In fairness, humans do this too. Ever share a meal where someone has already eaten? People find it extremely off-putting. It’s to the point where pacing your eating to someone else will make them like you more

Sure, you can do that. It’s obviously on you to figure out how you want to do it, but that’s exactly what no DRM means

And I don’t mean it’s technically possible, you can backup the game files through steam and put them on a flash drive, and there you go

Recently, a bunch of people on tik tok found this “bug” in their banking app where you can write a bad check, then withdraw the funds before it clears… Then started crying about it when their balances updated

Dude definitely thought he discovered a cool new life hack

But it’ll probably show 3 orders of meatballs, and she saw him get 3 meatballs. He just has to keep her from looking too closely

Oh, it works… It turns the group against the kid. They may or may not attempt to police the behavior, but they won’t do it effectively. They will resent the kid though

And isolated kids are famous for being obedient

Wait, our hat has oil? Eagle screech intensifies

Whose names include James, Heather, Roderick, Stephan, David, Carl, Doug, Pedro, Sarah, John, and Nick… Unhelpfully specific

Holy shit… When I got my wisdom teeth out, I literally broke down in tears after being awake for 20 minutes without Percocet

Friend, it’s ok to take opiates sometimes…

Kratom could be an option. You make it into tea, the first cup is a weak stimulant, the second (on an empty stomach) will start to work as a weak opiate. The third or fourth might give you stronger relief. The red strains are supposedly better for pain relief

You can’t OD on it, it’s commonly available in head shops or online. The addiction potential is very low, you’ll make yourself nauseous before getting what you’d get out of normal opiates. It’s most closely related to the coffee plant - the toxicity concerns are all about contamination, the plant itself is pretty innocuous

I can give brewing instructions if anyone wants to go down that path, I drink it for anxiety but others say it helps with pain management

Fuck the webcam, what about the mic?

I like watching stream highlights, occasionally I’ll watch one live. But they’re generally pretty boring, even as background noise - they’re on there for hours at a time

I don’t think the relationship itself is bad, but it’s a relationship between you (massively plural) and an individual. It’s like being part of a crowd. I get that people like it, but I don’t get much out of it

Honestly, wouldn’t this work? So long as the proteins aren’t denatured, they should still work in your stomach

So blended raw liver bombs it is

So this isn’t a compelling argument because it sounds outlandish and the implications (while serious) are indirect

Every major power, and some companies, have population simulations. It’s not that hard to build one - we’ve been using them for decades, and they start yielding useful results even when they’re pretty simple. Individuals are complex, but populations can be boiled down with statistics pretty easily

Let’s say I want to increase stochastic violence in America. I rate the traits of as many people as I can across as many useful criteria as I can measure. I could then tweak an algorithm to show something I think would radicalize people to a test group, and measure again. I then take what I learned, and polish my approach until I’m ready to go live

You can do this to whatever end you like - and browsing habits can only tell a human so much, but this is what big data does. It finds associations humans wouldn’t see through math

This probably sounds like I’m wearing a tin foil hat, but this is a real thing. This is how foreign election interference works - astroturfing blindly only does so much, and modeling a population isn’t difficult (depending on what you’re trying to do)

Now as for browsing habits - like location data or Facebook friends, with enough data points you can find out things about a person they don’t know themselves. It may or may not make sense to a human, but big data is all about finding associations through blind math.

If you provide a set of data points, you contribute. It may or may not influence you, but either way it improves the ability to influence those around you.

I don’t know how much opera collects, I don’t know how much of that data is exfiltrated to China. I know I don’t want anyone to have too much of that data, but I also have to live my life.

It’s a matter of harm reduction - educate yourself on your choices, listen to people who dive deeper than you’re willing to, and do what you can to make the most ethical choice based on where you are right now. There’s no perfect choice

I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Could you explain it in assembly?

Ah, I see what you were getting at now. Like “where are we going tonight?”, it’s a mirroring of the same concept, I think it’s fair to call that forced inclusion. Like you say, directly excluding someone is rude, so forcing that choice is pretty manipulative

I think you’re looking at it wrong, it doesn’t forcibly include the other participant, the usage you’re talking about does the opposite

We [our shared group] don’t do that. We [me and my group] don’t do that.

You can interpret it both ways - the first means “you broke the rule of the group”, the second means “you’re not one of us because you’re not following our rules”

It’s visceral because it gently tickles the “fear of exclusion” part of our brain

Yes, the fact you explained it, as well as formatting it in a spoiler for those who want to think it over a little longer (like me), made me feel slightly happier

To be honest, I don’t remember the original post at the moment, but I remember that you explained a post in a way that made me feel appreciative that you’re on the platform. I want to be the kind of person to express that.

That’s the person I want to be, and I’m glad that you are who you are

I like that you bothered. Good on you

Conflicts of interest. Sometimes illegal, but not nearly as much as they should be (almost always)

Like congress members being allowed to trade stock, which can then be affected by their vote

Or one of the specifically carved out exceptions to the medical kickbacks laws is for the people who negotiate drug prices for pharmacies

Nope, apparently you can get screwed by RNG, but you were in control. I don’t remember it being particularly hard either

You guys have numbers? I have the infinity sign on every new device within days