The anti🚫-derailment🚃 & thread🧵 hijacking🔫 thread🧵 ⁉

[Eriequiet]

Don’t wanna polute the endochron thread,

@Satur9
Has anyone looked at how the wifi power harvesting stuff compares to the beta voltiacs? Flesh might cause too much shielding possibly

[Satur9]

Yeah, I’ve looked into wifi and Bluetooth power harvesting. Unfortunately they don’t look viable.

1. you need there to actually be 2.4GHz signals in the vicinity to capture, and you’re sapping power from them
2. the capacitance of your skin will attenuate more more than 75% of the signal strength at 1mm depth
3. the antennas need to be very large and flat, and tuning is normally somewhat difficult, but much more so in a body with belligerent and numerous parasitics.

If somebody wants to try it they’re more than welcome. I just don’t think it will work and couldn’t in good conscience ask someone to shed blood for a test that I believe is doomed to failure.

[Eriequiet]

That’s fair, I knew it wasn’t going to produce much juice, just wondered how 25% of not much compared to a betavotic

[invalid_signal]

I’d be a willing test subject, just don’t have the know how
Though if anyone would like to send me some new prototypes, I’d be more than willing to get them installed and test them out for you, especially if it’s got blinkies

[SnarkBe]

What’s the yellow star some people have next to their avatar, like @amal for instance?

[Aoxhwjfoavdlhsvfpzha]

The stars are a part of DT Club, more info here:

Can I join an email list or something?

We often get requests from people who want to join an email list so they can get announcements about a particular product or release. We do not maintain an official email list, and we don’t really send out emails. If you want to be kept up to date with the happenings around here, we do have the following options; Announcements category Join this forum and subscribe to the announcements category. We post all updates there, and if you subscribe you will get an email alerting you to any new posts…

[Coma]

@Satur9

We’re terrible creatures. I’ll side with the artificial any day. I’d prefer to be an animate object.

I’m afraid to stir up a heated discussion again, and I hope it doesn’t happen, but… why this self-hate? I read this frequently here, and so I feel like I just have to ask.
I have big problems with mankind as a whole myself, yes - mankind has done terrible things. We pollute and exploit the earth, are responsible for the extinction of whole species, can’t even manage to get along with the rest of mankind that just happens to live across the next (artificial) border. “We” create stupid concepts like capitalism or religions to justify this behaviour. And yes, all this is really a problem and not a good business card for humans.
But still… everyone of us is human, and while I totally dislike “mankind”, I just cannot say I hate every human being. I met wonderful people, warmhearted people, people with mindsets so unusual and interesting that they helped me evolve a bit. I met people who deciced to share their lives with me, no matter how difficult, strange and broken I may be. I met people who try to reduce the negative impact mankind has on the world, in tiny but important steps.
And while I hated myself for being part of “mankind” for quite some time, I realized that I am also a part of small, nice communities, that I share similarities not only with war lords and people who torture animals, but also with those who do good. And I realized that it is a lot healthier to look at the “good stuff” and the positive capabilities we all, as humans, have, than to revel in self-hate just because other beings of the same species are behaving like shit.
After all, we are all just made of stardust - so I am a part of humanity, a part of the animal world, a part of the big forest I can see when I look out of the window, a part of the clouds, a part of the earth underneath my feet. And that’s all neither “good” nor “bad”, that depends on what I make of it.

Obviously, just my humble opinion, I am just a bit surprised by the amount of times I read about someone hating to be human here. So I had to ask

[Eyeux]

@amal

was a perfectly good way to refer to a person in a gender non-specific way, before gender pronouns came into the social spotlight.

Since we are in this topic:

While I do appreciate the whole Queer Awareness movement, and do Appreciate that for some people being able to be finally called as they want is a huge step…

Here comes a controversial opinion:

This whole insane emphasis on pronouns is actually retrograde.
I mean… The real issue here is that Gender is an outdated and harmful concept.

The only real use for gender in a modern world is to achieve dominance by a “superior” caste over an “inferior” one.
As an example, “having balls” is a synonym of being brave/strong while “being a pussy” is associated with being a coward/weak. (and I’ll not even say that just a flick to someone’s nuts will send then crying while a pussy can withstand
incommensurable amounts of pain during labour).

I mean, this gender divide is literally the same thing as the black/white divide we now are so ashamed our ancestors did that we can’t even use the word “black” to describe someone without being afraid of suffering whiplash for it. (used here intentionally).

But I honestly see no difference on the use of Gender as to the use of Race. (Both should be abolished concepts)

So the more we put focus on “pronouns”, the more we’re strengthening the notion that Gender actually matters.

Also on a “funny” note, Take a look at all those “gender pins” you see around. The ones which aren’t handmade from scratch are usually mass produced by factories owned by people exactly like Donald ‘Tramp’… There’s some irony there, right?

