A 50-something French dude that's old enough to think blogs are still cool, if not cooler than ever. I also like to write and to sketch.
The public library.
Zombies are too braindead to be interested in books, they will never feel any need to come check one if there are people hiding. Plus, I would have enough books to read while I watch them mindlessly walk around on the streets, interested in nothing. A bit like our modern days zombies: smartphone users ;)
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'immoral' or 'bad' are not qualities, they are judgments and they depend on one's own personal values and biases. I tend to not think in moral terms in regards to information, I worry more about being, well, informed.
I read newspapers to be informed (we don't have a tv, and I don't use social media at all for that purpose). I read newspapers and magazines from 'my political side' as well as from the different 'sides', including the ones I may completely be in opposition with (meaning I also pay for them). Why? Because listening to diverging voices, even ones I can disagree with, helps me to not take anything for granted and even less so my own biases take over and blind my own judgment.
I will also read some mean-spirited content (provided I consider them well made), and pay for them too. Because I consider they're are more important than ever in our badly self-censoring and chastised (not to say neutered) times. Freedom of expression should not be limited to what one agrees with, that's my (very simple, I'll admit that) logic.
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How fast is too fast, in your opinion?
Depends what's your objective.
A quick fun? Why waste time if that's your thing? Getting married for life, raising many children, and becoming happy grandparents? Maybe you could take it more slowly. Like I mentioned, it all depends the objective.
Everything can be justified. Even the most... miserable actions. Here is one: I let a kid drown, because I was busy saving a couple other kids that were drowning too. It's a legit choice but it is also not ok, and I would not want to be in the shoes of anyone having to face that situation and to live with the aftermath.
Regarding AI, I don't think the question should be whether it is justifiable or not. It's a tool, it needs no justification beside filling a purpose like a hammer or even a gun do.
The question should be to decide if we're OK a tool (that has been developed using humanity common knowledge) and that will deeply change all our lives and all of humanity future to be owned and controlled by a handful multi-billionaires that are already actively working their worst to make the world unfit to most of us. Or if we want for that tool to be ours and to be able to decide by ourselves what limit we want to put on its usage.
Well, at least that’s what I think.
I have no hate towards AI. No more than I hate a hammer (edit: or a gun) when someone use it to commit a murder. I’m much more critical of the way AI is not developed as a common good… which to me is unacceptable for a tool that only exists because because of our common knowledge.
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I just gleaned that from your blog. Sadly, there was no comments section, so I’ll comment here.
I suggest people use email instead of comments.
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Mais à ce propos: Puis-je devenir Canadien, siouplé? Can I become a Canadian, pliiiz?, ... impossible de ne pas partager ce lien (et mon admiration) ;)
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Everything and Nothing
Not really: French ;)
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If there are specific must-read posts, please point me that direction.
Not really, it's a tiny little blog (without ads and without tracking) written either in English or in French, depending my mood and the topic. It's personal in the strictest sense. My only suggestion would be to trust your guts while browsing through some post titles, and by all means don't feel bad if you feel like reading none: there will be no hard feelings on my part ;)
how old are you
Nearing my 60s.
and how did you come to be on Lemmy?
Left Reddit because of their bullshit policy changes. Knew what the Fediverse was, tried Lemmy (then moved to Piefed) and decided I may as well stay for a little while ;)
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In essence, where – if anywhere – do people interact with people online?
That 90s Web is long gone, as a trend. It is still there, mind you, but it's mostly through blogs who have themselves evolved from being a trendy space, everybody wanted to have a blog starting in the early 00-05s, to a very niche phenomenon that is barely visible anymore. But that still exists.
Many people like myself, who used to hand code websites in the 90s, are still blogging to this day. The one real change is in readership: very few people can be bothered with visiting blogs (I seldom spontaneously share a link to my blog, but regularly mention it but I've only been asked once its address ;).
It’s even more obvious with the younger generations who have not grown used at all to search through the World Wide Web (that is much more akin to a World Narrow Web, for them) for whatever content they might be interested in. And for those that may still read blogs, how many will not be using RSS, or even be aware it exists, making it uselessly harder for them to read said blogs.
They’re not to blame. They need/want said content to be served to them from a few limited sources they all gather around because it’s what they grew with. Hence, most of them only using social media platforms, be they centralized/corporate-owned ones like X, Facebook, TikTok, or even Substack, and so on. Or decentralized ones, like Mastodon, Piefed,... the entire Fediverse.
As far as I’m concerned, even email has almost completely vanished as a meaningful tool of communication. Email! It used to be my main means of communicating with correspondents all over the world since the early 90s and has remained so until around 2010, or maybe 2015 when it has started to dried out, and quickly so. As far as I’m concerned, email is barely a trickle nowadays. Here again people will use ‘messaging apps’, centralized or not it doesn’t change much! they have moved from a fully indendant/personal means of communicating to a non-personal one.
