Yes, its really frustrating to see how we have been led into a culture war. And of course when they attack minorities we have to push back, but at the same time there are so much more important issues heavily affecting everyone, including minorities. Hope there will be some day when taxing corporations is just as hot topic as whether trans people should sport nowadays.

I think for most of history almost no one had any rights, then technological advancements (printing, internet, etc.) shook that system up and gave a chance for people to grab some bits of power. Now the system is stabilizing according to these new developments, and the power is getting centralized again. Im not sure if this is unstoppable, but sometimes it seems like it.

I couldnt get a phone until i started highschool (i had very limited access to a tablet at home). This resulted in me being unable to participate in any of the group chats that my peers were using, and missing the necessary context to understand a significant amount of topics they discussed even in person. Up to the point smartphones started to spread in my class i was strongly involved in the community, and i would say i had sufficient social skills. After that i started to get socially isolated, and this i would say severely affected my social development for many years.

Nowadays im happy that i spent most of my free time reading and learning extracurricular topics while many other were binging youtube, but its only because in the last couple of years i successfully started to develop my social side and engage more with others, while keeping the benefits of being left alone with my thoughts for extended periods. However i wouldnt have been able to do this on my own (i convinced myself that my isolation is a good thing, and as a coping mechanism i looked down on others socialising, smalltalk, etc.), and was very lucky with a couple of people that got me out of this isolation. That said i still have to undo a lot of damage on this area.

I dont know how a parent could balance these things, but i would assume that the most important thing is to help the kid find hobbies that engage them, so that scrolling endlessly is not that enticing, while giving them time on their phone to nurture their relationships online (this could be restricted with scheduling wifi access on the router, etc), and of course educating them on the potential harms of the internet.

Also i dont really have a solution to this, but i noticed on myself that when i had restricted access to something (for example the wifi turned off at 8pm) that meant the restricted activities value went way up in my head and i maxed out on it, often even though i would have enjoyed doing something else more.

I agree that people cant really be convinced by proving them wrong on the spot. However, if someone is just a little bit interested in being rational, then after going home over time they will think about that question again and again, until they resolve that dissonance, not necessarily, but potentially by changing their mind. I would assume that this would be somewhat hard to study, but if you have some good resources on this im interested. Its just that when people constantly hear from their leaders that faith is a virtue and even more virtuous when practiced despite strong evidence to the contrary (i was raised christian, and i experienced this there, i would assume its somewhat similar in Islam), then they will be a lot less likely to go through this.

Wasn’t aware of it up until now, but thanks for posting, seems like a great resource!

Thanks, hope you are better now!

Facebook container is one i use that blocks facebook tracking with tracking pixels for example.

I think the main difference is that now we have the technological power to fuck things up irreversibly (hope we still have chance against climate change, but im not sure a mass extinction could be prevented and not just moderated at this point)

Thank you, these seem really effective! Hope i will have the willpower to implement them.

Thanks, this seems like something i can easily implement!

Yes i think this must be my problem too, altough i probably could find people to follow that would engage me more. If someone can recommend some good users id like to hear it.

I just have seen a video that demonstrated how much gas remains in there if its poured gently/drank from a carefully opened can, by sticking a piece of paper in the cup and thus basically exploding it. When you pour it out somewhat fast it loses almost all of that gas.

Its kind of annoying how many times when i had the opportunity to study in school more i convinced myself that i have to go home to study more efficiently, just for me to then do nothing all day at home. Thank you, hope that hearing this from others will make me stronger to decide better next time.

Yes, it can be a bit overwhelming at times, but at the same time always exploring even seemingly understood questions makes life a lot more exciting!

Thanks! Scrolling through his videos this channel seems like a great resource.

Thanks a lot! Im kind of worried about sleep, cause there is obviously a good balance somewhere for everyone where it is worth sacrificing sleep, but i feel like its probably subjective to the point where i can convince myself that sleeping more than it is really needed is the better option.

This is something that im relly interested in lately. I was born in a quiet religious community and as i was exposed to more and more outside information i had to reevaluate my beliefs down to their core.

As i started to rely more and more on the scientific method as a basis of truth i felt like i figured it out (atleast the way to figure things out), but then came an other fundamental shift in how i think about truth. At this point i dropped every belief that stood on anecdotes and authority or an ad hoc framing of subjective experiences etc. However i was also the kind of person that would think trans people and allys are idiots for wanting to use preferred pronouns since they are “male/female”.

Then as i started to read up more on the views of said people i of course realised that the media i listened to previously set up a false narrative of people wanting to deny science, while in reality these people simply thought about this topic in a more nuanced way, separating biological sex and how someone feels and enjoys expressing themselves. This topic showed me how easy it is to be locked in a framework that fails to adress some parts of reality, while still seeming coherent and rational in its simplified framework.

As of now my goal is not building beliefs but to try and put myself in as many frames of thinking as i can and explore how many ways something can be viewed, hopefully managing to adress ever more nuances of reality but never accepting them as facts.

Of course this is the theoretical part of things, but when i have to make a real life decision i have to settle at my current best. Even then, treating everything i experienced and thought as probabilities and imperfect simplifications of reality helps avoid a lot of mistakes and makes it easier and more productive to work together with different people to find answers.

Thanks, this scenario makes me really hopeful!

Thanks, i tried open assistant now, but as far as i tested it its far behind chatgpt. I hope these models will improve a lot in the future though.

I learned the most about linux, networks, and the internet by just getting into projects that are useful for me personally and connected to my hobbies. Self hosted projects are great for this (sftp server, torrent server, gitea, etc. https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted ) While this method really helps with motivation and will probably be the most fun, im also currently looking for some more systematic ways of learning things like security best practices.