UltraMagnus

joined 6 months ago
[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website 3 points 2 weeks ago

Yet another instance in which the "free speech" right didn't actually care about the 1st amendment, they just wanted to say the n word on Twitter without people yelling at them.

I wonder if they realize how obvious it is to others that their morals are a lie

[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Community gardens are fantastic! I've only just started getting into gardening. My parents have done it for a long time and use cold frames so that they can get food 10 months of the year.

Lettuce is super easy - some of its even made its way into my lawn from when I let it go to seed one year, lol.

My favorite trick is using an empty cat litter pail (the big ones with a lid, not the pour able ones), drill some holes in the bottom, put in a layer of rocks for drainage, and the rest with soil. It's a great pot for growing sale greens, and the handle makes it fantastic for if I need to move it around. We can't recycle the cat litter packs in my county so this is what I do with them

[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website 5 points 1 month ago

Normal answer is absentee voting, but that's part of the reason MAGA has been going after it so hard.

[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website 7 points 1 month ago (4 children)

This is a valid concern that folks need to take into consideration. It's all well and good to say that long term liberty is more important than short term security, and I agree with that sentiment, but it's better not to force people to choose.

This is why there are strike funds. In this case, I would recommend mutual aid - even a small group of 5-10 people can work together to save money by buying essentials in bulk. Larger groups can help each other cover rent, form daycare coops, and so on.

Best time to start a group was a year ago, next best time is today.

[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website -3 points 2 months ago

I think this is a more nuanced take on the situation. I would agree that folks who are directly impacted by an issue are more likely to be impacted by it. Original comment seemed too absolutist too me.

I think there are 22yo who can be impacted by the issue of taxes while being poor (Though they may end up on the other side of the argument). For example, issues of food stamps and medicare-for-all affect all ages. A 22yo might have a strong opinion in favor of taxation for these purposes. A conservative making an ad hominem argument on the basis of age in this case (e.g., that they are simply being manipulated by the radical left) would be clearly incorrect.

I also think, as more of a moral argument, you shouldn't need to be directly impacted by something in order to support/oppose it. I am not on food stamps but I absolutely think we should have them (or perhaps "upgrade" it to UBI to avoid nonsense on what poor people are allowed to buy).

In any case, dismissing someone as simply being manipulated is not a good approach in general. It could be a good approach when we are specifically talking about the person overselling on confirmation bias from ChatGPT, but it is a poor way to change minds as a general tactic.

Is there any particular language I should adjust to avoid being "aggro"? I did say that I hated their argument. And I did call them hostile after their last sarcastic response to me trying to extend an olive branch.

Is that going too far? "Touch grass" is about the same level, I would think, but I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again.

[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website -4 points 2 months ago

If you enter into debates with weak ad hominem arguments about someone's age, you aren't going to change minds and you will be steamrolled by anyone with an understanding of the topic.

Skimming your recent posts, I don't think our political views are particularly different, so it's in both of our interests if you are using the best arguments possible on these topics. This was not an attack on you as a person, so your hostile response is unnecessary.

[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's a bad position to be in. If they crash it will be bad, but if they keep growing and then crash it could be worse.

[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

According to Chenoweth, the number refers to peak, not cumulative participation. She also says 3.5% is not absolute – even non-violent campaigns can succeed with less participation, according to her 2020 update to the rule.

That's the opposite of what her update said (well, it's rather misleading). Her update noted cases where nonviolence failed even when they beat 3.5% - including one case that achieved 6% participation. She did note that most successful attempts didn't need to reach 3.5%, but also that reaching that is no longer a guarantee.

Her original research only went to 2006, there's been a few recent cases which broke the rule. Like she said in her update, history isn't necessarily a predictor of future results. I think there are also some very recent cases like Nepal where 95% of the movement is nonviolent, but violence at the very end of the movement tips the scale. (IIRC something similar happened with the Iranian revolution, though the results of that were decidedly undemocratic in the long run). There's some nuance with Nepal as well- the organizers did not choose to go for violence, it was largely an unplanned mob reaction.

Based on the totality of her research (which is publicly accessible and based on publicly accessible data), I still think nonviolence is more likely to achieve success than violence, but it really annoys me when articles like this one overstate the effects. It makes it really easy to tear apart the argument.

[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website 16 points 2 months ago

Worse, it's a few megabytes of selfhosted storage. Data on a server you own that you are not allowed to access.

[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website 13 points 2 months ago

The politics of preservation is definitely an interesting one. I suppose one argument in favor of preserving more popular music is that there are going to be fewer popular tracks than unpopular tracks - and they're already at 300TB, which is nothing to sneeze at, especially since it's a third the size of their existing library of ebooks.

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