I’m not sure that, collectively, we have gained anything by not using emails anymore: a lot of my pasts interactions lasted much longer (oftentimes it was measured in months if not years worth of back and forth exchanges) whereas I seldom have any long lasting (or even that stimulating) exchanges on those social media platforms, even the non-corporate owned ones. But maybe that’s just me being incompetent and unable to engage in a meaningful way using those tools.
It's a silly comparison, but I often make a parallel with eating habits.
They are a generation that will happily gather at meal time around some trendy (cheap) places, fast food, snacks or whatever they fancy, without having to worry about preparing their meal. While my own generation learned how to cook and often will prefer cooking (or at least, go to a traditional restaurant, a place where they actually prepare food, not a fast food) because one gets to pick what they eat (fresh products, nothing industrially processed) and can oftentimes eat for a similar price (it’s even cheaper to cook one’s own food) than the industrial junk food that are sold everywhere.
Edit: like I said personal websites, blogs, still exist almost everywhere one makes the effort to search for them. They're just not searched for, so we get to decide they don't exist anymore which is not the reality. People expect to get their content served to them in those few limited centralized places called social media... a bit like they expect to meet their partner(s) through dating apps only... Something old-me will never be able to fathom, to be honest.
Discussion about anything spiritual.
As an atheist and a Bible-reading dude (as well as a few other 'spirituality' books, among many other types of books), the hate towards anything spirituality-related and religious around here was one of those things I almost immediately noticed after joining, it's even worse regarding anything Christian. The worst for me was not that hate, it is the fact that almost all of it rely on nothing but a desire to do like the others. And very rarely on actual knowledge of what is being hated.
It is one of those things that made me question if I should stay, if the Fediverse was a place one could really expect to have enriching discussions, or merely the exact opposite of those corporate-owned social media platforms that are populated by right-winged haters: collectively-owned social media populated by left-winged haters. Hate is a poor choice. It doesn't matter what one hates.
The one thing that made stay is that, thx to the tools available, it's also very easy to filter out most of that hatred and to suddenly realize that, hidden under that now gone noise, there are indeed quite a few persons wanting to have civilized conversations and that are able to not hate on anyone they disagree with. Not a large crowd, but enough to make it worthwhile to stay and from time to time have an interesting discussion.
That option to filter out the hate, even if it's not perfect, makes the Fediverse quite unique, imho.
That is something (too) many will not be willing to hear. See my other comments: they've been educated in wanting that echo chamber more than anything else.
Changing that will take hard work and, even worse in our days and age, a lot of patience as it won't happen overnight, not even in a single generation's span...
Well said. It is so frustrating when people don’t understand that people disagreeing with them does not mean their freedom of speech is being violated.
Thx.
Quite a few of them will remain incapable to understand that, no matter what we can try too encourage them, but I want to think the vast majority can't because they were not educated to understand it.
Schools (as well as many parents, I’m afraid) have failed many of the younger people/generation. Being old myself, as a teen in the early 80s I started witnessing that failure spreading like fire in the few public schools I had friends in (I was lucky enough to be in a private school, a religious one where they insisted on using a… stricter approach to teaching, a more demanding one too).
Public schools have failed so badly it's hard to realize parents have not been on the streets demanding an urgent reform. But they obviously don’t manifest much for that, like if not educating their kids was no big deal. Those kids, if they were given the opportunity to access some proper education (and to the more… radicals out there: ‘proper’ should not be understood as ‘perfect’ or ‘faultless’) they would quickly learn to accept difference of opinions, and even extremely conflicting ideas. Even more, I have little doubt many would start to value it, realizing it’s an opportunity for everyone.
Alas, we’re far from that. And, as an older person (I'm nearing my 60s), when you try to point out the issue, that catastrophic and dramatic failure of school and adults towards kids... Most will either refuse to listen, disqualifying the remark as mere nostalgia from someone too old to understand the modern world and its many new problems (which is another interesting demonstration of prejudice, btw). Entirely missing the point. Alas.
Even the banning example,
Being banned from a private space (online or IRL) is not a violation of the freedom of speech (which BTW is mostly an US-based thing, while a lot of the fediverse is not from there), it’s the right of the owner to decide who can and cannot enter in and stay to their place, and what they can do there.
The issue is when that legit right is used to silence dissent ideas and thoughts. Like it can easily be done on X or Reddit, or any other centralized platform. Hence me pointing out that the Fediverse is more resilient to that kind of abuse… even if it is not immune to it and to admins abusing their powers and behaving like miniature wannabe dictators. At least, like I said, one can always switch community or create a new one. Even a whole instance.
They’ve got the moral instinct, sure, but zero intellectual grounding.
And since we should not trust 'moral' anything without at least some understanding of it... that's not a good situation. At least, that's how I see it.
