know someone has posted there. When I browse Lemmy, I tend to use All and simply filter out subs I have no interest in. I don't think many people exclusively visit specific subs.
First off, I appreciate the positivity! You have no idea how many aggro messages I get because I had the gall to even broach subjects that some people don't like. I've had PMs from people telling me they're going to kill themselves because of threads I've responded to where I pointed out logic failures, been called every name under the sun, had the sub reported multiple time because of threads questioning a personal moral narrative the user had, and much more. It gets to be a real drag when you see a reply notification and get a twinge of apprehension because you're not sure what you'll get.
I have to head out now (work stuff), unfortunately, but I'll edit this reply in a few hours with thoughts on your proposals above, I just wanted to make sure I replied ASAP so you can see that there's some movement.
Yes but one example does not (or should not) a rule make. There's good statistical analysis and plenty of reason to back up that particular ruling so it's not simply a belief, but good science on outcomes. So once again using your example, we have science and logic versus belief that the science is immoral.
In other cases like the facetious example I gave in my previous post, if it is valid to make a rule from nothing but belief, then it is just as valid to repeal that rule because of nothing but belief.
I am absolutely pro-choice by the way, but simply pointing out the flaw in the logic of the other poster.
So... it isn't ALWAYS a fallacy. In its purest, a slippery-slope argument is of the following form:
“If A, which some people want, is done or allowed, then B, which most people don’t want, will inevitably follow. Therefore, let’s not do or allow A.”
The fallacy occurs when that form is not fleshed out by sufficient reasons to believe that B will inevitably follow from A, such as in the following examples:
- “The US should put the Ten Commandments into schools. If they don't, then everyone will be worshipping Satan within a few generations."
- “We’ve got to stop them from banning pornography. Once they ban one form of literature, they will never stop. Next thing you know, they will be banning all books!”
In these examples, the conclusion does not follow deductively from the premise. Nor is any reason given to believe that a chain of events set in motion by the act described in the premise will inevitably lead to what’s described in the conclusion. Heck, the above examples are not even good inductive logic.
So you're absolutely correct in saying that not all slippery-slope arguments are fallacies, it just takes logic in between, and that's something a lot of people struggle with.
I do use discussion and debate as linked terms, yes, but they aren't the same. I'd like to see more of both.
Debate like how you're used to seeing "Debate Teams" engage in? To me it's as useless as most online commentary. They're bending rules to steamroll or Gish Gallop opposition. It's not interesting or enlightening and there's a distinct lack of substance.
Real debate with (as you mentioned) citations, respect, a point, and actual experts? Love it. At my college there was a debate between two professors who had differing opinions about research in their field and it was awesome.
But there CAN be value in internet discussion. Moreover, I feel there SHOULD be value. I've experienced it many times in the past and even somewhat recently in this community. When it happens and you get someone who thinks differently than yourself, and who treats you like a real person instead of "the opposition," it's absolutely wonderful.
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This weekly thread will focus on debate, discussion, and the lack thereof on social media (including Lemmy).
My apologies for "leading" a bit more than I try to normally in these weekly threads, however this is a topic that pisses me off in particular. Not only as a mod of a discussion-based community, but as someone who loves it when someone challenges me and proves me wrong / disproves my logic so I'd very much like to hear outside opinions on the topic. I can't even partially understand how people don't want to have a more cohesive / logically sound opinion.
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- Do you feel that discussion is worse now? If so, what caused it? If not, where may others get this feeling from?
- Is it potentially a platform issue, or does it happen everywhere?
- Does discussion even matter any longer? Why or why not?
- Do you feel that more could be done to encourage discussion with outside views or are we better off just "bubble"-ing ourselves and blocking everyone we disagree with?
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This weekly thread will focus on the word "Woke" and its meaning, use, and misuse.
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- What does the word mean to you?
- Is it applied correctly or incorrectly?
- Is it even applicable any longer?
- Do you feel that Conservative media misapplies it, and is "everything I don't like is woke" an appropriate sentiment or simply uncharitable?
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This weekly thread will focus on words, their import, and their use / misuse.
With respect to the late, great George Carlin.
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- How do you feel about political (or forced) movement of language? For example, pro-life and pro-choice being two sides of the same issue because nobody wants to identify as "anti-"anything.
- What are some words that are nebulous, but everyone "knows" the meaning of?
