• 0 Posts
  • 163 Comments
Joined 2 months ago
cake
Cake day: May 10th, 2024

help-circle


  • A 12-year-old cannot consent.

    The people who need to hear this the most are also the ones who will respond to this statement with “No you idiot, it SAYS she initiated!” Or at least inside they will think this.

    I used to think that this kind of statement would carry all the necessary information to teach people about consent, but no, it’s not nearly enough. We have several whole generations that skipped PBS and education and reading and life experiences entirely, they have withdrawn to isolated spaces that indulge whatever twisted passions they have and people make far, far less effort to understand concepts than they used to.

    What you have to explain is that what a child thinks they want versus what you, an adult with adult perspectives wants, are not aligned and will lead to massive, massive power imbalances, and we protect children from their own foolish ideas ALL DAY LONG about other things.

    You can do massive damage to a child psychologically by taking away their natural pace of growth and self-discovery and replacing them with your own ideas of what a sexual relationship is. A twelve year-old has another DECADE TO A DECADE AND A HALF to go before they finalize growth and development for the most part. In that time, they will draw on all their life experiences to guide them to a healthy future and a positive attitude about themselves and sex. If someone out there is reading all this and still does not get it, you need to haul yourself to therapy yesterday.



  • if you have to wipe with toilet paper anyway, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of having a bidet?

    The purpose of a bidet isn’t necessarily to make toilet paper unnecessary, it’s to clean properly. Before getting a bidet I would just step into the shower and use the removable shower head to wash my ass with a little soap and warm water, towel off after, bam super clean. I still do that, but now the bidet can save a step if I’m in a hurry.

    Basically, try this experiment. (Quoted from some comedian) Smear some poop on the back of your hand. Then wipe it with dry paper and nothing else. Do you feel clean? Ready to go through the day? Of course not! You want to actually wash that off, and that’s the pleasant feeling from using a stream of water to feel thoroughly clean, not just removing residue but getting up in there into the outer wrinkles of the butthole, reduces the chance of getting the itchies later.

    (This is particularly of consequence if there is ANY chance whatsoever of ending up naked with another person. You might not notice it, but other people would get hit with a musk the moment your underwear drops, and not the nice kind.)


  • Why are people so confounded by these things? Have y’all never used water to bathe before?

    I feel like some people were never given actual hygiene instructions from their parents growing up. I can only imagine the way some people are so hung up on genitals and waste products that they can’t even think about it, those kinds of people going on to have kids… do we really think they’re going to pass on useful information on self-care?

    And it’s not like there’s tons of social messaging and helpful guides all over the place on proper bathroom habits, it’s purely a passed-down skillset.

    Every time this comes up on reddit, there are a lot of people sharing stories about knowing men who literally don’t wipe their own ass or touch it while showering and just constantly walk around with shit all over their ass. I used to think it was a meme, but then met people in real life who also had encounters with men who thought touching their own ass would “make them gay.”

    So yah, people getting anxious about using a bidet? That tracks. I think a lot of people are at very least, just anxious because they’ve never really been shown anything and might be doubting their own habits. Basically the bathroom and poop and related topics are just this mysterious realm that nobody talks about. Insecurity over our most intimate and private acts is a tradition as old as time itself.


  • ameancow@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldMildred
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    11 days ago

    I used to watch Thought Slime a lot, even donated to them a few times… then started watching videos from the people they’ve “called out” on stream, followed a rabbit-hole of people who were hurt and never apologized to and realized they’re just another youtube dramafarmer clicks-at-all-costs, no discrimination, storyline-crafting liar. Like everyone.

    Free yourselves humanity, stop watching streamers.

    edit: I know the parasocialism online runs really deep and just saying this is going to get some people losing their shit to defend their fav streamer, I literally don’t care, you have to be aware that every streamer has an army of knights to defend them, and I don’t like engaging that way and am not going to spend my time arguing. I’m not out to change your mind, just explain why I changed mine.


  • I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying, but it kinda sounds like an engineer trying to make their career/passion into more than a clever trick which comes as a result of learning how to abstract information to better manipulate the world.

    “Engineering” isn’t a fundamental quality of the universe, it’s a word we have made up to describe honestly a lot of different things. There’s nothing wrong with calling what humans learned to do “engineering” and it wouldn’t be inaccurate, but I’m saying you can simplify that more, to just the quality we learned, which is how to take information from the past and from right now to synthesize pictures of tomorrow, and then abstract that conclusion to share with others. Being able to share abstract conclusions about future events is a far, far more profound skill, there’s no parallel in nature, not even “kinda” like beaver engineering. Engineering comes from this ability, so I’m just trying to describe the order of carts and horses.



  • ameancow@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldHave rock
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    11 days ago

    I think the invention of engineering is what finally broke evolution

    While true, we can be more specific here what quality or trait allowed us to become engineers. Being able to engineer is by itself something that can even exist in genetic memory, instinctual. There are a lot of animals that do engineering, but have never come anywhere close to what humans do. Beavers, birds, ants and termites arguably are better engineers than most humans on an innate level. (I’ve also known some engineers who are incapable of some very basic life skills.)

