There’s so much where this could be used to silence people, I can’t trust this. What if you’re an expert in a related field to the “serious” topic and disagree with the mainstream opinion held by experts within that field? Who gets to decide what constitutes a “serious” topic?

I just keep thinking of the recent Ms. Rachel controversy where conservative voices basically said she should stay out of talking on Palestine because she was “only” a children’s educator. But one should be able to express their opinion on this serious matter even if you aren’t an expert, and yeah, even if you’re a major influencer.

I want societies to address misinformation and disinformation campaigns as much as the next person, but to be clear, I just don’t trust governments to be the ones to do that. Granted governments are admittedly experts in misinformation and disinformation, so at least we can rest assured that experts have eyes on it though…

I wouldn’t worry about this too much. He’ll stop bothering you if you seem uninteresting enough, so just give him minimal uninteresting answers. If he continues to bug you, that could potentially constitute workplace harrassment. If it gets to that point, warn him once. If he still persists after that, talk to your superior. Simple.

No apology is necessary, though I appreciate the sentiment. It’s sadly just the way internet discourse goes most of the time.

I generally agree with your last post here, and I’m starting to think our disagreement is closer to one of semantics than a fundamental one.

I’m a bit optimistic at least that the era of the debate bros is probably closer to it’s end than it’s beginning or zenith. So hopefully that offers some solace to your concerns.

The question is how do we all offer the next generation a better model for how to engage in discourse, for which I’m open to suggestions, as I’ll admit I’m a bit at a loss on that one, but I don’t think we can ever go back to the debate styles of the past.

Regardless of all that, keep on the good path, fellow traveler. And I’ll see you around Lemmy.

“You see, killbots have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shut down. Kif, show them the medal I won.”

And also:

“In the game of chess you can never let your adversary see your pieces.”

And I think we can bring this back to cultish behavior as per the OP’s shower thought. Regardless of how one feels about Hasan’s treatment of his dog, its hard to navigate who is coming to this argument in good faith around animal abuse, and who are angry with Hasan for unrelated reasons and simply want to tear him down due to numerous other unrelated grievances (i.e.. blind faith in a leader and blind condemnation of any criticism of said leader).

If Hasan was a virtual nobody in terms of fame and had posted the same video, I doubt it would have received as much scrutiny or ire, and thusly the perception around those who still came to discuss the video would be that of people talking in good faith (and not just trying to smear someone’s reputation).

I will admit I am increasingly frustrated that cult mentality creates a sort of fog around these discussions, as it’s hard to tell who wants to have a genuine discussion and who just wants to tear down the reputation of someone with whom they have a grudge. And sadly this pervades many disagreements online like this one you and I have.

Neither of us can tell if one is sincere or not. And perhaps even worse, even if we both are sincere in our convictions (which I believe we are), its incredibly difficult if not impossible for us both to devote the time and effort to have a nuanced discussion on the topic, let alone change laws about it. But the positive side is that our discussion here still has the small potential to influence people’s minds on the topic, so at least there’s that.

As an aside, I am only vaguely aware of the various other dramas around Hasan.I followed his drama with Ethan Klein for a time and admittedly came out favoring Hasan’s side of the story on that one. The rest of it I only occasionally tune into.

Anyways, I think you and I have at least come to a mutually respectful disagreement, and unless you wanted to continue this discussion further, I’m content to conclude it here.

Fair enough. And I’ll at least concede its unlikely we’d come to a satisfying meeting of the minds here. Animal Abuse and what constitutes it is admittedly a somewhat complex topic that is still and probably will forever be evolving.

And it’s not like I don’t get the emotional aspect to this. I’ve had life long pets (cats, not dogs), and I hate the thought of abusing any animal. But the debate around what constitutes animal abuse ranges from people wanting to grant human rights to some/all animals all the way to poachers not giving any fucks about any animal’s well being.

This is why I do default to experts. And yeah, its some expert on the internet that I simply perceive as having put in his two cents in good faith, but I just value that opinion over so many in the debate bros space because its just an endless sea of bias in that sphere. Ironically my bias against that corner of the internet means I have a bias towards others outside of that world.

