QuietCupcake [any, they/them]

I just wanted to broaden the horizon and yap about an interest

It was an excellent comment, I learned from it and have an even deeper appreciation for GPS now.

I agree that GPS has had a significant even profound effect on us as a global society and as individuals, I just think that it’s far from the only technology that has. But fair enough on it being one of the better examples.

Alright this just struck me as so on so many levels. Like, not just the randomness of GPS being the specific thing that is the singular modern miracle, not just that new-fangled technology existing that people who are now dead didn’t get to experience is the reason why it’s sad they’re dead, but even why it is noteworthy that Helen Mirren has these thoughts, and why was she saying this of Kurt Cobain of all people?

I figured there had to be more context, and there is, but nowhere near enough to adequately answer my questions. Apparently though, this isn’t a one-off. She is known for talking about Kurt Cobain and how modern technology relates to his death.

Of course, the comment came amid a broader point she was making about aging. “If you’re lucky, you get to be older,” she continued. “And then there you are. Oh my God, I’m 79! I never thought I’d be 79. And then you say, OK, well this is it. This is what 79 is. And it’s kind of OK. It’s not brilliant, but it was not that brilliant to be 25 either.”

Mirren has referenced Cobain numerous times in the past when discussing the nature of aging. In 2014, she told Oprah Winfrey, “Look at Kurt Cobain — he hardly even saw a computer! The digital stuff that’s going on is so exciting. I’m just so curious about what happens next.”

A year later, she told Cosmopolitan, “I was thinking about Kurt Cobain the other day and he died without knowing the internet, and I’m totally blown away by that.” And, in 2016, she said to the Daily Mail, “If I’d died at 27, the age that Kurt Cobain [of rock band Nirvana] died in 1994, I’d never have even known there was an internet! Incredible things are happening all the time and I can’t wait to see what comes next.”

I suppose it’s mildly (very mildly) interesting to know that some celebrity I have a vague notion of (Mirren) is an unlikely fan of another celebrity who I was once a huge fan of. And I guess everyone has their own unique ways of contemplating their mortality.

Yeah, unfortunately 12ft.io didn’t keep up with the paywall arms race. It’s too bad because it was one of those things that a lot of people knew about, many of whom may now just give up when it doesn’t work even though there are other options out there.

As one example, there’s now also the 13ft ladder: https://github.com/wasi-master/13ft It’s like 12ft but self hosted. Sounds really good but I can’t vouch for it yet.

I mostly would just archive a paywallrd page with archive.is (aka archive.today, archive.ph, etc.) and that worked great and also helped take traffic away from asshole sites that paywall content. Unfortunately, archive started requiring a cloud flare captcha when archiving a page. This is a deal breaker for me since captcha totally deanonymizes you and is used for tracking purposes and even to train AI. So it defeats a good chunk of the purpose of using an archive site.

Still, there’s a good chance that someone else already archived the page you want to see, so putting the url in archive.is search can be enough to bypass the paywall.

Those are copy cat sites. Fuck the Guardian but no, they’re not “lying.” Fmovies has been shut down for weeks now.

To be clear, where I was using the word “them” I meant the ruling class, not people in general. I see how some of my sentences weren’t worded well.

Bringing the ruling class into it… I don’t get it.

The idea that humans and human progress are inherently destructive is a lie told by the ruling class because getting people to believe it benefits them. Among other things it absolves them of their own crimes of destruction while simultaneously blaming the rest of us and our positive traits for those crimes. Somewhat ironically it’s a lie that helps lead to more destruction. See my other response to u/Sagittari.

Maybe could’ve done without the “The fuck are you on?” though I guess

To me it’s honestly a disgusting thing to claim that human progress and creativity is all based on destruction when in reality it’s the exact opposite. I don’t think my response was at all over the top given how harmful of a sentiment I think that is.

