FriendOfDeSoto

Humans have no problem holding in their mind simultaneously two fundamentally opposing ideas. Your question stems from the assumption that beliefs and especially religious ones are borne from this sort of unimpeachable internal logic, if A then B. That’s enlightenment wannabe thinking how we should be. And it isn’t like that.

Also, we are herd animals, we want to belong to something. A lot of people want to belong to this or that religious group to fulfill their own needs. Even if they disagree with some of the religious commandments. So they espouse stuff they don’t actually agree with without any or much internal conflict.

I also feel that few people are actually “raised Christians.” They tend to be raised Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Mormons, etc. They have wildly differing views on that carpenter from the Middle East and what it all means.

If you like LD I think you’ll find stuff to like in Academy as well. Tawney was in the writers room. I’m glad to hear you’ll give it another shot.

Your loss. What’s your favorite?

There world breathed a sigh of relief after Russia and Qatar thinking thank Pele the next world cup will be held in nice, non-contriversial countries! And then time moved forward.

I didn’t have any plans to visit in the first place. But if you ask people who organize conferences or other events these days they all bemoan a significant drop in demand from abroad. I think Mexico making the headlines recently with the cartel starring a turf war will not have helped either. My prediction is the highest percentage foreign visitors compared to local spectators will be at the games in Canada. I suspect the US venues will struggle to put butts in all the seats like during the Club WC.

I also think it is very likely that I, personally, will never travel to the US ever again. I have no money - undoubtedly the bigger obstacle - but I lost all interest.

Encounter at Farpoint was terrible too. If you got thru that, you can stomach 90210 in space as well.

Savor the Trek that is available for I fear there will be significantly less new stuff in the future.

You’ll never know if you don’t watch it.

“Killer feature” is silicon-valley-invrstor-ROI-speak. The fediverse is designed in opposition to central platforms funded by investors looking to make a profit.

I don’t want to go back to reddit because they abandoned third party clients and made another few decisions that made me mad. Lemmy today is - objectively speaking - worse than reddit was circa 5-7 years ago. The user numbers aren’t the same, the way the fediverse is connected reactions aren’t as snappy and the search function is way worse. If I judged this on “killer features” I might be tempted to go back to reddit. I tolerate the shortcomings because I believe centrally operated platforms have a high tendency to enshitify as soon as they realize they need to make money.

I only use my head + the clues some streaming services provide marking shit as viewed.

I don’t think the author likes mastodon dot social…

I couldn’t get through all of this blog post because it’s repeating the same point 500 times. I get the theoretical threat scenario they are painting; what’s missing are the receipts. Is moderation on that instance actually getting worse? Have we talked with admins on the record how they don’t dare defederate from that alleged wretched hive of scum and villainy? And two other angles are missing: (1) a name brand instance might be a good starting point on the fediverse. It’s still better than Xwitter. And (2) people are not donating enough to their instances, who are then run on dedication and held together by duct tape. The fear of having one’s instance shut down because the admin is out of money and duct tape makes people gravitate towards the bigger instances.

I’m not opposed to recommending people to find other, smaller instances - that is a good idea. It’s just this blog post reads more like a hit piece.

No, they aren’t. No, you shouldn’t care less. No, that doesn’t matter. And unfortunately yes, it is.

No, I don’t believe I can achieve absolute anonymity on the internet. But if you’re in continental Europe connecting to the onion via a VPN you are turning the odds in your favor. It’s probably not getting any better than that either.

Because you are new, you should read the forum rules before you post. Your post is in danger of being thrown out because you are asking a question in the “ad nauseam” category. It’s new to you but not to the people who are here already. I think there are also links to finding communities in the rules.

On the fediverse you need to be your own algorithm. That means you need to search on your own and try stuff. The beauty of Lemmy is that there are a gazillion communities for all the niche topics under the sun. What good is me recommending a community about paper airplanes to you when you are not interested in paper airplanes? Also, a lot of niche communities are not teeming with activity.

It takes a couple of months of trial and error, following and unfollowing communities until you’ve created a good timeline for yourself. My suggestion is you don’t waste time looking for random recommendations.

