Betch

I recently got a 2021 CR-V Touring and I absolutely HATE this. It hasn't actually automatically braked on me yet but it has beeped and flashed the BRAKE sign on the dashboard for absolutely no reason a couple times and it freaks me the fuck out every time. For me personally I find that this system is more likely to cause an accident than to prevent one. I wish there was a way to permanently disable it but from what I've seen you have to disable it every time you start the vehicle.

I don't have much time today but I have to touch on the trans children part of your post.

Sorry you've agonized over that, because it just doesn't happen. Nobody wants children to have gender reassignment surgeries but that point has been used to attack transgender rights and healthcare over and over again and it's not even a real thing. Nobody is actually getting them because it makes absolutely no sense to do it. You can't do a surgeries like that on a body that is still growing, it will 100% turn out completely botched. The only surgery that could maybe make any sense on a minor may be the removal of breast tissue on transmasc people but that would only be required IF the child hasn't been put on puberty blockers in time AND is experiencing major distress because of it. Everything else can wait. Hell, a large number of, if not most, trans people will never even get a single surgery. Hormone Replacement Therapy alone is very often enough and it is completely safe.

If it has happened, it was 100% done by a quack surgeon who needs to have their license removed. Literally nobody is going to argue against that except maybe for bad actors/astroturfers or perhaps actually insane people. Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see, please. You don't even have to believe me but don't go repeating that shit because it is extremely harmful.

It absolutely infuriates me because people keep repeating that as if it happens and it is being used to deny trans care to children, which is not surgeries but puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. Puberty blockers are used to delay puberty in case the patient is not certain about their gender identity and it is 100% reversible. What isn't reversible is going through the "wrong puberty" and kids are now being forced to go through that in many states. Not only does going through the wrong puberty actually CREATES the need for more surgeries in the future, it is traumatic. Puberty is already really hard to go through once (Even worse if it's the wrong one), imagine having to do it twice. I've done it, would not recommend if it can be avoided. Especially later in life when the mental anguish, mood swings and everything else that comes with going through puberty are really not "acceptable behaviours" anymore because then you're an adult, you have way more responsibilities on your hands and by then people have forgotten exactly how crazy puberty was so they can't even relate in any way. It is very alienating.

Also I don't remember much of what I typed yesterday, I was basically half asleep but I should make it clear that what I meant by helping is only what I need to do and have been doing personally. It's going to be different for everyone but for me the number one thing to do right now is to try and heal the divide between people on different spectrums and it is something that I actually have some kind of power over. I believe we really ought to stop wasting time and energy on things we have absolutely no power over as individuals and concentrate on getting people back together. Since I'm trans, well, I feel like it's my responsibility now to forget about the divide and to be kind to everyone, even the ones who may not have kind thoughts about me so that we may have a chance to actually talk and find understanding. How are we supposed to tell people how things actually are for us if nobody even listens to us in the first place.

That's from my point of view and something that only really applies to trans people as we have been thrust into this position we never wanted to be in, but I'm sure we all have something "simple" we can do to start taking baby steps towards regaining our power as people. To me, everything else is counterproductive and only serves to create more divide as we are completely unable to find common ground anywhere. How are we to make big societal and political changes without it getting bloody if we can't agree on or even discuss the stupidest little things.

The saddest part is that in reality we all want the same thing but "They" have us fighting about manufactured issues and differences that don't actually matter at all.

I need to be able to do things like connect to someone else’s wifi without having to install package dependencies first.

Yeah exactly, and it has happened to me way too many times where I install something, like system updates, only to reboot to find that my GUI doesn't work anymore. I do not have time for this.

Now, I too have a Samsung S22+ - and it is the only phone I have ever had that I outright despise.

RIGHT?! That's the same one I have. It's the WORSE phone I've ever had the displeasure of owning. I bought it because I thought the camera would be the best out of what was available at the time but it is TERRIBLE. I miss my old Huawei P20 Pro. Say what you want about the CCP but that phone was BY FAR the best phone I've ever had. I still use it every day as a camera but it has no SIM anymore.

Fairphone is definitely interesting. Until there's a whole new revolutionary mobile device that comes out, there's really no reason to go for flagships anymore, they don't offer anything new anymore, so why not go for something like the Fairphone. I feel like the Apple Vision Pro is the closest thing we've seen since the first iPhones. Of course it's way too big and cumbersome for now but nothing else has given me that feeling in my gut since I first laid my hands on the iPhone.

Like if you walk up and take their candy away from them, they scream “hey, that’s not fair!”

Not saying you're wrong at all here but, a lot of that could very well come from nurture and also you're literally taking something away from them it could be more about personally losing something than it not being fair. Would they react the same way had they not yet been taught the concept of fairness and just seen someone take candy from another child?

So if morality changes in the future - as it 100% definitely will - it seems doubtful that the Nature side of it would be altered much, in a short period of time (in the evolutionary/geological timescale sense), and rather that the Nurture side would teach them differently.

Yeah probably not. Nobody likes to be hurt (Unless...) and that is not about to change.

