• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymothoa_exigua
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion's_mane_jellyfish

In case you were wondering:

The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory monitors volcanic activity and does not consider an eruption imminent.

Interestingly, the buildup of magma causes the plateau to be uplifted by about 1 in. per year on average, which is one of the ways we monitor it. NASA studied how we could go about preventing an imminent eruption by cooling the magma, but another scientist said we could accidentally trigger it by trying. We may have to wait for something else for our next extinction event though. Yellowstone going off again soon would be a bit ahead of schedule.

Most of the other articles were just fleetingly topical to a conversation or book or something. Cymothoa exigua is interesting though. It’s a fish parasite that severs the tongue of its host and effectively replaces it. I think I looked at it from another thread where people were posting their favorite deep sea animals.

It’s annoying that people are downvoting you just for asking an honest question. I think the anti-ai sentiment is strong enough that in many communities, people just oppose it in any context. The arguments I usually see against using ai are:

1. It takes business away from actual human artists
2. It takes a lot of energy, thereby contributing to climate change
3. It is a privacy concern

All are real concerns, but I agree that making memes should be an effectively harmless use of it even if you otherwise oppose it. 1 and 3 aren’t really applicable to your average meme. 2 could apply depending on how you measure it, but most of the cost of ai is from training, not generation. For someone using the tool and not developing it, that training is a sunk cost they are not responsible for. I’ve seen estimates that you can generate about 9 images with the energy it takes to fully charge a phone. I think that’s more than worth it if you share it with a few other people to enjoy.

Also 101% of the population is a Democrat or a Republican.

As bad as things are, most Americans are not living paycheck to paycheck. It looks like that 60% figure comes from a single survey from an online banking company in 2023. The Fed reports the majority of US adults have had at least 3 months of emergency savings every year since 2018.

my ducks barn owl chicks? in a row. ordered. disciplined. behaving predictably.

your ducks kestrel chicks? scattered. in disarray. waddling aimlessly. desperate for a leader to impose structure.

pathetic.

Yeah they are $3.85 (before tax) for a pack of 4 from the Aldi near me. And they taste good too. Of course they are going to be more expensive at a restaurant, but that’s true for nearly everything.

I’m always surprised to hear people unimpressed with others on dating apps. A couple of my friends have shared their “feeds” and I was struck by how many good-looking people are out there. But they would swipe away from just the smallest turn-offs becoming deal breakers. Like if I saw these people in real life, I would think of them as average looking at worst, many being remarkably attractive. This is in the 20s to mid 30s range like the tweet. I definitely understand deciding you’re incompatible based on politics or religion or culture but most of the time it would be for minor quirks. It felt like they were spoiled for choice in my eyes.

But then again, they’re in serious long term relationships with conventionally attractive and supportive partners now so maybe being picky pays off. At the time, their reluctance to settle was a very frustrating experience for them.

In America, literally 99% of livestock is factory farmed. Here, the idea of animals living a life that is anything but miserable on a farm is largely a myth. If you don’t expressly know how the livestock animal that was used for meat was treated, you can safely presume it was tortured.

People are demonstrably ok with animals being mistreated. They continually endorse the abuse in the industry when there are other options available to them. It is simply not important enough to people for them to bother changing their behavior.

There is an unstuck button. It’s in the bottom left if you hit esc iirc. I’ve used it a few times.

I second this. I am in a similar position as OP and now I donate to a fund through GiveWell (which is used by many people engaged in EA) directly since the start of this year. If you want your money to do the most good, look into them. They research and audit all kinds of charities and publish their findings on their site.

How is this a short history of liberalism? Historically, the liberal nations beat the fascist ones.

If this is in reference to Trump, then that’s an ongoing fight. Judges are generally doing what they can to stop his actions, even those appointed by Trump, to his chagrin. Given his rapid dip in popularity and historical trends, I would also expect Republicans to fare worse in Congress in the mid term election, meaning we can expect more pushback there too. Maybe even proper impeachment, but that might be too much to hope for right now. But I view it as a sign that the liberal system is working that he keeps running into checks and balances issues.

https://youtu.be/Brp5iwZoCoc

sexually assault

I was defending someone who had their comment removed from [email protected] for saying the governments of both Palestine and Israel had failed their people. Someone replied with

Leave it to a .world liberal piece of shit to rules lawyer in defense of a fascist collaborator

and later

Not in a community for the oppressed people, you fuckwit. Just from your comment I can tell you’re a white liberal male who has never had to deal with any sort of discrimination or oppression. Get the fuck out of here with that centrist “both sides” bullshit. You disgust me.

