MyMindIsLikeAnOcean

My cats breath smells like cat food.

Yet it’s still Twitter.

I wouldn’t say he’s a grifter…he’s definitely got leftist credentials…but he’s also terminally online and really cares about “clout”.

I’m sure he would argue that he’s fighting fire with fire…and I agree with that to an extent: we need somebody operating in those spaces to provide an alternative. But he’s not just reposting content there…he’s genuinely addicted. If he were to be making a coherent argument to remain on Twitter…every single post he makes should include a tagline to a competing platform where you can read his entire post until he’s banned.

If you claim to be a journalist you don’t actually need to be on Twitter…you can just use an aggregator.

…and it’s so easy.

There nothing more irritating than listen to Krystal Ball complain about how Elon ruined groups chats, or whatever she’s addicted to on Twitter…then immediately afterwards platform a leading leftist activist who also uses it.

To be fair…the site link is literally still Twitter.

This is key.

If there weren’t bots…Reddit would make its own bots. Reddit dances a fine line of allowing the population to be a certain proportion of bots because they increase real engagement by picking fights with its real users, as well as creating never-ending “content” for people to read and vote on. They only ban bots when real users notice they are bots - which is less and less frequently - even though Reddit has the tools and information to ban them long before that point.

Reddit could easy eliminate almost all of them, but that would be expensive and they’d lose real users as a result.

We can absolutely blame AI for everything. The reason AI took over Reddit is because Reddit fired their human moderators in favour of AI moderation. It’s basically a vicious circle of bots learning how to avoid being banned, and auto moderation learning how they’re avoiding being banned…repeat.

…the obvious problem being that bots are valuable to Reddit because they increase real engagement…if there weren’t bots, Reddit would make its own bots to do basically the same thing. Reddit only wants to restrict bots to a certain proportion of the population, rather than eliminate them.

Let’s be real…Reddit itself is moderated by AI.

People who moderate subs should be called “hall monitors” or something. It’s rare to find moderators who are actually moderating with impartiality, rather that being petty and taking sides. They also have tools to exploit the Reddit auto-mod system.

It was enshitified ages ago.

I wish we could say that - but those terminally online leftist “influencers” like Kyle Kukinski are completely addicted to it.

I’m no longer a professional chef…and I almost exclusively use a cast iron pan over a wood fire to cook (when I use a pan). There’s pretty much nothing you can’t cook in it as long as you’re vigilant. It’s simple to keep clean and seasoned.

It drives me insane. Most of the top so called leftists are fully addicted to it and treat it like it’s an essential medium.

If you hate Musk…stop using fucking twitter. Nothing grinds my gears more than all these leftists who are still fully addicted.

I mean…I don’t expect a war…what I expect is some made-for-TV explosions and some fake body counts. Then I expect the right wing to start attacking, killing, and exiling the leftists with impunity.

I can’t comment on the various toxicities…but I was a high-end chef for 20 years. Stainless (proper stainless, with a high quality underside) and cast iron pans were essential for their respective purposes. Non-stick pans generally weren’t used outside of breakfast in kitchens without a flattop. Copper was a gimmick for homeowners…never saw one in a kitchen. My understanding was the copper was on the outside and the shtick was it was supposed to regulate heat better…BS AFAIK…it just made them look slick and therefore easier to sell.

Stainless are the go-to for searing and sautées…nothing is going to stick if you know what you’re doing and monitor the pan. Cast iron was for things you started on the stovetop and moved to the oven to finish…and/or for things you blacken or crust. In my experience the same effect can be achieved with a stainless pan (never buy a pan with a plastic handle that can’t go in the oven and always cook with a hot-cloth)…but some chefs swear by cast iron for niche purposes and they’re certainly easier to clean and last longer, even if they’re useless for sauteeing (square shape).

Oh…woks can compliment stainless pans for sauteeing if you have people who know what they’re doing with them…you pretty much can’t leave a wok unattended…but they get the best results for what they’re made for (stir fry, fried rice, etc).

Gas is the only choice for proper heat regulation. All the other elements are out of the question for proper cooking.

Can we tho?

You’re so far off reality I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic.

Right? Never mind half of the corruption in Ukraine is likely perpetrated by people who would flourish in Putin’s Russia.

I don’t know man. This crap gives such ammunition to the “both sides are corrupt” argument.

Do we really believe things in Ukraine would be better or even the same under Putin? What are we even talking about here?

Seem like he’s a typical academic. I get it…you prefer to muddy the waters and shoot the messenger then engage with the content. Alternate view to…something you didn’t read? I assure you it doesn’t “demonize socialism”…it just chronicles events according to disclosure/a “data dump” of declassified files. It’s not ideological…it’s for eggheads who don’t want to read thousands of documents. When I read it it just helped me understand the playing field better.

The problems with the USSR weren’t with socialism, you’re missing my message. They were with capitalists corrupting it from within. There’s certainly an argument to be made that too much control was allocated to regional bureaucrats - when targeted positive/idealistic authoritarianism was more appropriate while socialism was in its infancy. But this in the context of just Russia, because I don’t agree with the expansion that created the USSR: my opinion is it created an unmanageably large state with too many “distracting” regional issues that were ripe for capitalists to exploit. Those faithful to the cause were simply stretched too thin and they couldn’t deliver a meaningful improvement to enough people, largely because the guilty regional bureaucrats weren’t loyal to the cause and they created systematic exploitation of the people they were tasked to help. Obviously I’m being unrealistic…just trying to get closer to 20/20 hindsight.

That’s a ridiculous way to frame a public university employee…but I’m just going to declare an impasse and drop it if we can’t agree on facts.

Talk about virtue signalling and purity testing, yikes. Still, thank you for the conversation, I will admit I’m a little amused at you trying to “out socialist” me, but I don’t feel I need to list my credentials in return…I’m comfortable with how militantly virulent I am on the subject of socialism ;)

Like I said: put two leftists together, and they’ll find a way to argue. I’ve been guilty of it too…it is what it is.

I gave you evidence…and you ignored it. I can provide additional evidence beyond ‘54, if you acknowledge those archives.

You believe Marxism allows for the billionaire and political classes in China that control the means of production? Bold.

You don’t “own” Marxism, btw. Most Marxists I know at least acknowledge and criticize the very large problems in the USSR and China. I mean…I also could be considered a Marxist…but I consider myself a post-Marxist because he’s been improved on. I also think we can do better than Marx the man as a foundation - don’t get me started on Lenin, lol. The weird thing is I like Stalin (but Che all the way).

This isn’t zero sum: I’m not saying either is all bad because they have kleptocrats and billionaires. We haven’t even broached the topic of what I think about the USSR and China as a whole (because you’re so hung up on denying their systematic problems in favour of focusing on the positives?) in contrast to what we see in the western democracies (for example) you’re typing as if i condemn them and I prefer the USA, or something…not a thing.