As Jesus Himself offered: “be thou not dicks to one another, and instead be most excellent to one another, my dudes”.

🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏

And this is why I am turning more to religious thoughts lately

That is pretty much exactly why I am doing so as well. It just makes sense.

Anyway the goal is: how can we help people, even when the major trend of that river of society is trying to bend away from that goal

This has been my biggest revelation of my life. I can't exactly explain it in words, but my answer to the question "How can we help people?" is to just help people. There's always someone who needs help, no matter how big or small their problem might be. It feels to me like a lot of us have no sense of community anymore, at least outside of the internet. We need to rebuild this. Personally I've been doing it by changing the way I talk to people. I no longer just ask people "Hey how are you" as a meaningless greeting, I changed it to "How are you doing TODAY" to try and get a real answer out of them. Then if I can see an opening I will ask if there's anything I can help them with. I also try to smile at everyone I lock eyes with, at least when my mental state is good enough for it. I really dislike looking people in the eyes in the first place so it takes a lot out of me.

I used to judge people based on the way they look a lot because you can kiiinda tell when someone is gonna be "conservative" or whatever, it's a defense mechanism for me because I do not feel safe anywhere these days. However, by doing that, I'm doing exactly the same thing that people I'd call bigots would do. Judging someone on appearances. Sometimes I'm afraid that by doing so and letting my guard down, I might end up getting hurt. However, if I keep acting like random people are my enemy, I am perpetuating a cycle that must end.

Occasionally I see a story that gives me hope (e.g. this one where he tries to fight against the trend), but they do seem to be coming much more rarely than in the past.

I feel like that's just because those stories don't sell as well and/or they get immediately buried by ragebait.

I have to end this one here. I am so exhausted I can barely read, I keep catching myself re-reading the last sentence I just read hahah. I will be back.

This user only spams their blog that is most likely lazy AI plagiarism. Reported and blocked.

Le Labyrinthe de la Reine des Ombres

Truly devout/pious folks from any religion I’ve known have been good people and a joy to be around. I think they’d be good people anyway though, and their religion just gave them a framework.

They probably would be yeah. Although I have family members who definitely weren't great before they found religion. Two uncles in particular who are great now but were not on this path before. Then I have another uncle on the other side of my family who absolutely refuses to accept that his daughter is gay and him and his wife have put that child through absolute hell. I've seen videos of her mother screaming at her that she was the devil and all sorts of disgusting shit that a child should never hear from anyone let alone a parent. Being trans I've cut contact with them completely because even if they act nice in my face, I know what they say when I'm not around.

When folks use religion as their justification for behaving in ways that are clearly at odds with its most basic tenets, that’s what I find toxic, and do feel is far, far too common.

Yeah unfortunately it is. Religion is as corrupted as politics are these days. These people seem to think they're only following the word of god but they're just being manipulated. I can't help but feel bad for them even if some of them would literally want to see me dead.

I’m probably coming in hot on the topic in general because although I’m a cishet white guy I’ve just about had it with the ridiculous bullshit from the right in this area in recent years, and it’s becoming a real hotbutton issue to me.

I get it. This all needs to stop. I'm just scared that if all sides just stay angry at each other we will never be able to get past this without things getting even uglier. So when I see someone like the dad in this story, I'd rather forget everything else and appreciate the fact that they've improved and even give them praise. They've admitted to being wrong at least once so maybe now they won't be so quick to hate things they don't understand.

I don't know, maybe I'm naive. All I know is that I'm really sick of all the negativity, the constant outrage and outright ragebait articles, all the pundits and the talking heads who basically just try to make the other side look dumb for views, all of it. It feels like we're all being played, even by the people on "our side".

Linux users: I too might be one at heart:-)

Yeah I might be one too. I really want to use Linux and I've tried it many times but I have had issues with it every single time. Now I only use Linux as a print server for my 3D printer, it's amazing for that.

I loved iOS back in the day, IF it was jailbroken but after the iPhone 4 I switched to Android and never looked back. I currently despise my Android phone though. I hate what Samsung has done with their flavour of Android. It feels SO invasive. Currently looking at Pixel phones so I can use GrapheneOS.

For cars, what if like a police-person demanded access to your vehicle, and if their company override did not work, they could confiscate the car?

I wouldn't be surprised if one day things devolved that far but being the ODD-type person I am, that would just make me want to jailbreak it even more.

To me, leasing the operating system that your car runs on basically means you don't own your car and that is a major turn off. Automatic updates, having features one day and not having them the next, etc.

who loses out - you or the company that leased it to you? (I don’t even know, does leasing work that way!?:-P)

Bahah I really have no clue, I have never leased a car. Always bought used and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

I don't care about repercussions all that much, I'd rather deal with them if/when they come than stop myself from doing things just because I'm scared something may happen. Of course that depends on the situation but if we're talking about modifying a device that you bought and paid for then I will do what I want, as long as I'm not endangering anyone. If I'm costing a multi-billion dollar corporation a couple dollars than that's just something I'd be proud of.

