loobkoob

Nowadays, you have to assume your personal data being used to train an AI model is the cost of signing up to any free website unless they explicitly tell you otherwise.

I don’t plan on bedding any horses, thank you very much!

I prefer real poo, personally.

rich people who ruin things

I wouldn’t say I’m consciously boycotting Ubisoft, personally. But I sure as hell haven’t bought one of their games for a long time, and with the way they’ve been going as a company in general, I can’t see myself buying anything from them in the near future. If they do release something worth buying then I’ll consider it, though.

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 This makes it particularly great for things like dating sites/apps because people’s bios will often be out of date and/or they’ll have talked about the things mentioned in their bio so much that they’re kind of sick of them.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!

I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely not hydrated enough to take a piss break every five minutes!

I have the theory that vampires hating garlic is a rumour spread by vampires themselves because they really love garlic. Getting the humans to season themselves is a genius move.

Must be nice to never have to worry about defending yourself from attackers who overpower you or who have weapons.

As someone who lives outside of the US: it is nice. You guys should try it.

If everyone’s super(rich), no-one is.

People can be angry or upset about more than one thing at a time. And you’ve no idea whether the person you responded to has been outraged about the US’ strikes or not. Just because a society as a whole has a viewpoint that trends a certain way doesn’t mean you can assume each and every individual you talk to has that exact viewpoint.

By all means, criticise society as a whole - it’s a very valid thing to be critical of. But making assumptions about individuals - and being rude to / critical of them based on those assumptions - isn’t the way to win anyone over.

I like the idea of this, although there’d need to be a robust verification system in place to make sure people aren’t being bullied into passing their votes off to others.

I think it’d generally lead to people being more engaged and politically literate, though. And it could even lead to individuals bargaining with people they know. Like, I could say to my neighbour, “hey, I’ll vote your way on this policy that I’m indifferent about if you vote my way on this other policy”.

I do wonder how much of an issue disinformation campaigns would be under such a system. Would it increase their influence? Would hate rags like the Daily Mail find themselves with more influence? Or would people start to cotton onto the fact that nothing they suggest improves anything?

Even if Starmer and the Labour party were pretty much the same except they kept the mask on, that would still be a step in the right direction. Normalising the racism, bigotry, corruption and general inhumaneness that fuels the Tory party is absolutely something we should try to avoid.

However, I don’t think Labour is like this. I don’t think they’re perfect, but I think they’re much, much better. They’re not going to fix everything overnight, but I do think them getting into power would be an important first stepping stone in moving the country and politics towards being a better place in in 10-15 years. They may not be your ideal party but, if you’re pragmatic and have any kind of long-term vision, you’ll likely vote for them (or the Liib Dems, depending on which constituency you’re in) to make sure the Tories are eliminated.

The Overton window is far too far to the right at the moment and Labour getting into power is important for helping to gradually shift it leftwards. People simply aren’t going to vote in a “radical” socialist in the current political or economic climate; they want someone they can see as a safe pair of hands who can work on stabilising things somewhat. Right now, that’s Starmer - the boring man who’s politically central (by current standards) with a fairly clean record and an air of competence. When, in most constituencies, the options are Labour and Tory, you working to put everyone off Labour is just going to benefit the Tories.

Stop letting perfect be the enemy of good.

That and “Suella de Ville”. And she’s fully deserving of either title. I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but where other politicians I dislike feel like they’re either doing the wrong things for the right reasons, or they’re selfish, corrupt or incompetent, Braverman feels like she gets off on the cruelty and is a genuinely evil person.

I think calling her the “second coming of Maggie” really undersells Braverman’s cruelty and capacity for evil. I think Thatcher really fucked up this country, and we’re still feeling the effects of some of her policies to this day. But Thatcher did genuinely think she was doing things for the right reasons - that she was making tough but necessary decisions.

Braverman seems to get off on the cruelty. A lot of her policies and ideas seem cruel for the sake of cruelty. There are plenty of politicians I’ve disagreed with and disliked, but they’ve all tended to feel like it’s either because they were doing what I’d consider to be the wrong things for the right reasons (ie, they thought it would help, different approaches to what I’d want but with positive outcomes in mind, etc) or they’ve just been selfish, corrupt or idiotic. Braverman is a whole different thing entirely. The purpose of her policies is often the cruelty, with no tangible benefits that even she can list. She’s a genuinely evil person.

Not to defend the guy because he seems awful, but a century is just absurd. There’s no way I’m going to be thinking in ~50 years’ time, “damn, I’m glad 80-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried is off the streets, I wouldn’t feel safe if he were free”. It just seems disproportionately high.

Dark really sucks me into a dark damp place

Very few places are darker or damper than Winden!

Bud Light was already a joke for being bad.

Yep. GTA 4 came out in 2008 - 15 years ago - and features the beer brand “Pißwasser”, which is clearly mocking Budweiser’s name and branding - particularly Bud Light’s. It’s been a joke for a long time.

It’s like if Dali spent too long looking at Saturn Devouring His Son

Plus Edge has support for vertical tabs built in natively. It’s wild to me that horizontal tabs are still the default, using up valuable vertical screen space and having illegible names when you’ve got a certain number of tabs open, when vertical tabs are an option. So props to Edge for offering that.