- Are there any manipulated words that annoy you?
- Do you find any common patterns with how words are used by various groups?
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This weekly thread will focus on getting other people to watch movies we love, but others may not have seen or even know about.
In order to make a recommendation or two, simply let others know an appropriate amount about a movie and why they should give it a chance.
If you want to deeply discuss one, please remember to use Spoiler tags where applicable!
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- Great bad movies
- Hilarious garbage for a big group movie night
- Best genre movies
- Underrated films
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This weekly thread will focus on the phrase "The Cruelty Is The Point", which may take some explanation.
Frequently on Lemmy (and elsewhere), I see the phrase in comment threads. In my experience, it has been referencing any policy that is contrary to a Liberal or Leftist belief that the thread discusses. I have found the phrase when discussing trans issues, housing, taxes, healthcare, abortion, and many more.
This does not mean it doesn't exist elsewhere, it is simply where I see it since I spend much of my social media time on Lemmy. If your experience differs, please let us know!
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- Do you believe this? If so, why?
- Is it true / false in some or all scenarios?
- Is it with certain groups or regarding certain things?
- Do you feel that speech like this is conducive to fixing societal issues?
- Is what is considered "kind" always the best course of action?
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This weekly thread will focus on Protests, both effective and ineffective.
Over the past 15 years, we've seen more protesting since the 1960's in North America. Some feel they are needed, and some feel they are wasteful and silly.
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- Have you ever taken part? What was it and why?
- What protests have you felt have been effective or ineffective?
- If you feel they are not effective in general, what would you rather people do?
- Have you ever had your opinion swayed by any form of protest? Please note that this could be either to the side of the protesters or away from their cause.
- How would you try to ensure a successful protest?
- Do you feel that violent protest is mostly uncalled for? If not, how do you know when you need to escalate things?
- Just for fun, what is the absolute worst protest you've ever heard of?
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This weekly thread will focus on work and work culture.
This has been a back-burnered issue since COVID came and upended many workplace traditions worldwide, but I'd really like to hear about what you all think about it!
Some Starters (and don't feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don't care to):
- What is the ideal work / life balance? Right now, the worldwide average is 5 days per week, 8-5 PM. Is this too much / too little / just right?
- With productivity skyrocketing and wages falling, what would you like to see to fix things?
- Would you accept less money and shorter hours?
- What would you feel minimum wage should do to adjust?
- Do you feel that the current resurgence of Unions is positive or negative?
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
No, it's not a joke. I'm frustrated and I'm probably not choosing my words carefully.
This community has had steadily falling engagement - our last 3 weekly threads have had a grand total of 1 (excellent and well-articulated) response, and the number of topics not generated by myself (or the other mod) since the inception of the community has also been 1.
Very few people want to actually talk. From what I've seen, the masses want the same things that they wanted on Reddit:
- Memes
- Articles they don't read (but will bitch about endlessly) that reinforce their opinion
- Angry responses to someone (who may be trolling) that reinforce the current politics of the reader (that they couldn't have given a fuck about a few years ago until it became heavily politicized)
- Shitty easy jokes
- Personal politics circlejerking
I hate that I can see a hundredth point-free meme post and view 200 replies on it. I hate that it's just the same talking points being strawmanned over and over again in every thread. I hate that any point outside common groupthink is downvoted to oblivion and buried instead of discussed.
The reason I'd like to back away from Lemmy seems to be the same reason I started this community: we need more people who can articulate points, and less downvoting, but it doesn't seem to be getting better.
Maybe one day, but today is not that day. Lemmy needs to mature in more ways than one.
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This weekly thread will focus on current political divisiveness occurring nearly worldwide. I'd post links, but I feel that everyone knows what I'm speaking about.
This issue has been especially prevalent in American politics as of late, but it is felt nearly everywhere.
Some Starters:
- What do you feel has caused it? Add proofs if possible.
- Once caused, what has added to it and why?
- What can be done to ameliorate the issue, if anything? On a personal scale or a national one.
- Can it be remedied or is civil war the only option?
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This week’s Weekly discussion thread we will focus on Activism, both positive and negative.
Here is the definition we will be using, so please make sure your argument matches.
Some starters:
- What would you classify as effective forms of activism?
- What are ineffective forms of activism?
- How does a group know when their mission is achieved? What if the mission is ambiguous or changes over time?
