memes

This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

SuddenDownpour, in Communist Filth/Capitalist Filth

These discussions on communism vs capitalism that devolve into comparing the US with the USSR are like discussing feudalism vs liberalism in 1825, when the only perceptible legacies of the French Revolution were the Reign of Terror and Napoleon’s degeneration into monarchy.

If you’re sensibly anticapitalist, for the love of Marx do not argue in favor of states that rejected all pretension of wanting to let the economy be democratically managed, ultimately turning into party-controlled hierarchies rather than socialism. If you’re a liberal in 1825 and rather than arguing in favor of ending serfdom and enfranchising everyone you keep going on about how Robespierre wasn’t really that bad, you’re politically useless.

Mango,

I’m always confused at how people think communism and democracy are opposites. The indoctrination is crazy. They’re not even the same category of thing. Communism is an economic model where democracy is just about how leadership is decided. They can exist in the same country at the same time.

cecinestpasunbot,

Communist theory explicitly tries to dispel the idea that political and economic structures are separate things. As such, communists intend to create democratic structures that can distribute resources in place of undemocratic market relationships which empower owners of capital.

Liberalism on the other hand believe that market relationships are inherently democratic. Therefore they may think that any attempt to replace them with a planned economy are undemocratic regardless of how such planning would be decided upon.

Mango,

Ahhh right, but that’s not to say that the types of underlying structures aren’t interchangeable. Are you saying that communism is necessarily democratic?

cecinestpasunbot,

Yes, most communists and especially Marxists believe communism must necessarily be fully democratic. It’s certainly true though that there is much debate about what types of democratic structures to use. Although most communists would probably agree that it would require a lot of trial and error to find an ideal system.

That said, communists generally seek to disenfranchise owners of capital from the decision making process up until the point they no longer exist as a class. Therefore in the transition to communism, full democracy may not be realized. This is the given reason for why Marxist Leninist countries generally suppress opposition parties but may allow for political affinity organizations around identity groups that suffer under capitalism, ie worker, youth, women’s organizations, etc.

Mango,

So is the idea that the dictator scene is supposed to be an in between step?

cecinestpasunbot,

Well Marx used the term “dictatorship of the proletariat” to describe how a transition would work in opposition to what he saw as the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”.

However, if you’re talking about people like Stalin or Mao, you’ll find self proclaimed communists with a wide variety of opinions on the subject. That’s in part because gets difficult to sort propaganda from the truth of the matter. I also mean both western and communist propaganda. To have a guy going by “Joe Steel” as the leader of your republic of socialist workers councils isn’t exactly a subtle attempt to get buy in from working class people.

Sanyanov,

This is a golden take. We seriously need to communicate it to the Left.

abbotsbury,
@abbotsbury@lemmy.world avatar

most on the left already agree

Cowbee,

I think a lot of Marxists take sympathy with Lenin, and Lenin’s vision, they don’t necessarily like what the USSR became under Stalin. The principles of Soviet Democracy, for example, are appealing to many Lefitsts. “All power to the Soviets!”

That being said, ultimately the USSR serves as a great example of why Vanguardism can be good in overthrowing a bad system, but must be held far more accountable, or even dissolve after revolution. I know many MLs would probably shit on me for saying that, citing the CIA paper saying Stalin wasn’t a dictator, but I still think ultimately the form of government under Stalin and those who came after him is very dependent on who is in power. A more decentralized system would have checks against such issues.

My 2 cents as a leftist that isn’t an ML, but has spent time reading about the various leftist tendencies.

I’ll conclude it by saying I would have loved it if Lenin continued to live and stay in power, I wonder what the USSR would have looked like, maybe even today.

Socsa,

Anyone who has actually studied political science has nothing but contempt for what Lenin did with his opportunity. At this point if you are ignoring all the hindsight of the 20th century, you are campist, not a communist. Which is what describes most of the lemmy communists.

SuddenDownpour,

Lenin’s State and Revolution is great and set the foundations for the Bolshevik discourse that led to them being capable of leading a movement large enough to gain power over Russia, the problem is that not even Lenin himself was consistent with the principles he proposed. The idea that you can legitimately sustain some sort of pretension of achieving worker democracy when the Bolsheviks consistently ended up repressing all other leftist factions wasn’t coherent, to the point that Stalin wasn’t a sad degeneration of Leninist practice, but a necessary consequence.

We unfortunately see the same result in almost all countries that followed the ML model, where a party elite ends up monopolizing power and divorcing itself from the rest of society, ultimately instituting themselves as a separate class that sees no ideological issue with bringing back capitalism, as they find it to be more consistent with the really existent power dynamics in the country.

Socsa, (edited )

Literally most of the work people cite from Lenin is just him defending his own hypocrisy. It really says a lot that people will be all “dictatorship of the proletariat doesn’t mean dictatorship” and then go on to cite Lenin glibly saying that civil war is good because it teaches the peasants how to shoot. It’s simply not a well thought out framework for statecraft.

And all of this is summarized quite nicely in Animal Farm

mycorrhiza, (edited )

Animal Farm

The plot reads like a sunday school scare piece to warn children about the dangers of satanism. It’s so vague and allegorical that you can’t really critique it. The message is basically “if you revolt against the capitalists, a scary bad man will take over and hurt you.” Also pretty disgusting that it portrays workers as farm animals and capitalists as humans. It’s a very “American schools during the Cold War would make kids read that” kind of book.

It’s not surprising that Orwell was a bigoted snitch who ratted leftists out to British intelligence, and was especially keen on turning in jews, black people, homosexuals, and anyone he deemed “anti-white.”

bennorton.com/george-orwell-list-leftists-snitch-…

I’ll also throw in Asimov’s review of 1984 while I’m ranting about this creep

www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm

framework for statecraft

I kinda give side-eye to anyone really fond of the word statecraft. It’s sort of an “I look up to a lot of neoliberal ghouls” shibboleth.

abbotsbury,
@abbotsbury@lemmy.world avatar

I liked Homage to Catalonia

mycorrhiza,

Maybe if I read that it would temper my view of him, I mainly know him for writing an anti-Soviet book in the middle of a war with the nazis

American_Communist22,
@American_Communist22@lemmygrad.ml avatar

you mean his complaining about having to do something besides being a colonial cop?

