• 18 Posts
  • 302 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 10th, 2023
  • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.mltoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•What's the best psychology trick you know?
    3·
    20 hours ago

    This has been a lifelong habit for me and something I respect and appreciate and think virtuous in others, but I’m starting to think I should train myself out of it. Saying “I think”, or “to the best of my knowledge” frequently seems to broadcast “I’m just guessing at random without thought” or with some people it seems to convey “I’m wrong about…”. It also very often seems to encode “it’s best not to listen to the remaining words of this sentence in case my wrongness is contagious”.

    As frustrated as I sound by this, I kind of get it I suppose. I thought I was indicating humility and a willingness to change the opinions or ideas I express if the conversation partner has reason to challenge them, however it seems in many cases it just indicates a lack of confidence in my statements. They perhaps might argue that they never thought I was arrogant or lacking in humility to begin with and of course I could be wrong, but everyone could so specifically bringing it up or alluding to it unnecessarily like that just suggests you’re trying to mask that you have no idea what you’re talking about. I suppose one might also say that the willingness to change your opinion in light of a challenge to it is supposed to be a given so there’s no point trying to show that either. I don’t know if anyone really thinks any of this, but there’s probably something like that operating subconsciously.

  • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.mltoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•What's the funniest belief you had when you were a child ?
    1·
    13 days ago

    I actually had similar theories though in the end I concluded that a person definitely couldn’t be doing it, but I did used to rack my brains how the machine did it so fast. I had to do a project on how TV worked and was invented when I was in the 6th grade and it didn’t help at all, the whole electron gun thing didn’t explain it to me at all because I was imagining the gun like, drawing objects like trees and buildings and people and none of the boring confusing stuff I read helped me understand how this gun knew what to draw and could do it so quickly.

  • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.mltoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•Is canceling student loan debt considered stealing?
    3·
    20 days ago

    I am presumably a lot less qualified to speak on matters of economics than an economics teacher (assuming they became one through a background or qualification in economics), I’m also not even from the US. That disclosure aside, given you put this question to the masses and to the world here’s my take.

    I can’t figure out how your teacher could have come to this conclusion with intellectual honesty. If my amateur’s understanding is correct, this forgiveness program is achieved by the US government paying for the loans, so it’s difficult to say on a basic level how any theft can have occurred. This is especially plain given the program is limited specifically to loans issued by US government in the first place as Federal student loans. If I loan you money and then tell you not to worry about paying it back after all because I’ve decided to forgive the loan I can’t find a way to frame that as theft. Who’s been stolen from?

    If I really stretch I could see people who paid their own loans in full before this happened feeling like it was pretty unfair, but they weren’t stolen from, just unlucky in timing. Some people will say of taxes generally, that they feel like the money taken from them by the government in taxes is theft, but in that case this specific instance of government expenditure is no more theft then the latest batch of F35 fighter jets bought by the military or the wages paid to the local garbage collector to take out your garbage or any government spending at all, since that money all comes from taxes. Maybe your teacher is trying to tie the potential economic costs of the policy in to a narrative of stealing from US taxpayers. Maybe the costs of the program could theoretically mean taxes have to be raised at some point, but again though, you already have to pay taxes and how much, more taxes or less, is up to the administration in charge at any given time based on what they think is necessary. This is how the US or any country has a government at all which is generally considered necessary by most. When the government operates and uses taxes to do so, the citizens essentially pay for a service, that service involves the government making decisions on your behalf on what to do with the taxes you paid them. If most of the taxpayers don’t like the decisions and think they were bad choices they change their government and lobby representatives, it doesn’t make the decisions themselves theft if you just don’t like them.

    That’s about all I can think of in the absence of your teacher’s justification, for how the loan forgiveness can be called theft, trying to be as fair as possible to those potential reasons, I still can’t find a way to make the statement true.

  • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.mltoGaming@lemmy.ml•Unreal Engine 5 is Killing Games
    2·
    21 days ago

    I’m sure those who know more about this stuff will roll their eyes at this question but like, I’m about 9 minutes in and why do almost all the examples the guy’s using have white pixels flashing on and off around the edges of the screen? Around 8m25s in particular it’s evident. I thought maybe it was a snow or rain effect, but I don’t think so. It looks like an artifact of some kind.

  • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.mltoStar Wars Memes@lemmy.world•Sorry Obi-Wan, i'm too sad to hear you...English
    11·
    25 days ago

    Well I must admit I’ve only really seen bits of various Star Wars films save for being taken to see Episode 1 as a kid so I don’t really know much about it, besides what you can pick up from pop culture, I was just following what seemed a logical inference. Are “protocol droids” one and the same as whatever C3P0 is? I guess I figured a “kit build” in my mind is something like an amateur, enthusiast’s project for kids or something so the fun and silly “personality” would be part and parcel with that design while ubiquitous robots made for more serious utilitarian reasons would I guess be less inclined have such features as they’d not be of great use to anyone.

  • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.mltoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•Should one give money directly to homeless people?
    3·
    27 days ago

    My parents have a well worn story of the time they were students and very poor and they saw a homeless guy outside the kebab shop and asked if he’d like a kebab to which he agreed. They brought it out to him and he examined it and threw it on the ground and yelled at them about something they now don’t remember exactly but they think was something to do with not wanting chilli sauce. Guessing that guy wasn’t in the best state of mind at the time, bit of a bummer for them though because they scraped together the last of their cash to pay for that and it would have been better if they could at least have eaten it themselves.

  • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.mltoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•Should one give money directly to homeless people?
    91·
    29 days ago

    I really can’t see a downside. If they seem to be obviously homeless or they’re actively asking for help, they probably need it. Though it’s extremely unlikely that your meager contribution will be the change that suddenly allows them to magically overcome poverty and become middle class home owners with well paying jobs, that doesn’t really make them need it any less. Whatever they use the money on, it’s going to be what they need in the immediate term, be it drugs or food or anything really and unlike others this is the only way they can really get that money so they do need people to occasionally part with it. You’d only give it to them because you had it spare anyway and it’s not going to make them more homeless than they already were. If the concern is that it’s not addressing the root personal problems that put them individually on the street or the root social problems that put many on the streets, that’s completely true but if you’re serious about doing that you’re going to need more than the couple of bucks in your pocket anyway. That’s going to be concerted massive political will and financial effort and several people’s lifetimes worth of work all at the same time, besides you can always involve yourself in some way in such efforts and hand over spare change. The only times I can really think of where it makes sense not to give directly are: you can’t afford to do it, the physical circumstances of handing it over are dangerous/impractical, you don’t care about homeless people or other people in general or you subscribe to some nasty Malthusian ideas and think yourself somehow benevolent for condemning people to destitution as some kind of “cruel to be kind” doctrine in which case you’re unlikely to have given this a lot of thought anyway and don’t really face much of a dilemma.

  • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.ml•Recognition
    6·
    30 days ago

    Shit was crazy, random conservative shock jocks and mainstream conservative politicians all over the world were losing their minds over this kid it was hilarious. It was so funny watching them just fucking PR faceplant over and over again when all they ever needed to do was just shut the fuck up about it and wait for her to disappear from the news cycle in time as she herself said she fully expected would happen. I’m pretty sure her continuing relevance is at least in part because of the Streisand effect generated from a whole international cabal of right-wing old men desperately trying to destroy this child and fucking losing hahaha.