- Do you feel they stop too early or too late?
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This week’s Weekly discussion thread will be trying something new. We'll be focusing on the age old question "If you could change one thing positively in the world what would you change?"
Difficulty Level: (Pick your difficulty, let us know what you picked, and stick to it)
- Go wild.
- You can't harm others.
- The change has to be somewhat realistic or believable.
- If I could convince 1,000,000 people right now, it would work.
- If I could convince 100,000 people right now, it would work.
- Souls Mode: If I could just get motivated, I could do this myself.
(Also, let me know if these "fun" weeks are welcome here, or just stupid)
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This week’s Weekly discussion thread will be focused on Linux. I know that Lemmy is VERY biased towards Linux and FOSS, but I'm curious what non-technical people feel about it and what your thoughts are.
Some starters:
- Have you used Linux? If so, what was your experience like?
- Would you run it as your primary system? Why or why not?
- What would it take to get you to do so?
- Do you feel it's a solid option?
- Are there any changes that you'd think would benefit consumers and aid with adoption?
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This week’s Weekly discussion thread will be focused on Capitalism / Economic Systems. Here is the definition we will be using so everyone can use the same terminology. If your argument does not use that definition, we ask that you reframe so that it does so that everyone can work within the same framework.
Here are some questions that should help kickstart things:
- Is capitalism effective? Is it good, or as evil as some Lemmy instances will have you believe?
- Are there better alternatives, and why are they better?
- How could we realistically move toward those alternatives?
- Is there anything you do not understand or would like to discuss about Capitalism / Economic Systems?
Changes to the drow and orcs, and more diverse hiring
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion). You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
I dislike this article. It's a little old now, but there are several things blisteringly wrong with this idea at its heart.
Purely for example, if you read a book on dragonflies and take offence because you see racial similarities between whatever race a person is and dragonflies, that's an issue with you, not the source. You are relying on your opinion on what the source says. Since opinion varies per person, you should not dictate policy based on opinion. It's an insurmountable hill to cater to whatever opinions are since opinion will always change - it's an unsound basis for any form of logic.
Let's do a thought experiment:
If a trailer-dwelling white person in the USA reads about the Vistani, and takes offence because they also live in a trailer, sees that as a negative, and assumes the Vistani are a potshot at him, is he right to be offended and call for a ban?
If a nimble Canadian POC (which is also a terrible term as it literally applies to everyone on the planet) reads about Elves and assumes they're talking about him because he also happens to know how to use a bow and is skinny with a lithe frame, is he correct in calling for a ban? What if he sees being nimble as a negative for some reason (because positive / negative characteristics are opinions and what people see as negative is not objective)? What if he sees it as being racist by saying the source is calling ALL Elves nimble and therefore good at sports? "But they stereotypically have a different skin colour!" I hear you saying. So do Orcs. That argument applies here and if you can't square that circle, then the logic falls apart utterly.
Personal identification with aspects of characters in a source material are not cause for alteration. You are an individual; you are not a group. Grouping people into camps based on visible traits or histories is a disgusting habit.
Treat people as individuals and racism dies. Treat people as groups and call out the differences constantly and you'll have people fencing themselves in while calling themselves inclusive.
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion). You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
This week's Weekly discussion thread will be focused on Gender. Here is the definition we will be using so everyone can use the same terminology.
Here are some questions that should help kickstart things:
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Why do you feel it started entering public consciousness in regards to humans about 15 years ago?
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Was it needed?
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Did it do what it was intended to do?
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Are things better or worse now in that specific area?
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Is there anything you do not understand or would like to discuss about the idea of gender?
First and foremost, let me say that I appreciate you actually engaging in a real discussion on Lemmy!
WHY?
This Community was made in response to the rest of Lemmy and the way many otherwise interesting discussion threads fall apart into downvoting, groupthink, and burying of posts composed by people asking for clarification or looking to understand the reasoning behind things.
We don’t like people making baseless accusations; we defend people on all sides when people are wrong about their opposition. We don't appreciate it when people think they know what others think and project incorrect (and often evil) bullshit on each other. We dislike people being wilfully wrong because their group fetishizes a certain angle of the truth instead of the boring reality of the situation.
It is important to maintain solid reasoning and conclusions, not just one or the other.
