this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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[–] BananaTrifleViolin 63 points 9 months ago

I think others see this but not enough: the slow collapse of Liberal democracy.

A rot has set in and people in politics and government no longer believe in liberal democracy. If you read history you find impassioned fighting for liberty, freedom and equality.

Now we have quasi democracies, with erosions of freedoms, rights and even dumbing down of access to news coverage and knowledge. Countries like the USA and UK that were leading lights in liberal democracy have fallen back into more authoritarian regimes. Countries in continental Europe that were bastions of liberal democracy also seem to losing their way. Big corporations and a wealthy elite are working against the interests of Liberal democracy and we're letting them do it.

Authoritarianism is the scourge of our age - being pushed by China and Russia and taking hold in India, the middle east, Africa and increasingly in the west.

It's depressing to see the rot.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 months ago (9 children)

When I was young I saw the night sky with the milky way clearly visible. I never got the chance to see it again.

I travelled to the top of a remote mountain free of any light pollution or air pollution. It was a dark night with new moon. The sky was completely clear. I still had good eyesight at that time.

The starry night sky was magnificent and mesmerizing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

It would have been a lot more colourful to your kid eyes too.

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[–] TheRealKuni 37 points 9 months ago (3 children)

The way fear, anger, hatred, and the resulting division is being used to control populations.

We have more in common with one another than we think. We all do. But our media highlights the things about each other that we fear or hate.

I know plenty of people across the political spectrum. There is a distinct lack of empathy for anyone who doesn’t share specific views or experiences.

Note, I am not trying to “both sides” here, I’m really not. Modern conservatism is dangerous. But it remains in place not only because conservatives are fed fear and hatred about progressives, but also because progressives are fed fear and anger towards conservatives.

I don’t think the original goal here was to control people, I think fear sells. We seek out warnings, they impact our mental state more. News organizations originally realized they could make more money by making their audience afraid.

But there have always been those who capitalize on those fears. And today it means that those who control the channels simply need to keep us afraid of and angry at one another over some wedge issues and they don’t then need to fear anyone coming together to make actual meaningful societal change happen.

I wish we’d all spend a bit more time talking to other people. But that’s becoming more and more rare.

[–] Impromptu2599 4 points 9 months ago

Very well said!

[–] Witchfire 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I'll consider empathizing with conservatives when they aren't trying to legislate away every aspect of my existence. I'm not going to apologize for having disdain for white supremacists and their supporters.

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[–] jordanlund 28 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Following a reaction to being put under for surgery, I see way more colors than I used to. When I look at a rainbow, I can see more bands of color than normal.

Down side? Bright light is physically painful. When I woke up from surgery I had to beg to be put in a dark room.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What surgery was it if I may ask?

[–] jordanlund 9 points 9 months ago

Tonsilectomy of all things!

[–] GooseFinger 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Do you see new, unique colors, or are you more sensitive to what's already there?

[–] jordanlund 3 points 9 months ago

There are like 5 bands of red, then a space, then a really dark almost brick red. As an example. Almost brown.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Having spent too much time in OS security, I wish people building today's products could realize and internalize just how their project is a house of cards built on top of a house of cards, security-speaking. We've normalized a seriously insane amount if sketchy shit that the critique of a modern product core to many linux OS distributions was seen as just old people ranting ... and the shady shit continued.

One day we're going to run into a series of deep-seated security exploits that will blow our mind and cause a chernobyl of damage, and we may not even link it to a particular weak link among SO MANY weak links; but that's what we're looking at. And the fact that we're ignoring common-sense, best-practice rules to develop core apps is leaving a hole in the proverbial fence that we're ignoring as well.

God help us.

[–] perviouslyiner 8 points 9 months ago

Saw in the news recently that it was possible to radio an exploit to semi trucks in a way that could spread every time two trucks pass each other (default passwords, natch.) - and it's just utterly unsurprising.

[–] brygphilomena 6 points 9 months ago

Security teams have to get it right every time.

Hackers only once.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

So, basically, you're saying systemd is bad, we should stop using it. Right?

/s

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Having worked in product security, the biggest challenge we faced was upstream vulnerabilities in both closed and open source software. The biggest problem with FOSS is that its allure is the F part. No company wants to dedicate resources to patching vulnerabilities in software they don’t own, and no OSS developer wants to work for F500 companies for free.

[–] Krudler 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I work in the field of mental health, specifically mostly in the area of recovery mentorship.

This is an area that is effectively dominated by women.

I wish women could see how that within the realm of healing, they have constructed their own systems of power where men are oppressed, abused, belittled, and prevented from accessing those services without standing up to / enduring that level of hatred.

In short, once the oppressed have the guns, they become the oppressors.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is a really bold claim. Do you have any examples? (Of the systems of oppression, I'm aware women are overrepresented as mental health professions)

[–] Krudler 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

That is not a bold claim, that is a factual statement from someone that works directly in the field.

Yes, a specific example is being in a men's session and having one of the female counselors invalidate the males' experience because "Oh yeah, you should try being a woman in a man's world". That is just one tiny incident, but it is revelatory of a series of repugnant biases.

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[–] andrewta 19 points 9 months ago (3 children)

The (for lack of a better phrase) flicker from led lights. For those that don't know what I mean.. Stand near a strobe light and move your hand in front of your face. You get basically a shutter effect.

That's what I see when I'm near led lights and there is movement . It's hard as hell on the eyes.

I wished every one saw it so it would get fixed.

I should have bought a pallet of incandescent bulbs when I had the chance.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

The kicker is, this isn't even necessary. It's not LED lights that are the issue, it's poorly-implemented dimming of LED lights.