This stuff matters. Our biosphere is facing destruction at human hands but not because of our desire to create and build things, not because of our ability to express ourselves through our ingenuity to shape stone and wood. Those are not “destructive traits” but profoundly constructuve attributes. The destruction on the scale that it’s happening now to both the environment and much of human culture is because of, like I said, a social pathology that’s rooted in a system that rewards greed instead of trying to prevent it. It is a pathology that tries to equate greed and destruction with the creative aspects of human nature… just like the comment I responded to was doing. It’s a lie. Even if someone who has fallen for it may be well-meaning, they’re still perpetuating a very harmful (and destrctive!) misconception. So I think it deserves a strong, even emotionally-charged critical response.

The fuck are you on? “Destroy” stone? There is a vast gulf of difference between altering something, including in creative and constructive ways, and “destruction.” Most of us know the difference today and our ancestors certainly knew the difference. Human labor is in general a constructive force even if it can be used to destructive ends. Saying that “our willingness to destroy is the trait that powered our rise” is ahistorical nonsense and anti-human drivel. But it sounds an awful lot like the lying justifications the small subset of the current ruling class likes to use as an excuse and justification to exploit us and actually destroy our environment for the sake of their own narrow profit and greed. But that’s no more of a universal human trait than any other disgusting pathology that a select few are afflicted with.

What you’re doing isn’t realism, dipshit, it’s denialism.

I really hate to admit it, but I do use amazon quite a bit. It’s not “like me” to use a company or service I despise, despite the truth of “no ethical consumption under capitalism,” some businesses are just so evil that I feel it is wrong to support them in any way, even at the cost of convenience.

Here’s the situation though. I rely on foodstamp benefits to be able to afford food. Amazon allows me to buy food in bulk online with my ebt card. I also have a disability that makes it prohibitively difficult to go to the grocery store as often as I would need to, and bulk buying online also stretches the benefits I get much further than regular grocery visits. Walmart and Target also now allow ebt cards for online food shopping, but they didn’t used to, and they are evil as well!

I rationalize using amazon by telling myself that since mostly the only thing I get from them is food via ebt card, then it’s really just money going straight from my state government to amazon, and my state government (just like most others) gives amazon free money anyway, so I may as well get something out of their capitalist sweetheart deal too.

You have nothing to feel guilty about. Pirating is literally the more moral thing to do.

Sounds like your daughter is at just the right age to start learning a new language? (Half joking)

All the more reason to not use youtube directly and always go through frontends like piped, invidious, etc.

You misused a quotation mark?! How dare you!!! Everyone reading this could have actually thought NATO officially released a statement using the phrase ‘scawy Russian.’ (I hope I didn’t misuse those apostrophes right there.)

It wasn’t because the fascists thought they were fighting Jews (in this case), it was because most of the Chechen soldiers were Muslim, who also have prohibitions on using or consuming pigs. It was of course typical nazi-style petty racism, but it was specifically about targeting Muslims.

Not everyone in the audience is that.

For sure, and I hope it didn’t look like I was implying that. It’s why I made a point to say that “some of us reading” appreciate your commentary. The “lying, willfully ignorant” thing was referring specifically to Unruffled and empireOfLove who you and robinnn were replying to respectively. The long process of questioning propaganda and the widening cracks that you describe is similar to my own experience, and I even commented recently about how the purpose of debating people in these online threads is rarely to change the mind of the person you’re arguing with, but rather to speak to the audience and plant the seeds that their doubt will hopefully grow from over time.

It’s not that they “don’t have the balls” to do the right thing, it’s that they have a vested interest in doing the wrong thing. The US isn’t just failing to prevent genocide or punish those responsible, they are helping to conduct it.

I just want to thank you and @davel@lemmy.ml for the time and effort you put into these heavily-sourced and informative comments. Even if these lying, willfully ignorant shitlibs can’t appreciate it because it so clearly demonstrates how wrong they are and how little they know, some of us reading do appreciate it. I’ve learned a lot as a result and am better equipped to help others who might be willing to try to better understand the situation too.