The netflix series was one of the best science fiction shows I’ve seen, it was very intelligent. I’m sad so many people thought it was slow and boring, it had real moments of humanity and awe and horror. I guess if you don’t understand a lot of the concepts and scope and scale of the ideas being portrayed it may seem as convoluted and hand-wavy as any other science fiction that doesn’t make an effort.

There’s basically no ethical porn. Even under capitalism. Especially under capitalism.

I don’t disagree that the industry is pretty awful in places, but what does this mean? Do you think maybe this is a bit hyperbolic or puritanical?

Hyperbolic in terms of this, consenting adults have been trading, sharing and showing off for each other for a very long time, it happened before the internet and now it’s happening all around you without any money changing hands. Sure there are things like Onlyfans where you could make the argument that the performer is being exploited for their body… but, if you set aside whatever social pearl-clutching we’ve been trained to frame around sexual activity and nudity, how is it any different than wearing your knees down for a company by doing deliveries every day? How is it different than juggling or doing magic tricks at a tourist trap for donations? Yes, you could say it’s all unethical in a capitalistic society, but that’s not the same as singling out porn just because that one deals with “naughty” stuff.

Which is what makes that statement puritanical as well. You’re viewing porn as exploitation of sexuality, like sexuality should be on this pedestal that makes it different somehow than the thousand other ways we sell our bodies, our time, our dignity to survive, as we’ve been doing for tens of thousands of years.

It’s just porn

I agree, and the more “special” we make it, the worse the problems will be around it. Can you imagine the paradise we would live in if nobody had sexual worries and insecurities and hangups? And think that this belays that maybe you don’t have an ethical framework around porn as much as a personal ambivalence. Which is fine, I just felt the need to dissect the whole statement a little.

I do believe we need gun controls, strict federal systems to track and manage people who shouldn’t have guns, all the authoritarian nightmare stuff to gun nuts. It would sting at first and people would worry, and I wouldn’t want to see it under the current leadership, but that’s what instills some level of societal respect for a thing. A generation later and suddenly everyone treats guns a lot more seriously, because humans are adaptable. That’s just a whole other massive can of worms, but I am glad that at least out of all this recent fascist takeover that it finally spurred a segment of the left to finally start arming up. I don’t want an armed revolution or standoff, but I don’t like the memes of how “easy” it would be for orcs to raid the villages and wipe out the enemy.

I’m not convinced it wasn’t just stupidity on their part.

I think I’ve learned to dance in the space that lay between stupid reactions to feelings and deeply-planned chess games, for the sake of understanding how large groups of people behave and operate.

I don’t think there was or is a single intelligent individual in the Trump administration, but if you get enough people together under a momentum of energy and fear and the power-rush of feeling invulnerable, I think they’re going to instinctively learn they need to whip out their sword and wave it around when they feel backed into a corner. At that time, a lot of fascists suddenly were worried they were going to get thrown in jail the moment Biden took over. (Sidenote: every single one of those fucks should have been thrown in jail.) It was an unplanned, unfocused display of power. Like a group of militants firing all their guns into the air, somewhere between rage and celebration. They had an idea that they were doing something extreme by egging the crowd on, maybe some had this idea forged ahead of time in the back of their mind that they could “use” the crowd to exert pressure but I doubt they really planned it until they got up there and Trump seemed to want to do it. It was a half-assed mess but it proved a point, which side you should be scared of on a basic, physical level. Political capital, original flavor.

I’m done waxing poetic about our political woes. Thank you for listening and understanding.

I am developing an increasing worry that with the way society is atomizing, that our progressive side is going to collapse under the tendency to make “everything I don’t like = conservatism and nazis” and I know that sounds a lot like the conservative complaint that the left calls everything they don’t like “nazis” but there is truth to it and the term “nazi” is just one word in a growing list of ideals and tools of power that are being discarded because “the other side” uses them.

For example: the US flag. It has become a stereotype in the US that if you fly an American flag on your house or car, you are a conservative/right-wing nationalist. “America bad” is a lefty stereotype for good reason.

Meanwhile, until we get to that post-scarcity Star Trek universe, we’re all still just tribes. And groups of nationalists have been the number one strongest force for change and power on our planet since we started drawing borders. It’s pure political capital to have the support of armed groups of “patriots” and this is why everyone in politics is so deferential to our orange clown president, because he commands a political nuclear weapon in the form of history’s oldest power source. January 6th was a weapons demonstration, not a real attempt at coup.

You simply do not get the massive global political machine to move with finger-wagging and lectures. You need force to back up your demands.

I wish I could get the left to reclaim the flag. I know America isn’t a source of pride for the people harmed by America, but if you’re here and you want to make the place better, you should show that you support at least it’s potential and promise.

Don’t get me started on guns.

I despise overly-liberal and even overly progressive-minded young people who are absolutely naive and delusional about society, and can only view the world through their bubble that gets reinforced by their friends and online social groups. And I ain’t even talking just about tankies and people down at the bottom of internet brainrot barrels.

I am a progressive and believe in socialism and a borderless world and would fight to the death against fascism. But I’m seeing way, way too many young people tuning out of reality and supporting absolutely dumb-as-fuck takes and having unrealistic expectations about what’s going to happen in our world.

