I’m one of those that sees a purpose for AI in doing some of the grunt work of information processing and some creative tasks (like an old school painters apprentice, put some grass over in that corner while I work on this face, upscaling images without blurring, or making sure all the formatting and pronouns / perspectives match in a written work), or in increasing accessibility by describing images for the blind or audio for the deaf, but what in tf does it need to be in a browser for? It definitely has some uses but they’ll really slap that label on anything these days!

Nothing directly for any individual, but you can host, moderate, and / or participate in more apolitical hobby spaces.

One of the biggest ways delusions keep a hold of people is by disconnecting them from supportive / positive social relationships. The deeper down the rabbit hole they go, the more people they argue with, and the less non-delusional friends they have. Try to figure out what those beliefs and social groups replaced, then get them back into supportive social groups around that. Often it’s a hobby like gardening, book clubs, cars, sports, hiking, etc.

That’s why all of this took off so hard during COVID, people got ripped away through all of those things and Russian disinformation bots were right there and ready to replace that sense of connection with a sense of being part of a larger movement. Sometimes it’s spiritual or religious groups which has been difficult because so many of those groups have just become completely overtaken and become vehicles for the delusions, so we also need to work on ways for people to express their religion and spirituality in non-delusional ways, but that’s a whole other discussion.

The short version is: make the delusional stuff subtly less accessible (encourage them to get away from the computer and TV) and try to get them into other positive activities that connect them with other people and help them move their focus away from the delusions without directly confronting them.

When confronted directly delusions tend to integrate the new information into the existing belief system so two examples here would be that maybe the study was flawed or only referring to a specific type of signal or specific type of brain cancer but the more likely option is just deciding that this is more proof that the system as a whole aims to deceive them.

Source: am psych nurse and was trained long ago to never try to talk someone out of a delusion for the exact reason that it tends to just make them stronger (I answered somebody’s question about what to do instead down below if you’re curious).

Honestly this discussion also highlights the issue that what’s considered inappropriate varies widely and often changes both in terms of prejudice and in terms of context. Most people would agree that an image of a penis entering or inside of a vagina is pornographic unless it’s a medical diagram laying out the anatomical and physiological aspects like the one in the anatomy book my otherwise puritanical parents let me read at the age of six. Most people would agree that nudity is sexual except for, again, anatomical diagrams, but also many classical artistic depictions such as paintings and statues. Hand holding isn’t generally considered sexual except to some people if the people happen to be of the same sex but not if you come from a culture where hand holding is a normal level of intimacy for non sexual friends. Breasts are for some reason considered sexual in most of the areas heavily colonized by people from the places where lactose tolerance past childhood evolved but not most other places which is super handy if you like being able to feed infants. Most people agree that kissing for an extended period while rubbing areas close to the genitals is sexual, but often not enough to restrict it from being viewed by teenagers.

TLDR; what’s even considered “sexual” or “porn” can vary wildly and has historically been used to suppress education, various minorities, and general freedom of expression.

That was the whole purpose of tumblr so yeah. I kid, as I did get started on there at like 14 as a part of various Fandoms, but by the time I was 18 I had been using it for porn for quite some time, largely because fandom is also mostly for porn.

I always sample the honey walnut shrimp, but I never actually get it as an entree.

It would be nice to be able to have a view that only tallies the votes from your local server, but IDK about listing all the individuals in an easily accessible manner.

What I really want though is a rolling deletion of my activity that’s older than 3-6 months. I understand there’s no way to erase these things entirely, especially from decentralized servers, but I do wish the internet could revert to being a little more ephemeral. You can also go look through public records and go back years in real life, but it’s not easy.

Also typically more competition, there’s usually 2-3 I’ve been eligible for in most places I’ve lived (although as with most things, less the more rural the area is).

I feel like the list of which lawmakers vote for and against this should be headline news but I won’t hold my breath.

True, although personally I interpret this more as,“if we do go down, you’re coming with us.”

I saw a youtube short recently referencing that passage. It said something along the lines of “the devil fears this passage above all else” or something to that effect with a guy holding a bible and making those exaggerated gestures and facial expressions the pentecostals and evangelical baptists make while preaching. I looked it up out of curiosity, but even before that I already knew it was some cult bullshit. I thank the universe every day that my fundie parents wound up in a non-fundie church during most of my childhood because things could’ve been a looot worse.

It doesn’t.

No because that branch of the family didn’t allow internet at all and he didn’t even start laughing at ball jokes until 14. Honestly I never even really heard him talk about friends outside his siblings. Like I’m steadily realizing that my family was actually literal fundies.

Morrowind.

One time I was talking about the importance of trap-neuter-release programs in the car back from the GI Joe movie and my uncle aggressively shushed me because my cousin was 12 and they hadn’t told him about sex yet. It took me until like literally this year to realize my family are all fundies because until the last few years they’d been very pro education.

…I mean it’s not like that makes him a good person. A lot of men in those positions of power mostly just want to be able to make their mistress get one after they knock her up from refusing to wear a rubber. There’s a fair amount of people who also want to use it to abort female babies. It’s not like wanting abortion to be legal in and of itself makes you a feminist or even just any kind of decent human being in any way. Honestly to me the fact that they know it’s bullshit and are just using it to rally their asshole voting base is even worse. People are really just randomly pulling knives on their own people at this point. Idk if the ops are that bad or people are just that paranoid by neither one is a good sign of things to come.

Eh. It was a much more in depth analysis than that and I enjoyed reading (as much as I can enjoy watching the country I live in slowly devolve into chaos) but they’re also using a lot of specific diagnostic terms that I also use when documenting on actual patients so yeah I could understand a layperson not getting a whole lot out of it. I also enjoyed the differential diagnoses, for instance they’re correct that that tangentiality can also be diagnostic of ADHD (although that’s usually somewhat static over time, where here they’re describing it as a steady decline in linearity).

People have frequently commented on how tangential my speech can be at baseline, and I’m ADHD AF. That said, people also usually mention that I always circle back around in some way that connects everything together and sometimes my coworkers have almost made a game of calling out when they realize how my tangent relates to the original topic, which is a reassuring working memory finding that isn’t evidenced here.

One time when a friend was talking about being worried they will never pass I was just “bitch some cis women don’t pass! Look at fucking Wendy Williams; if she can have enough confidence to talk all that shit while looking like a damn horse then you deserve a lil’ confidence yourself.”

Cunk did it better.