Just a reminder that she didn’t actually explain why she was tearing up a picture of the Pope, she just pulled out a picture of him and tore it up without context. Nobody understood wtf was happening.
Yeah, there is a lot of revisionist history about this. This was well before the sex abuse story came out. The idea that that’s what she was protesting was lost on everyone.
John Paul II had an attempted assassination a decade before this (where he literally met with his attempted assassin to offer forgiveness), and was also leading efforts to apologize for past church participation in things like the holocaust, the slave trade, oppressing women, and even executing Galileo.
This is not to defend him. He absolutely ignored sex abuse and deserves hate, but when O’Connor did that, he was immensely popular. Tearing up his picture while singing Bob Marley’s War (a song about racism and inequality) was just a protest of which the purpose of which no viewer could figure out. She merely said “fight the real enemy” and didn’t reveal any additional reasoning until she sat for an interview a month later.
It’s the same with Jimmy Saville, everybody knew. I remember chatting on a forum in a thread about celebrities who are absolute assholes. I’m not from the UK, so I didn’t know him before somebody in that thread told us about this lady from his little town who was given a small book store by Saville, alledgedly because he had abused her when she was a girl, and threatened to go public. Granted, Sinnead O’Connor took it to another level. And Joe Pesci showed his true colors. What an asshole.
Totally. I always think of this when people say Muslims overreact about drawings of their prophet or people burning their holy book. There were protests in the streets and famous Catholics like Pesci and Madonna attacked O’Connor in the press. Madonna, it seemed, was even more frustrated because this thing completely removed the attention from her new album that came out around the same time.
The whole Jimmy saville thing was insane, he had the keys to mental hospitals. The BBC chauffeured him about, very much like they picked up schoolgirls from school for Russell brand to be brought back to his flat.
Saville was great friends with the royals and thatchers government, you’d think the secret services would have known what he was up to… Thatchers home secretary Leon Britton was accused around the same time a lot of others were found out, but Theresa May’s government shut that down.
Reading this back, I’m thinking I can’t post this it’s sounds nuts. Maybe that’s how these fuckers get away with it…
Hadn’t heard about Pesci, probably playing on his Italian gangster fame, what a twat.
very much like they picked up schoolgirls from school for Russell brand to be brought back to his flat.
Is this what happened with Russell Brand? I just heard he was a sexual predator, not that it was schoolgirls. It’s insane that the BBC didn’t get any wiser after Saville. It should be easy: don’t hire known pervs and definitely don’t let them use your stuff to abuse children.
The age of consent is 16 in the UK, Saville was also a necrophiliac, and that access to hospitals was used for that, so maybe the BBC seen this as pretty tame…
I use the same estimation on the likelihood of vampires or the Norse gods, it’s an interesting thought and I can’t prove those things don’t exist (nor do I have to due to the burden of proof) but since we have no good reason to believe they’re true I don’t have to entertain the ideas.
That which is brought forth without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Ok, so you also don’t believe there’s any extraterrestrial life in the universe, right? And it’s as likely to exists as Norse gods? I mean, there’s no proof for it after all.
Aliens aren’t gods. If they exist, they’re life forms in some capacity similar to us. We know life can exist, since we do, so it stands to reason that since life exists on earth that it could exist somewhere else. Nothing about aliens conceptually requires anything that we don’t already have a scientific method for studying.
Now compare that to gods. Do we have visible or verifiable gods on earth? No, we have a lot of conflicting claims about gods from various belief systems. If we don’t have supernatural creatures/entities on earth, then there’s no reason to believe they exist anywhere else. Whether that’s Pluto or five galaxies away.
You made the exactly same false equivalence between gods and computer simulations. That was my point.
"We know simulations can exist, since we simulate things, so it stands to reason that since simulations exists on earth that it could exist somewhere else. Nothing about simulations conceptually requires anything that we don’t already have a scientific method for. "
Simulating entire world only requites different computational scale which we also know is possible because we keep improving our computational capabilities.
“We know simulations can exist, since we simulate things, so it stands to reason that since simulations exists on earth that it could exist somewhere else. Nothing about simulations conceptually requires anything that we don’t already have a scientific method for.”
This is still a false equivalence. The only way this argument works as a foil to mine is if we had already created a computer simulated universe where simulated individuals were convinced it was the real world. Under those circumstances we would have to accept that ours is possibly the same. Since we have no such technology we can’t say for sure if it’s even possible to emulate a sapient being in a computer, it’s not just “time and computational power” as you suggest.
