Opinionhaver

joined 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

In many cases, yes - but my work also involves a lot of things that I’m doing for the very first time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

I’m a general contractor, and I think a lot of my customers assume I know everything about construction work - that whenever I’m doing something, it’s something I’ve done dozens of times before. But quite often, that’s not the case. Sometimes, all I know about the task at hand comes from a YouTube video I watched the night before, or I’m just following the manufacturer’s instructions step by step.

People don’t realize how often I’m just winging it and hoping it turns out fine. The fact that someone hires me usually means they know even less about the job than I do, which creates the illusion of much greater expertise. But in reality, the main difference between me and them often just boils down to the fact that I'm not afraid to try.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

It's abstract and doesn't sound like anything. I'm not literally hearing anything just like I'm not literally seeing anything either when I'm visualizing things despite my ability to do so.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Independent of what anyone is actually saying, the mere fact that someone is commenting on social media at all makes it highly likely they’re one of the people the article is talking about. As the saying goes, a tiny number of users produce nearly all the content. Most people don’t post comments online. The average person doesn’t. So if someone does, that alone already marks them as unusual in some way.

This becomes especially obvious on Lemmy, where you can see people’s moderation history - and it takes only a few seconds to notice how many users are spouting mean, violent, and extremist views. You might not see those views as extreme because this is an echo chamber and you probably agree with them, but they’re extreme nonetheless when compared to what the average person would say.

Nobody ever thinks of themselves as the problem - we all have some story about how our behavior is justified and how those people over there are the real issue. Nah, you're probably part of the issue as well. I am too.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 hours ago

Nobody has claimed otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Consciousness, meditation, stoicism, zombie apocalypse, prepping, trolley problems, superintelligence, the alignment problem, AI apocalypse, Ukraine or Palestine conflict ...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago

I can't argue with that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago

I consider anything over 500 watts to be getting into motorbike territory. I’m talking about a bicycle. All I need from the motor is enough assistance to offset the weight and rolling resistance of the big wheels - and then a little extra. I still like to pedal myself. My current bike has 5.05" tires, and 250W of pedal-assist is more than enough to take me anywhere I want to go. The limiting factor isn’t power - it’s range.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

I’d want the absolute best two-wheeled monster truck.

– A rigid steel frame with custom geometry built to my specs
– An extra-long frame, something in the vein of the Surly Moonlander
– 24 x 6.2" Surly tires
– A mid-drive motor with an integrated gearbox
– Belt drive
– Power output slightly above the legal 250W limit to make up for the added weight
– At least a 1000Wh battery
– AWD system from Christini, with a switch to engage the front wheel
– Matte camo paintjob

 

Can be one that already exists or a completely custom one.

 

I'll fight anyone who claims otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

Not just kids - I find myself talking more and more with LLM's as well. Neither my friends, my partner or the people I hang around online are interested in talking about the stuff I'm interested in. Neither is ChatGPT but atleast it pretends to be.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

And what does that have to do with anything? Sweden’s population has grown from 8 million in the '70s to 10.5 million today. That’s 2.5 million more people - and 1.9 million of them are immigrants. The number of immigrants per capita has increased significantly since the '70s, not decreased. It has gone from 3.7% of the total population to 20.8%.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

According to wikipedia their support was at around 4% in the 90's, 5.7% in 2010, 17.5% in 2018 and 20% in 2022.

There was a peak in immigration in the '70s, but that was still only half of what it was in 2015. I doubt it’s just a coincidence that their support seems to correlate pretty neatly with the number of immigrants. I never claimed that it’s the gang violence driving the increased support - it’s the immigration itself. The rise in violence just makes it easier for them to say “I told you so.”

 

Everyone likes to believe they’re thinking independently. That they’ve arrived at their beliefs through logic, self-honesty, and some kind of epistemic discipline. But here’s the problem - that belief itself is suspiciously comforting. So how can you tell it’s true?

What if your worldview just happens to align neatly with your temperament, your social environment, or whatever gives you emotional relief? What if your reasoning is just post-hoc justification for instincts you already wanted to follow? That’s what scares me - not being wrong, but being convinced I’m right for reasons that are more about mood than method.