American_Communist22,
@American_Communist22@lemmygrad.ml avatar

your argument gives proof you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about

OurToothbrush,

But have you considered, it sounds nice to people who don’t know history or theory?

Candelestine, in Truly an art form to use properly

tbf, it’s too specialized. They’re heavy so they can hurt through armor, which makes them slow. Terrible weapon vs an unarmored opponent, who can more easily just get out of the way or stay out of your reach.

A spear is at least good everywhere but indoors.

Like, what is the absolute last medieval weapon you would ever want if you were fighting 3 unarmed guys? All fast, all know what they’re doing. I’d say mace is solidly last.

Now, are they all wearing heavy plate armor like knights? Then mace becomes really, really good, it’ll break your bones through that steel, dent the steel inward so it compresses your body and the joints stop working properly, all sorts of shitty things. And you’re too slow to get out of the way.

source: I like maces.

saltesc,

I’ve always found them the most scary. If someone has mastered one, able to control and time the weight, opening up opportunities for blows, you’re fucked. A light blow with a blade or spear, you’re taking shallow damage and can scamper back. But with a mace? You’re off-balance now or quite stunned and that’s exactly what leads to the skull being crushed in a second later.

So, sure they’re slower and harder to land, but patiently, just one good hit and it’s game very quickly and violently over. Not to mention, the wielder doesn’t have to worry about their weapon being stuck in the dead guy.

Slotos,

Maces tended to be lighter and shorter than equivalent swords.

Maces aren’t as good against unarmored opponents, because unarmored opponents bleed and get incapacitated from a few well placed cuts. Swords tend to balance their weight closer to the handle to offer precision to make those cuts.

Maces specialize in delivering nearly the entire energy behind a strike. They were balanced to the tip of the weapon for that reason. Which is great against cut resistant armor due to energy transfer. Note that this places maces utility well before invention of plate armor.

If it’s heavy and slow, it’s not a weapon. Slow weapons kill their weilders. Rare armor rendered the user so slow as to let you swing in a game-like “lumberjack dealing with a stubborn log” fashion. There are plenty demonstrations around that show how fast and deadly an armored swordsman is.

The statement about spears indoors is game logic. The variability in spears and swords designs is such that most swords and spears would be equally dogshit indoors, but those that wouldn’t would all work quite ok. In a narrow, defensibly built passageway, thrusting attacks are nearly the only attacks available to combatants. A short spear then can offer a good deal of utility that sword wouldn’t, and vise versa. Short maces are nowhere near being useless there either.

Candelestine,

Couple points in there I could argue, but it’s fair enough. Source for maces generally being lighter than equivalent swords? My experience has been very much to the contrary, though I’ve never held an actual historical artifact, only replicas.

Slotos,

For example, www.clevelandart.org/art/1916.1589

It being from 16th century, it’s likely the heavier variant for cavalrymen (which the description kinda confirms). Even then it weighs only 1.6kg.

Some sword examples:

Note the years and descriptions on the lighter swords. They are more of an everyday tool for civilians at that point. A regular club competed with those, probably very successfully.

Candelestine,

I rather doubt a regular club competed with a fencing sword successfully, in hands of equal skill. That I’m afraid I will argue. It’s a question of speed and weighting. That heavy weighting towards the top you were describing earlier in a mace, and also present in a typical club or baton, has far more effects than merely focusing force over a smaller surface area. You also have the basic physics of moving a lever through an arc, and overcoming the intertia of the end of it, if you desire to change its direction.

My own training is mostly in actually using weapons, not academic understanding of them, and you’re entering my turf. lol

Slotos,

By compete I mean to compete in utility and general use, not in a duel. Fencing sword is of no use when you get whacked at the back of your head. It’s also relatively useless on a battlefield, from which I presume it occupied mostly the same space the clubs did - streets and roads.

I won’t argue on weight distribution influence. Sharp object balanced near the handle doesn’t need much of a swing to render my arms unusable. A mace simply cannot do that, its utility lies elsewhere.

PS: I would love to see a skilled fight using a thrusting sword and a mace. Thrusting swords don’t have a cutting edge, which makes it possible to grab and grapple them aside. I imagine the moment your opponent grabs your sword and swings their club presents quite a pickle.

Candelestine,

I feel like it would be fairly easy to leap backwards so long as your back isn’t to a wall. The force of the leap alongside you yanking your sword backward should free it from most grips, I’d think. I’m just spitballing though, I’ve never actually tried to seriously grab any kind of thin blade, much less a fencing sword of some sort. I guess you could torque it in your grip to improve your control, I don’t know how much of an effect this could have. I doubt it’d go much like the (fantastic) finale scenes of Rob Roy though, just because your asking your forearm muscles to combat a pretty hefty amount of momentum via mostly friction, which just isn’t very likely to work imo.

Unless you had an equivalent amount of forward momentum yourself, coming in with a massive lunge to maintain distance against the retreating opponent. That’s pretty all-or-nothing though. If instead of leaping backwards he moves into you, you have no cover (both of your hands are in use at this moment) against a potential fist or elbow to your face from his free arm, with the extra momentum of the two of you approaching each other.

By the way, I never thanked you for the corrections to my understanding, so thank you. This is admittedly not the first time I’ve had to take my spankings from an educated academic, I am a bit of a poster child for replica weapons being frequently inaccurate and thus teaching mistaken impressions. I do try to remember this, but it isn’t always easy. I do have a strong appreciation for accurate understanding of history though, so thank you for taking the time to write up corrections and provide sources.

Slotos,

Oh, I’m not an academic, just an ADHD poster child. Historic weapons keep appearing on my radar for the past few years and I repeatedly find myself spending time on researching what I’ll never practice.

