I can understand when the topic is comparison, but my experience is that it seems that more often than not, the comparison is made even when not part of the topic. It could be some horrible news of a tragedy that occurred in the US, and rather than discuss the matter at hand, the comments are about how Europe is better. Of course they don’t do that with other countries like Brazil, India, or Mexico. That’s the point of the comment: to point out how ridiculous it would be, especially when a lot of the issues in those countries could be traced back to European colonization. But, since the US is a powerhouse with GDP, military, media, and global political power, everyone thinks it’s okay to shit on it. I’d like to point out that the GDP stays at the top. Arguably, the quality of life of the average EU resident is better than the average American resident. Y’all tell us everyday with your medical systems and healthcare access, workers rights, time off, gun control, etc.

If American culture constantly has a delusional state of superiority, then why are the comments on Lemmy about how the EU is superior? Let’s compare the number of comments on Lemmy in which Americans state or imply their superiority to Europe with vice versa. I bet that ratio will easily surpass 1:10. And the American one will more likely than not be downvoted to hell. Yeah, there are Americans and American media that are delusional about their superiority, but that is not the case with Lemmy users. In general, those are conservatives/Republicans and some moderates. Europe has those clowns too. American users on Lemmy tend to be quite left, desire strong leftist policies, and acknowledge the reality of the situation while being humble af, yet they are the ones that have to read all the shit talking about Americans every day on here. It’s annoying af; that’s all.

edit: Btw, despite that everyone may disagree with me, justifiably or not, I appreciate the opportunity to have this discussion.

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/13768084

By decision, I meant anything that was more than mere chemical or mechanical reaction. Another way of separating it is the point where we can say there is a purpose or difference between dead molecules and being alive. In this case, going to the cinema is wayyy too advanced a decision to help define. More like a cell or group of cells that recognizes its environment and has the opportunity to decide to go towards one direction over another rather than respond merely because a chemical in their environment reacted with their body in a way that gave them an impulse.

But in the larger picture, it seems like there are many decisions that occur for us to commit a behavior. For example, we have to decide what we perceive, decide what our emotional state is, decide what our memories are, decide our personal taste for movies, decide our current motivational state, decide if we have enough time, etc, be fore we decide to go to the movies. All those have to happen prior to deciding on the cinema, and the majority of them occur simultaneously with a central network organizing them into a coherent process, correct? Omg, is this central network what people call executive functioning‽

Interesting! This is what I was getting at. I’m trying to figure out at what level decisions are made and how are they made. From what I can tell so far, it seems like neurons act as nodes that either fire or not based on the information they receive from previous neurons. The information they receive from previous neurons either encourage or discourage activation, each at a different strength. Once a neuron receives enough encouragement to fire from the previous neurons, it fires and sends its signal to the neurons it is connected to, which they take as encouragement or discouragement. In a sense, decision-making is a series of very long logistic regression models. Each previous neuron serves as a predictive factor with it’s own polarity (encouragement or discouragement) and coefficient (magnitude of signal). Learning is changing the values of coefficients so that predictive factors have different impacts on the outcome variable. With this in mind, then at least 2 neurons are needed to make a decision. The more neurons, the more variables can be included in the decision making process. Does that make sense?

Super interesting! Why do we think that they decide, and how do they make that decision??

Thanks! Is there a point during which any of these cells makes a decision that is not 100% mere chemical or mechanical reaction to their immediate environment? Perhaps when they need to differentiate into a new cell?

ok, good

He won both his elections by landslides. It wasn’t even close.

1980

1984

I am sooooooo fucking sick of this disgusting asshole. I wish he would not be relevant to anything anymore. god damn him. what a complete piece of shit. there is seriously nothing redeemable about him. not one fucking thing. the day he is no longer relevant, i will throw a motherfucking party. i will be so happy to know that I never have to deal with anything he does ever again. the relief would be celebratory. fuck! 😡😫😖

thanks! 😁

Episode 266: Contriving January 6th

I’m gonna check it out. Thanks!

I looked into the things that were done to try to keep Trump in office. They seriously tried to conduct a coup. No doubt. It’s not ambiguous. It wasn’t a wacky protest that Trump kind of got riled up and it went too far. Trump wasn’t the only one involved. They didn’t try to take advantage of a loophole. They straight up tried to overturn the election using corruption, intimidation, coercion, and violence. It didn’t fail because it was a bad attempt. It was stopped by many people that had integrity. We were this close 🤏 to losing what we have of democracy. The fact that Trump et al. isn’t in jail or worse is a sign of how infected our system is.

Someone please prove me wrong. I want to be wrong, but I can’t convince myself that I am.

🤤

Let’s return together

Based on a few docu-series I’ve seen on the Internet that include casting interviews, adult parties, and erotic behaviors in public, I’m pretty certain that the Czech Republic is lax on sexual matters.

Coscto is like 98% Democrats 🙂

All 3 major hardware stores (Home Depot, Lowe’s, & Ace’s) donate more to Republicans. Aside from locally owned small businesses, any idea where else to go?