FoolishOwl

[...] "Revolutions do not allow anyone to play the schoolmaster with them." -- Rosa Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, Chapter 4.

I'm a libertarian socialist, a social ecologist, and a humanist, I know my way around Linux, and I'm partial to speculative fiction and TTRPGs.

Public Key

npub10qmm0765mkrra6au99l25eva9weznhtesj8ts7qk3hhqygqc25hqp2gu2w

NIP-05 Address

foolishowl_at_social.coop@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs8sdahld2dmp37aw7zjl42vkwjhv3fm4ucfr4c0qtgmmszyqv92tspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qz9thwden5te0v35hgar09ec82c30wfjkccterfp9n5

Publishing to

relay.mostr.pub

ditto.pub/relay

Author Public Key

npub10qmm0765mkrra6au99l25eva9weznhtesj8ts7qk3hhqygqc25hqp2gu2w

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Last Notes

2024-09-10 03:41:40

https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/111/175/114/072/616/original/a280adefae6ab60f.jpeg

2024-09-07 22:24:27

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@npub1f7z…t372 This is, IMHO, the greatest threat of "generative AI": burying all the cultural and scientific achievements of the digital era beneath unlimited garbage.

2024-08-18 01:24:34

Sometimes I think my social anxiety is less a trauma response and more a rational response to a toxic social environment.

2024-07-30 17:25:29

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@npub1sqf…5skr Among other things, KOSA would make it practically impossible to run a Fediverse instance. Centralized commercial social media platforms will wipe us out.

2024-07-29 17:49:50

I'm wondering if I've not fully understood the reason why quote tweets were needed here.
I was feeling frustrated at seeing complaints about how the Fediverse has more direct expressions of racism than Twitter, and I wondered why I wasn't seeing specific examples called out. And then I thought, I wasn't in the scope for those posts, and they can't QT them to call them out.

2024-07-19 15:11:24

I just got into work, where there are warning messages on monitors in the lobby about a global IT outage.
Obligatory radical leftist point: if an accident can cause this much disruption to global capitalism, imagine what we could do on purpose.

2024-07-17 23:00:19

If he dies, maybe people will start masking again.

2024-07-17 12:58:24

Understanding "longtermism": Why this suddenly influential philosophy is so toxic | Salon.com
https://www.salon.com/2022/08/20/understanding-longtermism-why-this-suddenly-influential-philosophy-is-so/

2024-07-07 19:06:35

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@npub1qag…9gyn Thank goodness for some good news.

2024-07-02 22:26:39

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@npub1dl0…49nf This was filed in 2016?

2024-07-01 16:11:55

The US Supreme Court has declared the POTUS is immune to prosecution for "official acts".
The Magna Carta was in 1215. The US is now politically reactionary by the standards of medieval England.

2024-06-23 21:00:50

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@npub1jq9…jqnl So almost the opposite of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

2024-06-22 18:20:12

I'll believe ChatGPT has PhD levels of intelligence when I say something about "feudalism" and it looks frustrated and takes a deep breath before asking me what region and period I'm talking about.

2024-06-16 14:22:12

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@npub1935…22dk It's based on patriarchal property relations, it isolates people, and it imprisons children.

2024-06-16 13:56:51

Abolish the family.

2024-06-14 22:59:16

The Cass Report: Anti-science and Anti-trans – Skepchick
https://skepchick.org/2024/06/the-cass-report-anti-science-and-anti-trans/

2024-06-14 15:33:09

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@npub1k7q…3lrw I feel like when people talk about trying to realize a positive masculinity, this is what they're imagining.

2024-06-07 18:34:46

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@npub1f2y…m58m I don't think he saw what was coming so much as he saw what had been going on the whole time.

2024-06-01 01:47:36

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@npub13sz…xh75 Dragons have refined tastes, so cover yourself in ketchup so they will not bite you.

2024-05-30 21:10:04

I despise the US criminal justice system.
But fuck that guy.