I try to find and share sources for that reason - they allow others to skip incorrect assumptions I made along the way.

Candelestine,

Still an educated academic, simply self-taught. If you do your due diligence appropriately, which your fluency with source material seems to demonstrate is so, that’s good enough for me.

I’m reminded of Drachinifel on youtube, originally an engineer by trade, but now a well-regarded expert on naval historiography, specifically from the age of sail to the pre-modern era, with a particular focus on Spanish ships.

Dude just reads a lot, and has research skills, a good memory and a knack for history communication.

AnUnusualRelic,
@AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world avatar

tbf, it’s too specialized. They’re heavy so they can hurt through armor, which makes them slow. Terrible weapon vs an unarmored opponent, who can more easily just get out of the way or stay out of your reach.

There’s just one lesson in mace school: “come at them from behind”.

rockerface,

Walk softly and carry a big stick

daltotron,

I think most weapons, including lack of weapons, benefits from surprise attacks from behind.

AngryCommieKender,

I’d put a pair of Sai behind the mace against the unarmed guys. Those things are useless, unless you know exactly what you’re doing. A mace is just an improvement on a warhammer, so even untrained, I have a pretty good idea of how to use it. A sledgehammer is similar enough.

TheSanSabaSongbird,

Good plate armor was nowhere near as ungainly as many people imagine. A knight wearing a well-made suit would actually retain a surprising amount of agility and speed. The downside was that they obviously had to be custom made and were so expensive that only the wealthiest nobles could afford them.

Candelestine,

While true, it doesn’t take much speed reduction to make a mace, or anything else, no longer miss you. Inertia is what it is, and the margins are not always large. The armor can deal with a lucky sword stroke, unless it’s really, really lucky. It can’t deal with a lucky mace stroke, you’re a casualty. Broken arm, leg, skull, something.

Otherwise maces wouldn’t have much of a point, anyway. Tiring to swing, shorter reach, yeah it hurts, but so does a sword if there’s no armor in the way. Takes minimal training, but so does a spear, and spearmen can stand in close order and poke. A maceman can’t do that, you gotta swing that thing. It’s not much of a poker, like say, a roman gladius is.

If there’s no heavy armor on the field, leave your mace at home. If there’s heavy armor, bring the mace. Battering through that shit is what it’s for.

HumbertTetere,

All true, just want to add to it.

You can bring the mace anyway, just in case, as long as you don’t mind carrying it. One other major benefit is that the things could be dirt cheap because you don’t need good quality metal.

But if you want to hit people, and have a money and time for training, go for an axe. Pretty much all the advantages of a mace, but can cut on top (and usually poke too).

The other part of the equation is not getting killed, and usually the guys in heavy armor are good at killing you. Getting in striking range for a medium range weapon like a mace/axe/sword is damn dangerous, so a slower weapon like a mace or axe that’s additionally bad at defending because of a more distant point of balance means a much increased risk to your life. So if it’s one on one, you should really think twice about trying to getting that lucky strike in.

UrPartnerInCrime,
@UrPartnerInCrime@sh.itjust.works avatar

So as a mace guy I should just follow around some dude in armor and we just go fuck up everyone who also is wearing armor

deft,

not sure i agree people tend to wield baseball bats the same just swinging for the fences but a quick jab with the base or top is the most effective way to use them.

i think it’s all technique

Candelestine,

A baseball bat is a two handed club anyway. Maces are shorter and heavier.

GBU_28,

Even if you’re armed with the choice weapon, and skilled, 3 knights on foot looking to fuck you up are gonna do so lol. Those guys were brawlers more than anything else

Candelestine,

A recurve bow and a horse.

But yea, probably accurate. lol

GrammatonCleric,
@GrammatonCleric@lemmy.world avatar

What’s your opinion on flails?

Pinecone,

One handed flails were never used in warfare. They were made for decoration. There was a 2 handed flail that couldn’t reach the user but it was still not very effective.

Candelestine,

Hits really hard. Probably kinda hard to use. If I picked up a real one I’d probably end up giving myself a concussion somehow.

I guess I don’t know very much about flails… I thought they were more of a cavalry weapon irl, but I’d have to look that up. Unless it’s the old makeshift farm implement version that some peasants probably picked up at different points.

GoFastBoots, (edited )

The haft with a long chain and ball on the end is fantasy. However, I fought with one for a couple of years as a combat actor/choreographer and ren-faire reenactor and would say that the flail is a duelist’s weapon only. And in a duel its chief function is to remove your opponent’s shield.

A well placed flail strike will go around the guard of your opponent and potentially break fingers, hand, wrist, or arm.

You can also try to use it to disarm their primary weapon but it’s less reliable in this regard as it becomes a tug of war strength contest.

Use your flail to break their hand and make them drop their shield and then drop the flail and draw your side sword or whatever else you happen to have.

Too slow and clumsy of a weapon to fight against a group or near allies.

eupraxia,

Seems to me like a bearded axe does many of the same things while being easier to control and being more effective as a striking weapon, no?

GoFastBoots,

Yeah pretty much, which is why the axe was actually used and flails as we know them are fantasy weapons. The flail has the intimidation and cool factor but otherwise I’d rather have an axe.

The flail might have more reach, but the longer the chain the slower the weapon and more skill required to land a blow.

Venat0r,

An even weirder one, a flail with a bike style chain: youtu.be/K5sPDbwr7EI

nottheengineer, in ...Then you select it, and the Captcha fails.

I still don’t know whether you’re supposed to hit those and I also don’t know if it’s normal to get two challenges or if that just means I did the first one wrong.

onion,

I think you should do what the majority of people would do

nottheengineer,

This has been memed about forever, no one knows what the majority does.

veroxii,

Most people do.

