DreamerofDays

That went from zero to apocalypse very quickly.

I think you’ve been chasing the news dragon too long and too hard. Past a point, it doesn’t make you more informed, just… sadder. More given to misanthropy and despair.

We’re here, and we’re not all bad. Most of us want the same things: health, happiness, love, and camaraderie. We want those things for the people we care about— sometimes more than for ourselves.

The vast, vast majority of us are just people. We get caught up in things, and we forget it sometimes, but that’s a people thing too. And so is helping— when tragedy strikes, or those times we create tragedy, people are also the ones running toward the danger and uncertainty to help save those who cannot save themselves.

Plenty of loud people seem to think a president is a king, or at least has the powers thereof. That’s something both tips of the horseshoe seem to agree on.

So long as we are anecdotal, that has not been my experience.

Judgments along observance lines, and people thinking those in some denominations are crazy or lesser, but I haven’t seen it drawn on those lines.

Generally the same kind of a thing you’ll find in any religion, or any fandom for that matter— those who are more observant or more dedicated may say the less observant/dedicated aren’t doing it right; the less observant/more casual may say the more observant/dedicated are crazy.

They also say to do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life. They say lots of things, many of them contradictory.

I think your advice of intentionally setting aside time is wise, though. I believe that too often we take for granted that things will just happen, and also overestimate the chilling effect of “not being spontaneous”.

It can be two things

Ignoring entirely that it’s a tired gag already. I would wager a sizeable amount of the pushback is from people who are just tired of seeing these posts still clustering about their feeds.

For longevity, perhaps. Considering the Russian government’s penchant for poisoning people outside their territory, perhaps not.

I would recouch the problem as this— does wielding accusations or innuendoes of gayness against the homophobic serve to, in a small way, perpetuate their homophobia?

All meaning is constructed meaning, and, to quote Shakespeare, “there’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

We decide, collectively, and as individuals, what is positive and what is negative. We invent for ourselves, whole cloth or adopting from our elders, meaning in life, the universe, and everything.

That doesn’t mean they are without worth. The world is altered daily through the things people imagine. Money is an invention, its value existing in the collective imaginations of those who use it. Maps are not the lands they represent, but their cartography influences where people live, work, and travel. Numbers and maths are inventions— languages invented to describe the universe and its movings, but the universe moves without needing to know them…

… nevertheless, with those invented languages we orbit distant planets with artificial satellites, and create the wonderful bit of nonsense that allows us to communicate here.

We choose to find meaning in the world, and then we choose the meaning we find there. Ultimately everything else can be winnowed away, but that. I believe we have value because I choose to believe we have value, and I weigh the good of the world with the bad because I actively choose to continue to see both. It isn’t easy all the time, and it doesn’t have to be one way or the other. But it’s what I want for the world, and what I want for me.

That seems like a convenient excuse for him to bear less, or none of, the guilt for his actions.

Does Agent Smith have autonomy?

But was the day nice?

You speak the memes like a native, and bravely declare yourself to be right. Thanks for the attempt at engaging— have a nice day.

It’s a shibboleth for either side, where the expression of distaste or hatred for the concept, or the quick association of evils with it marks you a member of the tribe.

Some Leftists understand Capitalism. Some Rightists understand Communism. Larger swaths than they wield the words about.

You don’t need my permission nor my approval; my agreeance even less so.

If I’m mistaking you, and you actually are attempting to engage me here, please forgive me my brusqueness— I’ve seen enough of people snapping back and forth at each other these days and am, no doubt, the nastier for it. It was not my intention in my previous comment for it to be a personal sleight against you, nor to have you stand a strawman for an ideology.

It’s starting to feel like “capitalism” is for the left what “communism” is for the right.

Being loud and given attention, they can be the only example of “leftists” some people knowingly interact with.

Another way of thinking about it:

Numbers offer a sense of scale. As numbers go further left from the decimal, they get bigger and bigger. Likewise, as they go right from the decimal, they get smaller and smaller.

If I’m looking with just my eyes, I can see big things without issue, but as things get smaller and smaller, it becomes more and more difficult. Eventually, I can’t see the next smallest thing at all.

But we know that smaller thing is there— I can use a magnifying glass and see things slightly smaller than I can unaided. With a microscope, I can see smaller still.

So I can see the entirety of a leaf, know where it begins and ends, even though I can’t, unaided, see the details of all its cells. Likewise, you can see the entirety of the line you drew, it’s just that you lack precise enough tools to measure it with perfect accuracy.

I’m wondering if the degree of believability of the image has, or should have any bearing on the answer here. Like, if a third party who was unaware of the image’s provenance came across it, might they be likely to believe the image is authentic or authorized?

For another angle, we allow protections on the usage of fictional characters/their images. Is it so wild to think that a real person might be worthy of the same protections?

Ultimately, people are going to be privately freaky how they’re gonna be privately freaky. It mostly only ever becomes a problem when it stops being private. I shouldn’t have to see that a bunch of strangers made porn to look like me, and neither should Taylor. And mine are unlikely to make it into tabloids.

Eh, there’s also a decent chunk of non-native English speakers who might have a harder time with written sarcasm, and Poe’s law, I don’t doubt, accounts for more.

I don’t have their numbers, but this isn’t the first place I’ve seen similar quoted. First one I found through some friends’ discussion was this, which puts us, at a quick glance, at around a third of last year’s total(still plenty bad).