Meanwhile the animals that prove life can exist on at least one world are walking through my apartment right now and give direct observable and testable evidence that life can evolve. Under that assessment based on observation and the knowledge of how many other worlds there are, we have no additional leaps in logic to believe in alien life. No further technology or understanding is required.
However, you have to assume that it’s possible to emulate a feeling, thinking entity as computer code to make your claim. We don’t know if that’s even possible, which is why it’s the same as suggesting a god of some variety. You’re basing your entire argument on something we haven’t yet proven to be real, and your claim that it’s “just a matter of time and computer resources” is flimsy as hell.
Come back when Alicization from Sword Art Online exists, and then we’ll talk.
Yes, I agree but you see the difference between computer simulation of a single planet (you don’t have to simulate the entire universe to simulate our civilization) and Norse Gods, right? You see how one is fairly reasonable extrapolation of our current capabilities and the other is fantasy? Of course we don’t know if it’s possible to create a conscious, intelligent being in a computer but we also don’t know what actually makes as conscious and intelligent so we can’t say it’s definitely not possible. Similarly we don’t know exactly how life on earth originated (complex life even less so) so we don’t know how probable it it’s it exists in other places. Simulation theory is definitely more similar to extraterrestrial life than Norse Gods. And when it comes to it’s probability we simply don’t know.
We have no evidence about either and both are non-falsifiable
Living in a simulation is one idea. Each individual religion is a whole bunch of assumptions rolled into one system.
Therefore “we live in a simulation” is just as likely as “there’s some higher power”, while “the Matrix is a documentary, everything will happen exactly like in the movie” is as likely as “the Christian god is real, just as described in the bible”.
We have plenty of evidence that were just a “random” assortment of atoms following natural laws. We see those laws around us everywhere. We manipulate them to build crazy things. We have no evidence were anything BUT that.
One is obviously made-up by ancient peoples who knew fuck-all about the world, but insists it’s eternal truth beyond debate. Even the parts that contradict the other parts.
The other is an openly hypothetical idea based on what we expect is just beyond our current capabilities… and it relies on that we’re-just-atoms materialism.
I don’t think there’s a significant number of people who believe in a specific simulation scenario the way so many people believe in a specific religion.
Sure, some dumb tech bros believe “i think we live in like, a simulation, dude”, which would correspond to “there must be some higher power out there for sure”. Both beliefs are irrational, but more likely than “the Matrix is real, just like in the movies” or “this specific codex got it all right and we should live our lives after the thousands of unclear moral teachings that can be extrapolated from it by untrustworthy human preachers”
It’s always the worst people who believe this too. The only interpretation of Simulation Theory that I will even remotely entertain is the one that we’re all information stuck on the surface of a black hole, because it’s the only one that isn’t just there to feed tech bros’ god complex.
Counterpoint: we’re in an educational program. The program is about the horrors of the 21st century, including climate change, greed, the rise of AI in a capitalist society, COVID, the return of fascism, the fall of the west and god knows what else. The tech bros, billionaires, politicians, etc aren’t actually real, it’s everyone else who is. Why? Those positions are too comfy and your students might learn the wrong lessons if you let them participate as trump or musk.
For anyone else who was out of the loop, this is a joke from the IT Crowd when (in the show) England was changing their emergency services numbers:
From today, dialing 999 won’t get you the emergency services. And that’s not the only thing that’s changing. Nicer ambulances, faster response times and better-looking drivers mean they’re not just the emergency services — they’re your emergency services. So, remember the new number: 0118 999 881 999 119 725… 3.
Edit: Edited for clarification that this was a joke in the show and England did not change their emergency services number IRL.
We never changed emergency numbers. It might have referred to when we changed directory enquiries from a single one operated by your phone provider to multiple options with the prefix 118 xxx. Or perhaps when we extended emergency services to also have non emergency numbers for police and health issues.
Otherwise it's been 999 for decades (with 112 also routed to the same).
Are you sure about that. They specifically called out England and not the UK. That is a sure fire way to tell that they know what they’re talking about.