Pietson,

AFAIK, the first one is the real check, the second one is too train their image recognition AI.

nudnyekscentryk,
@nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info avatar

That was in text captcha days

neoman4426,

I vaguely remember 4chan figuring out something to do with which was the control and which the variable and deciding to spam solving the control correctly but the variable with some kind of nonsense (knowing 4chan probably a slur) until the system got enough confirmation that it got moved to the control group and would accept I it there

nottheengineer,

It has to be more sophisticated than that. Otherwise users could easily taint the datasets by giving wrong answers on purpose.

It probably checks your answer against the current model’s best guess and if it’s close enough, you get a pass and your input is added to the training data for the next iteration. The more wrong you are, the more challenges you get.

Takios,

Otherwise users could easily taint the datasets by giving wrong answers on purpose.

I do that and as long as it’s not too outlandish it lets me through.

boredtortoise,

Isn’t it normal to get something like 6 challenges?

And suddenly one of them has new slow loading images which you won’t notice before clicking continue, thus failing

user224,
@user224@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

The most I got at once was around 21 I think. But twice I did such number without passing.

I should finally look at one of those automated captcha solver extensions for Firefox. I know some are more accurate than humans anyway.

Johanno,

Oh I usually get the green checkmark without any captcha.

It depends on the website you are visiting, whether you are loged in on Google and how much cookies you allow and a lot more. Also using Chrome may help because it collects more data.

Sometimes loging out of Google also helps.

jmcs,

It doesn’t really matter, they don’t expect you to get everything right on these. While most of the time you need to get mostly right (Google is using these to train their AI so often they are not sure themselves), they are also looking at other things, like how you move your mouse, and the cookies that they use to spy on people to determine the probability of you being a human. If you pass a certain threshold they let you through, and you can do it even if you miss a square.

mnglw,

I use a trackball mouse for disability reasons. I have to actively slow my cursor movement to a crawl and deliberately slowly click each square otherwise I fail captcha’s

it’s infuriating

DigitalPaperTrail,

deleted_by_author

  • Loading...
  • Cruxifux,

    Nah, you’re a robot man. We caught you.

    Flabbergassed,
    @Flabbergassed@artemis.camp avatar

    I'm Kilroy.

    Tetsuo,

    A bot trying to solve the captcha would be very fast so it makes sense that they block fast solvers.

    anyhow2503,

    A bot would be exactly as fast as possible, while staying below the detection threshold.

    nottheengineer,

    These things feel like they are made by microsoft. You click somewhere, wait 3-10 seconds and then you can click again.

    Droechai,

    Just use a click delay program between press and input, maybe with a physical on/off switch on a dedicated keyboard next to the mouse together with other necessary keys (like the one button switch between EN and SE layouts or the Memory Cache Dump Key)

    jmcs,

    That’s what a bot would say /s

    But you’re right, the UX sucks, and there are other ways to detect and limit bots that don’t impact legitimate users as much - but Google needs to train their AI, and developers need to cargo cult stuff.

    DessertStorms,
    @DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

    and the cookies that they use to spy on people to determine the probability of you being a human

    which is why I assume, as a VPN user who rejects as many cookies as possible, I constantly have to do 5-6 fucking captchas in a row, sometimes more, before it'll let me through.. I can't be that bad at doing them lol

    Is it frustrating? Fuck yeah. Will it get me to change my behaviour and drop those measures so that the companies getting in my way can collect more of my data? Fuck no.

    Inductor,

    Have you tried using an automatic CAPTCHA solver (e.g. Buster)?

    DessertStorms,
    @DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

    No, will give it a look, thanks

    Pika,

    I will have to look into this as well

    null,

    Yup, as soon as I moved to a privacy-focused browser, pi-hole, and VPN, I started getting a ton more captchas and they had many more in a row.

    I consider it a badge of honor.

    veroxii,

    I also started getting way more once I moved from chrome to Firefox.

    FauxPseudo, in ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
    @FauxPseudo@lemmy.world avatar
    Kecessa,

    This thing doesn’t go past 0 very often

    Sphks,
    @Sphks@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    It does.
    It was up to 6 at the end of September!
    …wikipedia.org/…/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_Un…

    Kecessa,

    Not based on that list

    www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting

    And that’s the issue, some definitions make it seem like it’s less of an issue than it truly is…

    Sphks,
    @Sphks@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    That was sarcastic. 6 days max without a mass shooting is low. Especialy when the average number is 2 mass shooting every fucking day.

    tdawg, in Thanks, Windows, I didn’t want my computer to turn off, anyway

    My favorite is when I shut it down and then it reboots into Ubuntu bc that’s my default in grub

    AVincentInSpace,

    me who uses rEFInd which remembers the last OS chosen and defaults to that: I don’t have such weaknesses

    ruckblack,

    Grub also has this feature lmao

    Vilian,

    lmao true

    RickyRigatoni,
    @RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml avatar

    so true bestie

    SeducingCamel,

    Lmao this just happened to me last night

    Duamerthrax,

    Oh god, I run hackintosh and had a problem for months that Win10n wouldn’t update correctly. Had to pull every drive but Win10 before it would update correctly, then properly corrupted itself and I had to do a fresh install anyway. POS OS.

    doofer_name, in Public Transit my beloved 😍

    I hate point 2 and 3.

    I have an avarage travel of 45-55 minutes from my home city to the city I work in. By car and by train, while the train is usually on the slower end. It takes about 20-30 minutes to get from my home to the train station by taking the bus or riding the bike. When taking the bus I also have to factor in about 15 minutes between arrival at the station and departure of the train. Then there is another 20 minutes from the train station at destination to my place of work. So it takes me 40-65 minutes longer taking the train… twice a day, making it 1:20-2:10h a day (when Im lucky bc trains over here have frequent delays). One hour ish doesn’t sound like much? Well you’ll feel it if you working 11-12h a shift or a 9-10 hour a day in a normal 9 to 5 job (starting work at around 7 a.m.).

    Then there is a neat little think called night or late shifts. There is no way I’m gonna take the train here. They either take an hour longer or the bus at my home city does not drive anymore on the way back.

