The way it made me really think about how truly expansive space and time are really made me think that “that’s not impossible to think that there is a 11th dimension being that has some agenda that we cannot understand.”

Absolutely.

But that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about making the leap from recognizing that such a being could exist to believing that such a being does exist. That, to me, is so bizarrely irrational that I can’t even work out how it is that people apparently actually do it.

Yeah - I don’t even really understand how all of that works. I see that people apparently sincerely believe, but I have no idea how - what it is that goes on inside their brains that allows them to make that leap to actually believing.

I don’t know that it does, but I can see how it could.

One way that neurodivergence can manifest is as a relative inability to simply assume things - a relatively outsized need for clear evidence on which to base a conclusion. And religion is notably devoid of actual evidence.

As is generally the case, only a relative few have enough power to actually do something meaningful, and as the winners of the countless battles that had to be fought as they crawled their way up whichever hierarchy to the top of which they now cling, they tend to be ruthless, self-serving, dishonest, amoral and entirely heartless, hiding behind a convincing-enough veneer of principles and integrity.

So as is generally the case, the world can be roughly divided into those who could do something but won’t. those who would do something but can’t, and those who aren’t paying attention, for whatever reason.

I doubt it, particularly because it’s almost certainly the case that the people who deride it when others do it do it themselves in other situations.

It’s far and away most common in partisan politics, and it happens because the simple fact of the matter is that most professional politicians and political parties are loathsome slimeballs, and the only thing a partisan can dependably say in support of their preferences is that they’re (purportedly) better than the alternative. So it’s nearly always the case that in attempting to defend or advocate for their preference, they’ll bring up the alternative and shift focus to them.

And then they’ll potentially turn right around and deride their opponents for doing the same.

I don’t even understand this headlong rush for an app. And especially being so desperate for an app that you’d use one that embeds ads unless you pay to remove them.

It just seems completely backwards to me.

With Reddit, it made sense - it was awful in a mobile browser, the official app was complete garbage, and either way it was buried in ads So you could (and I did) use a third party app and get a cleaner and more useful interface and no ads.

But Lemmy’s already fine in a browser and it’s ad-free. So what’s the point?

I could maybe see, somewhere down the road when the apps are complete and established, it might be interesting to experiment with some and maybe find one that’s got just the features I like most. But that’s not what I’m seeing. What I’m seeing are people desperately clamoring for an app - any app - it doesn’t matter how primitive and janky it is - they just desperately need to have an app right now, today, this instant. As if lemmy is completely unusable without one.

And it’s just… not that way at all. Sure, it could be better, but it’s fine.

So I just don’t get it.

I think it was a two-stage thing: first, he got off the leash, then second, he spiraled off into a fantasy world.

There’s evidence that Musk has always been volatile and capricious and short-sighted, and that he’s had handlers at his companies who specifically acted to limit the things he was told to try to keep him somewhat rational and to filter and recast the drivel that spilled out of his mouth anyway into policies that were at least not obviously harmful.

When he took over Twitter though, there were no handlers already in place, he didn’t take any with him, snd they didn’t have the opportunity to appoint any. So he was off the leash, and we got the first clear look at unfiltered Elon.

And it’s just been in a self-reinforcing loop since then. He undoubtedly always believed that he was making nothing but sound decisions, but that was an easier belief to maintain when he was surrounded by handlers that filtered out his dumbassery. Now that he’s off the leash, his dumbassery is front and center, but he still believes that he’s making sound decisions. The disconnect between his fantasy and the reality is thus growing all the time, so he has a progressively poorer chance of making sound decisions, but grows ever more convinced that he is, and 'round and 'round it goes.

I expect that it’s going to end in the complete collapse of his sanity.

Really.

Sounds like adolescent edginess to me.

Wait… there are people who hate ska?

Why? For that matter, how? What’s to hate?

Granted, I’m GenX, so my concept of ska is rooted in the 80s, but I can’t imagine that it’s changed much since then.

Wait a minute… is this one of those deals where it’s trendy in some peer group to broadcast a hatred for something? Like anyone who wants to hang with the cool kids has to verify that they too hate ska?

Which would be sort of like pineapple on pizza now that I think about it, so might well be the whole point here…

Well… no and yes.

No - I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my life. I feel like I’m supposed to feel that way, and I know that many (most?) people looking from the outside in would believe that I have, but I just don’t feel that way. I’m content, and as far as i can tell, that’s the only thing that matters.

Ah, but there’s the rub - I’m content. It sounds as if you’re not.

Unfortunately, the only thing I can definitely recommend is to try to assess your own feelings and figure out if you really are discontented or if you’re just going along with the idea that you should be.

But if you really are discontented… I guess I could say to try to look at what it is that you really value (which is likely not coincidentally what you’ve mostly done with your time) and try to actually feel the value in it.

But I have no idea how that’s done, since its apparently just something that I do naturally.

Sorry if that doesn’t heip…

Meta can already scrape everything from every fediverse instance. Hell - if you wanted to and were willing to invest the time and effort, you could scrape everything from every fediverse instance.

By definition, everything that you post online is accessible to other people. The devices through which those other people view the content you posted are able to make copies of whatever they view. So literally anyone with a computer and an internet connection can already “take” whatever you post.

There’s only one way in all the world to protect your information, and that’s to not post it in the first place. The instant you post it, anyone who cares enough to do it can “take” it, and there’s NOTHING you can do to stop them.

If Meta cares about your information, they’ll go ahead and collect it anyway, with or without Threads or federation with Threads.

I sure as hell hope not.

To me, that’s like looking around a great little cafe with terrific food and saying, “Do you think this could ever become McDonalds?”

Why would I want that?