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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • I’m not sure I see how they’re comparable. Progressivism requires the ability to progress; if we somehow create a completely perfect utopia then there will be no room for progressivism, but otherwise there will always be some way to improve things and progress. In practice, there will always be some way to improve society which means infinite progressivism surely isn’t unreasonable?

    Infinite growth isn’t possible because infinite money doesn’t exist, it’s as simple as that. And if infinite money did exist, infinite growth wouldn’t be possible because everything would already be infinitely large and therefore unable to grow any further…

    … but beyond that, it also requires more and more people who can afford whatever the product/service in question is. Which requires either infinite people, infinite money or both. And as the product/service grows and prices likely increase, people will priced out of the market which is the opposite of infinite growth.

    It’s also worth considering that progressivism is a mindset that is aiming for zero - zero problems, zero inequality, zero bigotry, etc. It’s not about pushing for infinite anything, it’s about trying to reduce existing issues. And while it’ll likely never reach its goal, it’s not theoretically or mathematically unreachable. It’s much more realistic to attempt to reduce something to zero than it is to increase it to infinity.



  • “Landed gentry” was a social class of people who owned estates and, well, land. They didn’t have to work; they made their income by profiting off the work of the farm hands, merchants, etc, who worked on their land. The estates these landed gentry owned, along with their wealth, would be passed down to their children when they died. It meant the gentry did very little to earn their station in life, but still had a fair amount of power and wealth.

    How spez thinks it applies to Reddit mods, I’m not entirely sure. But he definitely meant it as an insult. His full quote was:

    And I think, on Reddit, the analogy is closer to the landed gentry: The people who get there first get to stay there and pass it down to their descendants, and that is not democratic.

    So I guess he was upset that mod teams get to select who else is a good fit to join the mod team? Of course, the issue is that he is the landed gentry - users didn’t vote for him, nor can they remove him; and he’s profiting off the work of the people who post content and the people who spend their time moderating.



  • I think it’s good that they asked here. The way the fediverse is structured means there can be plenty of people who use an instance - posting to it, browsing posts from it, etc - without being registered with that instance. If Beehaw says they’re contemplating leaving, only to be met with a “NO, DON’T GO” response from the rest of the fediverse, then that might give them reason to rethink their position. And if everyone just says “eh, whatever” or “yeah, go away” then it may reinforce their position.

    Obviously the opinions of the people who’ve registered there should hold more weight, but I think putting the question to everyone is a good move.






  • My usual go-to is to ask what their latest/current obsession is. It works really well for a few reasons:

    • it’s nice and simple to ask - it doesn’t require a monologue/wall of text to set up, and it doesn’t require you to know anything about them to ask it;
    • it’s both as personal and as low-stakes as they want it to be. They can give very intimate, in-depth answers if they feel like it, or they can just mention something like the latest film they enjoyed. There’s no risk of making them uncomfortable by asking it;
    • it lets you filter out boring people who don’t really take interest in anything;
    • assuming they do have interests, it often gives you plenty of opportunities to dive into deeper conversation;
    • it’s often engaging for them because they get to talk about something they’re passionate about;
    • it’s often interesting for you because people talking about things they’re passionate about is awesome (and often attractive).
    • it’s pretty much always relevant and fresh because their latest obsession will change over time. This makes it particularly great for things like dating sites/apps because people’s bios will often be out of date and/or they’ll have talked about the things mentioned in their bio so much that they’re kind of sick of them.

    I’ve actually had multiple people on dating sites tell me how great a question they think it is, and that they’re going to use it themselves in the future. So obviously it’s not just me who thinks it’s a great question!




  • Klangkarussell - All Eyes On You - this is probably my favourite music video ever. I’m a sucker for one-takes, and the fact that this one is nine minutes long makes it so impressive on a technical level. But also, the video really feels like an experience. I feel like there are a lot of different ways the characters and situation, and what they represent, can be interpreted; it feels like everyone reads into the video in their own way (and I’m totally down to discuss anyone else’s interpretations once they’ve watched it). Plus the atmosphere of the video really enhances that of the song - I like the song well enough, but combined with the video I find it so hypnotizing and engrossing. (Plus, it doesn’t feel cheap by any means but you can see it was made on a shoestring budget, so it gets extra points for that as far as I’m concerned.)

    All India Radio - Rippled - long-exposure light stop-motion is so damn cool. It’s such a pretty video, and I love how authentic it feels - it obviously took a lot of time, energy and talent to make (over 6 months according to the description) but it has so much personality to it, and you can obviously see the people in the background moving the lights around which makes it feel far less “clinical”.

    Delta Heavy - Get By - musically, it’s a slightly above-average 2012 dubstep track, but the video is so fun (and terrifying, I suppose…). Again, I love the stop motion, but it’s also just really fun on a conceptual level.


    Anyway, all of these are a decade old, so I guess maybe you’re right about modern music videos. I can’t say I watch many music videos, though, so there are probably some good ones I miss!




  • I do both. I have YouTube Premium, but I also use ReVanced because it’s just a better app than the standard YouTube one. It has far better options, like removing a lot of the bloat - cough Shorts cough - and many nice quality-of-life features. It feels much more responsive than the standard app for me, too - I’m using an older device and the standard YouTube app can feel pretty sluggish.