That said, I’ll still stand by my belief that an expert opinion has more value than a non expert, but that doesn’t negate your opinion that an expert’s opinion isn’t consensus and one’s individual conscience shouldn’t be considered in the discussion.

Again, all fair enough.

Look, you can find Hasan’s use of his dog as a prop for his streams distasteful. Heck, I’d agree with that sentiment.

But saying someone inflicted animal abuse is a serious accusation that has legal ramifications should it have occurred.

According to one account of a single expert which I provided, Hasan has not committed what I can only assume many in his field would be considered animal abuse.

You can question his credentials, you can question his legitimacy, you can question your own society’s definition of what constitutes animal abuse. Heck, you can even push your lawmakers to change the definition of what constitutes animal abuse.

But as it stands currently, it does not appear, from my admittedly very limited point of view, that Hasan committed animal abuse as it is currently defined in the laws surrounding it in the United States.

Look, I am even sympathetic to your argument, but when an expert in dog behavior is telling me this is acceptable forms of disciplining your dog, and I perceive that they are presenting their expertise in good faith, then I simply value their definitively expert opinion over the emotional reactions of overly hyped fans of one side or another in what I consider to be a toxic soup of debate bros accolades.

If you at least cannot see why I might think that, then I don’t know what else I can say to you other than I’m sorry that you feel that way.

EDIT: grammar, removal of double negative.

Ugh. Okay man, the expert’s opinion doesn’t matter. You win, lol.

Like I say, I’m not a fan of Hasan, as I find debate bros culture kind of distasteful, but the only way you can convince me that Hasan definitely abused his dog is to provide me with a contrary argument provided by someone who is an expert on dog training.

I’ll wait dude, seriously. Just provide me with any evidence that has a shred of credibility.

Not according to any dog trainer you’d speak to. Sorry dude, I default to experts in their fields when considering things, not just my emotional gut reaction.

But if you’re a certified dog trainer, I’d be willing to give your opinion equal consideration.

You can hate on Hasan, but at least provide someone other than Ethan Klein doing the analysis… the guy obviously has a long history of beef with Hasan and honestly it boils down to a lot of he said she said kind of argument which is not only tiresome but rife with so much bias its impossible to separate fact from fiction when it comes to either of their accounts of each other.

I don’t know, I saw a YouTube video of a dog trainer who watched the video and basically said Hasan wasn’t likely to be abusing his dog, at least based off the specific video in question.

I’m not a fan of Hasan. I agree with a lot of what he has to say in regards to political matters, but I’m just not into the drama that surrounds debate bro culture in which he is a major figure.

That said, this issue with his dog is potentially a smear campaign, and there seems to be at least some credible evidence to suggest it is.

Here is the dog trainer in question. He claims to not have any political or social affiliation with Hasan, which I take at face value, but you can ascertain for yourself whether or not to believe him.

EDIT: slight wording change.

Probably free. Depends on how hot the soup and how scary the movie.

My limit for spicy is habanero and my limit for horror is the Smile movies. After that the price goes up significantly, probably in the hundreds of dollars, with more emphasis on the spiciness of the soup, but if the movie will cause nightmares for weeks to come…yeah, that can also add up.

Interesting question OP.

Not a movie, but Andor had so many good ones. And I mean a lot, too many for a single post. My favorite though is Namek’s Manifesto:

"There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy.

Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause.

Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.

And then remember this: the Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.

Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance, will have flooded the banks of the Empire’s authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege.

Remember this. Try."

I really love the Voice Acting in Telltale’s The Walking Dead series. Just superb story and the actor’s really sell a superb script. One of the better stories I’ve seen in Video Games.

Becoming familiar with the essentials, grep, awk, sed is a good start. Manual pages can of course be accessed using man followed by the command/program you want to know more about. Understanding operators like |, >, >>, etc. can help as well. And reading the entirety of man bash is a good way to dive in further.

Copilot, Github, LinkedIn, ChatGPT are the ones that come to mind. All of them have started to degrade in quality in one way or another, and with the exception of LinkedIn, they all have competitors that could potentially, over the long haul, could dismantle Microsoft. They’re also running out of places to extend and extinguish.