Ideas and discussion are important. We don’t feel we can get out of the current slump we’re in with political discourse unless we are able to clearly articulate ourselves and discuss the world we're all living in.
DO:
- Be civil. This does not mean you shouldn’t challenge people, just don’t be a dick about it. Disagreeing with reasons is fine, mocking or insulting someone is not.
- Upvote interesting points and things that are well-articulated, even if you may not agree.
- Upvote when you see others correct themselves or change their mind.
- Be prepared to back up any claims you make with an unbiased source that you've actually read.
- Be willing to be wrong. Admit when you are incorrect or spoke poorly. If you are the OP of a thread, feel free to edit the main post, and add an edit to the end to show your opinion has changed.
- Be a “Devil’s Advocate” if there's no opposition and you can see some arguments for the other side you'd like to see addressed. You do not have to believe either side of an issue in order to generate solid points on a view.
- Discuss hot-button issues.
- Use bracket tags in the title to show the kind of post you're making (see below), and try to use the disclaimer if it's your style to help those coming in from outside the Community who may not understand it.
- Add humour, and be creative! Dry writing isn’t super fun to read or discuss.
- Post any rule, formatting, or changes here that you would like to see.
DO NOT:
- Call people names or label people. We fight ideas, not people here.
- Ask for sources, and then not respond to the person providing them. This means you're not here to better yourself or the discussion, and it's rude to waste someone's time by challenging them and then just walking away.
- Mindlessly downvote people you disagree with. We only downvote people that do not add to the discussion.
- Be a bot, spam, or engage in self-promotion unless explicitly allowed by the mods.
- Duplicate posts from within the last month unless new non-trivial information is surfaced on the topic.
- Strawman.
- Expect that personal experience or your personal morals are a substitute for proof.
- Exaggerate. Not everything is a genocide, and not everyone slightly to the right of you is a Nazi.
- Copy an entire article in your post body. It’s just messy. Link to it and maybe summarize if needed.
SUBMISSION RULES:
All main posts should append a bracket tag to the front to describe the topic type:
- (WEEKLY) Will be reserved for Mods as it will be used for the pinned featured weekly topic thread.
- (CMV) Change My View can read like a rant or some scattered thoughts on a topic that the creator is looking to challenge themselves on. You must start with some initial reasons along with some thoughts on how those reasons led you to feel the way you do. If you can articulate things that would or wouldn't change your mind, please add those as well. If your mind is changed, we ask that you place a link to the post that did so at the end of the main post as an edit.
- (OPEN-ENDED) for a general prompt to show that you're looking to see what people think. A good place to seek answers to questions that you haven't thought of yet.
- (ARTICLE) for a link to an article to be discussed. Please link the main source, not a news link already talking about the source and give a few initial thoughts.
- (STEELMAN) is discussion on hard mode and is the opposite of a strawman argument. This is someone making as close to an iron-clad argument as they can for a side or an opinion and challenging you to poke holes in it where you can. These should come with sources already.
- (OTHER) is, for now, what we call everything else. I think we covered most of it above, but just in case, there's OTHER.
We would encourage you to also have our Disclaimer bolded at the front to help show how we're different to those coming in from browsing New or All posts which should hopefully help curtailing the drive-by downvoting that was so common in our early days:
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
And finally, none of these are so set in stone that we can't change them. If you want to see adjustments or changes, let us know here or in Private Message!
So now that we've been around for a week or so and have tried to populate things with some controversial topics, how would you like to see this Community grow and change?
Should I add post guidelines? Maybe adjust the pinned thead?
Should I change the rules at all?
Our disclaimer is currently:
Remember: Up / Downvoting in this community is not an agree / disagree button. We upvote good or constructive conversation and downvote off-topic posts or badly-voiced opinions. If you disagree, you respond like a human in good faith and prove out your position.
Should the disclaimer be changed? It's primarily for people wandering in from viewing All threads (instead of just their subscribed ones), or for people on phones who never read the sidebar. It is there to show, in point form, how we operate to people who don't come to us purposefully.
Are there any topic you'd really like to see covered?
Are there any other Communities we should do a link swap with that have a similar ethos with?
Are there types of threads you want to see less or more of? More descriptors?
I'm open to any and all good ideas!
Remember: Up / Downvoting in this community is not an agree / disagree button. We upvote good or constructive conversation and downvote off-topic posts or badly-voiced opinions. If you disagree, you respond like a human in good faith and prove out your position.
