Havatra

Architects - Animals, specifically this drop. Makes sure I’m awake when I start talking.

I think you’re right on all these points, though it depends a bit on what part of the Fediverse you’re exposed to.

On the point of anti-capitalism, I agree, but (again, depending on the part of the Fediverse) there’s also an incredibly high amount of open-minded people here, compared to other more mainstream social media (like Reddit). I speak much from my perspective of being from lemmy.zip, which I’m impressed by the healthiness of the community since I joined. But there are also less “healthy” instances like lemmy.ml which is considered by many to be infested with tankies (anti-capitalism?).

And yes, the average age seems to be around mid-30s to me, based solely on how people speak and what they reminisce about.

Fair point. Though that’s why I think the term is composed with “violence”. The desire for chaos and destruction comes from the human in question, while the nihilism is what removes the barriers of committing to the desire. Nihilism goes both ways, and there’s nothing inherently good nor bad about it.

I wonder what other term would be accurate for these groups though?

Nihilism means there is no meaning. Whether that pertains to existence (existential nihilism) or morals (moral nihilism). Nihilism effectively works both ways: “Nothing matters, so I might as well kill myself”, and “nothing matters, so might as well make the most out of it” (constructive nihilism).

This I believe falls under moral nihilism, where there is no right or wrong, only what feels good or bad. Which the article hints at by mentioning that the actors seem to have no ideological goals.
So it’s not a completely irrelevant use of the term, imho.

I interpret it more as “since nothing matters, might as well have fun”, and “fun” is subjective and can be interpretted as enjoying watching things burn in unpredictable ways (chaos & destruction). Human nature can be a bit messed up in that regard.

This game is one of my all time favorites! The game engine is cool, love the story and it’s all its twists, and especially all the small hidden pieces of background info, like the alternate history you pointed out!

It also has some great puzzles and secrets hidden in areas that are interesting to explore every nook and cranny of. I feel rather clever for noticing things like “huh, this is a window, but this game has something called a ‘looking glass’… I wonder…”. And the verticality of a lot of these maps is so fun, giving you the possibility to approach enemies and puzzles the way you prefer (just like the Dishonored franchise, which I can greatly recommend to anyone reading this!).

I wish you a great time with it!

I used to use one of them in my passwords - it usually works fine, until I’m met with a platform where this key doesn’t exist (damn you, Nintendo Switch!)

It’s fun that one can use games for it, but it shouldn’t be difficult to do the same through AI-generated imagery either, which isn’t much more difficult.

Even though this method is flawed, one shouldn’t really use ID-only verification either imho, as it’s a security risk to upload any official document like that (ref. Tea app leaks).

The whole age verification that the UK wants to impose has been quite the impossible task from the beginning. Creating government-backed education for (future) parents about how to raise a kid and protect them in today’s digital society would be more efficient than this, if we really are thinking of what is best for the kids. But alas, there are zero requirements to become a parent…

I think there are two more questions that need to be answered first, before being able to tell whether we should prioritize the many.

First question is what is the ultimate goal behind prioritizng the many? Happiness of the population? Infinite growth? To conquer the stars? Depending on what the goal is, there are occasions where minorities should be the focus if we want to approach the goal the fastest.
Example is moon landing: The amount of resources that was spent on “simply” building a rocket, space suits & equipment, and send a couple of humans over there was prioritizing the few. Despite a lot of people watching with curious eyes, it did not benefit the many’s needs much. There were several goals here: Being before the USSR, explore the unknown, satisfying shareholders, and more. By the many working hard to send the few, we approached all these goals faster than if we would allocate some of these resources towards the many’s needs, like health (prime days of smoking cigarettes).

The second question is what timeframe are we talking? Is it long-term or short-term success we’re aiming for? Because in many cases, if we want long-term success fast, the many are those who should “suffer”.
Example is where the long-term goal is the glorious evolution of mankind: In one way, we downprioritize the few who are those born with defects, either by culling them or by ensuring they do not make offspring. In another way, we downprioritize the many who are on- or below-average intelligence/capabilities. But then we get the question of how we quantify the few/many; where do we draw the line? And as we get more smart/capable humans, the average constantly shifts - what is the concrete goal?

Suffice to say that this is written without emotion, as that makes this discussion the soup it really is: Ethics, benevolence, discrimination, etc., as you mentioned.

It’s an interesting thought, one that has crossed my mind a time or two.