It probably won’t happen in one or two lifetimes, but enough cracks in a dam accumulate and eventually the whole thing breaks.

Oh really, how bummed would they be?

Yeah, I’ve heard this response to my argument more times than I care to mention.

Let’s be clear, I don’t want to give off the impression I’m not open to people changing for the better. If you can end bigotry through discussion instead of arguments or worse yet, violence, then obviously that is preferable.

The issue is that for every honest misinformed person I’ve encountered who is open to listening to differing points of view, I’ve easily encountered 10 right wing grifters who are in bad faith trying to distract from the main problem with whataboutisms and other tactics, with the end goal of dehumanizing and ostracizing groups that they perceive as the other, i.e. minorities.

These people are in their adult years, likely grew up in households where they themselves were bullied, harassed, made fun of, and dehumanized. They then went to school where sadly they were likely to have experiences that further eroded their emotional intelligence and ability to connect with anybody who had differing views from them. They then grew up and sought out others who had suffered similar experiences and come to similar misguided conclusions, either online or IRL. These are people who grew up being told that apologizing was a sign of weakness, to never ever admit that they were or ever will be wrong, and to only play at having empathy in order to have a seat at the discussion table where they could then present their ideas as “just asking questions.” When in fact they are trying to sow discord and form a pipeline into their hateful ideology for others who are emotionally vulnerable and open to ideas as to why life didn’t play out for them like they thought it would.

If they lack critical thinking skills and a strong community support structure, these emotionally vulnerable people end up spewing hateful ideology within a few months and it breaks my heart, because usually there’s no coming back for them. They can’t be argued or reasoned with. It’s as if an empathetic child who just needed community died due to abandonment, and some ghoul due to demonic corruption is left in their place.

Its not that I don’t want to believe that people can change for the better. I’ve seen it in myself and others, I know it is real.

But I’ve also been in enough online, and in some cases, offline, spaces to know a bigot when I see one. I can sniff a disingenuous asshole just trying to “ask questions” from a mile away and it always ends up with a bunch of 4chan transphobes either openly or behind closed doors making fun of a minority and in some of the worst cases, planning violence.

My tolerance for even the smallest inkling of hate speech is zero. I’m just done giving these people enough rope to hang people I care about with.

Fair Warning: Long rant ahead.

Great article, and it gets to the heart of something I’ve felt is becoming more and more prominent in the Linux and Open Source Community, and really any community. And it’s something we simply can’t ignore.

That is that you can’t separate politics from life. It’s everywhere. The author points out that Framework’s mission is to encourage right to repair and responsible consumption by discouraging planned obsolescence.

While right to repair might be popular in both left and right wing circles, that is only because both sides want control over their devices and to distance themselves from Big Tech. But their views on regulation with regards to the environment and social equity/inclusion are as far apart as the general right left paradigm is as a whole.

To be blunt, you simply cannot have normal people work under the same tent as crypto fascists, transphobes, and general right wing grifters, no matter how significant their individual contributions might be.

I personally am tired of these sorts of controversies being brushed under the rug by tech influencers like BashBunni and Brodie Robertson who in their coverage of Omarchy did not broach this topic even just to say that there is a controversy at all. It’s cowardice at best, and right wing apologism at worst.

Yes, there are particularly brilliant software engineers that are also assholes. And yeah, without those assholes, we wouldn’t have the technologies we have today. The mistake is thinking that they are brilliant because they are assholes. Another mistake is thinking that holding onto one productive asshole is better than hanging onto the good will and contributions of many normal people that still provide worthwhile contributions.

To be very frank, fuck that. I refuse to believe in the false dichotomy that in order to create good software we have to put up with bigots. If anything, their attitudes end up holding themselves and their colleagues back. We shouldn’t be asking ourselves, “How much less productive would that person have been if they had wasted time/energy on being socially conscious and empathetic.” And instead have asked “How much more productive and better off we all would have been had they been a more empathetic and compassionate person.” Because we’re all worse off when a colleague is being a bigot, and it’s in all of our interests to call it out when we see it.