testfactor

joined 2 years ago
[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

He's just saying that using Lemmy as a cope for not having IRL friends is healthy.

But, to your point, making friends is easier than you think. Join groups. They're everywhere. I literally went to a "boardgame play testing" event today and met a lot of cool people.

Things like that are everywhere. You just got a look for them.

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

Look, rawstory is a rag, no question. But they literally embedded the video of the sermon. Literally a video of the events in question.

You can hardly argue they're misrepresenting things when you can literally see the thing yourself.

Like, what better source than the actual video of the event could you possibly want?

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

There isn't, because the source is his ass.

This was a pastor in Indiana during a sermon that was live-streamed on Facebook. So, like, funded by a PAC in what way exactly?

No PAC is mentioned in the article at all, much less a Chick-fil-A backed one. And this isn't even tied to anything that would require any funding anyway.

I'm no Chick-fil-A apologist, but like, the idea that this is some secretive super-PAC that Chick-fil-A is using to fund pastors calling for the death of gay people is some Q-Anon level nonsense.

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (6 children)

I do think the situation is more complicated than Lemmy would have you believe.

Both Iran and Hamas have been geopolitical issues for a long time. And it's worth remembering that all of this was kicked off by a large scale terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas.

It's also worth noting that Iran is a Russian puppet, and Europe obviously has some "neighbor problems" with Russia at the moment, so there's a sort of baked in desire to oppose their vassal states.

And, while I think everyone would agree that the loss of civilian life is terrible, there is a huge amount of misinformation that makes it hard to be sure what's going on. Hamas does have a long history of screwing over the civilian Palestinian population to further it's political goals, and so people are willing to give Israel a little more credence than they deserve when they claim things like "Hamas was hiding in that hospital" or "we're blocking aid because Hamas is hoarding it all to drive up tensions" or "it was Hamas who shot those civilians," because it actually wouldn't be the first time any of that had credibly happened. Something of a boy-cried-wolf scenario.

Add into that genuine desire to combat real anti-Semitism that's been a fallout of this whole situation (a problem that hits pretty close to home in Europe due to events of the past century), and you can see why some people might be a bit over-eager to support Israel in this conflict.

It's worth noting there are no good guys here. Israel is obviously in the wrong, and are committing horrible atrocities. I think that much is plain on its face. But Hamas and Iran have both had "the destruction of the state of Israel" as stated policy goals for the past 80 years. The reason Israel has the Iron Dome is because they've been getting missiles lobbed at them non-stop for decades.

And when there are no good guys, people tend to just align themselves with who they like more, or who they owe more to.

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Just because it's generally possible for the bladder to rupture before the muscles give out, it's certainly not impossible. A myriad of conditions or even just genetics can lead to a physically weaker bladder.

I think it's a bit bold to say that absolutely 100%, no exceptions, that the muscles will always fail first. Even if that's true 99.99% of the time, there's just far to much variance in human bodies to rule it out, I would think.

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Right? It's literally Trader Joe's and Aldi that have handled bags where I live. Every single other store only has handleless bags. It's terrible.

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Happy to pay for paper. As I said, I'd gladly pay $1/bag for them if they'd just put effing handles on them.

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

I do buy paper. That was literally how I started this thread. I'm happy to buy paper bags. I just wish they had handles more often.

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Fair on all counts. I don't disagree with you that the situation is bad.

I do think it's somewhat hard to feel it for a lot of people. Partly, as you said, exponential growth is hard for most people to grasp. I also think a lot of older people who have followed climate science over the years are a little jaded too, as climate science has, rightly or not, beat the drum of "imminent global destruction within the next decade" for the past 7+ decades now, and I think people have gotten a bit of a "boy cried wolf" mentality about it.

But one would have to be blind to not see that things are getting noticeably worse, and as you say, exponential growth is a mofo. The jar is half full with one second to midnight, as they say.

But understood on all counts, and definitely no hard feelings on my end either. I tend to see the good in people, even those that make decisions I wouldn't. I think it probably leads to a happier life, but then again, how much of that is choice vs disposition?

And seriously, all that said. I simply cannot stress enough how much better the bags with handles are. And if the earth burns to a crisp because of them, well, was that not a sacrifice worth making?

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

To be fair, it's probably only been, like, an hour. Just spaced out over 24hrs, lol.