    What separated us from evolutionary processes and also allowed us to become engineers is the capability to abstract information and use those abstractions to predict the future, extending our “reach” of influence into the further future than most animals can calculate. This required us to develop strong continuity of thought and experiences and with this also came the ability to analyze and compare complicated events to find patterns. This gave us a huge edge when we were surviving around predators that were able to easily dominate us. Nowadays these abilities mostly cause of mental health conditions as we try to use tools designed for navigating glaciers to navigate a world of social media, zoom meetings, Tinder profiles, electric car recalls and democratic electoral politics.


  • Do you think people become more conservative with age or is it society becoming more progressive and leaving them behind?

    I am getting up there in years and seeing this play out over and over.

    I think every generation wants to be more progressive than the last, but we tend to carry baggage of fear and insecurity through the generations. Or more specifically, older people tend to gain the political and monetary capital needed to affect policy and shape our societal outlook and attitude. They will always be more conservative than the younger generation who will want more freedoms and personal rights, inherently, and as the ruling class will clash with newer sensibilities, over and over.

    What we’re asking here, is the conservatism reflected in our elders and leadership now broadly more harmful or helpful? Are we out of the touch or is it the kids who are wrong?

    I think it’s a mix but mostly it’s not our real problem. Our real problem is that no matter what our age, we have greatly misunderstood how our own existence works. Most people have been taught that they have brains designed to exercise logic and reason and that brains are the best thing ever if you use them and make them smart.

    No, our brains are not logical tools. We are not a rational species. There was no “age of enlightenment.” It’s all a hoax. Our brains are tools designed to write a story to explain how you feel. And that’s it. It doesn’t even have to make sense. When we all learn how our brains actually work we will collectively make better decisions, have more compassion for each other, and likely sink into even deeper despair as we all start to realize we have no free will.


  • The impact of human fertility cycles ("concealed ovulation’) and human evolution is a vast, deep field of study and speculation in itself, but I am making some very sweeping generalizations here, referencing people’s capability to choose when to reproduce on the broadest levels, not that there was a period or specific instance of this having an impact… more like, it made a difference over very large scales of time, as evident by the fact that our breeding cycles are nothing like most other mammals.





  • ameancow@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldHave rock
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    edit-2
    12 days ago

    We had the tall stride thing going, we had the super-endurance thing going already, we had gotten good at tool-use like many other primates, in that we could use sticks and rocks to beat things and poke things, just like modern chimps and apes. (Modern primates also throw stones, it’s not the evolution-killer on its own that the meme is making it out to be.)

    No, the REAL thing that soared us beyond all members of the animal kingdom is how we started abstracting information and sharing it. IE: language, writing, and the cognitive processes behind those skills that allow us to plan ahead. Not just planning ahead, but being able to set up actions far in advance, like planting seeds because we know a plant will come out of it. Moving our camps to where animal herds migrate to so we can stay close to the food, and just the day-to-day actions like preparing a fire in advance so you can see when it gets dark, bringing things with you to use later, having an idea how to ration food, being able to share your plans with others, communicating your movements to other hunters, and yes, all this made us exceptional hunters. When other primates were still mostly foraging for plants and bugs, our ancestors used this “thinking” thing to start getting massive doses of meat. Amino acids, proteins, high-density fuel, food for growing brains.

    Not to mention, we’re the only creature that chooses when to reproduce. We used this foresight to plan our futures and our families. This is a massive changeup from how nature has handled reproduction. For the vast majority of life on Earth, breeding is just this thing that “happens” at certain points and everything leads to that event, and nothing really has control over how that event plays out.

    Breeding is still a big deal for us, just look how horny we all are, but we decide when we’re going to have babies, and while it doesn’t seem a big deal here and now, it was a game changer when we were migrating packs of hunter-gatherers, following the seasons and the herds of animals.

    Our story of how we got here is without question the most fantastic story ever. You are the product of over four and a half billion years of uninterrupted successes. A family tree going back a thousands of millions of years without break, surviving apocalypses that have turned our entire globe to ice, to fire, to water and other unimaginable catastrophes that sometimes lasted for millions of years.

    So now you made it, your billions of generations of ancestors secured your survival against all odds, whatcha gonna do with it?



  • I love the ringing silence as they chew on their own tongue trying to decide to even respond to actual data.

    There’s a lot of data and hard work in that article from the CDC, I bet a lot of people worked very hard and seriously to assemble that information and give it to the public. Shame how many people will put their own sources: conspiracy blogs and subreddits and AM radio shows, at the same level. Imagine how insulting that is to people working in these major institutions to have idiots who never leave their couch screaming about far-fetched plots from George Soros.


  • Half the time these are 17-year-old middle-class white kids with no worries in the world, raging emotional hormones and a desire to “thrash someone with their incredible intellect” and have no real care for the issues beyond that, they just want to fight and they will lie to their last breath to feel like they’re special and smart.

    I really feel like if we could see who most of the people are who push back on so many modern social issues, we would have a lot fewer social issues, because we would be able to roll our eyes and close the door on these literal children who are turning every conversation into a debate with children.


  • I actually need data to make conclusions.

    No, you don’t. I can prove it.

    If you get emotional reactions seeing other people make choices about to wear on their faces, you’re dumber than horse shit, you are a toddler, a child, a baby who needs to grow up.

    See? That wasn’t hard, no data needed, just plain ol’ simple “common sense.”

    Aren’t you guys all about “common sense?” I think It’s common sense to let people make their own choices and not get so hyper about someone else’s political agenda that you have to chime in about… mask bans. It’s just awful. I can’t imagine doing that and looking at the mirror and saying “Yeah, I am making the world better.”