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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: January 13th, 2025

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  • obviously, I doubt Rutte was expecting this message to be shared. If he wasn’t a complete moron and actually doing this just to stroke his own ego, I’d actually give Donald props for leaking it, as Rutte kissing Donald’s ass makes him look terrible, and more broadly makes the European parts of NATO look terrible.

    I imagine Rutte’s intent is to stroke Trump’s ego to try and keep him interested in NATO, but I feel like that’s a fool’s errand. Trump doesn’t give a shit about anyone else but himself. This new agreement, with NATO signatories needing to commit 5% of their GDP, feels like a grift for the benefit of U.S. defense contractors. The U.S. cannot be trusted to actually honor their agreements anymore, so why pay more into their alliance? Is Europe really that scared of further Russian aggression?









  • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zonetoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlDo you believe in free will?
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    2 months ago

    Then we must agree to disagree, because there really isn’t any further to debate. My argument is that human beings are irrational and capable of making irrational decisions. Your argument is that irrationality is merely a pretense, and that there must be a confluence of factors that caused these things to happen. I think trying to constantly find a reason when one doesn’t need to exist is a path to madness, and that is why I believe in free will.



  • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zonetoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlDo you believe in free will?
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    2 months ago

    This implies that every action must have a reason behind it, which I frankly find a laughable concept. Human beings are irrational creatures; our actions don’t require a reason. We have the ability to choose chaos. Unless your argument is that the cells in my stomach have the ability to know what kind of food they want and can unconsciously pass that information to my brain, there’s no reason for me to decide at 8:00 PM tonight “Hey, I want to eat Pakistani food.”

    In fact, I could choose an invalid choice! Say I chose Pakistani. I would logically need to find a Pakistani restaurant to order from. What if they all closed at 8? What if I didn’t have a Pakistani restaurant near me? I may make a decision that ultimately, I cannot act upon, and then I would have to introduce some constraints to my decision making process. The decisions that follow would have a reason, but the initial whim doesn’t require one.


  • This depends, because there are two different kinds of randomness. A lot of the “randomness” that people encounter is actually based upon something, and our theoretical entity with access to perfect information could predict the outcome of that randomness perfectly. I’m thinking of stuff like computer randomness, number generation, games of chance, that sort of thing.

    However, true random absolutely exists; in the words of Terry Pratchett “Things just happen, what the hell.” You see it with mutations in nature; ordinarily healthy cells can spontaneously change without directed input. It is unpredictable, even for our theoretical entity.


  • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zonetoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlDo you believe in free will?
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    2 months ago

    If free will was truly non-existent, it would mean that a theoretical entity with access to perfect information would be able to perfectly predict your actions. I don’t believe that is possible; I think that human beings are too irrational. Consider a very simple decision: what am I going to have for dinner? You could know the restaurants I have access to, what food is in my home, what I have discussed in a given day, and even what my current mood is, but it can ultimately come down to a whim. I could choose something I’ve never had before, for no reason, and seek it out.

    I believe that we are individual actors in a very complex system that introduces lots of constraints to our decision-making process. We may not even be consciously aware of some of the constraints; however, we are always the ones ultimately making the decisions. You always have the option of a whim.



  • It’s going. Currently, I’m on Bazzite and it’s doing well enough for my purposes, but Nvidia support on Linux is so shitty that I’m still not sure if it’s worth it. I still keep a dual-boot of Windows for gaming, since a lot of stuff just flat-out doesn’t work and the logs point me to unresolved issues with my drivers. A lot of simple games work out of the box, but it seems like anything online and anything requiring real horsepower requires me to be on Windows to work.

    Aside from that, I do basically everything else in Linux, but I don’t really consider that to be high praise. It’d be almost impressive if it struggled with basic internet browsing and video-streaming, though even that hasn’t been perfect. I remember having some issues with certain webplayers trying to use Opera on Ubuntu, but I haven’t noticed any issue with Firefox on Bazzite.

    I’m still not 100% on Atomic distros. It kinda feels like I have someone standing over my shoulder saying “No, don’t change that.” I think with how much of a novice I am, I actually need that. I’ve definitely bricked OS’ in the past by not fully understanding the commands I’m executing. However, it does feel limiting in a bad way.


  • how can I get a place to live without a job, and how do I get a job without a place to live?" situation.

    as someone who went through this exact situation, I decided to just say “fuck it” and kinda threw myself out into the universe, with the understanding that if I failed the landing I was probably just going to die. I was homeless for a little bit, and the first job I had was a lot shittier than anything I’d worked before, but it is possible. The biggest issue I’d say is the lack of education; however, my partner at the time only had a high school diploma and was able to leverage his service industry experience to quickly find work.