No. You can’t. None, or perhaps nearly none of us understand how a city functions. Millions of humans come together and form a functional unit that has behaviour and agency, that protects us and organizes us, and we have no fucking idea how it works, because it emerges in non-obvious ways from very simple human behaviours.

We are very much as ants, responding to signals that we don’t even directly perceive.

Your aside seems to suggest you think people voted the way they did because of lack of intelligence. That is a defense mechanism on your part. It’s a belief you hold not because of its predictive power, but because of your emotional needs.

Cute rhetoric. The dichotomy isn’t, “ask people what they think vs tell people what to think.” The dichotomy is, “subjective vs objective.” You could be taking objective measurements. What you are measuring is not what you are claiming. These charts only allow you to talk about people’s perceptions (as it clearly says on the infographic) and not the underlying realities. Your implicit point has to be that believing you have equal right is just as good as actually HAVING them.

I was put on methylphenidate at that age and I can never really know what the consequences are, but if I could go back and protect myself, I would throw that shit out. I’ve tried a prescription as an adult, but all I ever think about is my next dose. I can’t even manage coffee. I think being placed on stimulants for a bunch of my childhood fucked me up pretty good.

I will install emacs on a machine just to use magit.

This guy is my polar opposite. I forbid LLMs from using first person pronouns. From speaking in the voice of a subject. From addressing me directly. OpenAI and other corporations slant their product to encourage us to think if it as a moral agent that can do social and emotional labour. This is incredibly abusive.

That isn’t an objective measure. You’re not examining characteristics of governance, you are examining public views on governance. In the 80s Canada had an image problem domestically and internationally. Did Canada change? Hell no! We engaged one of the most successful PR campaigns in modern history, and suddenly we’re all stroking each other off and receiving international plaudits, even while we continue to burn our children’s future for fuel.

thorn? really?

You have now. :-(

For the first almost 40 years of my life, people were desperate for a cure to T2D. It was a dread disease ravaging younger and younger people. But now that we actually have what a lay person would call an actual CURE for T2D, it just pisses people off. There are no ticker tape parades in the streets, and if you try to tell people about it, they get angry.

You all sure do love being cruel and violent. Even though it’s clearly killing you. Keep it up.

Memento mori.

if Gates is Mr Proprietary, Jobs is King Proprietary

The animals we create are morally entitled to the exact same unconditional love and protection as our own children. The experiences of animals are real and matter. Their suffering is identical in nature to your own. It harms us when we take pleasure in cruelty and violence. Need additional reasons why sensory enjoyment must not be the primary criteria?

In my head cannon for this world, sex between two men produces boys, and everything else produces girls.

deleted by creator

Me: AW YEAH, new Cyriak!!

D’oh. (We still said that 15 years ago.)

if the post was ruined when the inherent cruelty was pointed out to you, then that is a good thing. we are trained to avoid being conscious of our violence against vulnerable individuals. you should welcome the occasional reminder.

Indeed, it is cruel, no matter what the bait.

The experiences of animals are real and matter. Most released fish die within a week.

Same way it has happened hundreds of times before. An ant doesn’t know how an ant colony works and it doesn’t realize when its in a death spiral.

Yes, I like it too. I think it should go further; I think votes should just be like any other reaction, where every user who reacted is readily visible. The information is there for everyone, but most interfaces decline to display it, which creates an uneven environment.