• 0 Posts
  • 30 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: January 13th, 2025

help-circle
  • There was a short while when everyone had computers at home, and we became skilled with them because we grew up with them. But those computers were pretty quickly replaced with tablets and phones, leaving the majority of younger generations with much less computer experience.

    Because of the locked-down nature and simplified UI design of mobile platforms, they weren’t able to learn skills like navigating file systems or the many tools in document and art programs they would have found on PC.

    Rather than being an edutainment tool, mobile devices have offered cheap dopamine hits and predatory monetization. The fact that we know this and do nothing to correct it is incredibly sad.
















  • I don’t love the disregard for plant life just because they lack the central nervous system of animals, but this isn’t an argument in favor of eating animals. If you want to argue it’s better for us to die than to live via harm, that’s one thing, but if you accept we have the right to live at the expense of other life forms then the goal of many becomes to minimize suffering.

    While plants do have sensory experiences which elicit behaviors, they don’t experience the world in a personal way; they’re like a robot or generative AI. When a dog suffers, it has a concept of self and an understanding of what is happening to it, and it will carry memories of the experience which negatively influence its quality of life.



  • I don’t mean to piss in the soup of anyone who just enjoys the topic, but I do want to question the idea that it’s important to reflect on the potential for nuclear catastrophe. I think nuclear weapons are here whether we like them or not, and that the average person worrying about nuclear war is as unnecessary and self-destructive as worrying about solar flares or plane crashes. Is that incorrect? Is it possible to eradicate all nuclear weapons? Am I capable of influencing whether or not nukes exist? How might one go about disarming powers which do not want to be disarmed? How do we prevent future creation of nuclear bombs or the keeping of existing ones in secret?