The amount of "left-right" entrenchment seems to be at an all-time high and increasing.
No matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on, what would it take to get you to vote for a new party?
Would implementing a better electoral system that would eliminate the two-party see-saw and allowing for more granularity in candidates help (See Single Transferable Vote or STAR depending on the type of election)?
Do you have other solutions to this issue?
Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
I have found that many people "doing their own research" are only searching for confirmation to their beliefs, and also seem to have a misunderstanding about what "research" actually entails.
If you're a rational thinker and you believe you have a source that makes a good point, you'll simply link that source directly, and maybe even explain how it supports the thing you believe. However, if you're a conspiracy theorist who only has bad sources that can be easily disproven, you'll become wary about linking to those sources directly or trying to explain what they mean to you, lest someone in the discussion completely blow your argument apart and laugh at you.
That's why the imperative appeal to "do your own research" has developed - whether intentional or not, it's a tailor-made strategy to protect bad sources (and bad thinking) from criticism. By telling people to do their own research rather than being up front about your sources and arguments, you try to push people into learning about the topic you want them to internalize while there are no dissenting voices present. It's a tactic that separates discussion zones from "research" zones, so that "research" can't be interrupted by reality.
People who actually have good points with good sources don't need to do this. It's only the people who are clinging onto bad, debunkable sources (or simple feelings) that need to vaguely tell people to "do their own research". The actual scientific method is "help me disprove this theory. Only when we all fail can we consider this theory good enough for now, but we will continue looking for other theories that explain things better, and then try and disprove those too".
No researcher tells another researcher on a level playing field to do their own research. They say, "What have you found? Let's discuss it." This is the way progress is made. There's a reason we're calling all this the culture wars and not the new renaissance.
Hell, even culture war is generous branding. It's people living in reality against a loose coalition of people who just generally don't like them because they've been trained to by the moneyed interests who have spent the last 30 years building a propaganda machine to weaponize them for political and financial gain.
The truly strange part is that the research you do as a civilian does not matter. If you somehow got a degree and ran an absolutely bulletproof years-long study in CURRENT THING, the people telling you to "do your own research" would be exactly the people who would not believe you because it would go against their preconceptions. They don't care about research, they care about belief.
Looking things up online that conform to your viewpoint is not research, it is a means to entrench yourself.
Let's Do An Experiment!
Right. So by your downvotes, I see that you don't understand why the scientific method necessitates disregarding personal experience. Let's show you an extremely simplified but basic example:
Let's say that a person believes that cats simply do not exist.
Oh, they've seen cats before, but they think they're just really small people covered in carpet and refuse to believe any evidence to the contrary.
Everyone else knows that cats exist; we know there is something wrong with this person.
Regardless, the person decides to do an "experiment" to prove it. They walk into their living room, glue carpet to their spouse, and then claim victory. They then document it stating that in their personal experience, they proved the one cat they found in the area was just a person with carpet glued to them. They gather support online, and publish it in a for-pay journal. The article is never peer-reviewed because the person refused to tell of their methodology, but people repost the "study".
If science operated in a fashion that the "do your own research" people felt, then we should all believe this person.
Just because a single person has never seen a cat, or chooses not to acknowledge cats, doesn't mean that factually cats do not exist. Even organizing a poor experiment and claiming they have done "research" does not make them correct. The burden of proof is still present, and a poor experiment is often blown apart in the scientific community or unrepeatable. This is why peer-review without an agenda is incredibly important.
If everything someone "saw with their own eyes" were true, then ghosts, aliens, demons, every God that has ever been worshipped (even though they preclude each other), mythical creatures, and countless other things are all true. All of them. That, or there is a flaw in the logic you are using.
Also, to most of the people here who will no doubt not read this as it may challenge your world view - plugging your ears and screaming as loud as you can to drown out the world does not make truth vanish.
Being insulting, blocking, or downvoting doesn't mean that you're correct.
I like to believe that people can be reached and the only outcome isn't just shit-throwing matches and all-out war. However, if you're not willing to debate in good faith, then there is no debate.
You have lost at the outset by not being willing to be incorrect.
Ace T'Ken @lemmy.ca I advocate for logical and consistent viewpoints on controversial topics. If you're looking at my profile, I've probably made you mad by doing so.