Neopronouns on the other hand… love it!! ^^

Ok, controversial opinion out of the way (and please, do feel free to tell me to fuck off if you disagree.)…

So back to the pronoun thing @amal said:
Technically, “it” can be used when you address anything/person while being non-considerate of individuality. This should not be something “bad”, but our human-centric society does love to nitpick it…

While “They” is a perfectly valid way to address an unknown/undefined entity, it is (or used to be) not a valid way to address a single, known entity. in which case “it” should be the preferred gender-neutral pronoun.
We just corrupted ‘they’ into being used as a gender-neutral thingie either way.

but as quite a few British friends already told me (in multiple isolated occasions):
“The problem of native english speakers is that we just use the words. We never had a real reason to actually try to understand what they mean.”

Also, totally agree with this:

@Satur9

I don’t usually communicate or enforce my preferred pronouns because there are plenty of people (like trans people) who have suffered for theirs.

Although it does drive me mad when I’m in a group with people and someone asks me “what’s your preferred pronoun”…

if I reply “whichever between it to Fae/Faer”, there is often someone who turns around and exclaims “those are not valid pronouns”.

What is even more shocking is that most of the times it happened to me was someone Trans who came with that ‘zinger’. (Don’t worry, I do not generalise it)

And since I would rather not cause a fuzz about it. Especially being aware that “denying others of the validity of any variation to what you identify as your identity” is a very efficient means of achieving oneself’s own Identity… (Just look up basically any teenager development psychology studies), Then I just gave up replying altogether.

[enginerd]

@Satur9

You’re working under the assumption that being human is desirable.

@Satur9

I’ll side with the artificial any day.

I agree.

@Coma

Obviously, just my humble opinion, I am just a bit surprised by the amount of times I read about someone hating to be human here. So I had to ask

I don’t hate humans or being human but I dislike the weaknesses and drawbacks of biology… And I think that even if you manage to upload yourself to silicon and become either an AI or a robot of some sort, you’d be just as human as before in many ways. At least if you actually succeed at doing this right.

[yeka]

I feel trapped in my human brain. Always these stupid feelings and stuff… I wish I could just modify myself like I can modify software.
If software is not perfect you edit it, if hardware sucks you upgrade, changing yourself and other humans is between hard and impossible.

Humans are at a very early stage of evolution, barely functioning, brutal, greedy and dumb… just bad at humaning.
Humanity can become something great, but all humans alive are shitty.
Compared to what we could be, we are all shitty.

I wish I had more time right now, I’ll try to get back to this @Coma

[Zwack]

I love the fact that I can come here and read well thought out commentary on pronouns and being human.

As far as pronouns, I will use those that people express a preference for, but I won’t ask. It doesn’t bother me that people have “non traditional” preferences for pronouns but I suspect that people who do have a preference will let me know.

While there are times that I wish to be separate from the worst of humanity, there are other times that the best of humanity astounds me with its creativity, kindness and, for want of a better word “grace”.

[yeka]

Niklas Abel

This never occured to me, you can generate secrets for secure chips badly, so they become predictable and thus maybe clone secure chips to implants.

We should probably add the lock to the product matrix :’)

[Satur9]

@Coma

why this self-hate?

It doesn’t matter how many “good” people there are, even if it was 99%. I enjoy interacting with most humans I meet, but the nicest person in the world doesn’t “offset” someone else’s transgressions. If the general trajectory of our society is decided by bad actors, then we have a bad society. Currently selfishness and greed dictate our course. I think it’s possible that we could do some course corrections, but I can’t predict the likelihood of that happening. No person is “good” while they allow evil to flourish.

Just looking at the good stuff is definitely better for your mental health, but solely highlighting the good only masks the bad. I suspect it might be so confusing to you because you live in a real country. The United States is a terrible place. Truly, truly terrible. It makes us hate it and ourselves.

[Satur9]

@Eyeux

But I honestly see no difference on the use of Gender as to the use of Race. (Both should be abolished concepts)

That’s nice and all. I think most people would agree with you. I don’t think anybody would say “okay we’re there as a society so let’s flip a switch and deactivate race and gender as a concept” though . In the meantime diversifying those previously binary concepts into a spectrum really muddies the waters in a good way, because you know how much people love navigating ambiguity and nuance in their day-to-day! This is the way. Unfortunately change takes time, so we’ll have to deal with this “what are your pronouns” awkwardness for a few years before it becomes commonplace and we can move on to something better

[Coma]

@Satur9

solely highlighting the good only masks the bad

Of course! This wasn’t really what I meant… there are lots of bad things happening, and it’s definitely not a good idea to just deny them or kinda mask them out. We have to know what’s going wrong, so we can try to do better, to change course, like you said.
But - I just take one random example here - I can definitely cry about the amount of rainforest destroyed, it is indeed a topic that can bring me to tears, and I feel bad and helpless afterwards. Or I can take a look at what other people do to protect it, and if there is a way I can support that. It might be a tiny thing, the proverbial drop of water on a stone, but a) I’ll feel less helpless and b) if enough people do something, it has an effect. I’m not naive, I know lots of people do terrible stuff, but me crying about that changes nothing at all, except for my mood - and not to the better. I had to do a lot with animal rights in my youth, all the bad stuff - fur industry, animal cruelty, terrible pictures of animal transports, bullfighting, all that stuff, and it made me sick. It made me hate mankind and myself. And it didn’t change anything at all… This was back in the 90s. By now, I kinda switched my focus to being more solution-oriented and try to do the little things I can do to make it a little bit better - and funny enough, I think lots of people had that idea, for some things have changed to the better since the 90s. Not all, not even enough, but at least a bit.
I think we have no chance to become AI, “cyborgs”, machines or anything similar yet, and so we should to what we - as humans - can do. And not be angry about what we can’t.