I’m not British, so I don’t know the history of this. The article I took my info specifically said:
Until 2003, you could call directory enquiries (to find out the phone number of someone if you knew their name and address) by dialing 192. That system was privatized, and you had to dial 118 NNN, where the NNN was the number assigned to a commercial service provider, the most famous of which became 118 118.
So the joke in the show was basically, “what if we did to emergency services what we did to directory enquiries”.
I mentioned it because I say “The average person has less than 1 testicle.”… Also The average person has less than 2 legs… 2 arms… 2 breasts… etc. One of my favorite eye rolling stupid joke.
When I opened the package, I was sure I was missing one of the chair’s leg. I went back to the shop and they told me everything is there. So, back home I started to assemble it, now I am finished and I am left with an extra chair leg. What do I do ?
Use double-screw c to secure it to point (a, b, c, x) in the tesseract assembly. DO NOT sit in it without the (4,5)th leg, it’s necessary for dimensional stability.
I might have the opposite problem that she does. Somehow I ended up being a bartender even though I’ve never touched alcohol in my life, in fact I despise alcohol. When highly-experienced bar patrons would rattle off their requests to me I would give them a blank stare and request them to repeat themselves slowly but talk to me like I’m a 5-year old. Thankfully they obliged and we got through that rough year one minute at a time. Sometimes I even invited the customers to come behind the bar and make their own damn drinks. That was a fun year. Not doing that job ever again.
Considering it is a career that requires certification to do, I find myself doubting that you just suddenly found yourself being a bartender with no intentional desire to be one. Care to share more details to flesh out the story?
I was stranded in a town in the middle of nowhere Nevada, the kind of town that only has a post office, one restaurant bar, and a motel. I was stranded because while I was traveling, my retirement direct deposits suddenly stopped coming in.
So the lady who owns all the motel and the restaurant she hired me the first day as a dishwasher, the second day as cleaning motel rooms, then the other housekeeper told her I was too pretty for this and that I should be a bartender. So on the third day the boss started training me as a bartender. I did it and was grateful for the money but I hated every minute of it.
according to state law you are correct I should have taken a test and gotten certified but no one ever required that of me, and I didn’t realize that was even a thing until one of my friends moved to Reno and had to take a test to be a bartender. But no one ever made me do that. There is no government oversight in that little town in the middle of nowhere except
One day two representatives from the FDA came in and spent a couple hours with our chef and found no violations except they told him to wear latex gloves, and that was all the govt oversight I ever witnessed out there.
thanks yeah and that was just a few months of my life, the rest of my life has been pretty unusual too. but who would buy a book? nobody reads books anymore.
Certification to be a bartender? Where at? I worked in the restaurant business for a decent amount of time when I was younger. The restaurant I worked at had a training regime for bartenders so they would learn how to pour accurately and learn the recipes for a ton of drinks, but it wasn’t mandated by the government. Front of house staff from several establishments in the area would hang out and our restaurants were far more lax.
For some reason, cishet american men on dating apps love to put a picture of themselves holding up a fish they caught while fishing as one of their dating profile pics.
Nobody really knows why that’s supposed to attract a potential dating partner, but it’s really common.
Nobody really knows why that’s supposed to attract a potential dating partner, but it’s really common
Back when I did online dating I wrote about playing computer games, not because I expected that to be attractive to the average woman (of course it isn’t) but because I was hoping to meet one of the rare women who shared my interest.
A friend of mine managed to marry a woman who agreed to have their honeymoon be a week-long canoe trip through the wilderness in Maine, complete with living off of the fish they caught. It can happen!
Honestly i think it’s much more realistic that most cishet men don’t take pictures of themselves often. But they do when they catch a fish, because that’s what fishy people do. It’s a dick-measuring contest amongst men where the dick being measured is “how big of a fish can i catch?”.
So it’s one of the only pictures you have of yourself, because men don’t tend to just take pictures of themselves just hanging out, there has to be a manly reason for men to take pictures of each other.
Also, often, men go out and fish together to get away from and complain about their partners, and usually, these fish pics come with a bunch of your friends going 👀😍🤯 at your fish.
And even if you’re not all of those negative things, it makes you far from unique. every boring cookie-cutter dude has a fish pic. look, i caught a fish, i am manly so i can provide for you with some average trout i found in a lake.
also, if this many men think “fishing is my most dating-profile worthy passion”, it says a lot. It doesn’t make you special because a good third of men on dating apps share that passion, and it honestly makes me expect a dick pic from you if i even bother matching with you. Maybe try showing off your other passions too?
