Yeah, I’ve been increasingly cynical about this kind of thing. I wouldn’t say that I’m against developing carbon capture technologies, but I am immediately suspicious of anyone who suggests it as something that could help against climate change.

If you’re one for video essays, you might enjoy this, if you haven’t seen it already. https://youtu.be/uCuy1DaQzWI

That said, we’re on Lemmy, in the technology community – I’m reasonably confident that almost everyone here who is going to read your comment has the skills necessary

Yeah, my comment was getting more at the fact I have loved ones whose behaviour I can shift in small ways, such as by sending a link to an add on to block ads.

Especially as the blockage isn’t necessarily the skills, but a more nebulous sense of unease that I wonder whether is linked to the “you wouldn’t download a car” era of anti-piracy ads

Addons like the one linked are useful for me to share with friends. I have many friends who have a soft anti-piracy stance. Not due to ideological conflicts — it’s mostly that their inexperience combined with knowing that pirating is forbidden makes them feel uncomfortable. Adblocking carries a similar sense of discomfort, but much milder, so it can be useful as a small step for overly anxious family and friends.

You’re right, and thanks for checking me on that. On reflection, I said it was trite because I think I felt uncomfortable with the level of vulnerability I was feeling when writing that comment, so I tacked that onto the end. The vulnerability came from a place of “who am I to give advice when the advice I’m giving myself hardly feels sufficient, because my inner monologue is basically a screaming possum most of the time”. Lots of people are feeling similar, which is why I made my original comment in the first place.

I think a lot of us are struggling under the pressure about not knowing how to cope with this dreadful situation, and for me, that meant feeling like I needed to come up with the perfect words that would be useful for everyone who is struggling. It is sufficient for me to go “for me, this is a useful way to think (and other people may do also)”. It’s silly for me to dismiss myself as trite just because I feel like I am only valid if I have a Solution. As you highlight, this is a collaborative process, so muddling along together is how this goes.

Thanks for sharing that article. I actually haven’t heard of Mike Davis before, but following this article, I am now reading one of his essays.

Not so much advice as a selfish request: please try to stay with us. I mean that both figuratively (i.e. mentally checking out and becoming hollow) and literally (i.e. existing in this world). It’s a selfish request because though I’m not even American, I am one of the countless people who are scared shitless today. I don’t know how we will make it through this, but I know I can’t do this on my own.

If you’re here, scared with me, then I am not alone, and neither are you. It’s a bit trite, but it helps me somewhat.

The modern world runs on plausible deniability, especially the tech world

I have to believe in a future where people look back on this from a world with less hatred in it than it currently has. I want to give the perpetrators of hate as little plausible deniability as possible.

I have to believe that even though looking back on history didn’t seem to help us avoid this situation, that there will be people in the future who are wiser and empowered to make better choices for them and their communities.

It’s a fantasy, and I honestly don’t care if it’s unrealistic. It’s what I need to believe to keep going. I need to believe there can be something better after this, regardless of whether I’ll get to experience it.

I always find it tricky to understand how tools all relate to each other in an ecosystem and this is a great example of why: the fact that Ansible can do this task, but Teraform would be better suggests that they are tools that have different purposes, but some overlap. What would you say is Ansible’s strong suit?

That sounds beautiful. You really captured the moment

Thanks for this recommendation. Diverse perspectives are important in underscoring that the Israeli people are not a monolith, and that they are distinct from the state of Israel.

I often see people online speaking about Israelis as though all of them are in favour of the ongoing genocide, when this is simply not the case. That’s not to say that Netanyahu’s control of the media hasn’t led to a depressingly high proportion of Israelis to see themselves as righteous victims — years of state propaganda has unfortunately had an impact. However, there are journalists and activists (Jewish or otherwise) who are working to challenge this rhetoric.

Thanks for the recommendation, I’m always glad to discover new resources. I’m also forever cursing the fact that science degrees don’t put more emphasis on writing and speaking well.

My dude, I’m agreeing with you

Edit: effectively I was saying that I agree with you that there seems to be a particular kind of person who is overly contrarian, very loud and impossible to have productive discussions with.

I felt like the wheelchair example you picked was a great example of how this happens “in the wild”. I wanted to build on your comment by using that example to elaborate on how these contrarian types cause harm, even if they might seem to be concerned and well-intentioned. I found the wheelchair example to be a good one because it is actually something that I’ve seen happen multiple times.