The lack of ability to recognize how and why a side you oppose wins and gains power is a biproduct of living with those blinders. The dismissal of millions of people who don’t think like you is just as bad as the millions of people who hate you for your identity. We have to get a lot smarter and accept a lot more hard truths about how we’re going to keep pushing the needle towards progress. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices like getting out and voting even if you don’t like the candidate. Supporting and physically getting involved with community and groups even if you’re a self-diagnosed introvert with autism.

For some screwball reason, the concept of forcing yourself to do hard things so you get better at them has become very conservative-coded but it’s how we’ve succeeded against evil for generations. We have to start being a lot tougher and stop balking at people who don’t share all your values. We win with community and organized resistance, not constant scolding and trying to be the smartest lefty in line for the camps.

People can easily trace out your profile.

I’m no longer convinced that universal privacy is necessarily a good thing when there are so many people deliberately working to sabotage nations, subvert social issues and create havoc and chaos for political purposes, as advance tactics for military invasions, and as ways to further the goals of corporations.

I think we should have privacy in our own spaces and an ability to not be hassled by others for being an individual with a real need to share information, but I cannot square that against the massive harm being done by people who are trying to make $10 a month creating arguments to make people hate each other in a country they will never have stake in.

I don’t have a better alternative or solution, but I know that it’s not so simple as anonymity is a universe good in the world. And it exists on a spectrum. I am far more concerned about a kid trying to get help understanding sexual health in private than some troglodyte on reddit who has 72 different accounts to argue with feminists to create the impression that he has a huge community behind him.

How are sites like lemmy or reddit or even social media less anonymous if you simply don’t publish your personal information? Granted anonymity is not and has never been a guaranteed “thing” but I’ve seen this sentiment echoed a couple times in this post and it’s confusing.

Is this in reference to how 4chan handled usernames or lack thereof?

I don’t know what the word “adult” means. It’s just a made up term we tell kids so we can guide them more effectively towards not falling off a cliff and dying.

I carried a CCW for years and finally gave it up because it’s a huge hassle to always have to be aware of. It’s a presence that doesn’t give me comfort, it made me always aware of its presence and that’s not how I want to experience the world. I would go back to carrying if I move to a more rural area again with less chance of immediate response of emergency services or other people.

I thought you were being hyperbolic and then scrolled down.

Holy shit, it’s no wonder sex and relationships are crashing through the floor right now. Ya’ll don’t know how to have human interactions anymore.

Nobody bats an eye when it’s worded like “My bud told me I couldn’t do this in 8 hours, said I should call a pro, I said I could do it.” You people out there have no idea what the tone is like here.

If your partner isn’t a friend who can challenge you and be your “bud” you’re not with a good partner. Is this what you guys think relationships are really like? Dancing on fucking eggshells and being given ultimatums? It’s a goddamn self report.

Ya’ll gonna blow your minds on this one:

People make shit up on the internet.

Also, even if not made up, people have this bantering shit all the time. Nobody bats an eye if it’s worded like “My friend bet me I couldn’t do this myself in 8 hours and said just call a professional, I said I could do it.”

A happy relationship is a friendship where you can challenge each other. You have no idea what the tone is.

Sounds about enough for a decent down payment on reliable vehicle. Then I would still have to pay off whatever is left and make insurance payments and licencing tax, so ironically if I magically made 20k, I would end up spending more than solving anything.

Meanwhile in my country 20k USD is like, your mortgage payments and property taxes and insurance for almost half a year if you have a decent home in or near a city.

Sounds like some cheap ass motorcycles tbh

While we still can, sure.

In about another year or two, even the most detailed inspection is going to be almost impossible to differentiate so we might as well get some enjoyment now in kicking them out.

I’m pretty sure out of the 340,000,000+ Americans, there are probably SOME who aren’t ICE agents.

Yeah so you do have a point though that it seems more challenging to make friends, as a strange new form of mass-hysteria has enveloped the younger population in particular that makes everyone not want to hang out with everyone else and withdraw into their own heads, overthinking everything.

But it’s not the entirety of the nation. Not yet anyway. It just seems that way from what we see and read, but the people who do want friends and connection are still out there doing things. So our challenge if we want to nurture our social lives is be out doing things. Have interests, passions, have energy. If you’re tired and groggy and achy from staying inside, then that’s your cue to stop staying inside.

1. Do things until you find something that ignites a spark of some kind of feeling or emotion.

2. Pursue that thing until that spark turns into a passion. Or even a healthy interest that holds your attention. You might need to force it a little to break your habits.

3. The passion is shared. There are enough people to guarantee this. It will happen naturally if you’re not deliberately trying to avoid people. The internet and discord-type groups should be your “staging area” not your substitute. It doesn’t matter if it’s Warhammer miniature gaming or rock climbing or reading books, there is someone out there somewhere who wants to share the enjoyment with someone else.

If this is your only option for socialization… then something is wrong with your life, please do something before settling on this den of shut-ins and literal children.

I’m going to start using the “single crab alone, clawing in a bucket” analogy to describe our current world.

I just can’t see it happening with the Internet.

This, even without the technological forces of capital swooping in to take advantage of every leveraged opportunity, even if people did rally together it would just turn into a political/performative circus and the entire thing will get lost and buried under some streamer drama that erupts from it.

A multiplayer game that pits you against lousy AI bots with human looking names for your first "games’ so you feel like you know how to play and makes the game seem fair and fun.

Then after you’re comfortable, you get pitted against a lobby of 12-year-olds who haven’t seen daylight since birth who annihilate you and curse you out on coms.