    Demand better public transportation. Demand functioning trains and frequent bus and tram connections. But do not tell people that need to take the car for whatever reason, that they should just take the worse option and make them feel like the problem.

    I hate cars. I hate driving. And I love taking the train or taking the bike within my city. But sometimes I just have to take the car. That is not my fault tho, since public transportation is not the main focus of politics over here. And thats what needs to change globally.

    Son_of_dad,

    I tried taking my family out on a weekend on transit. 40 minutes wait for a bus that had any room, an hour to travel 10km, and it cost us $10 each way for the family. I live in a major city but our transit is trash. It’s not fit for a city of this size.

    ahto,

    It’s not fit for a city of this size.

    Tokyo would like to have a word with you. It’s not public transit in and of itself that is the issue, it’s the implementation.

    candybrie,

    I think you read that wrong. They aren’t saying public transit doesn’t work in a city that size, but the public transit in their city isn’t up to the standard it should be for a city that size.

    ahto,

    You’re right, I see it now. My bad!

    doofer_name, (edited )

    That sounds horrible. Public transportation is such a vital thing for citys to function properly as a place to live and not just work in. And dont get me started on small towns or the countryside where not owning a car basically means you’re fucked. I cannot wrap my head around how politicians just fail to see this. Climate change might be the most urgent, but by far not the only argument for better public transportation.

    zerofk,

    When I switched from using the bus to going by bike, i cut my commute time by more than half. If I were to take the car, it would halve again. Public transport is great, and necessary. But it will never be faster than a personal car for anything but large distances.

    DrRatso,

    A bike is faster in my city if you are decently fast, but a bus or trolley is faster than cars during rush hours, because we have public transit lanes, so while everyone in their tin cans is stressed yelling at the dumbass who just cut them off im breezing past, listening to a podcast, meditating or catching a quick ten minute nap before work.

    Flumsy,

    … where you live. Where I live (in central Europe) we have a subway every 2-3 minutes and you’re at worst 2 blocks away from a stop. It all depends on the infrastructure. A subway cant be stuck in traffic…

    CowsLookLikeMaps,

    Also, trams/streetcars in Zurich have right of way and the red lights change for them. Which is completely logical considering how many more people you can fit in them than a few cards at a red light. The problems with public transit in North America are a function of our car infrastructure.

    pimeys,

    Yep. Here in Berlin traveling to my old office (when I didn’t work from home all the time) with the S or U-bahn took 30-35 minutes and by car/taxi about 40-45 minutes due to the traffic.

    TheFriendlyDickhead,

    Berlin is one of the few german cities where public transport is done right. In cologne, where I lived, there are a lot of stops, but the inferstructure is just realy bad. They managed that trains get stuck in traffic too sometimes. And for some reason they trains only arrive in a 10-30min time window. So if you want to follow one line it’s relatively fine, but if you have to change trains you have to be lucky. In the city center still faster than driving though.

    IkarusHagen2,
    @IkarusHagen2@feddit.de avatar

    Just say central european city.

    I too live in central europe and the bus line i could take from my town to the town i work in takes 1 hr to get there and back, at the end of my day the bus only departes one hour after i’m finished with work so i have to wait for the bus the same amount of time i need for both ways with my car.

    dafo,

    They should really say a European city with a subway. Not all cities in Europe have a subway.

    Flumsy,

    It was pretty obvious from my comment that I live in a European city with a subway…

    I didnt say my comment applied to all European cities either.

    BCsven,

    I’m in Vancouver, while the system needs some improvement, the skytrain gets me right to the airport, with trains every few minutes. No parking nonsense. Driving, with traffic, is much longer. Bussing has some express routes so the trips aren’t so many stops also. until the system wxpands develooment the consideration is looking for a place nearer a stop or station.

    bandario,
    @bandario@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    If I rode my bike to work, my shift would be over by the time I got there. I’m really starting to like the idea of biking to work.

    KillAllPoorPeople,

    Nearly every city on the planet with a subway system disputes your bullshit.

    Mchugho,

    So what? Subways requires a minimum amount of people to be viable. Outside of major urban centres they are useless.

    CowsLookLikeMaps,

    I think the point here is that suburbs and cities have such dogshit public transit and bike infrastructure that people do everything by car. Nobody is telling those who live in rural areas to bike 30km to get groceries.

    KillAllPoorPeople,

    Guess where most people live and want to live?

    chiliedogg,

    It sure is nice that everyone gets to live in New York, London, and Washington.

    A better solution is to reduce how much people need to travel. Instead of building trillion-dollartransit systems so people can to to the office we should be taxing the everloving shit out of office spaces for jobs that can be worked remotely.

    cadekat,

    How likely is it that your home and work are 20 minutes away from train stations because your region prioritizes cars?

    doofer_name,

    Its not just likely, thats the case. But living in the inner city is expensive here. And thats the case in most of the country.

    MisterScruffy, in History lives in the present

    One group was actually living there and the other group moved in and literally ripped people from their homes.

    dangblingus,

    6 people deny history.

    Flumsy,

    One group took 2 years to organize an attack on civilians, the other didnt…

    Draedron,

    Both sides constantly attack civillians.

    TimeNaan,

    The other has been attacking them for decades…

    Flumsy, (edited )

    This was on a different level though. Taking civilian hostages? Launching rockets with the target being a music festival?