I feel that your reply is an unfair characterisation of my comment. Given how the internet’s communication norms can prime us to read and respond to things in an overly adversarial manner (especially as it’s clear from your original comment that you’ve got way too much experience with silly argumentative types, so I sympathise), I am hoping that your response was based on a misinterpretation of my comment and/or me being insufficiently clear in what I originally wrote (apologies if so).

I’ll keep an eye out for one, but in the meantime, I’ll be more specific about what I mean about ignoring how science actually is.

One of the things I find most beautiful about science is how it thrives in uncertainty — great science is more likely to arise from a “huh, that’s strange…” than a big “Eureka” moment, not least of all because most breakthroughs involve large collaborations of researchers.

“Scientism” is the term usually used for the kind of thing that irks me. I’m realising now that I feel unequipped to properly explain that, so I’m going to point to a video I like on this matter by a cardiologist and science communicator I like: https://youtu.be/CVPy25wQ07k

I find “cis” useful, personally. I’m bisexual, so certainly “straight” isn’t applicable. In a lot of contexts I’d use “cis” to refer to myself, I suppose “not trans” would also work, but it’d be clunkier.

Plus, there are times when the thing I want to centre in my communication is the cisgender perspective that I have. For example, I was recently discussing with a friend that seeing trans friend’s gender euphoria improved my own relationship to my gender because it made me ask myself whether cis people could experience gender euphoria and if so, why couldn’t I recall any instances of experiencing it?

I feel like the term “cisgender” implicitly acknowledges that voices and experiences like mine are important in building a shared understanding of gender — i.e. trans people aren’t the only ones who have a gender. Like, obviously I can’t speak directly about trans experiences, but that doesn’t mean that I’m expected to shut up and contribute nothing to the wider conversation.

“teachers who interact with middle schoolers; our frontline troops facing the bleeding edge of internet memespeak.”

Reason number 201 why teachers are underpaid

Perchance is a great word though. I think I’d probably use it if I knew how to do so appropriately in a sentence (though I imagine only a fraction of people who do use that word use it properly. That tends to be the case with formal or archaic words used in informal contexts)

I do this too much. My defence is that I am a bad writer who’s working to be better.

I am someone who really likes the term for myself, because it can encompass a whole bunch of complex identities across gender and sexuality. It feels like it simplifies things for me, and has helped me to properly understand the necessity of LGBTQ solidarity. There have been times when I have been told it’s inappropriate for me to personally identify as queer because some people find the term offensive, which I find absurd because such a large and heterogeneous community will never be unanimous on what terms or labels to use.

However, much more frequently than that, I have seen people being insensitive to the reality that there are a ton of people who have pretty legitimate beef with the term and who don’t want it applied to them. I’m talking about situations like “queer folk like us <gestures at the entire room>” or “the queer community”. It’s a pretty reasonable request if someone says “hey, if you’re referring to a group that involves me, I’d prefer you not use queer as a blanket term”. The appropriate response to that is “I’m sorry, my bad”, but I have seen way too many people start arguments that actually the (usually but certainly not always) older gay men are obstacles to Progress.

I like the way that a friend of mine framed it when he said that he’s actively jazzed to see a word that did such harm being reclaimed by a new generation who are finding great power and solidarity in it. But that’s never going to erase the sting he still feels when remembering being victimised for years by people who’d shout that word. “You can’t reclaim a slur if you ignore all its history and disown the members of your community who experienced it as a slur”.

It boggles my mind that there are people who are heavy advocates of the power of self determination of one’s identity, but who don’t see the issue in forcing the label of “queer” onto individuals who have expressly rejected it.

The wheelchair one (whilst obvious hyperbole) is a great example of why this rhetoric isn’t useful.

Often people who say we should plan walkable cities don’t consider what that would mean for wheelchair users and other disabled people, because they don’t have the lived experience to think along those lines. So it would actually be super useful if someone could say “okay, but what about wheelchair users?” in a constructive way, because there are additional considerations re: pedestrianisation and public transport. Disabled people are way too often treated like an inconvenience or obstacles to progress, and that’s fucking exhausting, so it’s useful to have allies who ask “hey, what about disabled people tho”

The people your comment is about don’t do this. As you highlight, they make things about themselves, and if anything, this makes it harder to have productive conversations about what a ‘walkable city’ for everyone would look like. I suspect that for many of these people, it’s based on a nugget of good intentions inside a blob of insecurity and dread at the state of the world; they feel like they’re not doing enough so they resort to very loudly virtue signalling in the most bizarre ways.