I would start by suggesting we look at fewer youtubers and their views on the subject. I’m tired of dumb facial expressions on thumbnails and exaggerated video titles that do not aim for calm, measured critique but to please the algorithm. And the algorithm likes controversy. So this linked video may be the outlier - I wouldn’t know because I refuse to click through. These video links are more often than not efforts to increase views and thus nudge the video up in the ranking.

Is the death of the franchise nigh? Maybe. It wouldn’t be its first. We have had deaths after TOS S3 and ENT S4/Nemesis. There was stuff in print or in games but nothing on screen until Star Wars became a success and the arrival of the binge streaming age/Star Wars again respectively. We may be on the verge of another lull. We are very dedicated fans of a franchise that needs to be bigger to be financially viable long term. But we are a big enough chunk of the market that executives will be tempted to bring it back.

Can Star Trek tell more stories? Sure it can. It depends on the writers. I was personally disappointed with the stories Disco and PIC told. They thought Star Trek storytelling needs to be Breaking Bad’s mixed with Game of Thrones’s and that equalled universe destroying threats that need to be fought every season. For SNW they learned that you can have a season long plot but you want to be more episodic. Academy is like that as well. There is a lot of fan service in them by design and references only a subset of viewers will catch. But I don’t think that makes the shows less good or accessible to new audiences. And Marvel has established the easter-eggification of storytelling in modern franchises so a lot of viewers will want that.

Many scripts that became Star Trek stories were just sci-fi ideas that were then molded around the universe. There are still good sci-fi story ideas out there that can be told.

My fear is that we are at a ENT S3 point in time. It’s a good season but not enough people are watching. Same with SNW or Academy. That’s partially pissed off fans but also people not paying Paramount to watch it for reasons unrelated to the fandom. And the maneuvering around the Warner deal makes me fearful that all new projects will be shelved very soon for lack of funding and projected economic success. If the third lull is upon us, it’s for economic reasons, not the lack of stories to be told.

Enjoy the soothing waves and the Iranian missiles overhead! You’ll probably be safer in the water. Just saying.

Who are “they?”

Look at it as a semi-creative variation on the theme of “go to hell.”

But you only know in hindsight which ones were true or not. So there is no value if 50% or more turn out to be bullshit.

Not all old people are wise with age. Most old people can be led down the garden path just like the rest of us.

I think what you experience is hindsight confirmation bias. Granny was right all along about this clandestine network of rich child molesters. That bit was true but there are another fifteen layers of outrageous Q Anon bullshit heaped on top of that, which now fade in our memory, as we have to face the fact that there was some truth to it after all. But without actual evidence and bare chested men in native American getup prancing about, I don’t think we could have known. Like you couldn’t know which story from ye elders turned out to be true.

I don’t hate so-called AI per se. I see great use cases for people with disabilities. There are promising signs of it improving medical diagnoses (under properly tested conditions). I think even in my life I will learn to use some of the tools. Eventually. I try to avoid it right now as much as I can.

I hate the people peddling so-called AI as the solution to all problems, including already solved problems. I hate the mad rush on it because it risks negating all the positive greenhouse emission savings we have managed to get done. It will probably incur a greater water debt, i.e. more drinking water future generations will be forced to desalinate if they want to live. And it will make the next computing device you want to buy mad expensive because of the RAM shortage. I hate that this rush is a bubble that may not burst but drives prices up.

Why? What’s stopping you from finding news sources you trust on your own and bookmarking them? I understand the defeatist stance for some local stuff where most of the news has hidden behind paywalls - although paywalls can often be creatively avoided. But when it comes to coverage of the continued American embarrassment that is 47 on the world stage, the world is your oyster. You have news from other English speaking countries, of which there are loads. And a lot of public broadcasters and news organizations that normally speak or write in something else will offer English language articles. If you stop at consuming what is presented to yourself by our friend Al Gorithn, that is a choice.

Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage.

While the Kant certainly wasn’t referring to consuming news in the digital age, his abridged quote can be wiggled to apply as a motto in this context as well.

I heard the clip haha

Best boss I ever had.

I don’t necessarily understand why they chose that director but I kind of get why they wanted to try someone else. IX hadn’t been a great success. They wanted to find new momentum like a sports ball team swapping coaches when the season is going south. Team still got relegated. Life is like that sometimes. It’s easy for me to say Frakes would’ve been better because I have the benefit of hindsight.