    Strawberry,

    Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights press release outlining large scale targeting of peaceful protesters, women, children, people with disabilities, paramedics and journalists by Israeli snipers: ohchr.org/…/no-justification-israel-shoot-protest…

    BBC report on the killing of Christian American-Palestinian journalist and subsequent attack of her funeral: youtube.com/watch?v=y11CVGz7toM

    BBC article about the Human Rights Watch report detailing Israel’s crimes of apartheid: www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56898864

    The majority of Gaza children suffer from PTSD caused by the constant conditions of warfare, psychological study: www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/…/full

    Human Rights Watch report on “indiscriminate” bombing of schools by IDF forces: hrw.org/…/israel-depth-look-gaza-school-attacks

    Al Jazeera article about Israel bombing a refugee camp housing refugees of Israel’s air strikes: aljazeera.com/…/israels-bombardment-of-gaza-conti…

    Amnesty International—Israeli airstrikes targeting civilian housing constitute war crimes amnesty.org/…/israelopt-pattern-of-israeli-attack…

    Article by the Intercept about Israeli airstrikes targeting medical facilities: theintercept.com/…/gaza-bombing-hospital-israel/

    bennieandthez,
    @bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    do u live under a rock?

    Malfeasant,

    when did Israel specifucally taregt civilians?

    They do it often. Here’s a particularly nasty one from 2009, there are plenty more if you care to look.

    hrw.org/…/israels-unlawful-use-white-phosphorus-g…

    Tom_bishop,

    Dont forget Israel bombed Associated Press & Al Jazeera office building in 2021 for reporting against them

    Strawberry,

    ohchr.org/…/no-justification-israel-shoot-protest…

    IDF snipers intentionally targeting civilians including children

    roboticide,

    That’s been happening for the last 5,000 years in that region though, since the Canaanites.

    It’s not like the Palestinians were the first there.

    MisterScruffy, (edited )

    The Palestinians are descendants of the ancient canaanites. Most of the people in that region never left they just changed their religion at some point. This hasn’t always been happening, in Ottoman times Christians Jews and Muslims peacefully coexisted in the region.

    roboticide,

    I mean, kinda? They’re also heavily descended from 7th Century AD Arabic conquerors, but yes, many other natives may have adopted Arabic culture, language and religion at that time.

    But Jewish culture is also derived from the Canaanite culture, with arguably more overlap. Jewish culture in the region can be traced back to at least the 9th Century BC, with the literal Kingdom of Israel. So the argument of “Well who was there first?” does not necessarily favor the Palestinians over the Israelis.

    This has always been happening though. It’s not like the Ottomans took over the region peacefully. It’s been conquered and re-conquered by Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans…

    MisterScruffy,

    Palestinian culture is also derived from canaanite culture. Arabs are semitic people and follow abrahamic traditions. When places get conquered usually the ruling class changes but the lower class people stay in their homes and just change language/religion/identity. Usually the new rulers don’t try to completely wipe out the inhabitants of their new land the way israel is doing with Palestinians

    joseangel,
    @joseangel@lemmy.world avatar

    That’s why I love this video, it explains it very well in a graphic manner:

    youtu.be/8tIdCsMufIY?si=maslr0cZLs-xmTl5

    Isakk86, in Racismed

    Just when I think I couldn’t hate him anymore, he omits the Oxford comma…

    Imgonnatrythis,

    Did you just grammerism him?

    MinekPo1,
    @MinekPo1@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    smh he is racist, overconfident, and uneducated

    rambling_lunatic, in I will rue the day this inevitably happens.

    I hope he has some sort of contingency plan. Perhaps he can find a successor.

    Windex007,

    It involves golden tickets and the unsolved disappearances of a handful of children.

    Brutal, I know, but it’s the only way.

    ipkpjersi, (edited )

    I selfishly wish he had a son or daughter to carry on his legacy lol

    More generations deserve to know how good Valve is.

    bastion,

    Son/daughter would be like “ugh, this is lame, I want to play real-world games with peoples’ lives. …like, corporate wars, or screw-the-smallguy.”

    Kids never handle the inheritance right, and passing on the experiences they need in order to do so is hard as fuck.

    lemonnade,

    He has 2 kids lol. The eldest - Gray Newell, seems to be more into racing than game dev, though.

    bastion,

    It really is.

    Mango,

    Yeah but whales are gonna get all the tickets. There’s no IRL Charlie luck magic.

    WhiskyTangoFoxtrot,

    Grandpa Joe’s probably a whale.

    Mango,

    I need that comic where the girl is super frugal about everything except one particular thing.

    jdf038,

    Chat GPT predicts one of the kids will…

    …get physically pulled into valves code? Not sure how that happens lol

    🎵 One clicked on files they shouldn’t dare Now lost in code, they’ve disappeared in air Gaben warned, but they didn’t heed Now in the depths of Steam, they’ll forever plead

    🎵 Oompa loompa doompety dah If you’re not careful, you’ll go too far Respect the rules when visiting Gaben’s lair Or vanish forever, lost in Valve’s software!

    Nomecks,

    If you’re reading this GabeN, make Valve a non-profit.

    DragonTypeWyvern,

    Worker co-op. Non-profits are pretty easy to rig for the benefit of the C-levels.

    bastion,

    Easy-peasey to rig. Worker co-op isn’t a bad idea.

    I vote that as a second to finding a successor, and giving the whole thing to them, sans whatever kickbacks to family etc that he wants.

    DragonTypeWyvern,

    Well I’m glad we’ve all found an equitable and legally binding way to divide Lord Gaben’s assets on his death!

    And they say the Internet never solved anything.

    bastion,

    Honestly, an open letter couldn’t hurt.

    UnverifiedAPK,

    He’s on 4chan last I heard

    Omega_Haxors,

    He’s been on 4chan since before he started the company. Why do you think they got so popular so quick?

    Hupf,

    I hope that GabeO will be ready for release soon.

    the_post_of_tom_joad, in Question for God

    “because if it didn’t feel good to poop you dumb monkeys would have died full of shit” is probably God’s/nature’s answer.

    Honytawk,

    Weren’t we made in his image?

    Does this mean god has a scat fetish?

    pixeltree,

    Women don’t have a prostate tho and don’t die full of shit [CITATION NEEDED]

    clemdemort,
    @clemdemort@lemmy.world avatar

    They have the skene gland which is basically a prostate. (Yes that’s the G-spot in women)

    pixeltree,

    Yes, but does it make them feel good when they poop? Genuine question, I have no clue.

    clemdemort, (edited )
    @clemdemort@lemmy.world avatar

    Not really, same way as us prostate owners we don’t really feel it when we poop, pooping just feels nice.

    pixeltree,

    Fair. I do feel it on big ones though, but that might just be because I’ve sensitized it

    electrogamerman, (edited )

    Pooping (lots of less than symbols) Getting penetrated.

