I’ve been ad-free for long enough at this point that I feel physically assaulted when I see one (at a friend’s house or whatever). It’s insane that we ever thought that was ok, and it’s become worse.
At this point, adblock is a survival measure. Piracy is self-defense. The first presidential candidate who campaigns on legalizing graffiti on billboards and mandating their eventual removal gets my vote. Burn it all.
Definitely a fair point. But for the most part, being in the country that collapses is going to be worse than being in a different country.
This is just me, and I’m no expert. But I kind of think that, if you’re legitimately worried about your country’s currency collapsing, you might want to consider leaving your country. Any sort of collapse that leads to hyperinflation or the large-scale elimination of financial infrastructure is probably going to be difficult if not impossible for the average person to survive, gold or no.
That said, precious metals are a niche enough market that I can’t imagine it not being rife with predatory sellers; companies that aren’t offering scams per se—you’ll probably pay them and receive what you pay for—but companies which are counting on people not knowing anything about the market and accepting a terrible price or poor quality goods.
Again, not an expert. But my end-of-the-world investment would be in shelf-stable food, easily-stored seeds (for planting), medicine, hand tools, high-quality camping gear, books, that sort of thing. If there is a collapse, those sorts of things will be immediately useful and also tradeable.
It’s been a fun journey. And he’s on the Fediverse! https://mas.to/@TechConnectify
(not tagging him directly because I feel like he probably gets that enough)
Alec has been on a multi-year quest to get an incandescent color profile from LED Christmas lights. I haven’t watched this episode, but he usually does a pretty good job of recapping at the start of every episode.
It’s always super entertaining, in my opinion.
EDIT: I watched it. It is indeed super entertaining! This time, the recap comes after his special Christmas light repacking tip, so it’s a couple of minutes in.
Walking into a meeting at Kohler and keeping a straight face after saying the words “toilet camera”–and then maintaining that straight face throughout the product’s discussion, greenlighting, development, manufacture, and sale–deserves an Oscar.
I already talked you through it in the linked comment, and honestly if you don’t get it I don’t think I can make it any simpler.
In any case, I’m not taking homework from you. I know how I arrived at this conclusion, and you’re free to believe me or not. Have a good night.
But how does including sources make that world? How does it move from point A to point B?
I addressed that very objection at the beginning of the conversation.
You haven’t thought of that at all. You’re applying reasoning to positions you hold, not reasoning to reach positions.
That’s particularly hilarious since the comment I’m talking about was from fifteen hours ago.
I’ve been thinking about media literacy for decades at this point. I’m not naive enough to be certain that this is some foolproof magic bullet, but I think it’ll help, and it’s definitely not going to hurt public discourse.
You’re contending that sharing sources online won’t accomplish anything because people are resistant to changing their opinions. Yes, that’s currently true; and while I see a benefit in the current world to sharing sources, why not also imagine a world in which it actually does change opinions? There’s no physiological or psychological law that makes opinion change impossible. People can change because people do change, so why don’t we do what we can to make that more common?
People behave like this now for a lot of complicated reasons. For one, changing opinions hurts us (physiologically), so our brain tries to prevent it; that’s something that can be eased with exposure. Also, rich people and foreign interests have a vested interest in keeping people susceptible to misinformation, and greater media literacy is really the only tactic that can combat it.
But more importantly, the world we live in now isn’t the only world we ever have to live in. It’s going to change one way or another; why not take steps to make it change into something more like what we want to live in?
No, I’m absolutely not saying that. I’m saying we should normalize having sources and not just blindly repeating a thing we heard.
But how would one wash the dish? Surely not with a dishwasher pod?
The point: “stop wine-ing”?
By French law, bread can only contain flour, yeast, salt, and water. Sadly, he must be cake.
Whoa, the Eat The Rich people are serious.
You’re talking about a current reality. I’m talking about normalizing a different future.
No. I’m not running on a fantasy. I’m trying to bring into existence a world that doesn’t yet exist. I know that people aren’t rational, but if my mind can be changed by facts, they have to have some value.
Yeah, definitely. But:
It’s a lot easier to answer the disinformation if you know where it’s coming from. Part of the thing that makes my head spin about the GOP news cycle is how even I (a chronically-online, fairly well-informed person) will have absolutely no idea where some people come up with the nonsense they come up with. Is it from their own mind? Is there some fringe community on Facebook doling out steaming dog piles of AI-generated anti-vax nonsense? Is it a legitimate outlet, and they’re just massively misunderstanding it? Knowing where it comes from can really help in combating it; even if you can’t stop the current fake news, you might be able to head the next one off before it takes root.
Sometimes just the process of needing to find a source can make people look twice. It works for me, even: if I want to write something I’m pretty sure about, and then go looking for a source, sometimes I’ll find out that that source isn’t reliable, or that it was retracted. Sometimes I’ll even find out that what I remembered was true, but it’s way better or worse. I become more media literate sourcing my facts.
And he represents just one of hundreds of deadly misinformation campaigns in the last thirty years alone.
First one: I better watch out, she’ll call a foul on me
Second one: I better watch out, she’s probably a felon on the run
Third one: I can’t watch out because I don’t know where she is