2024-05-29 13:20:23

I would like to see more public statements of committed opposition to "generative AI". I want to know if there's anyone left who can be trusted.

2024-05-28 23:52:47

Trump Says He Will Reverse Protections for LGBTQ Kids on “Day One” If Reelected | Truthout
https://truthout.org/articles/trump-says-he-will-reverse-protections-for-lgbtq-kids-on-day-one-if-reelected/

2024-05-26 14:47:20

The Tulip Mania of 1634-1637 looks sensible compared to the "AI" bubble. At least flowers are real.

2024-05-17 19:41:22

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@npub1f6f…5af6 Someone could write a pretty good short story about telepaths encountering non-telepaths, from the telepaths' point of view.

2024-05-14 19:24:34

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@npub1zdp…vqv8 I'm impressed you followed a single ant the length of a football field.

2024-05-13 15:58:00

If password safe developers are arguing that harvesting user data us a critical function for their password safe, I think we've reached a depth that I had not anticipated.
How difficult is it to encrypt an XML database, anyway?

2024-04-17 20:06:19

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@npub1upk…tcwy I started looking for this poster on your website, and at least I found the bingo card.
https://wizardzines.com/comics/git-discussion-bingo/

2024-04-13 15:08:48

I don't get how people manage to ignore that capitalism is about capital.

2024-04-02 16:40:52

It's extremely obvious that the IDF deliberately murdered aid workers. It's so obvious that I have to think the IDF is making a point of making it obvious.

2024-03-26 16:36:28

An aspect of Nazi eugenics is a notion of a physically perfect person.
This used to come up quite often as a trope in science fiction, but I think that people gradually lost track of the idea that we were supposed to reject the concept, and feel visceral horror at it. The implication is that all human variation would be wiped out, that none of us would measure up to the standard, that the concept of an ideal person is irredeemably flawed.

2024-03-23 18:41:53

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@npub1gj4…tgvx Classic punk is associated with crude aesthetics because a DIY ethos has to welcome the unsteady first steps of new artists.

2024-03-23 15:23:30

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@npub10dc…pmga @npub1gp7…727z I tried reading Tools for Conviviality but I just couldn't overlook the eugenicism.

2024-03-22 13:22:17

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@npub1zdp…vqv8 A lot of the left is fixated on the idea that we should only take over existing structures and that building alternatives is unrealistic. I've found it very frustrating.

2024-03-17 19:10:30

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@npub1gmx…atcq I always have to give a special shout-out to the psychiatrist who was supervising a course of anti-depressants who would spend most of the session lambasting me for being ten minutes late when I had to travel thirty miles by public transit to make it to his office.
Oh, a chronically depressed person is a little late to an appointment? We certainly can't expect your medical training to prepare you for such an unlikely contingency!

2024-03-17 19:06:42

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@npub1gmx…atcq I worry about misinformation about medical care on social media. I worry about people I know who keep sending me glossy articles about food supplements and who keep insisting I'm dangerously dehydrated (no matter how much water I drink).
On the other hand, every time I've consulted a doctor over a minor recurring problem, they tell me they have no idea what it could be and maybe it will just go away.

2024-03-11 20:49:40

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@npub1gmx…atcq @npub1ecp…59pq So she was forty years old and never had a free weekend before?

2024-03-09 21:18:37

I've had a vague idea that we over-emphasize broad categories of sexual orientation and neglect other variations. So I keep running into assumptions that since I'm a heterosexual man, I have desires and behaviors identical to all other heterosexual men, and if I don't, it's some immaturity or trauma I should grow out of, or my feelings aren't really what I say they are.
It's exhausting.
Yes, I know it's much worse for many other people.

2024-03-09 17:57:28

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@npub1jpp…u59l @npub1q4y…x7aj @npub1swy…snpj @npub1mmf…eknq @npub1teu…w5lp There's a pattern of mistaking eugenics for natural selection. And eugenics is based on persistent false beliefs common in animal husbandry.

