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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: April 5th, 2024

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  • I tried to replace Twitter by Mastodon but, in the end, I just left Twitter and don’t use Mastodon at all.

    This is me, I left Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. I reduced my online time a lot and it is better for my mental health and I have more time for my hobbies.

    Mastodon made it clear to me how much algorithms steer me and keep me online, when I don’t need that, don’t profit from it. When I had to search for content on Mastodon that was for me it felt not worth the effort while being fed by an algorithm on Twitter /Facebook / Reddit kept me endlessly scrolling.

    So I am very thankful to Mastodon for opening my eyes, but I will not use it anymore. Tchncs (world news, tech news and cat owl pictures) , Grouvee (gaming forum, keeping track of my games) and German Tagesschau ( tv news of my country) is enough to stay up to date and I feel freed from a burden that social media became for me.

    Also my phone stays in my bag now and I am more in the moment wherever I am - I have used it 99% less than before and my next smart phone will be a cheap one with the only must haves being the newest Android version and a replacable battery so it will last me for long.


  • As long as they don’t do it on real humans nobody is hurt.

    Living out the fantasy of having sex with children (or other harmful sexual practices and fantasies) wit AI or alike can strengthen the wish to actual do it in RL. It can weaken the strength to abstain. If you constantly have fantasies where for example “the child AI wanted it too” then it can desensitize you and making it harder and harder to push that thought aside when in a tempting situation. Instead of replacing the real thing with a fantasy you are preparing for the real thing. Some pedophiles already interpret children’s behavior as sexual that isn’t at all, but the AI might be told to act in that way and strengthen these beliefs.

    This is still something that is and has to be studied more to fully understand it. Of course this is difficult because of the stigma. There might be differences between people who only are attracted to children and ones that are attracted to adults and children and there is just not enough data yet, but even the communities in which pedophiles who do not act on their attraction discuss coping strategies this is heavily discussed and controversial.

    If you are interested in the subject a bit more, this is a start: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8419289/


  • In the first region in the midst of the first small village two neighbors are arguing. They are not giving a quest, they just talk to each other and listening gives such an insight in how war can turn people against each other that have been living peacfully and been friends for years.

    Do the side quests and take your time with the dialogue. Some of these stories are impactful, mostly sad and worth your time. If you are told that you should talk to people to find out more about your contract, do it. Some of these quests can be done with only talking to one person but you want to get the information from everyone and especially their side of the story.

    Do not look up the outcome of decisions. Make your decisions and live with them at least at your first playthrough. Most decisions have impact and seeing the outcome unfold makes this game special and yes often there is no “good choice” - that’s war for you.

    Last: Buy every Gwent card you can get your hands on and play with everyone you can. If you can’t win just come back later with better cards and obliterate them - it will feel goooood!

    The DLC’s are a must.

    Try out difficulty settings - there is a sweet spot for most people somewhere but what it will be for you no one can know, but it would be a shame if you play through the game not having found the difficulty that fits you best because you “always play on <insert difficulty>”.

    Have fun, I wish I could play this game for the first time again.


  • We should not expect companies to choose a less immediately profitable route that ensures long term sustainability.

    We should expect that. It is not that “companies” are creatures with their own will. Humans own them, humans work for them and it is humans making decisions and we should expect them to do better for humankind.

    I refuse to buy into the boys are boys companies are companies saying, it is changeable. So many businesses have no whatsoever problems to adapt, but the people leading these WANT to adapt, they want to plan for the long run, they want their business to make money and do the right thing and it is possible.

    Yes the government needs to step in with laws and force them to do the right thing, but still we need to call the humans out that decide by free will to f*ck us all over and use a business to do it, again the business does nothing, it is humans who do it because they want to, they are not forced to do it. That’s why we should not say BP does this, we should name the responsible people behind the business name and hold them responsible one by one.


  • Why are y’all so dumb?

    this is the wrong question, The real question is:

    Why are y’all so mean?

    See, the people believing this shit are the ones who, if being able to create a hurricane, would do it in an instant to harm their political opponents, so it makes sense to them others would do it. They would steal an election, they would get rid of elections once elected, they would pretend to be a shooting victim if paid enough money… Once you leave all morals behind and get on the me and my version of America first train, everything is possible and thinkable. It is not about “is this possible” or “can they do it” it is all about “if I could do it I would so they are doing it”.




  • German, only having been there once some years ago, so no idea if it still is that way:

    Not knowing what I will have to pay in the grocery store until the cashier tells me what to pay. Here the price on the shelf is THE price. I might have a voucher that reduces the price in the end, but nothing is ever added only subtracted, all prices on the shelf are easily comparable, because no matter the weight of one package there is also given the price of 1kg or 100 g for everything.

    No kids on playing grounds without parents standing around. No kids just playing on the side walk (often there is no side walk anyway), no kids walking to school. It made me aware of how much freedom kids have in Germany, how independent even 6 y.o. are in Germany compared to kids in the US. They walk to to school alone or use public transport alone, they buy groceries alone, they visit friends by foot or public transport, three y.o. already having a bike and cycling besides their parents to kindergarden…

    On the other hand seeing so many very young people having a job, like a really hard job for many hours besides school. It broke my heart, they should be free to be young and having all the time, working comes fast enough and goes on forever. Also I saw very old people doing jobs that should be able to retire because you could see them being in pain and barely able to function, definitely not a “choice” for them.

    The amount of medication, especially pain medication, people take in the US compared to Germany and how much of it is freely available while it is needing a subscription from a doctor here. Every time I was feeling unwell I was offered pills that I found to be numbingly strong and switching my brain off? Hard to explain. I found them scary, but was told that they take them on a daily basis and they are harmless … nope.





  • Nice joke until reality comes along: https://winfuture.de/news,145540.html

    German article translates to:

    The Tesla plant in Grünheide had to accept a record number of sick days, at least in August: Around 17 percent of the 12,000 employees were affected. At the beginning of September, the figure had fallen to around 11 percent, according to a report in the Handelsblatt newspaper. However, this is still comparatively high.

    As a result, the plant management had begun to visit employees on sick leave at home and check on them. Head of HR Erik Demmler was surprised that he was sometimes met with an aggressive attitude, as he explained to Handelsblatt. It had happened that the door had simply been slammed in his face. There were even instances of people threatening to call the police.

    Translated with DeepL.com (free version)