It’s funny a good open source washing machine with wifi could be amazing, would allow for so much more control by letting you modify programs and view diagnostics but proprietary hardware is never going to let you do the good stuff because the you wouldn’t need to buy the more expensive but physically almost identical models.
I’d be interested in examples of what he watchs, it’s hard to know how to respond otherwise.
I think you’re probably worrying too much though, I watch all sorts of junk on YouTube largely because I enjoy finding out how other people think more than it constanrly changing my opinion - sure he’s young and doesn’t have the same level of awareness as an adult but also nothing in his life will actually matter for about 5 more years so a few bad opinions aren’t the end of the world.
When he says ‘I don’t know’ maybe you should believe that’s how he really feels, feed into it a bit and as painful as this might be for you admit that you don’t know either - life is full of confusing shit and honesty half the stuff I see I don’t even know how I feel about it or if it’s true, sane, or sensible. I’m sure he knows loads of interesting things going on in the world that you’re totally unaware of so let him tell you about it, be interested and accepting while in a non-dogmatic way rasising doubts where appropriate or simply tell a story from your own life that explains your doubts - not like ‘I’m old and know better’ but more friendly and demonstrating it’s normal to not know who to trust or what’s valid.
Positive reinforcement of doubt and distrust is important, demonstrate that you understand he’s learning about the world and its absurdities and complexities, laugh about some of it WITH him rather than making him feel like you’re saying ‘the stuff you watch is dumb and you’re dumb for watching it’ because understanding others is FAR more important in life than knowing the truth about obscure subjects, hard pill to swallow maybe but it’s true.
Your seven points you worry about are well and good but media doesn’t do that, politicians don’t do that, corporations don’t do that, life partners and lovers don’t do that, friends don’t do that, I bet YOU don’t do that… To live in this world we’ve got to learn how to take the important bits and leave the rest, we’ve got to learn why people do the things they do and that’s only possible with a big messy database in our heads of all the different types of people out there.
It sounds from the way you speak like you’ve given him a good grounding in logical, sensible, and scientifically literate discourse which is great but now his brain yearns to understand more of the world - why is everything so crazy and weird? why do people who seem nice sometimes do crazy and hurtful things? Why does this girl say such odd things, does she like me or hate me? These are questions you can only start to answer by understanding people and things you don’t believe in.
I listened to endless craziness like Alex Jones, 5Live, loveline, all sorts of brain rot shit - never once did I think Adam Carolla was anything but [string of words now forbidden] though he was funny, it was fun to listen to and entertaining, I learnt a lot about the world from callers and even Adam though he certainly never did a single one of your seven virtues.
Yes maybe the entertainment is more important than the content of their arguments, being able to know the truth is useful but being able to entertain friends, girlfriends, bosses and authority figures is what can turn a hard life into a great and easy one.
Part of the problem with arguments like that is if you say ‘trans women are not widely represented in women’s jails’ they can say ‘yeah but the left want to change that with self ID and all the other things they push for’ so really the only point you’ve made in their mind is that its good the people pushing these things aren’t in power.
Surely no one can deny that the lefts messaging has been that a trans person should be able to enter any gendered space without question? You never see trans advocates say ‘yes creepy men pretending to be women to gain access to female spaces is a legitimate problem which we intend to protect against by…’ they say ‘its not a problem, will never be a problem and anyone who says it might be is evil and stupid and bad’
Everyone knows a lot of men are creepy, everyone knows that there are rapists who if able to get put into a woman’s jail would jump at the chance - if one side is going to pretend these aren’t true simply because it makes the rest of their belief on the issue difficult to explain then that’s not on the normies who don’t accept it without question.
Up until the run up to the election the UK labour party for example pledged self ID legislation would be made law and there was huge outcry from trans advocacy groups when they changed their mind - you can’t argue that something you’re trying to make happen isn’t a problem because it doesn’t yet happen.
But the right loves Russia they’re super right wing, putin is even offering people free citizenship if they’re fleeing ‘woke western politocs’
Belligerence to Russia comes largely from the fact they invaded a neighboring nation
Also you can spend thirty seconds as a right winger and have them all tell you that you’re great, important, clever, worthwhile, and all those things – spend twenty years dedicating your adult life to leftwing values and you’ll still get spat on by your political peers because your opinion on some obscure issue is 2% different to theirs.
The sad truth is that the right are pandering to homophobia because it’s a vote getter for them not because they really care about it.
A huge portion of religious people believe that homosexuality is an especially dangerous sin because it’s a social contagion, they see the increased popularity of gay things and the decreased respect for religion as a clear sign that the devil is winning and faithful, godfearing society is collapsing. To an extent they’re right, modern views on self determination and respect for others is anathema to Christian society as it’s been for over a thousand years - to the faithful it’s like saying the sky is pink or fish live in trees.