It reminds me of how people think they’d intervene in a violent situation - noble in theory, but until it happens, it's all just talk. So I’m asking: what’s your actual evidence that you think the way you think you do? Not in terms of the content of your beliefs, but the process behind them. What makes you confident you’re reasoning - not just rationalizing?

 

Made by YouTuber Cyber Hooligan

 

If you have investments, let’s treat those as liquid cash for the sake of argument. Otherwise, the assumption is that you’re not selling property or possessions, but continuing to live as you do now.

 

I tried to hollow it out as much as possible to cut down on weight, while still making sure it’s overbuilt enough to support the corner of a 2000 kg pickup truck. I’m planning to use 98 × 48 mm lumber.

Open to suggestions on how to improve it. My only concern is the stop block - it’s not any higher than the previous steps. I could make the tire sit deeper in that “well,” but that would reduce the overall height.

 

Zinc primer, acrylic base coat, and 2K clear coat.

What I learned:

  • Don’t cheap out on the paint and clear coat. The difference in quality between box-store products and real automotive ones can’t be overstated. They’re as much of higher quality than they're more expesive.

  • Buy more product than you think you’ll need. Just do it.

  • Surface prep, surface prep, surface prep. Paint and clear coat don’t hide imperfections at all. If you can feel it with your fingers, you’ll see it through the paint.

  • Avoid “smart 2K” products where you don’t need to mix in the hardener. I’ve tried them twice and both times got terrible results. It’s not that they don’t work, but they’re really finicky if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.

  • Close the doors so bugs don’t fly in, and wet the floor/ground to keep dust from getting airborne.

  • Cover the entire vehicle before painting. Overspray dust goes everywhere and settles on every unprotected surface - ask me how I know.

  • Keep an eye on the spray nozzle and wipe it down occasionally. If it starts gunking up, it’ll spit droplets and ruin your finish.

 

I don't get why anyone would want to listen to this kind on noise.

 

The "dead internet" theory gets thrown around a lot these days especially by people critical of AI. The worry is that large language models and bots will flood the web with so much synthetic content that real human interaction will disappear - that everything will become artificial, empty, and repetitive.

But I’d argue we’re already well into that phase - and it didn’t take AI to get us here.

Originality is rare. Most content is recycled, reposted, reformatted like an endless stream of re-runs. Even the way people respond has become increibly predictable. You can write something mildly controversial or just unfamiliar, and you already know what you’re going to get: knee-jerk downvotes, the same tired comebacks, some vague accusation about your motives or identity - not a genuine engagement with the point. People don’t seem to read anymore so much as scan for whether you’re “one of them” or not.

And that’s the thing. Most users aren’t engaging with ideas - they’re running scripts. They’ve absorbed certain patterns from years online and now just execute them reflexively: a snarky quote from a meme here, a one-liner they saw get upvotes last week there. It’s social media call-and-response. And it’s killing the internet way more effectively than any AI could.

And yes, I already know how some people will respond to this - with some version of “I’ve never had those issues, maybe you’re the problem.” But never facing pushback isn’t a flex when you’ve been conditioned to avoid it. It’s like priding yourself on never failing when in reality you’ve never even taken a risk. Of course it feels like everything is fine if you’ve learned how to blend in. You’ve trained yourself not to touch the wire. That doesn’t disprove the problem. It is the problem.

 

God damnit, that was an expensive ride.

Now I’m trying to find one identical to this so I can use it for parts. I just hope this isn’t a common issue with this frame and that I just got unlucky with mine.

Would’ve been an easy fix if the frame were steel - but from what I understand, welding isn’t really an option with these alloy frames.

 

I mentioned that I’d never been in an electric vehicle before, so he just told me to hop in, and we went for a spin around the block - even tested the acceleration a bit.

This is one of the perks of being self-employed: I’m free to do things completely unrelated to my work if I feel like it. And honestly, it’s amazing to see how kind people are outside the internet. My faith in humanity is being restored one customer at a time.

 

Poor countries are catching up and getting richer faster than the rich countries are - and the accumulation of wealth by the global top 10% is actually decreasing, while the wealth of the bottom 50% is on the rise.

Source

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