2024-03-09 16:57:08

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@npub1mmf…eknq @npub1teu…w5lp @npub1swy…snpj I checked a sporting goods site, and just for comparison, an eight-person tent go for around $300.

2024-03-02 17:54:57

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@npub1sre…mny9 @npub18lj…80hq Gender's obviously a big part of this, but I think class and imperial culture comes into it.
Like, if you're not allowed to ask for things, then you try, passive aggressively, to create situations in which other people feel morally obligated to anticipate your desires. That obviously doesn't work if your social status is low. On the other hand if your status is high enough, your personal desires can blend into hegemonic norms.

2024-03-02 17:20:54

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@npub1sre…mny9 @npub18lj…80hq Also, my mother-in-law talked about her Australian boarding school where they were specifically trained not to ask for anything they wanted. If at dinner, they wanted the salt shaker, they were supposed to ask if anyone would like salt. That was the hint that they wanted salt.

2024-03-02 17:17:28

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@npub1sre…mny9 @npub18lj…80hq I feel like I grew up in some distorted version of "guess culture" where my parents would give me orders disguised as requests, and it would anger them if I said "No". Fearing for my safety was not a valid reason to say "No", because they were adults and knew better -- except they frequently didn't.
It's still hard to deny a request, or ask anything of my partner. She's amused on the rare occasions I ask her to bring me a glass of water or something like that.

2024-02-23 13:34:47

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@npub1g57…y839 This is a technology whose most obvious use is fraud.
At least it's got one obvious weakness: we could cut off the power to the servers.

2024-02-16 01:30:51

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@npub15th…6nvx @npub120n…7g62 Against the Logic of the Guillotine: Why the Paris Commune Burned the Guillotine—and We Should Too
https://crimethinc.com/2019/04/08/against-the-logic-of-the-guillotine-why-the-paris-commune-burned-the-guillotine-and-we-should-too

2024-02-15 20:25:19

Unremitting Turkish Attacks Leave Rojava in Peril — and in Need of Solidarity | Truthout
https://truthout.org/articles/unremitting-turkish-attacks-leave-rojava-in-peril-and-in-need-of-solidarity/

2024-02-15 00:35:30

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@npub1swy…snpj One of the big problems with Mozilla is that almost all its funding comes from Google. The speculation was that Google pays for Firefox so they can deny that they have a monopoly with Chrome. There's no way that's not going to collapse anyway. Mozilla is obviously doomed.

2024-02-14 15:03:04

US Is Breaking at Least 6 Laws With Assistance to Israel, Veterans’ Group Says | Truthout
https://truthout.org/articles/us-is-breaking-at-least-6-laws-with-assistance-to-israel-veterans-group-says/

2024-02-14 00:14:04

#CDCSays trust the new medical advice chatbots.

2024-02-07 20:51:15

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@npub1xkg…gph9 I feel like this misses that the point of federated decentralization isn't to prepare for eventual centralization, but to be able to decide who to federate with and to tell everyone else to fuck off.

2024-02-07 20:36:32

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@npub1psd…9sr7 @npub1keu…vg66 I grew up on a horse ranch and was always hearing about animal breeding programs. It still astonishes me in retrospect how perversely anti-scientific animal breeding was, despite its practical application.
Horse breeders would endlessly talk about the defining traits of a breed as a Platonic ideal, how they were trying to recover a lost purity from modern corruption.
I've heard it argued that eugenics misreads natural selection in light of the myths of animal husbandry.

2024-01-28 23:37:23

Spotted in the wild.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/111/836/198/056/125/142/original/8dc2fd3d4e2d12f9.jpg

2024-01-24 05:08:09

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@npub1k6r…k747 @npub1mmf…eknq They'll chase the imaginary median voter all the way to Hell.

2024-01-22 04:43:10

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@npub1mmf…eknq @npub1h52…r6nr @npub1was…8cm7 How does Intel's investment work into that?