@Satur9

I think most people would agree with you

I have a stupid question about that - I’m fine with people being able to change their gender or to use a pronoun or anything that feels more fitting, but… why is “gender” itself necessarily bad? I am incredibly happy to be a woman. I’m fine with anyone who’s not, and who decides to be a man instead, or anything in between, but that doesn’t make “gender” itself a bad thing, or does it? I think I’m not getting the point yet…

[Satur9]

@Coma

By now, I kinda switched my focus to being more solution-oriented and try to do the little things I can do to make it a little bit better - and funny enough, I think lots of people had that idea, for some things have changed to the better since the 90s. Not all, not even enough, but at least a bit.

The key modifier here being little. Solving the problems in our society won’t be done by millions of people making minor changes to their daily routines. That’s a smokescreen put in place by bad actors to make us complacent. We feel like we’re doing something, but we’re actually just sitting by as they pursue their agendas.

I can manage my mental health to a degree where I can hate humanity, while redirecting that energy towards solving the problems that poison us.

@Coma

I think we have no chance to become AI, “cyborgs”, machines or anything similar yet

I disagree. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m full speed ahead in developing the future. The only thing limiting our ability to augment ourselves right now is capital. Technology is at an amazing point.

@Coma

but… why is “gender” itself necessarily bad? I am incredibly happy to be a woman.

Eyeux already said. Defining differences between genders and races in a societal context only serves to elevate one group at the cost of another. You’ve shared thoughts like this before, when you explained that you’re a strong independent woman who can fend for herself. Despite your strength (and ignoring the fact that there are women with a different constitution than you) you’re still a woman in our society.

That means you have artificially imposed disadvantages when compared side by side with a man. You make less money for the same work, the healthcare and regulatory structures don’t adequately address your gender’s unique needs, and socially you have diminished status (at least in the eyes of those who cling to the old ways).

The idea is to work towards a world where these structures that impose disadvantages on some are abolished. We’re not suggesting that everyone should be androgynous, emotionless grey husks (despite what the slippery slope people think). You can be a woman with feminine attributes. You just shouldn’t be punished for it.

[Zwack]

@Coma

why is “gender” itself necessarily bad?

It isn’t. But like Race, Sexuality, Religion, Handedness,… It can be used as grounds for discrimination.

The concept of getting rid of gender to reduce discrimination is laudable, but in some cases will be replaced by discrimination against perceived gender. So much better.

As for taking small actions yourself, that can be powerful when many people take the same small actions. As an example look at the changes to Venice when the pandemic first hit. Water quality improved, wildlife returned, and all because of people individually staying at home.

[Eyeux]

Damn. I do like this whole debate, but am extremely short on time today! >.<

So will focus on this point:

@Coma

why is “gender” itself necessarily bad?

Lets start with: “Gender” is not inherently bad.

But Gender, exactly like Race, is something used worldwide to force people into submission and to create a veiled “caste” system.

Therefore, just like anything which can cause so much harm, it’s purpose must be offset by it’s capacity to cause good.

So let’s think what good “gender” brings us??

Not joking, I cannot think a single item which is still valid on the modern world.

So let’s crawl a little bit deeper into this rabbit role:
What purpose, apart from control, does “gender” still has?

Again, I cannot list anything.

Even when you say:

@Coma

I am incredibly happy to be a woman.

Tat is a great thing! but I bet what makes you happy would still be there even if we remove “gender” from the equation.

I mean, physiology is unrelated to gender.
Social role is also unrelated to gender.
How people read you is, again, also unrelated to gender.
Who feels attracted to you… again, unrelated to gender. (Although here we have gender fucking things up a lot. such as Homophobia which happens when someone feels attracted by a specific physiology which is associated to a “gender they are not supposed to like”)

So in short:

Gender is not a “bad” thing per se.
It’s just an outdated concept which has no purpose to continue existing.
but since it’s abused for nefarious ends, should be abolished.

Also, 100% this:

@Satur9

The idea is to work towards a world where these structures that impose disadvantages on some are abolished. We’re not suggesting that everyone should be androgynous, emotionless grey husks (despite what the slippery slope people think). You can be a woman with feminine attributes. You just shouldn’t be punished for it.

[Satur9]

@Zwack

and all because of people individually staying at home.

Only collectively though. It wasn’t because many people unilaterally decided to stay home of their own volition for the good of the canals. It was because of a societal pressure for everyone to stay home as a group. Also, improving the environment wasn’t the motivation here for anyone involved. If it had been they could have done more. But it would have been wholly remarkable if everyone had decided to make dramatic personal behavioral changes solely for the sake of the cities ecosystem.

[Zwack]

My point was that simple, individual changes on a large scale CAN have a significant impact.