I wasn’t even being provocative or anything, so the personal attacks seemed out of nowhere. The only “rules lawyering” I did was saying criticizing a country’s leadership isn’t racism. And the so-called “fascist collaborator” spent more time criticizing the Israeli government than Palestine’s.

I think I remember seeing in a YPTB thread that a mod running several niche AI subs was preemptively banning people from their suite if they saw them express anti-AI sentiment elsewhere. So you probably weren’t the only one banned from that post.

Yeah, sorry if I wasn’t clear about that. Here’s another post with some unrelated drama that mentions a few of their known alts:

https://lemmy.zip/post/32584584

Edit: Accidently hit send while I was drafting this, so sorry if you saw it before when it was chaotic.

You really want every post you’ve ever voted on archived forever by every instance on the fediverse? You don’t see any deeper security or privacy concerns with that?

Well, with that history someone could certainly see small impressions of me, like what I like and dislike and how much I engage with different topics. I could only see that being used against my account in these ways:

1. For targeted advertising
2. To shame me to other users
3. To ban me from a community/instance for wrongthink essentially
4. To train AI to better impersonate real people

1 seems unlikely to be an issue anytime soon just with the way the fediverse is set up. Unless the host of my account is the one sending ads, the only way to direct ads to me specifically would be through another user account either DMing me or replying to my comments/posts, and I could just block and report that user.

2 and 3 would be more practical concerns, except with or without public voting, they already have a better insight available. Just by looking at my profile, a user can already see my posts/comments, and those are going to reveal much more than voting ever would. So I don’t see public voting making this more of something to worry about.

4 is feasible, as votes are much easier to digest than comments/posts, but really AI is probably already at a level where it could vote like whatever kind of person it intends to imitate already. And honestly, any particular individual’s contribution to big data is going to be almost negligible.

I don’t see any real life consequences for me based on my user voting be publicly available. If someone did want to harass me irl, I would need to first give away enough revealing information so that they could identify me. And in that case, once again, my comments/posts would surely be what would incite them, not my voting. So long as issues are limited to virtual me, I can easily make an alt on the off-chance my reputation in unsalvageable or something.

The tracking with PieFed you described does seem impressive, so I guess the benefits I mentioned earlier aren’t as relevant. I guess I should admit I personally like being able to look at people’s activity and make judgements about them. So seeing their voting history helps satisfy my own nosiness. 😅

Based.

I like public voting. Yes, it can be abused by powertripping mods, but it also makes detecting bots and brigading much easier. That’s going to be increasingly important as the fediverse grows.

Annie’s brand has some vegan mac and cheese options if you need a Velveeta replacement. There’s a good chance major grocery stores would have that. I haven’t been impressed with the flavor personally, but you could probably just add a bit more plant butter and vegan milk to get it more rich and creamy like Velveeta.

Aldi has some vegan options for cheap if there is one near you. The Earth Grown taco filling resembles ground beef a lot in my opinion, so there’s a lot of things you can add it to easily. They also have plenty of pasta options and things like potstickers that you can just stick in a microwave. I’ve been enjoying some of their meatless meatballs with marinara on toasted bread lately. They also have shredded dairy free mozzarella and chedder that can be good melted (otherwise the texture and aftertaste are off-putting for me).

Trader Joe’s also has a lot of frozen vegan meals in my experience, especially Indian stuff. Most of it you just stick in a microwave/air fryer/oven. They also have a “21 Seasoning Salute” which is a variety of spices and I like to add it to all kinds of things.

And there’s stuff like vegan pizzas, chicken tenders, and burgers that you can get through a lot of brands at plenty of grocery stores. I like them, but you do end up paying more for them compared to what they are mimicking.

Keep in mind that a lot of flavor for things can come from sauces and spices that you use with them. Even a small amount of something like vegetable/olive/coconut oil or stir fry/pasta sauce can save something that would otherwise be bland.