We’re seeing it happen in real time. People repeat opinions like they’re reciting scripture
Which is funny realizing how most of them are so hostile towards the Bible or anything religion-related while they're at the same time mindlessly repeating/mimicking (what I consider) the worst of all the religious traits: blind adherence to an ideology/ideal, as well as the refusal to listen to critics.
That’s exactly the kind of bullshit that got USA in the state it is right now.
Can't talk about the USA myself: the world is a tad larger and also includes a few foreign countries, including my own: France ;)
I have literally been called a fascist for telling people to think for themselves.
I have been called many names during my almost 60 years on this planet (fascist not even being the worst), and I learned to not bother: hateful believers will remain hateful believers no matter what, even those who only believe in 'social something' instead of 'god'. They won't change, or just maybe their believe switching from one to the latest trendy one. Meanwhile, I will keep on refusing to blindly adhere to any type of faith, with or without a god ;)
What would you say if, to be allowed to open your fridge (the one you own and purchased with your money) in order to pick something to eat out of it, you were required to make a blood test (say through some mechanism included in the door handle) to prove that you don't have any serious disease preventing you from, say, eating a slice of that delicious cake, or whatever?
The idea might not be completely stupid (one with some serious disease should not not eat what can harm them) but the implementation is not right. It's considering 100% of the population as suspects by default; just because they exist and have a fridge.
Replace 'fridge' with computer, 'cake' with online content, and 'disease' with 'being a minor'. That's how sad that is.
Apparently we believe in freedom of speech—so long as the speech is something we agree with….
As already mentioned, it's not exclusive to Lemmy/the Fediverse and then, thx to the Fediverse itself, we still can resist:
- the most important thing is that we're not into some centralized platform whose owner can easily shut out anyone. Banning is still a thing obviously (I regularly hear about admin abusing their power) but one always has the ability to change instance or even to create their own which i is not even an option, say, on Reddit or X.
- Freedom of expression should not mean one should be required to listen to trash ideas. Here again, the Fediverse/Lemmy/Piefed already offers great tools to filter out what and who one doesn't want to hear... without limiting their freedom of expression. Meaning that I, for example, am not forced to see the huge amount of low quality posts that are posted (politics and most memes, stuff like that) and that I can also easily block anyone I consider a pain in the butt or that is trying to troll me. Which I do without any hesitation and without ever threatening their own freedom to express themselves. Something I find a lot more friendly to freedom: theirs as well as mine ;)
The issue runs much deeper as, for most people, it seems to not be enough to be able to mute/block someone or some content they disagree with. They want it to vanish for anyone else too. The most... excited even want their author to be removed from the community. So they like to campaign for ban, or worse.
But here again, it's a much wider issue than with the Fediverse.
It's people not being educated anymore to tolerate divergence of opinions and, a lot more worryingly imho, not being able, because of that lack of proper education, to listen to nuanced thoughts and ideas and to be able to understand that we can disagree without having to hate on one another. They seem to live in a black or white world, populated with two groups of people: friends, those that are liking the same things and the same ideas they do, and foes, those who dare not like one or more of those things and ideas the 'friends' like.
As long as that 'logic' is not challenged and put back in its place (trash reasoning) the intolerance to what is different, which hating on one's values and ideals is, won't go away. Around here, like everywhere else.
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was I being a pushover?
No.
Sex is both extremely complicated (it involves our most intimate selves, our deepest and most sincere desires) but it's also very simple at the same time: sex is a matter of agreement between two (or more) parties. They must be willing to have sex and are to agree on how the action will unfold. If no agreement can be reached, that's fine: there should be no sex. And if one party doesn't want to agree on something and still want to have sex, well, I would not call that 'sex' anymore.
As far as using a condom, it should be obvious for any adult male: when asked to wear one, you wear one. Or you don't have to enjoy the sex. Simple as that.
On a more personal note, as a dude myself (an old and happily married one, but still a dude) I would never have sex with someone 'I don't know that well' without wanting to wear one, no need to ask.
Do you think I’m some STD-ridden guy?
To this snarky (and abysmally stupid) remark, if I were in your shoes which I'm obviously not, I would have put my hand on his and replied 'Maybe I am?', smiling.
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A time machine: I already switched 6 or 7 years ago, after 40+ years using Apple ;)
Do I miss stuff? Yep. Is it ok to miss them? For me, yep too.
A History of Violence was pretty underrated.
Quite so.
Barry Lyndon bored the hell out of me,
Not the most fast paced movie that ever was, I will agree on that. Still, I first watched it as a teen (already into history) and was in awe. This was first time I could walk into painting of those long gone times ;)
In a similar way, Peter Greenaway, the English director did a few great movies too: The Draughtsman's Contract, 'The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover', Prospero's Books,...
For me, racism (like most forms of prejudice) is not based on sight but on preconceived notions, and cultural/societal backgrounds... which will work the same on people whether one can see them or not. hence how simple it is to hate on a whole nation or group of population that one has never met. Or does not really know.