I don’t have a general disdain for men. I do have a general disdain for toxic masculinity. There’s a huge difference between the two.
Look, you wanna put your fish pic in your dating profile? Go ahead. but it’s not impressive. Plenty of other men have bigger fish pics on their profile, and they’re equally unimpressive to anyone who isn’t into fishing.
I’ve never met another woman who had anything positive to say about a man on a dating site with fish pictures. Met plenty of other women who are equally as confused as i am about fish pics. Never even anyone saying “look how cute he is being proud of catching some fish of some size, isn’t he cute?”.
Your entire comment you posted is just shitting on men and attributing the worst possible reasons you can imagine to them posting a fish photo. You continue in your second response to shit on men just because you don’t enjoy a particular hobby some have.
No, not shitting on men. Shitting on people who put a picture of them fishing in their profile, and otherwise don’t care to list any other hobbies in their profile or show them in their pics.
Also, those fishing pics are always (i can’t prove always, but i’ve never seen a counter-example) just them and their dude friends, fishing to get away from their partners and complain about them. I don’t care what your “guys time” is, you deserve time away from me with your friends, just like i deserve time away from you with my friends.
That’s healthy. However, and again i am speaking from my own experiences here, i’ve never gotten a swipe on a dating app from someone who had a fishing pic, where any of the following is true:
there are any women there, whether friends or partners of your friends, or anything else
they have a picture of them participating in any other hobby
they have any other pictures of themselves that aren’t a selfie
If fishing is your hobby, that’s okay. But it shouldn’t be your only hobby. Also, if that hobby doesn’t generally include your partner, you’re not showing off to me what we might do together, you’re showing off to me what you would do to get away from me.
It's more a "I'm a manly dude who is good at catching fish! I enjoy leisure time on lakes and I have a boat!" than a promise that they'll eat the fish. At least half the time it's catch and release fishing anyway.
This - and besides, industrialists have polluted almost every lake and river so that eating those fish might kill you slowly. Being able to both catch and cook is an exhilarating experience when out in nature, though.
Yeah, where I used to live up north, even very remote lakes were poisoned with mercury said to be from coal burning in China. People were advised to not eat fish from the lake more than a few times a week or once a week for certain fish. So... tons of people just ignore that or don't even know about it because they either don't really understand or believe it, have poor information sources, enjoy the experience, or it's all they can afford.
Like oh hey, I have a house and a job and a really cute kid and here’s one where I’m wearing a winter coat in 109F weather to show I’m funny
honestly I realize that dating apps are pretty much a scam.
Actually, they’re so much of a scam I’m sitting here with my AI assistant and webstorm and thinking about how I’d make a more legitimate dating website and it would just end up making me money by selling useless services to desperate singles too busy to meet other people
For one, there is no such thing as a line above which someone is attractive vs unattractive, at least not in general. Different people find different physical qualities attractive.
For two, physical attraction isn’t as important as you’re trying to pretend it is. Sure, to some people it is super important, possibly the most important aspect. Most people connect emotionally. Being pretty can get your foot in the door, but not much else.what are your standards for attractiveness? Are you willing to date someone who you think is as physically attractive as you see yourself?
Being pretty can get your foot in the door, but that’s it. You don’t build a relationship on “well i’m attractive so that’s why my partner wants to be with me”. Those relationships are empty and meaningless. Stop worrying about how physically attractive you think you are, and focus more on what makes you unique as a person, and what your passions are. You still won’t be guaranteed success, but you’ll be a lot more likely to find someone who vibes with you.
As for the scam bit? These companies often do have shady practices, they make money when people use it to date; they lose money when people find love and stop dating. But you can’t pay a company more to make other humans more attracted to you. If that’s how you see it, it will always be a “scam”. If you treat it as just a way to meet people, it’s a completely different story.
You can pay a dating app more money to make you visible to more people, but it won’t make you more appealing to the people on it.
Sure, you have a house, a job, and a child. Lots of people do. what are your passions? what drives you? what do you do when you have time completely to yourself? What brings you joy outside of dating?
job and life status don’t make us interesting except to superficial people. our passions and the things we love do. follow your passions. share those with the people you want to date. your pictures and how physically attractive you are are practically meaningless.
