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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)W
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2 mo. ago

Wherever I wander I wonder whether I'll ever find a place to call home...

  • You must take lessons in how to miss the point and dodge the question while responding to something that no one said, to argue against something no one claimed.

    It's not just about third-party voters, it's also about non-voters. Not people who can't vote, and only partly about people who aren't registered to vote. It's about registered voters who didn't vote, either because they were lazy, busy, didn't have transportation, or because they were deliberately boycotting the vote. More registered voters abstained in 2024 than there were voters for either candidate.

    Laziness can only be addressed with civics education. Busyness can be addressed by making election day a federal holiday and making it illegal for employers to schedule double-shifts that day for businesses that are open. Transportation can be addressed by bolstering public transit infrastructure and adding state-funded shuttle services on election day.

    The boycotters can only be addressed by convincing people to ignore all the anti-election propaganda which is being peddled on social media. If leftists actually believe in harm reduction, they would understand why voting for Kamala Harris would have been magnitudes better than allowing trump to win...

  • That's specifically narcissism. Don't lump borderline in with that shit, life is already a personal hell for folks with BPD and they don't need people getting them confused with narcissists.

    Also, narcissistic is an adjective. NPD is a personality disorder, but someone can have narcissistic traits without it being a fullblown personality disorder. Ask any psychologist.

    Fuck narcissists by the way. I'm not defending them, just correcting some misinformation.

  • Fascists had their guns drawn while they got out of their vehicle to assault to person whose car they just hit...

  • Are those the same AI systems that recommended nuclear escalation in 90% of simulations?

  • Uh huh, likely stories. Sounds like something a ghost would say 🤨

  • Why do you say ghosts' purported impact is on a scale above that which is unexplained?

    Quantum fields impact the universe on a scale above their own. It's entirely possible that the explanation for ghosts is on the quantum scale or smaller, and the observable effects are just that: effects of a much subtler phenomenon.

  • What vocabulary did they make up?

  • Saying "science has never reliably shown something" is not the same as "science has definitively proven something false." Claiming otherwise is anti-scientific and logically fallacious.

    According to the scientific worldview, we don't know what we don't know until we know it. Otherwise, we would never discover anything new.

    I'm not saying ghosts are real. I'm just encouraging a healthy skepticism, whether for or against. So I'll play devil's advocate and respond in turn to each of your "million ways" it fails the smell test.

    What makes a ghost exist?

    We don't know, but there's a lot we don't know. What makes gravity exist? What made matter and energy exist? What causes the big bang? What is the origin and nature of dark matter?

    There's a lot we don't understand about the universe, so the answer could be as simple as a cloud of electrons or even photons, or as complex as a field of quantum fluctuations, dark matter, a previously undiscovered type of boson, a state of matter beyond plasma where the particles vibrate so rapidly that they're mostly unobservable, a range of electromagnetic frequencies with wavelengths so fine that our instruments can't detect them, or even an entity in a higher dimension that ephemerally crosses the plane of our familiar third dimension.

    Why aren’t we positively lousy with ghosts?

    The answer depends on the above, but it could be that we are and just can't observe them under ordinary circumstances. Or perhaps there's a different place where they go, or possibly a different dimension, and we only notice the ones who get stuck here somehow. Or perhaps there's some sort of ethereal ecosystem which keeps the ghost population in check like birds do for insects.

    Are there rules?

    Probably, but there are plenty of rules in the universe we don't understand. What rule is responsible for gravity? Why does dark matter behave the way it does? Why do quantum fluctuations behave the way they do? Why does spacetime behave the way it does? And why do quantum mechanics and general relativity seem to describe contradictory sets of rules for the same universe, albeit at different scales relative to the one at which newtonian physics are accurate?

    Until we figure out unified field theory, dark matter, and that higher dimension thing, we can't pretend we've described every rule in the universe.

    What would they be and what mechanism is there to both quantify and effect them?

    This has already been addressed under "what makes them exist?"

    Why do ghosts follow the rotation and revolution of the earth but otherwise aren’t physically bound?

    It could be that their physically-boundedness is just subtler than most things we've observed. They could maintain their relative position gravitationally or by friction, or possibly through electromagnetism, quantum entanglement, exertion of conscious effort, or simply some higher-dimensionality which allows them to be present anywhere they want at a given moment.

    How can one have any sort of cognition?

    How can any living human have any sort of cognition? There's a lot we don't understand there either. It could be that consciousness is a property of electromagnetic fields, in which case it would explain it if the ghosts were made of electron clouds. Or perhaps consciousness is a property of quantum fields, or something else we don't understand such as a higher-dimensional entity with more complex states of matter and energy, that simply can only perceive and interact with the world in three dimensions because those are the limitations of the physical organism it has developed to inhabit and maintain itself.

    So the answer to ghost cognition depends on the answer to human consciousness, which is still one of the major mysteries of the universe.

    Alternatively, perhaps ghosts aren't conscious at all and only appear to be, but they're really more like a complex sort of jellyfish, mindlessly following patterns that were set by the mind of the conscious entity prior to the death of the physical organism.

    If a ghost does, how can it perceive anything without intercepting photons or other physical phenomena?

    Perhaps it directly perceives electromagnetic waves that enter its field of existence, or perhaps there's some higher-dimensional perspective that allows them to observe the 3-dimensional world from the outside.

    We don't intercept photons when we dream, yet our brains construct images. So physical sensation is not a necessary precondition to mental perception.

    If there are ghosts and somehow they have cognition and perception, are we obligated to leave Netflix on when we leave for work?

    No, that's when they're busy conspiring with your cats. And I'm sure they would have plenty of entertainment observing the antics of the living without requiring mortal means of diversion.

  • I think no human could possibly say something as ludicrous as "the news gives me peace."

    Is openclaw on lemmy now?

  • She should be banned from national politics.

  • Fuckin tankies.

  • They even got the shadow on the wall from the camera flash...

    Edit: also, the computer instructed to make this image was probably like "Hmmm. Mental note"

  • You just don't want to engage the challenging idea of defining "challenging ideas."

  • Is that what you think dancing is?

  • Epstein probably posted it himself

  • According to some distros, source is reality. According to other distros, binary is reality. But the truth is in the middle way: binary and source are the same.

  • That's why I said if it's implemented well. Good implementation implies selecting the right people for the job.

    A compliance officer doesn't have to be a cop, he could hire someone from the public defender's office or even a civil sector human rights org

  • If your government's official policy is to fight any other nation's or group of nations' "sovereignty initiatives," you're not the good guys.

  • I said "I don't need to dance around," implying "my worldview already aligns with reality and I don't need to contort either to get them to fit together."

    What part of that do you interpret as meaning "I actually can't argue against your opinion that's divorced from reality even though you're the one skewing facts and 'dancing around' just to try and validate your asinine take"?

    If you expect the whole world to twist itself to cater to your needs and wants, then you're probably a fascist.

  • Linux @programming.dev

    Question about resurrecting a discontinued distro