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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • Look at their actions, not their words specifically.

    It’s a culture where being unkind is particularly unacceptable, not specifically where you’re not allowed to be honest or forthright.

    You’re allowed to not like someone, but telling someone you dislike them is needlessly unkind, so you just politely decline to interact with them.
    You’d “hate to intrude”, or “be a bother”. If it’s pushed, you’ll “consider it and let them know”.

    Negative things just have to be conveyed in the kindest way possible, not that they can’t be conveyed.


  • Brian Acton is the only billionaire I can think of that hasn’t been a net negative.

    Co-founded WhatsApp, which became popular with few employees. Sold the service at a reasonable rate.
    Sold the business for a stupid large sum of money, and generously compensated employees as part of the buyout.
    Left the buying company, Facebook, rather than do actions he considered unethical, at great personal expense ($800M).

    Proceeded to cofound signal, which is an open, and privacy focused messaging system which he has basically bankrolled while it finds financial stability.

    He also has been steadily giving away most of his money to charitable causes.

    Billionaires are bad because they get that way by exploiting some combination of workers, customers or society.
    In the extremely unlikely circumstance where a handful of people make something fairly priced that nearly everybody wants, and then uses the wealth for good, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being that person.
    Selling messaging to a few billion people for $1 a lifetime is a way to do that.






  • Statistically you’re unlikely to have lasting issues as a result of getting them removed. It’s a very common outpatient procedure.

    When you go in, they’ll likely give you nitrous oxide, which will make you relax a little, and they’ll let you sit and breathe it for a few minutes. I’d recommend bringing headphones since some nice music will help.
    Then they’ll give you an IV that will make you not worry and likely barely remember what comes next. Basically a big dose of super valium.
    Then they’ll give you some pain killers and local anesthetic and remove the teeth.

    Your memory and orientation will start to come back in about an hour, by which time hopefully the person who transported you has gotten you home. You will not be able to care for yourself during the intervening time. You will be uncoordinated and of poor judgement.

    When you get home it’s best to try to sleep until the meds that the dentist gave you wear off, or just watch TV. Take ibuprofen or Tylenol mostly, but an occasional opioid will help since there is some pain that the antiinflammatories don’t help with as much, although they take care of most of it.
    Soft foods for a few days, and no straws.

    All in all, you should be back to normal within two weeks, and you’ll get to feel nice and excited to eat something crunchy or chewy.

    If you’ve had pain associated with your wisdom teeth, I’d recommend going forward as scheduled. The pain may have gone away temporarily, but it’ll come back.
    I let mine go too long, and one of the wisdom teeth cracked open because of pressure on it from another tooth, which also damaged that tooth which was fortunately able to be repaired.
    The pain from waiting for outstripped the discomfort of the procedure.




  • To me it’s important to ask “what problem is it solving”, and “how did we solve that problem in the past”, and “what does it cost”.
    Crypto currency solves the problem of spending being tracked by a third party. We used to handle this by giving each other paper. The new way involves more time, and a stupendous amount of wasted electricity.
    Nfts solve the problem of owning a digital asset. We used to solve this by writing down who owned it. The cost is a longer time investment, and a stupendous amount of wasted electricity.
    Generative AI is solving the problem of creative content being hard to produce, and expensive. We used to solve this problem by paying people to make things for us, and not making things if you don’t have money. The cost is pissing off creatives.

    The first two feel like cases where the previous solution wasn’t really bad, and so the cost isn’t worth it.

    The generative AI case feels mixed, because pissing off creatives to make more profit feels shitty, but lowering barriers to entry to creativity doesn’t.


  • We should also ban long hair.

    I’m sure plenty of women only prefer to have long hair because they think they would be shunned or stan out if they cut it short.

    I’m all for people getting to wear their hair like they want, but I’m confident that many women would actually prefer to wear their hair short, and so can’t be trusted to make that choice for themselves or express an honest opinion about it.

    The first step in women’s liberation is making it clear that they lack agency and that other people know what’s best for them.





  • Where do you see it telling you you need precise location to see emergency alerts?

    Your phone has two sets of things that could be called “emergency alerts”. One is the emergency alert system that’s controlled by the government and managed by your phone company. That one doesn’t require precise location.
    The other is “crisis alerts” which is Google basically running a search for crisis near you and then telling you. This one may require more precise location.

    It’s entirely possible for your phone to just not get the cell network based alert. You can be connected to a tower outside of the alert area while someone right next to you is connected to one inside. Or you can just not get it because cell communications are imperfect. The issuer will typically resend several times to try to ensure it gets through to people, but it’s not perfect.





  • They can have whatever they want, but you’ll have to forgive people for thinking that you align with people who display the same symbols as you.

    I assume anyone flying a swastika is antisemitic, when to be fair, they might just be a fan of the Nazi stance on affordable housing and infrastructure.

    If you have a problem with symbols you identify with being co-opted by people you don’t, take it up with the people you disagree with who took your symbol, not the people who also disagree with them.