    Just sayin

    Zehzin,
    @Zehzin@lemmy.world avatar

    I dunno I think it depends.

    As a poet once wrote on a bathroom stall door I’ve seen: The three greatest pleasures in life are the beginning of a piss, the middle of a nut and the end of a shit.

    electrogamerman,

    Now imagine if you combine the middle of a nut and the end of a shit

    the_post_of_tom_joad, (edited )

    I’m sorry? Did something get mangled in autocorrect or is this weed stronger than i thought?

    EDIT: smarty manguy >>>>>>>me

    CluelessDude,

    Don’t worry I also took some time to get it. Not getting pegged I mean the >>>>>…

    jol,

    Exactly. This is like asking why drugs feel good. Anal is just hijacking our body senses for unplanned fun purposes.

    NocturnalMorning, in Core Values

    This is just basic psychology. It takes a long time to change someone’s political beliefs, and it isn’t effective to just argue with people, even with facts. Interestingly, one way to get people to change their opinion is to frame things in terms of how it affects them and their family.

    underwire212,

    The elephant and the rider

    Gabu,

    For stupid people, that might be true.

    NocturnalMorning, (edited )

    Nothing to do with intelligence I promise.

    lugal,

    Also: One conversation might not change someone completely but it can be part of a process. Be happy when people open up and don’t try to convince everyone at once. Leave them with a good feeling, that will be more effective than having all the facts right and be angry with them. They will more likely think about it and change their view eventually (looking at you Alex, the first vegan I ever met and who left me with a good impression)

    kool_newt,

    It seems best to facilitate people’s ability to change on their own. Plant seeds of cognitive dissonance and walk away.

    tryptaminev,

    You think cognitive dissonance is a bug that they would take to realize they are wrong. But it is a core feature of far right ideologies

    kool_newt,

    I think you’re right for a large segment, but I’m convinced that there are people with some brains and heart that just happen to be surrounded by right wing ideologies and unexposed to and given misinformation about ideas outside their bubble.

    glennglog22,
    @glennglog22@kbin.social avatar

    I always had the weird thought that maybe conservatives could be convinced into reason if socialistic ideals were reframed to "sound" more conservative. Sadly I suck at anything relating to politics so eh.

    _danny,

    That’s how I’ve framed raising the minimum wage to some hard right co workers.

    Why should my tax dollars subsidize Walmart, McDonald’s and these other companies that pay minimum wage knowing their workers will be on welfare? If your business has to pay a wage that has to be compensated by the government, it’s a failing business.

    VubDapple, (edited )

    That’s the way! Using the same rhetorical pattern they are used to hearing, “they took our jobs!” and slightly modifying it to point to a different “evil”, the corporations rather than the traditional scapegoats.

    runjun,

    Due to how I look and where I work, conservatives constantly assume I am one too. I used to discuss/debate them about their views. I gave that up. Now I just say I disagree so that even if they tell others that everyone that talk to agrees with them, somewhere in the back of the their mind they know that’s not true.

    nao,

    It’s interesting how it seems so important for “conservatives” to believe that everyone agrees with them

    shani66,

    The driving force, the raison d’etre of the authoritarian mind is to be normal. Not be happy, not be rich, not be good, be normal, by whatever they feel is normal. Not only is it pretty pathetic, it makes them justify their beliefs with the idea that they are normal even though they are anything but.

    runjun,

    Cause they know the policies are cruel and doing cruel things is easier when others buy in.

    shani66,

    Not just a thought, these people don’t think through their political beliefs (to be fair many people don’t, but most others don’t make it a core part of themselves either), it’s mostly just aesthetics for them.

    Asafum,

    Aesthetics or athletics, they see it as a team sport too lol Gotta support the reds even if they really really suck this… Century.

    irmoz,

    Everyone should be a business owner!

    Jorgelino,

    Yeah but usually people aren’t this self aware

    EmpathicVagrant,

    Meanwhile people still saying they’d rather be intubated than having taken a vaccine, cursing it with their last breath. Repeated story countless times in hundreds of hospitals

    agitatedpotato,

    Meanwhile people still saying they’d rather be intubated than having taken a vaccine

    I only wish they get what they ask for.

    Perfide,

    I don’t. Fuck intubating them, fuck admitting them to the hospital at all, that’s room that could go to treating someone not dying from the consequences of their own actions.

    EmpathicVagrant,

    Either way, the unvaccinated spreading is what caused so many mutations and variants.

    Perfide,

    Not sure how that’s relevant to my comment, but yeah.

    s_i_m_s, (edited )

    Hey covid will still kill you even if you call it a hoax.
    Rep: you God damn liberals are ruining this county Several family members die
    Rep: they died of pneumonia not covid covid is a hoax and a Chinese bioweapon.

    Like I can’t tell that they actually give a fuck about reality anymore even when they can directly see it killing them they still deny it.

    NocturnalMorning,

    That’s a different problem. Too much propaganda from right wing interests.

    s_i_m_s,

    So how do you combat that if even their family dying around them isn’t enough to get them to even consider those people on tv might have lied to them?

    NocturnalMorning,

    I wish I knew the answer. At this point, much of it has become closely linked to their personality, and is basically a cult.

    Facebones,

    This. I had to finally cut out a conservative friend after a long run of various nonsense, far from the least of which was him shushing me for being “too political” saying I want our half hour busses back - right before him and his girlfriend talked guns and other pointed “conservative” interests for an hour.

    I was just there for them to flex on and outnumber for fun. We have common interests and used to discuss and enjoy them together, her included, but without any of our other friends around to put weight on the balance they could indulge in their favorite past time - Dunking on librulz.