I don’t know if good & evil are human conventions - I mean obviously to some extent, definitely the part about what we “accept” is

I mean, I don't know either but yeah, I meant more like what we accept. I guess the way I see it is like, what if in the future, the only humans that are left to reproduce are the ones with psychopathic traits? They might have a whole other definition of what is good and what is bad/evil. I guess I don't really know what goes on in the mind of a psychopath either so that hypothetical is probably not worth much hahah. Some animals do things that would seem absolutely evil to us, but would they think of it that way? I guess we don't really know what they think about today or if they even think at all but whatever hahah.

are those things that are in-grained and inherent in us (and also other animals as well) the Truth, that we need to discover and obey b/c that is what will generate maximal Happiness for us?

It could very well be. We've evolved as a social species so it is in our best interest that everybody around us is happy and healthy. When things/people from outside our society threatens our health and happiness, we can commit great evils like it was nothing at all.

To clarify, I am not “pushing” for the death of democracy

Oh I wasn't saying that you yourself actually were but more like, IF you were, I'd totally understand and respect it. Can't blame anyone for being sick of this shit. You can't get mad at a river for flowing where it does.

it looks like both sides are in agreement that e.g. the bottom HALF of all of Americans “should” only have 2% of the entire wealth of this country.

Yeah well that is a huge problem, but I doubt that most of the voters think that. That's all the corruption. We don't have a real choice anymore and it's going to take a lot to change that. I'm all for eating the ultra-wealthy. People will eventually realize that they're actually in an American Nightmare, wake up and demand their power back, at least I hope so. At that point, maybe the ruling class will loosen the leash a bit, or maybe they'll kill us all or just leave the continent and let the vultures come pick at our dying carcasses, who knows.

then would they not allow us to make our own mistakes, as part of thier being perfect?

Well, maybe perfection includes accepting that mistakes are a part of getting to perfection. I guess it depends on how far we take "perfection" but if we were all born "perfect" for the world we are in, would we know how to deal with things that are unpredictable? Then again, absolute perfection could take away all the things that are unpredictable. I dunno, this whole line of thinking is breaking my brain at the moment hahah.

they don’t bother to figure it out, or even to search for proper interpretations. B/c they are stupid… and we have to come to terms with that - they just do not have capacity to evaluate such things, therefore they do not.

Well, some might not. Some were just indoctrinated so heavily from a young age that they can't even conceive that their religion is not the Truth. I wouldn't say they're all stupid, but they certainly don't waste time questioning these things like we do and I'm not sure that's 100% a bad thing. For me it's a bad thing because I enjoy thinking about these things and I do not want to blindly believe what a thousands of years old book is telling me about the nature of our existence. If I ended up at the same conclusion as my "Assigned Religion At Birth", I wouldn't be mad about wasting all that time thinking about it because that's the game I decided to play and I didn't want to just read the walkthrough.

Of course there's always gonna be people who only have the capacity to repeat the things that were said to them. Those are the dangerous ones, the ones who are ripe for use and abuse. It is our responsibility to take care of them.

I find that irl I have much more in common with people of all religions who are thinkers, than I do with people who may just so happen to believe similar word-sounds as myself, but who don’t have the faintest idea what those concepts even mean.

Absolutely. I find I have much more in common with a religious thinker than I do with 99% of the people you'd find in Atheist communities even though you could easily think it'd be the opposite.

“be ye either hot or cold, but for fucks sake, at least care about it one way or the other you f-ing plebes!?”

100% my favorite passage!

You are an awesome person and I love hearing how you think:-).

It is reciprocal.

Oh yeah I bet. We used to do that as kids because we thought it was more efficient and we couldn't really afford that much weed with our lunch money hahah. I know better now.

Yah? How else am I supposed to do it?

Jk, I just have anxiety issues.

I agree that there are problems with that kind of religious thinking but what I got hung up on in your original reply was this

What happens when his interpretation changes again?

What says that the next interpretation will be negative? We can't assume that. I know where you're coming from and I was a bit bitchy in my reply, I'm sorry about that.

Who knows why he said those things the way he said it, but if that's what it takes for him to accept the things that are going on around him then it's just whatever, good for him. Who knows, maybe his next realization will be that the bible and religion aren't "all that".

The way I interpreted your post at first was almost like accusing someone of "futurecrime". We don't know what is in store for this person, all we know is that he had a change of heart about something but obviously he is not ready to let go of his religious beliefs. I guess it also made me a bit angry because it sounded like something I might've said a long time ago when I used to be fiercely anti-religion and I really don't that old version of me. It wasn't very productive.

Maybe that was a bit of projection on my part.

I wouldn't dream of taking religion away from someone today. I don't like it but for some people it's all that they know and it's how they make sense of the world. It's a crutch but some people need it and are completely lost without it.

It's not about that. The man is religious, that's not gonna change from one day to the next. You don't need to be religious to be a bigot, that was just his excuse.

What happened to being tolerant of others beliefs? Religion has nothing to do with being an ignorant bigot, it's just often used as an excuse for it.

This ape gets it.