I can speak to this as a southerner, a lot of us were/are reluctant to take selfies, but something we have in spades are post hunting/fishing photos showing our catch. Also it’s something a lot of us were raised to appreciate and surely women from our area appreciate it too (some do)
We just don’t have a lot of photos of ourselves, I’d imagine even less selection if you only count recent photos since that’s probably what you would want to put on a dating profile.
I agree. Take more pictures of yourself out having fun. especially if that fun involves both men and women (assuming you’re a straight man looking for a woman). Show potential partners things you want to do with them, not things you want to do with your bros to get away from them.
Take more pictures of yourself. Have your bro friends take pictures of you while you’re out. Tell them you want them to because it’ll help your dating site profile.
If you don’t have pictures of yourself, you probably won’t have many pictures of either me or us if we were together. Take more pictures. Get friends to take pictures of you. Get pictures of yourself having fun, not just showing off whatever fish you just caught.
You didn’t take that fish pic because you wanted a picture of yourself. You took it because you wanted a picture of the fish. You’re only in the damn pic yourself to prove it was you who caught the fish, there would be no picture of you if there was no fish.
As someone who does not use dating apps, it seems to me that a lot of men who are not city dwellers get lots of joy out of fishing. It seems rather insulting to demean someone for showing one of their favorite activities to potential mates. To those who would do that, I would ask why not simply move on quietly?
Now that I think of it, those men are dodging bullets like Neo. Smart guys. If I ever decide to put myself out there, I’m putting up pictures of myself at a campground with a fishing rod and bicycle in the background. That should weed out any women who expect four star resorts, expensive restaurants, and expensive toys for their mere presence.
I think you’re misunderstanding the point of the whole meme, and by extension, what i have been saying. It may be more common for country dwellers, but it’s also incredibly common for city dwellers.
There is also never a woman in any of these pics. It’s usually a dude with a bunch of other dudes. I understand that it might be your hobby, and there’s nothing wrong with that being your hobby.
But if it’s a hobby you only share with other dudes and not your partners, and it’s the only hobby on your dating profile, and it’s the most common “only hobby i have pictures of myself doing” for men on dating sites, then at least one of the following isnt probably true:
you’re not differentiating yourself from any other dude in my inbox
you’re showing off to me that, even if you do have other hobbies, you’re probably not going to take pictures of me/us doing them, and i’m not even sure if you have any hobbies that i would be into, if i am not into fishing
you don’t think any other hobbies are important enough for a partner to care about, except fishing
you don’t take a lot of pictures of yourself having fun in general. the only reason that fish pic was taken is because you were proud of it in a way that your other masculine friends could take a picture of you without making fun of you
again, i’m speaking from experience on dating apps, and from anecdotes from other women i know. It is incredibly common (i would guess, as a city girl, who only matches with other people in my city, and not surrounding rural areas, at least 20-40%) for a picture of you fishing with your guy friends to be the only picture of you doing anything you enjoy.
Even if that’s your primary hobby, there’s dozens of other dudes in my inbox for whom that is their only hobby that they care enough to take pictures of.
Otherwise you’re just showing me 3-4 face (and/or, for some reason, shirtless) pics and a pic of you fishing with your bros. It’s not appealing, and it’s far from unique. You’ve also not shown me anything we can do together, and your profile mentions nothing else either.
And no, i’m not looking for a man to take me to four star restaurants or whatever else you think i’m after. I make good enough money to cover my needs and hobbies and treat both myself and my partner with nice stuff and experiences. I want someone who is going to spend time with me, with whom i share hobbies, interests, and ideals.
I have a serious question for you. If a man is looking for a woman on a dating site, why would he post a bunch of pictures with women? I mean, it seems like it would raise more issues.
Do you want to see other women in his pictures to show that he is dateable? Maybe you want to compare yourself to his past relationships? As a man, I would not post pictures of me with women when I’m looking for a woman. The whole point is to highlight me and my eligibility, not raise questions of whether I’m a womanizer looking for my next conquest.
Then again, maybe that’s what you’re looking for? Someone who’s cool, and has lots of women hanging around him? I don’t know.
However, I do agree that if all he has on the profile is fishing, he’s probably not doing much else. I’d include a whole lot more stuff.
Funny thing is, what you say you seek is what I used to seek, but somehow I always ended up broke and overworked when i was with women. Maybe you’re one of the good ones I never found. Oh, well.
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