    Asafum,

    Exactly, and to anyone reading this: the absolute DUMBEST most useless form of communication is insulting someone you don’t agree with. I see it way too much here to be honest. All that does is make you feel better (masturbation) while it makes the recipient more defensive, less inclined to listen, and it reenforces their beliefs that the “opposite side” is just full of angry ignorant people.

    If the purpose of your attempt at communication was actual communication and understanding then insulting someone is completely antithetical to that.

    CosmicTurtle,

    It took me…I’d say 2 years from being a full conservative to a left-leaning independent. And then another 2 years to being a moderate to progressive liberal.

    It does happen. But some people are so rooted in their political identity that they will never change.

    explodicle,

    The liberals in government need a little help, we should all unionize too so they won’t have to focus as much on worker’s rights. Like even shut down the rails if we need to. They can become the moderate option to keep things running.

    Zink,

    That’s pretty much the process I went through ~20 years ago. The individual has to care about actual evidence and truth rather than the “truth = agree with me” crap that is common.

    I think a big, big part of it is realizing that the people on your side are not necessarily arguing in good faith just because they’re on the “correct” team.

    And that’s a pretty big deal when “just ignore that, it’s not real” is a deep core practice of your team.

    Socsa,

    Oh God you said the L word

    quindraco, in If Chomsky has taught me anything its that someone other than Gaza is getting genocided right now.

    Ukraine coverage has gone down significantly.

    TheMechanic,

    Russia and Iran stirred some shit up in Israel knowing how predictable the global response would be. Suddenly out of ‘nowhere’ Hamas has North Korean weapons and state level intelligence information.

    Elon Musk is a pro-Russian muppet.

    100% Everything going on right now is to diminish focus and support for Ukraine.

    TigrisMorte,

    lil' baby bibi needed a distraction. Hamas were useful idiots. end of story.

    ObviouslyNotBanana,
    @ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s weird how Putin and Kim met and then Hamas had some North Korean weapons huh

    Custoslibera,

    Very possible this is it although I feel like that isn’t too far off the agenda.

    No doubt though that Putin is benefiting from the current Gaza situation.

    kpw,

    The war has slowed down too. It's doesn't need some kind of conspiracy for the media to jump on the next exiting event when the previous one grows stale.

    fatzgebum, (edited ) in Guten Tag Everybody

    It’s not even easy to understand ich_iel as a native speaker. They use an extreme form of internet slang only understood by a handful of people.

    ErKaf,

    Dies ist ein klarer Fall eines Geschicklichkeitsproblems.

    vicviper,
    ErKaf,

    Sad that your translator has chosen “problem” instead of “issue”.

    PsychedSy,

    Problems is in the word at least. I’m mostly confused by the rest of that word.

    meowMix2525, (edited )

    A more direct or literal translation of Geschicklichkeit would probably be something like or skilledness or skillfulness. Other words with the -lichkeit ending that might be more familiar are Freundlichkeit (friendliness) and Brüderlichkeit (brotherliness)

    (So there are actually two endings here. -lich is cognate to english -ly, though -ed can also work. -keit is equivalent to english -ness)

    The base word, Geschick, translates to ‘skill’ on its own. The difference is that it strictly (edit: apparently not) behaves as a countable noun, as in you can have a number of skills, just as you can have a number of friends, of brothers, etc. It doesn’t work when describing a quality or property someone may possess, so that’s where the suffixes come in.

    It’s the difference between “there’s a lot of friend here” and “there’s a lot of friendliness here”

    In English, skill is an exception to a rule. It can be used in both ways, without the help of suffixes. German, on the other hand, doesn’t generally make that kind of exception in the interest of maintaining consistency. edit: seems this exception is actually a similarity between English and German, though perhaps German slightly prefers the longer form in cases such as this one.

    The Germans are probably going to roast me for this but that’s my understanding from just under 2 years of learning and a brief series of googles.

    Karyoplasma, (edited )

    countable verb

    noun

    I’m German and I just use whatever sounds better and “Geschicksproblem” would sound even more like you just had a stroke. Also it’s kinda part of the meme to make words as long as possible because it’s funny.

    Geschick and Geschicklichkeit are pretty much synonymous. Maybe Geschicklichkeit suggests a bit more that the natural skill is enhanced by technique and training, but that’s it.

    meowMix2525,

    Welp, I tried. German grammar eludes me again. Thanks for the info though! and for catching that error :)

    Klear,

    Translation problem issue.

    bort,

    übersetzungsstreitfrage

    MonkderZweite,

    Probiers nomol.

    ErKaf,

    Do isa machtloss

    pleb_maximus,

    Schwätzt Deutsch, kerr!

    drislands,

    Is that a feature in Sync?!

    WillFord27,

    That’s sync’s interface, but I don’t see the option in the free version

    vicviper,

    Text translation is a capability of Sync Ultra.

    xX_fnord_Xx,

    Hey buddy, I can clearly lick my chickens whenever I want.

    RobertOwnageJunior, (edited )

    Im örtlichen Gebietsnetzwerk wäre es ein Ass gewesen.

    blazera, in The second coming is near
    @blazera@kbin.social avatar

    Wah-llelujah

    FlyingSquid, in The second coming is near
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Come on. How could that be a sin?

    ComradeChairmanKGB,
    @ComradeChairmanKGB@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Nobody jerks off to waluigi more than Jesus.

    BambiDiego,

    Because he wasn’t fully erect.

    Anything below black diamond hardness is a sin when it comes to Waluigi

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • memes@lemmy.ml
  • localhost
  • All magazines
  • Loading…
    Loading the web debug toolbar…
    Attempt #

    Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2621440 bytes) in /var/www/kbin/kbin/vendor/symfony/http-kernel/DataCollector/LoggerDataCollector.php on line 228

    Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 1048576 bytes) in /var/www/kbin/kbin/vendor/symfony/error-handler/Resources/views/logs.html.php on line 28