• 0 Posts
  • 29 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 4th, 2023

help-circle

  • I can’t help but project an old version of myself on you. I can’t imagine defending 4chan unless I was actively using it a lot… It did used to be basically my only internet community, so I understand being particularly fond of the cesspool.

    However, I don’t actually understand your reactions here. Why are you defending it when it seems like 4chan itself wouldn’t even go this far except maaaybe as a limp wristed attempt at an excuse when something truly horrific happens because of them? I genuinely don’t think I understand

    Like, to currently vilify it is easy, just take a screenshot of pol. I remember looking pre2016 and seeing HYPERPARTISANSHIP all caps everywhere. It’s an anonymous forum with people discussing plans to make life shittier for various groups, essentially at all times… And before pol it was b (my era was back when pol was a boring place, I don’t know the current state of any board, but I know some of the history and what motivates some normies of my niche who fuck with it)

    I just don’t understand the downplaying of it, normal people participate in shit ways on 4chan specifically because of the anonymity. The anonymity is why it’s such a cesspool in the first place. It’s toxic keyboard warrior syndrome to the extreme.


  • This ignores that 4chan is widely known as the cesspool of the internet and attracts those types. It’s like going on Hexbear and being surprised at the communists. People gather where their banners are. Shit attracts shit. This reduction is apt.

    Sure it kind of does some good ish things sometimes, but more often than not, it’s just an internet mob internet mobbing. That’s essentially all it is: chaos waves constantly crashing back in on itself. Any good that comes from it is incidental at best.

    Also, defending 4chan on the wider Internet is a little odd, 4chan itself revels in its shit reputation…


  • There’s an old proverb I like about this: a person is smart but people are dumb.

    People en masse tend to be dumber than they are apart. I think you’re comparing yourself to the faceless masses. It’s much more humbling to try comparing yourself to someone you respect (but don’t do it as a “I’m not as good as them” thing, only do it as a “goals to maybe achieve one day” thing to avoid accidentally trashing your self esteem)

    Side note: old proverb here means I think my dad said it once but I have no idea where it actually came from



    1. you don’t have to understand it, you just shouldn’t be a legislative genocidal asshole about it (not that that’s what you’re doing, but that’s what republicans seem to do to anything they think isn’t their slim sliver of a definition of “normal”)

    2. if you’re talking about furries, to my layman’s understanding of the subculture, that’s not how the vast majority of furries relate to themselves. From what I’ve seen, it’s not that they are the animal itself, they are the aspects of the animal, and those things are just little icons that they’re like boosting because they resonate with it. That said, there are at least a few people who DO feel that way, but I’m pretty sure they have a special category name (ferals? I think that’s what they’re called but I could be wrong, this is some deep lore I picked up years ago). If they do have that special name and I’m not just making that part up, then that implies that most furries do not feel that way about themselves.

    But, acknowledging the existence of people like that at all does validate your question in my mind. I don’t really understand that extreme either. My only point is that most furries are what you would likely consider “normal”, they just have a particular hobby. It’s no more nefarious or odd than being into gender bending cosplay. You’re just taking something (yourself rather than an anime/video game character) and twisting it into something artistically different (a fursona instead of a cosplay outfit).

    …no I did not intend to write that much defending furries but here we are lmao





  • As one who was raised Evangelical Christian for the majority of my childhood by a devout and Republican parent, I’m pretty sure it’s just a death cult.

    They live their whole lives only preparing to die.

    They forsake and forego a lot of random stuff in favor of rewards after death.

    And if they think it’ll get them any bonus, they don’t care if they take everyone else with them, hence the Republican Evangelical politicians generally trying to supply the ingredients for the battle of Armageddon to happen.

    Tldr; I think it’s greed typical of those who would fully knowledgeably choose to be a Republican combined with the beliefs of an Evangelical trying to cash in on rewards asap, in the way a Republican typically does.






  • I’m not sure if this would accomplish what you’re looking for, but it did give me an idea: wouldn’t it be cool if they had a monitor that used the fake ink effect (that thing that non-backlit digital books sometimes use) to make displays look “more natural” (read: different in an interesting way)

    I think that’d be cool at the very least, and, due to it not being backlit, it would possibly get rid of the blue light issue (i’m not an expert in this field so idk how much of an issue blue light actually is when it comes to dopamine overdrive)

    I might try and make a monitor like this if I can gather the skills to do it, I am only getting more excited about this idea lol

    Ty for the inspiration!



  • Ah I can’t really argue with that.

    Republicans “trust me, bro”'d the US into shitty situations time and time again, and I’m slightly worried if we give them the ability to ban apps, they will not stop until the only shit left is Truth Social. They love their fucking echo chambers, as much as they used to rail against them.

    I think that’s why my kneejerk reaction is to distrust their reasoning, but I did get what I was looking for in another part of this thread:

    If the CCP can monitor you indefinitely, and have enough man/ai power to pull it off, they could theoretically social engineer infrastructure attacks without actually putting themselves at almost any legal risk (blackmailing is always illegal, but the methods used to get the blackmail would be hidden in the tandc’s)

    Unfortunately, all I hear from republicans is tiktok=China, China=bad without any of these sorts of details, which is why I approached this with such skepticism initially

    I literally can not imagine what life in China must be like. Especially for someone of about my socioeconomic class. I may have seen American Factory a while ago, but in case I’m thinking of the wrong thing, I’ll check it out again. Thanks for the rec!

    (Also, in case it’s not clear, I wasn’t saying the US was anywhere near as bad as or better than China in regards to anything, just that I couldn’t tell if this specific rattling was just republican red scare bs or if it actually had substance to it. Turns out, there’s some substance to it, they’re just not articulating a position well on it, imo)


  • I would say malicious malware shouldn’t be sold on the app store and that anyone who hosts it should suffer whatever fallout it comes with (not the end users, the apk providers). However, due to the US being The Way That It Is™, we don’t actually have any recourse like that for providers of malware. As for spyware… I guess it probably should be handled like malware too. Eh you got me lol

    I’ve said a couple different places in this thread I support a ban of tiktok on government phones and in at least one other place I support a ban of it on military bases, but my main issue was that I couldn’t figure out how it could be used for nefarious purposes outside of government phones or areas.

    As for “you have the right to work with the data models, but not remove the data from US soil”, that’s a new one, I’ll have to think about that some more. Good point though, I think.



  • I think the paranoia is what I was looking for, so thank you for delivering!

    For the most obvious: idk, I think people should generally have a healthy distrust of those in government positions. Maybe ideally not, but in reality, it’s necessary to not be taken advantage of by any manner of power hungry people. If tiktok half truths inspire someone to start actually looking at what xyz government has done, then that’s a win in my book. If they just eat the half truths as is straight from tiktok, that’s when there’s a problem, but that’s what my “why don’t they educate people on how to spot propaganda” is to address.

    Less reasonable: I think people should be allowed to do what they want to do long as it doesn’t infringe on the health and safety of another. I guess you can split hairs about it decreasing health due to people working out less or something like that, but I don’t think that’s a good enough reason for government action.

    Unreasonable: this actually seems the most reasonable to me, believe it or not. Military people posting the wrong thing at the wrong time from even a personal account can and has had bad effects on security before. That’s why I would support a ban of any spyware-like app on government devices and on military bases (this was originally only support for a ban on gov devices, but I think if we’re thinking about security, banning it in places where leaks may cost lives makes sense)

    As for the endless possibilities of leveraging mental illness knowledge of a user, I’m afraid I can’t imagine what one could do. The only time I can imagine that would really matter is if China takes over the US and goes full genocide on the population. I think the world would go down in nuclear flames before that would happen though…