I think in reality, we don’t have anything that is “absolute” mind control, but we come pretty close through long-term exposure to biased information (propaganda). You asked for this to be an exception, so I won’t go into details there.
There is a famous study done by Olds and Milner in the world of psychology, where they hooked up rats’ reward center in the brain to some electrodes, resulting in incredible change of behavior. The rats were stimulated by them pulling a lever, and this felt so rewarding to them that they couldn’t think of anything else. After the stimuli was given, they kept pulling the lever to exhaustion, not even prioritizing food or sleep anymore. The scientists also attempted the reverse; to inhibit the reward system. The rats became lethargic, and didn’t have motivation to do anything at all, not even eat.

This is, to much smaller degree, effectively the same that happens with humans that are addicted. Whether it’s to gambling, porn, drugs, gaming, or social media.
So if one can spontaneously create an addiction in someone, you’re one step closer to mind control.

One show that caused a bit of a psychological unease with me was first season of Jessica Jones, where David Tennant makes an excellent performance of a character who can make anyone do exactly as he says. I think this is the kind of mind control that we fear, where we are completely aware of ourselves, but cannot help but do what we have been commanded to do.

Edit:

I forgot to answer your question: Yes, I think it will be invented (and to some degree already has), and total mind control is probably at least 50 years away, as we research the psychological basis that was found with the aforementioned research.

True, but I think if the book is given to the right (group of) people, their curiosity to figure out of the book will likely lead them to it being translated rather fast.

That’s quite the plan - sounds like it could be a good movie (I feel like we already have movies like these, but can’t recall any on top of my head).

Здравствуйте все!
I’ve been actively trying to learn Russian for about two years now, and I’m still not very capable of having even simple conversations, due to the great difficulty of constructing sentences in my head. I guess I let the grammar get to me, with all the various prefixes and suffixes, so I choke. That, and the positioning of the words in a sentence. And also the concept of cases (all 7 of them). I know English and Norwegian from before, none of which has this slavic sentence logic/rules, so I find it incredibly difficult to remember/associate words/variations with their use.

I use Duolingo, Babbel, and sometime Rocket Language, in addition to trying to expose myself to having to read/listen/reply to other native speakers, but man am I having a hard time. Any suggestions?

Здравствуйте друг студент! I’ve been trying to learn it as well over the past 2-ish years, and it has proven to be a much slower progress than I had hoped for. How are you faring? And what methods do you use to learn?

Does Actiona suit your needs?

Unsure why you’re getting downvoted (this is “No Stupid Questions”, after all), but I’ll give my 5 cents:

Reason 1:
The people is essentially the reason why a government has power. Without the people (and their support), the government governs a whole lot of nothing, and they will be forced to do labour themselves.

Reason 2:
Poisoning the water is not very accurate, and may lead to both the death of many whom already are supportive of the government (which will create distrust), and people only getting sick depending on the amount they drink (the dose makes the poison).

Reason 3:
Despite a population having a lot of dissidents, these people still work and contribute to society in some ways. It has to get pretty bad before it will be “worth it” to remove them from society.

Reason 4:
Even if it’s so bad that you’re looking at an open revolt against the government, poisoning the water will only really yield MAD, which is usually undesirable.

Ultimately, it’s unlikely desirable for any government to do this, as there are better ways (for the government). However, there have been some attempts at genocide through water supplies before, so it’s not completely unheard of. Check out Project Coast.

Depends on the conditions, I’d say. If you have an area that has low oxygen and high saline concentration, one could potentially preserve large parts of the carcass. A big challenge though is the substances brought by the carcass itself, like enzymes and bacteria that are not directly exposed to the oxygen-deficient saline-abundant water, which can thrive and remain active for a long period of time. However, if this carcass sinks to incredible depths, where the pressure is really high, temperature is a constant 4 degrees, very low concentration of scavengers or thriving organisms, and potentially sinks a bit into the sediment for a long time, you’ll essentially get pickle juice fossil fuel.

They only recently made it mandatory for three visa types, but since introduced in October 2016, it’s always been an optional field when applying for an ESTA.

Edit:
Not that not providing your social media handle will benefit you, of course.

Do you often (if at all) run into conflicts with the .. alias? I can’t think of any case on top of my head, but it feels a bit sketchy. The more than 2 dots however I imagine is pretty safe.

I’d say Linux Mint, ZorinOS, and Manjaro Linux are all viable options for Windows users who want an easy transition. Although I don’t think any distro will ever be considered a “plug-and-play” experience. There are varying degrees of user-friendliness, but if one wants user-friendliness like not having to do root/sudo actions even once, I think one might be better off with MacOS…? Though from what I’ve heard, the main reason Windows users are looking towards Linux and not MacOS is exactly because of the ability to customize more than just the wallpaper (and also the entire boycott US movement).