2024-01-13 21:24:08

The Occupy movement was great in some respects, but terrible in others.
At the time, I worried about its slogan, "We are the 99%". In itself, okay, but it was dangerously incomplete. What *exactly* is the distinction between the 99% and the 1%?
Because, if you don't specify, that slogan could fit all too neatly into an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
It was only later that I found out that there were outright Nazis involved in Occupy Wall Street, and leftists who covered for them.

2024-01-09 16:33:10

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@npub1hyk…3p33 Part of the danger of "spacebros" is that they encourage thinking of the Earth as simply consumable and fungible. Like evangelical Christians, their ideological allies, they believe we should be using up the resources on Earth as fast as possible so we can move on to the next world. But there is no next world. Anyone with any real understanding of biology or astronomy would understand we're in danger of destroying the most precious thing that exists.

2024-01-05 14:13:24

I unsubscribed from everything on Substack and deleted my account. I probably waited longer than I should have. But the newsletter writers had more than enough time to find an alternative.

2023-12-30 00:43:28

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@npub1ah0…370v @npub1zdp…vqv8 We had a tuxedo cat who could dynamically increase her mass by a factor of five when she didn't want to be picked up.

2023-12-28 17:17:38

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@npub1tra…npqw I've always been a compatibilist. Broadly, I understand the project of philosophy to be looking at what's obviously true, and finding that it's not so obvious why it's true. When you've got two ideas that are obviously true but contradict each other, the challenge is to question what we understand by free will and determinism, not just pick one and ignore the other.
I'm also suspicious of the motivations of people who insist we are ourselves just stochastic parrots.

2023-12-07 00:45:38

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@npub1mmf…eknq He's back on my good list.

2023-12-02 19:34:13

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@npub1u27…3qfq That's just asking to be used metaphorically.

2023-11-27 00:04:32

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@npub16zx…xzxc It's downright bizarre to talk about political divisions as if they're merely subcultural affiliations. Patriarchy is a core conflict. It is obviously self-destructive to enter a relationship with someone who believes you should not have any autonomy. It's a surprise *anyone* would be willing to enter into a relationship with a reactionary man.

2023-11-23 22:17:04

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@npub1r47…wytr I don't get the point of Snap at all. Mozilla even has a repository for DEBs of the nightly version, so it's not like standard packaging means being behind.

2023-11-20 17:39:01

Another round of free tests available.
---
COVID.gov - Free at-home COVID-19 tests
https://www.covid.gov/tests

2023-11-10 21:38:36

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@npub18jj…jsev @npub1f9u…m3s0 @npub1psd…9sr7 They refer to cyberpunk as dystopian, as usual.
I keep pointing out William Gibson's The Gernsback Continuum as setting the context for his cyberpunk stories. It's not so much that cyberpunk depicts dystopia, as that it depicts the rejection of utopia, because utopias are often white supremacist fantasies. The protagonists in Neuromancer and its sequels were literally fighting against capitalist utopias.

2023-11-04 18:11:06

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@npub10up…tqyu Ten co-sponsors, for open racism.
This isn't even leftists pointing out the subtext. They're direct about it in the title.
https://zinke.house.gov/media/press-releases/zinke-introduces-bill-expel-palestinians-united-states

2023-10-27 16:31:17

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@npub10zv…nz7m
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/111/307/931/872/584/743/original/718f528e4a250db8.mp4

2023-10-20 05:25:51

Anonymous - Against the Party of Insurrection https://www.anarchistfederation.net/anonymous-against-the-party-of-insurrection/

2023-09-28 17:00:30

One of the things that drives me nuts about the modern Web is that you could write a plain text file, save it as "index.html", and it will display just fine. And everyone seems to have forgotten this.

2023-09-15 19:04:46

I've been working on setting up a "zoo" of virtual machines, and I was starting to look at a manual for OpenBSD, and I get the distinct impression it doesn't want to be installed.