But I think we're talking past each other a bit. The point of me bringing up eating food out of the trash (and sure, donuts count) wasn't to chastise you for not doing it. I'm not trying to call you a hypocrite or something.

My point was more about charity and empathy. It was about viewing the decisions that people wo are "worse than you" (my words not yours) not as people to be looked down upon, but as people to be encouraged.

I think it's tied up in the brinkmanship of your last statement. Will climate issues be a major problem that we'll have to grapple with in the coming century? Absolutely. But allowing that to lead to misanthropy is unhealthy.

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

I think the issue is that we each have our own internal line of "acceptable participation in the upkeep of the world around us," and they're different.

So, like, if there's a line graph here, it has the following points: 1: not throwing cigarette butts on the ground 2: not using disposable bags 3: eating food out of trash cans.

I've said, existing between points 1 and 2 is my personal level of "acceptable participation," and you have said it's between 2 and 3. Many people exist above point 3, and many exist below point 1.

And someone above point three might approach you and say, "why are you letting perfectly good food go to waste," and hit you with all the stats and figures about how food waste is destroying the earth. And it would be such a tiny change for you to, instead of making or ordering food, just find some in a nearby trashcan. It's all over the place, and super accessible. And it's really dangerous. Freshly thrown away food is pretty much always potable.

But you have chosen that your personal level of "acceptable participation" doesn't require that of you. Should the "above point 3" people judge you for not making that tiny lifestyle change?

And honestly, perhaps they should? You are living below what they have determined is the "minimal acceptable level of social responsibility." You aren't doing your part to help combat a real environmental problem.

But a majority of people have chosen not to eat out of trash cans. Just as a majority of people don't bring reusable bags into the grocery store. And the only difference between those things is where your personal line of "acceptable participation" is.

And yes, there is a "generally societally agreed upon level of participation" which would say that throwing your cigarette butts on the ground is unacceptable. But you know why I know that's the generally agreed upon standard? Because only a minority of people do it. The general societal standard for disposable bags is on the "use them" side.

And sure, would it be beneficial to put in work to shift the Overton window on that issue, sure. Campaign for it. Push the cause. (Which I recognize is kind of what you're doing here). Who knows, maybe I'll pick up some bags and forget them in my car next time I hit the store, only to get mad the stores paper bags don't have handles.

But I think there's a big difference between advocating for a shift in the societal expectation, and investing emotional energy into despairing over the condition of your fellow man. You can recognize that, just because someone is on the other side of an issue than you, doesn't mean they're "bad" or deserve derision. None of us, yourself included, are doing all the "little" things we could be doing to make the world a better place. There's always a higher level of societal participation. But I think my concern here is that your mentality is, "people who chose differently than me are bad," not, "how can I best advocate to help encourage people to improve."

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world -1 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

I think that it's a bit of a false equivalent to say that since we can't convince people to use reusable bags, we can't get Jeff Bezos to reduce his.

They're different problem sets. Industrial pollution (or pollution from people with access to industry levels of capital) is something that can be addressed with legislation. It's also something with fairly broad, populist appeal. And it's something that, if addressed might make meaningful and lasting impact.

The "people need to take personal responsibility for recycling" narrative has been largely funded by oil companies and polluting industries as a cover to avoid people realizing that those things make up such a tiny fraction of the overall problem. They work to turn people against each other so that were too busy fighting to address the much bigger environmental issues.

Also, I love straws. If I don't have one the drink gets in my moustache.

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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by testfactor@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
 

Okay, I read a story someone linked here a while back and I'm trying to remember the title.

The story was structured as an old school web forum where people were discussing the meaning behind certain lines of an ancient poem.

The poem described a malevolent force in the woods associated with a particular kind of tree that would, cyclically, take people from the town.  Maybe oak?  Ash?

I think that the person taken was turned into wood in after being lured in by a beautiful girl.

One user on the forum was trying to trace the historical roots of the poem and managed to find the town he believes was the one referenced in the poem.  They had a yearly festival that included cutting down all the trees of that type and burning them.

In the end, they guy researching is presumably taken by the forest, after some events outlined in the poem begin to happen again and then he stops posting.

Any guesses?

Edit: I found it. Managed to piece together enough memories to get there. Title was "Where Oaken Hearts do Gather" https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/where-oaken-hearts-do-gather/

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