Gestures broadly at the US.

Woah. That sounds interesting. Care to elaborate?

I completely agree on the idea of voting for Harris for harm reduction. But I’m genuinely curious why you think her being elected would put us in a better position to get progressive reform. She showed that she was completely unwilling to back down or change her stance to get elected. Once she had won the election, there really isn’t any reason for her to change her stance. Even the idea that she would try to gain popularity to be reelected seems unlikely. Because if we have already proven that we’ll vote for someone not because they have good policies, but because they have less bad policies. The next election would be the same. With her most likely running for reelection. And either Trump or some other far right extremist running against her, forcing a repeat of the hypothetical 2024 election where she won.

It’s a rather bleak cycle, that makes it frustrating when people constantly hammer against the voters for not holding their nose and voting for the lesser of two evil, rather than the Democratic party in general for not listening to what their constituents want, and changing to a more populist progressive policy. I don’t agree with the protest voters, but I can at least empathize and understand where they’re coming from.

The really depressing thing is that even after losing because of it, we’re still not seeing much of a shift within the party. This should have been a wake up call for them. But it seems they still haven’t learned their lesson and seem more intent on using the Republican party as a cudgel to beat the population into voting for them, rather than actually adopting policies that make people want to vote for them.

I agree with the sentiment, but the reason they’re looking at third party apps is to avoid the control that payment processing companies have over censorship following the whole Visa/MasterCard issue.

Mind sharing what extension you use?

If you figure out what your coworkers sauce of choice is, let me know too. I love spice, but haven’t found a good staple to keep on hand.

I think it’s sort of a matter of perspective. You may feel like having an easier mode degrades the experience, but for others it makes the game enjoyable/playable to them.

Do you have the same perspective on people that like the sandbox style of the sims games and so would use cheat codes for infinite money? It certainly alters the experience in a way that is different from the intentions of the devs, and to you may degrade the experience of the game, but for other people it elevates the game, and makes it more interesting or fun for them.

A similar argument could be made about the modding scene. Although it’s community driven rather than done by the actual devs of the games, allowing people to mod the game to customize their experience with quality of life mods, or mods that make the game easier/harder allows people to tweak the game more to their tastes and what they’re looking for in a game.

You might say that if a game isn’t appealing to someone they should just play another game. But if the game is very close to the experience they are looking for, but there are a few hangups that are a deal breaker for them, why force them to look for the perfect unicorn game instead of acknowledging that allowing players to cater the game to their own tastes is better. Having an easy mode does nothing to harm you, or your experience of the game, you can still play at your desired difficulty. And it only opens the game up for other people to enjoy.

You can’t make a blind person see a painting. But you can put a braille placard in front of it with a description of the painting. Or have audio tours that describe the paintings. And to you, that may degrade the art, but for someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to experience it at all, it allows them to at least share somewhat in the experience that everyone else in the exhibit is having.

If the brain worms tell RFK Jr. That psychedelics are actually a cancer cure, then legislation could be put forth to legalize psychedelics. But rather than allowing recreational use, or using them for a medical purpose based on scientific fact such as use in conjunction with therapy to treat depression, it could be legalized as prescribed medication for cancer. This has the drawbacks of not allowing access to people that could actually benefit from it, as well as now being used as a snake oil cure for something completely unrelated that will prevent people from getting other more effective treatment.

I think the implications here is that the reasons it gets legalized can have an impact on the specifics of the policy. Which would mean that they wouldn’t agree with the policy beyond the legalization itself.

This really cuts to the core of the issue. Why would they need to listen to what people are saying if they’ve already won the election? To bolster their chances of being re-elected? But then the next election will most likely be a repeat. Vote for me or else the fascists win. Then we elect them, even though they state while they are running that they plan to do [x]. We make a big fuss to tell them we don’t want them to do [x]. They follow through with what they clearly stated while campaigning. And then next election it’s the same thing again. The only bargaining chip we really have as the American people is our vote.

If the situation is really that dire. (And I absolutely believe it is) And American democracy as a whole is at stake, who is really the one to blame? The people holding steadfastly to their beliefs and saying that they don’t feel comfortable/ good voting for someone who is saying they will continue to support genocide? Or the person that sees people saying that and points the finger at them as the problem instead of hearing them out and changing your policy to gain their votes? I understand that also poses the risk of losing votes, but do you really want the votes of people thirsting for genocide?

All of this being said I do completely understand that this is the choice that we’ve been stuck with, and that things will be massively worse if Trump does get elected. I’m voting for Harris, but I can’t say that I really blame people who feel like they can’t in good conscience. And I hate seeing everyone telling them to just shut up, vote Harris and worry about it after.

This looks amazing! Especially love the kitchen, workshop, and clean up areas. It’s great to give people a space to do things they don’t necessarily have the equipment or means to on their own. Which reminds me I should see if there are any publicly available workshops in my area.

Right. We will be defending Israel from the incoming Iranian ballistic missiles after they kill innocent civilians on a scale larger than they already have been, prompting a response from Iran large enough that the iron dome is not capable of handing it. Which totally doesn’t make us participants. We’re not directly doing the bloodshed, just enabling it and defending Israel from feeling any consequences.

This is such a nothing argument. If all you’re talking about is a summary of a book, people have been able to get that long before AI. I can go to a wikipedia entry right now of any book and look at a plot summary. The author does not get paid for me looking at the summary on Wikipedia. There are numerous other sites where you can find summaries of books. And if you’re asking an AI for a summary of a specific book by a specific author, what attribution would you like to see? The user already knows the source because they’re specifically asking for a summary of that source.

A bigger concern would be the AI reproducing your works and using them in responses.

Not going to pretend to be able to read the minds of Hamas. But it seems like the idea was that taking hostages would give them leverage to negotiate. Because although the Israeli government generally regard Palestinians as subhuman barbarians, surely they wouldn’t risk the lives of the hostages by retaliating full force. And it seems in general they were partially right. The general population of Israel is calling for a ceasefire because they are concerned for the safety of the hostages and want their friends and family back. But Netanyahu seems to have very little interest in negotiations.