2023-09-09 20:59:01

I've been using #Docker on my #LibreComputer, an #SBC abotu equivalent to a Raspberry Pi 3, with 2 GB of RAM. I was just reading about #Podman as a drop-in replacement for Docker. Does anyone have any experience using it? Will it use noticeably less system resources? Any gotchas?

2023-09-04 14:38:38

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@npub1l3x…pp9z @npub19fc…ay3c I've been told a fair amount of graduate education programs is, "We know these methods don't work and testing and evaluation are harmful, but they're statutory requirements, so how can we make them almost useful?"

2023-08-31 17:50:40

I'm often frustrated that I don't know what I want. Sometimes I feel like I know vaguely but not exactly, and sometimes I feel like I don't know at all. And it's more and more often the latter.
I feel like there are a lot of things I feel like I wanted, but really I was just told I should want, and eventually I deconstruct it and find there was nothing there but social conventions and advertising.
In some ways my life is more comfortable than it has ever been. But everything feels empty.

2023-08-27 20:54:40

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@npub189n…satx It can't be a coincidence that white people are especially opposed to masking, and that colonialism spread disease that killed millions of people.

2023-08-15 21:51:11

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@npub189n…satx @npub1nvq…w7du @npub1auj…pkzd Understanding the history of how our anger has been redirected again and again is valuable for understanding our vulnerability to manipulation.
It's worth putting in a good word for The Many-Headed Hydra, by Peter Linebaugh and Martin Rediker, which talks about several popular revolts, the memory of which are suppressed.

2023-08-10 21:36:55

Proposal for a new Linux special file:
/dev/scream
It's like /dev/zero, but it's endless stream of the letter 'a', with an occasional capital 'A' at a random frequency.

2023-07-13 23:29:24

This zine is great.
https://scholar.social/@Aepasek/110702991037793220

2023-07-11 22:36:22

So the datacenter where I got a job turns out to be all about AI reaearch.
FML

2023-07-11 15:33:15

I've seen a few posts from people seriously questioning why we would assume that Meta is going to exploit the Fediverse. Only a few, to be sure. But it puzzles me. How do you get to be a mature adult and an accredited professional, without understanding that capital enterprises exploit resources?

2023-07-11 13:36:08

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@npub1zh4…7v99 @npub189n…satx People have this idea that it's virtuous to sacrifice real needs and ignore history in favor of abstract and self-contradictory concepts.

2023-07-06 16:25:41

Given that #Threads is already supporting far-right hate groups, it should already be defederated by any Fediverse instance that has defederation policies against instances that allow hate groups. And that's every instance I've seen.
Including mastodon.social.

2023-07-06 14:48:33

1982: "You shouldn't use violence except in self-defense. Unless it's Nazis. That's a special case. You have to fight them the moment they appear. The world learned that the hard way."
2023: "Blocking the Nazi Propaganda Machine is the *worst* sort of elitist gatekeeping."

2023-07-04 18:22:45

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@npub1pfr…c5m6 It's important to celebrate our successes.

2023-07-02 17:47:34

Dear journalists who keep writing that Americans don't support affirmative action but do think colleges should do something to have more POC students:
Your job is to explain what affirmative action actually is, and that the people who know what it actually is and oppose it are racists.
Do this in the headline and first sentence of the first paragraph, not the tenth paragraph.
Stop licking boots for ten seconds and do your fucking job.

2023-06-20 17:02:22

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@npub1zdp…vqv8 I think part of it is an overreaction to the insistence that no social action but voting is tolerable. And I'm wondering if that's a particularly white thing.

2023-05-13 14:17:30

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@npub1v2s…mqq5 For years she has been notorious as one of the most conservative politicians in the Democratic Party. The people arguing that attacks on her are ageist and sexist are using those claims to cover up her actual record.
They're probably anxious because it would be very difficult to find another politician as conservative to take her place.

2023-05-10 00:55:52

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@npub1k08…6xvn "It's open source, so anyone can use it", is different from, "We support local governments who use it", which is again different from, "We went to a police conference to advertise our services".