• 28 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • What a world we live in where this is even a thought someone has.

    You should know that little media is being made today that will stand the test of time. It used to be, that when someone was angry or proud or excited, when they were full of emotion that had to be expressed, they would write book or a song or paint a work of art. Now, those emotions can be unloaded instantly on TikTok giving the person the satisfaction they needed. And perhaps some people do still do this but you won’t know about it because the corporations that have historically funded such people full of emotions to express are now dumping money into works their board members know to already be popular.

    I’ll add something that I’m personally struggling with. There is so much content available today that staves off any opportunity for boredom that I have little time to spend doing the things I know are more fulfilling. Like, when I get done work, I just plop on the couch and watch YT instead of taking a nap or reading a book or drawing. And now my attention span is shit so it’s a struggle to just sit still and do something requiring more than a few minutes of attention. I mean, I literally have a book called Dopamine Nation on my coffee table that I’ve yet to read more than a couple chapters of.

    You and I may have two different problems but I think they’re booth seeking the same solution: rediscovering our humanity.





  • The “meaning of life” is dependent on the scale.

    On an intergalactic scale, practically nothing, unless you’re someone involved in some way in intergalactic travel (like Musk, potentially). On a planetary scale, your life as a political or corporate leader or humanitarian could impact generations of others. If you’re a doctor or lawyer, your life may impact tens of thousands or even generations of people. These are scales based mostly on space.

    You could also look at a scale based on time. If / when the planet explodes, maybe someone like a Musk will be the only one alive today who genuinely has an impact on the human race long into the future. If you want to look at the time span of a country’s existence, someone like a Julius Cesar, a George Washington, or Adolf Hitler will have certain meaning for hundreds of years.

    Your life’s meaning may yet to be realized. The point is to live your life day to day in a manner that has a positive impact on the lives that surround you. If you don’t have the impact of someone like political or corporate leader or someone like a Greta Thunberg, maybe the point of your life is to be a supporting player for someone else.

    It gets difficult to find meaning if you live an isolated life. Without a family of your own, a fulfilling career, without traveling to engage with others outside your regular week’s schedule, it’s easy to say your life is meaningless. Because you haven’t made an attempt to give it meaning.

    Your life doesn’t have to have meaning. But if you’re asking this kind of question and expecting someone to tell you there’s some inherit “meaning” bestowed upon you at birth, you’re not going to get a hopeful answer. That’s not to say you need to go out and look for it. It’s to say that “meaning” comes from the impact have on something, by choice or otherwise.





  • Awesome. I appreciate this perspective.

    Can you dig a bit deeper into the benefits for normal people that an irreversible transaction offers? To me, this seems like a detriment. Like, if I sell something on eBay and it turns out to be broken or fraudulent, PayPal can reverse the charges for me. Actually, I have a real world example of buying sneakers online that never arrived and had my credit card reverse the charges for me.


  • Thank you for being one of the few to take me seriously and offer a thoughtful response.

    I can understand now the value of a token that represent some amount of effort that is limited in its supply. As “promised”, no other bitcoins will ever be made. So this alone makes it worth something. The fact that it represents some amount of effort achieved does seem to give it some validity. Although, IMO, certainly not $100k worth.

    I’ll need to think this over some more and maybe update this post with some more thoughts on the future of the coin.


  • oxjox@lemmy.mlOPtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlIs Bitcoin actually worth anything?
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    13 days ago

    Thank you for a real answer like I specifically asked for.

    The fact that Bitcoin does represent some amount of effort and that there’s a limited supply does seem to give it some value. While there is a theoretical finite resource of gold, it’s still being discovered. Which, theoretically, makes it less valuable than a predetermined finite resource. And, the US dollar continues to decline - almost by design during this administration.

    How BTC is used today and in the future can continue to be debated but I’m satisfied in understanding it’s a limited supply of something that represents some amount of effort.




  • Not to discount this helpful and important information but, for the people you’re trying to direct this to, I genuinely don’t think it matters. This administration has thrown out habeas corpus and due process. And they have done this because a substantial portion of the population voted in favor of kicking people out who don’t look like them. It’s called Nationalism. And with that comes Fascism.

    The core identity of the United States is disintegrating by public opinion. The one thing that brought pride to generations of Americans is being driven out and replaced with the same reasons people had left other countries in favor of the US. It’s gut-wrenching.

    So, yeah, get your papers but don’t let it fool you into believing it protects you.

    Hah - also funny to look at “only about 50% of US citizens have a passport” to understand exactly why we’ve turned into Nationalists.


  • oxjox@lemmy.mltoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlLemmy, do you condone violence?
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    1 month ago

    Violence is stupid. In some situations, it’s just an output for one’s rage. In other situations, it’s a battle of who is best equipped (hardware + intelligence). Neither of these address the core of the disagreement. Violence only beats the loser into submission. It does not change their stance on the matter.

    Negotiation, on the other hand, ideally, at least gives all parties some gains and losses. It may not be the end of the matter but it’s generally a positive step and should promote some degree of respect.

    Maybe we never had it, but I think we’ve largely lost the ability to be respectful and empathetic to others. Even though we find to be of the greatest evil, I think, should be given some initial respect to try to understand the emotional reality of their intent.

    I won’t write it out, but imagine the worse crime an adult male could do to someone. Something so revolting that the only “logical” recourse is violence. This is an emotional response that does not address the problems that brought this person to such an evil act. By ignoring the problem and beating the person down, we are not able to understand how they got to this place or how we can recognize this path in others. This is a brief example for the sake of time. If you look at something like genocide, I think the process does scale up but too complex to write out for now.

    I condone empathy for all because we all as a species benefit from it.

    Edit: on second thought - violence used to preserve life may generally be acceptable.


  • oxjox@lemmy.mltoSelfhosted@lemmy.worldPlex has paywalled my server!
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    1 month ago

    This is not Microsoft. I haven’t updated my plex software in over six months and it runs fine. Still, yes, I would expect updates to any software I purchase as new patches are needed for OS updates, etc. That shouldn’t be more than two updates a year for a given OS - if at all.

    Selling a product, generating revenue, using revenue to improve products or create new products is how we used to run businesses.

    If they’re unable to maintain software updates with the revenue they get, then they should discontinue support of less popular products.

    As I’ve stated on the plex forum, plex is no longer a media management and consumption platform. It’s a video on demand service. That’s their prerogative and that’s fine. The issue is that they’re discontinuing a product that people have purchased and use on a regular basis. I paid money for a product and that product can no longer be used if I change the device I use that product on. They should have left the existing product alone and released something wholly new.



  • So what is the move for them?

    Plex has a two-pronged VOD service. They have ad-supported “live television” and they have content to rent.

    I don’t know if that’s enough to sustain them but I don’t really care. I’ve been a PlexPass owner for over ten years. I have only asked that they resolve bugs and made requests for things like proper organization of classical music (which they’ve explicitly stated they will not consider).

    You do bring to light something I hadn’t considered; that they see Plex as a business model. From my perspective, I want to buy a fully developed product with the expectation of bug fixes and security patches etc over time. I genuinely can not think of a single thing the developers have added to the service that I’ve used in the past ten years.

    So, what kind of business model charges money to do things that don’t have an apparent impact on the user experience?

    Plex has been one of my most used applications in the past decade. However, it has its limitations and they are actively imposing more limitations on the experience in favor of “a sustainable business model”.

    The issue is that their sustainable business model is interrupting the users’ sustained use of a platform they’ve already paid for. I’ve had to go through all of my devices and disable all auto-updates to ensure I do not get the “New Plex Experience”.

    What we should be asking is why “selling a product” is no longer a business model.