There are of course now grifters using homophobia to draw people into their political ideologies but it’s generally people from homophobic families in homoohobic communities that get drawn into it, it’s easy to forget that when you see a twenty something year old kid making homophobic comments it’s likely at his age his dad was going ‘queer bashing’ for fun with his friends and certainly wouldn’t have hesitated to beat up a gay person in a bar or in the street if encountered.
Even big artists like Eminem had deeply homophobic messages in his music, now that’s backtracked and he’s friends with Elton - this isn’t entirely because he’s grown as a person but because at the start of this century it was unconscionable that rap or hip hop could be anything but homophobic. School kids used the word ‘gay’ to describe uncool or disliked things so commonly it was even part of my own vocab despite being raised in a progressive and accepting family in a liberal area.
Things have changed so much just in my adult lifetime but it’s not universal, a lot of religious and conservative people see the ‘gay agenda’ exactly as you see the ‘homophobic agenda’ in that they believe it’s political narrative being pushed just to destabilize morally virtuous power structures to allow corrupt and evil people to take power and steal money.
Companies that shoehorn a poorly written gay character into everything for the sake of inclusivity feel like a pandering cash grab to me but to the homophobic Christian it feels like asymmetric warfare from a deranged and selfish elite hellbent on ruining western society.
It’s a hugely complex issue for me, I honestly have no idea what the best thing for the greater good is. Forcing things too hard can be painful for those unready which causes resentment and reaction but holding back and allowing non-violent homophobic behavior to exist in our society is hurtful to those struggling to find snd accept themselves. (For example being 17 and trying to reconcile popular music explicitly talking about how your unexplored sexual desires are disgusting, realizing you have to make the choice between humiliation and self denial - and this is probably a big part of other emotional troubles which can lead to rejection of otherwise sensible social norms leading to unhealthy drug use, self endangering behavior and other things that still have lasting damage to my life to this day)
I don’t know what will solve these complex issues in our society, maybe making certain concessions to mildly homophobic sections of society would stop driving them into full on culture war crusaders? Maybe highlighting that it’s not only possible but probable to be gay and boring would help ease the anxiety? I actually kinda think straight pride type events and companies pandering to heterosexuals could be normalized and accepted more - not in a way that pits them against everyone else but more of a everyone gets a party kinda way. Stop heteros feeling attacked or at least make those who want to paint that picture looking silly.
It’s sad to admit but humanity is naturally kinda selfish and shitty, bigotry and group thinking is as natural and easy to us as breathing while compassion and understanding takes effort and the right circumstances to flourish.
So now it’s demonstrated this can’t be true was it a lie and if so why? If not then what extra details make it plausible?
Fund an open source project to make something useful that helps make life cheaper and easier for regular people
It’s like all rhose.facebook memes ‘a boy in Switzerland invented a brand new idea to help the disabled, sticks you can use to support your weight when walking!’ And the comments are people amazed by it.
I saw one where Finland inventes raised pathways made of wood so people can experience.nature without getting their feet muddy - europe has had raised track ways for at least 6000 years!
Thats a bit of a wild leap. Would you be against using tech to respond rapidly to a gunshot in the school? Like those audio sensors which can pinpoint its location and alert security instantly?
Lemmy users are honestly some of the most troubled and scary people in our society, seriously keep a mental count of how many weirdly violent posts you see on here it’s actually unhinged.
And yes I understand this is a joke but my point is someone who sees this joke and reposts it is weird in a troubling way.
It’s more than just funding science it’s funding education and social systems that enable people to participate, it’s a culture of mutual uplift rather than a free for all deathmatch, it’s a community that instead of feeling resentment for any success anyone else has shows support and seeks to learn from them.
It’s weeks since I saw a thread on lemmy which wasn’t attacking and shitting on anyone doing anything, sure government funding is important but it’s not the only thing that matters.
Everything in space is a planet, even the moon
Big fan of the free info for the world, state funded open source solutions targeted at shitty companies would be good too - I’d probably start by utterly destroying Adobe snd then an open source printer that’s easy to manufacture on fllosh machines to kill HP and the rest of the awful junk companies.
My time is basically worthless when I’m watching YouTube
You should possibly look into some form of therapy if everything annoys you, especially if feels intentional.
Good loving people pay for it because they want it to be available to everyone in the world and it’s running costs are pretty low.
Joel is currently trying to make 12 movies this year, the ones he’s done so far are all brilliant.
I donate small amounts to open source projects and content creators that .make stuff for everyone because I really believe it’s a great way of fighting capitalism and many of the problems it’s caused.