In some cases (home lighting dimming), you can either buy a dimmable LED light or buy a dimmer made for LEDs.

But sometimes, it's just built in to the device, and there's nothing you can do about it. All it technically takes is a really simple circuit that adds capacitance to the line.

If you have a cheap strip of LEDs dimmed by a cheap PWM controller, you might even be able to just take the positive and wrap it through and around a ring magnet multiple times. I'm not sure that would work, but I've seen it done before for noise filtering, which this is, effectively.

What that does is averages out the highs and lows, significantly reducing flicker. There are some devices out there that do the (small amount) of work that is required not to flicker. It's just.. ..dimming by flicker is really easy, and if a manufacturer can save a few cents at the cost of quality, a lot of them will.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Fluorescent does this too. I do miss the light of incandescent bulbs but the more expensive led lights seem to flicker less. Some manufacturers make bulbs that are specifically flicker free too.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The world's population is getting significantly sicker and we're blaming the victims for "lifestyle diseases" as a way of dismissing the problem. But research needs money and time, so there will always be better and stronger evidence for money-making remedies instead of the slow and complex research into why people are increasingly experiencing disease.

We're hurting ourselves, and each other, and because disabled people are excluded from huge parts of society, we're also covering up the evidence. It's only when we're wounded that the reality is clear, but by then it's too late - you're just written off as someone who made bad choices.

[–] perviouslyiner 8 points 9 months ago

e.g. "More than 500,000 under-35s in UK out of work due to long-term illness" - obviously, the government response is to reduce the help available.

[–] PlutoniumAcid 14 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Capitalism has eroded society to the edge of what is tolerable. The push for infinite growth has pushed the world to the extreme, with 0.001% of human holding 99.999% of the riches.

We are now at a point where growth cannot continue because the customers are too poor and the thumbscrews are all the way in. And yet, corpos want more. It will break - very soon. Then what happens?

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[–] Witchfire 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The value of good frontend engineering.

I recently stumbled upon this blog post that describes it better than I could

[–] Carrolade 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How gamer culture is heavily based around the ability to have an accessible and more real-feeling power fantasy in your imagination to fill in for a lack of power in real life, and the damage this is doing to our societies.

Games allow you to feel like you're very good at something. You used to have to earn that feeling in some way, but no longer. Now it's purchasable for $40.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I agree with the observation but not the conclusion. It isn’t the people who use some digital escapism that are failing society, rather the reverse.

People feel powerless and helpless in real life, without any real perspective for betterment, because our economic system needs it that way. Getting to feel good for a bit in a digital world is an attempt at treatment, not the disease.

[–] agent_flounder 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps that's also why superhero movies were so popular for a time recently.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That’s my personal theory as well. Because we feel powerless we love stories of people who are very powerful and change the world for the better.

Personally I dislike it for much the same reason the op doesn’t like gaming: it teaches the people the wrong thing. It’s always a some hero saving everyone, never the people who have enough and save the world through unity and the destruction of the system.

One could almost call it capitalist propaganda

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[–] Carrolade 6 points 9 months ago

The people are the society, society is not something outside of you. That said, I agree it is an attempt at treatment. Just not a very wise one, it's comparable to a drug addiction in its likelihood of actually improving a person's situation in any concrete way.

So, I guess I'd describe it as an offshoot disease, that stems from another disease.

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[–] ghostrider2112 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That the solutions that benefit all beings are always the best. Even if they require more effort. Also, that there are never just two solutions to any problem. The human experience is not binary, there are infinitely many solutions to all problems.

[–] Taniwha420 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I've started to think of "optimum solutions" rather than "right solutions".

[–] ghostrider2112 4 points 9 months ago

Yes, good point. I try not to get too hung up on words. But, when speaking to others, you point out a more productive way to word it. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Brunhild says I shouldn't talk to you

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Damn Brunhild, that's just like her.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

She still owes me $10, the jerk.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (16 children)

Does anyone else hear every electronic device and feel a wave of comfort when the power goes out?

[–] LemmyKnowsBest 4 points 9 months ago

My hearing isn't sharp enough to hear EVERY electronic device, but idling vehicle engines and noisy refrigerators do this to me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Only some things. Like a TV or a speaker. Even when nothing is playing or they're muted, there's like this high pitched whine coming from them. A busted GPU in a PC makes a similar sound, though louder (coil whine). I sometimes feel like Quark that time he kept hearing shit in the shuttle with Odo and it turned out to be a bomb; hearing a faint thing no one else does until I pinpoint the source and turn it off.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

The hidden walls and the dwarfs in them

[–] Drivebyhaiku 6 points 9 months ago

How much damage suburbs strodes and massive footprint drive up box stores actually do. The amount of materials and ecological flattening needed so that everyone can have their own yard with a patch of shit grass. All the concrete reflecting heat into the atmosphere and causing temperature instability, the damage to the water and carbon locking systems we all need to survive because so many people can't stand being around people outside their own isolated family units or need to find a place to park their car. We need affordable city and high density village housing and flip the script on housing costs heavily incentivizing moving out of suburban areas.

We need more trains and buses but more than that we need design where our land use is treated as an actual resource that requires harm reduction policies instead of just "unused" land because "unused" land is what is keeping the planet alive and if we don't start reclaiming it we are gunna be in massive trouble.

[–] ezures 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The ISS. Woke up around 4-5 am just to see it a couple of years ago. I was afraid of missing it, but then saw a fast dot on the sky. First a dot, that split into 5 and a line, after that back to a small dot before disappearing.

Seeing the human technology in space with naked eyes is beautiful.

There was helpful site on Nasa to know when to look for it, but looks like theres an app for it now. Give it a try if you like space stuff, it cost nothing, well maybe a sleepy morning.

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