AnarchistArtificer

@AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net

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AnarchistArtificer,

It’s a long video, but this video by Philosophy Tube explains why it’s definitely a trans rights problem, not just the broken NHS. The long wait times across the board is what makes the trans healthcare side of it so outrageous, because it’s structured in a way that takes an already bad problem (shortage of services) and makes it so much worse through gatekeeping and bureaucracy.

Your comment also inadvertently highlights one of the especially insidious aspects of UK trans healthcare being broken and nonsense — it’s fairly common knowledge that the NHS is on its knees, so activism aimed at making trans healthcare less shit is often perceived as an attempt to “jump the queue” so to speak, which feeds into anti-trans sentiment. (To be clear, no negativity is intended towards you here, I think that unless you have direct experience of trans healthcare in the UK, it’s hard to know just how bad it is).

I was going to give a couple of examples of the kind of gatekeeping I mean, but I’m bad at brevity; if you’re someone who watches video essays, I would strongly recommend the Philosophy Tube one above. It’s even pretty entertaining, for such a grim topic.

AnarchistArtificer,

That reminds me of a fairly recent article about research around visualisation systems to aid with interpretable or explainable AI systems (XAI). The idea was that if we can make AI systems that explain their reasonings, then they can be a useful tool, especially in the hands of domain experts.

Turns out that actually, the fancy visualisations that made it easier to understand how the model had come to a conclusion actually made subject matter experts less accurate in catching errors. This surprised researchers and when they later tried to make sense of it, they realised that they had inadvertently dialled up people’s likelihood to trust the model because it looked legit.

One of my favourite aphorisms is “all models are wrong, some are useful.” Seems that the tricky part is figuring out how wrong and how useful.

AnarchistArtificer,

Oh man, as someone who’s been interfacing with a lot of university bureaucracy lately, this is so on point it hurts. I feel like you could get a press release from my university and swap in some Star Trek words and it’d be a similar vibe.

Jewish settlers set their sights on Gaza beachfront (www.bbc.com)

Mrs Weiss heads a radical settler organisation called Nachala, or homeland. For decades, she has been kickstarting Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, on Palestinian land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Some in the settler movement have cherished the dream - or pipedream - of...

AnarchistArtificer,

Site wasn’t loading for me, so here’s an archive link archive.is/2Xx69

AnarchistArtificer,

One that I like that is also a curse rather than an insult is “I hope the rest of your day is as pleasant as you are”

AnarchistArtificer,

I wonder whether it doesn’t have any inherent meaning. I mean, we all get the sense that it’s an insult.

I say this because one of my favourite insult formats is "you [multisyllabic adjective] [random noun]. Stuff like “You incorrigible spade” or “You abominable turnip”. They’re next to meaningless, but my intention is clear

AnarchistArtificer,

This is a useful perspective. I think things like sluggish internet can happen gradually and lead many people to become increasingly frustrated with their speeds, but also treating it like it’s normal. But as you say, it need not be this rubbish

AnarchistArtificer,

I hope your visit to the Dr goes okay, OP!

AnarchistArtificer,

“The fact that Kratos isn’t the same person he was in the old series is basically the entire point.”

I always feel a little bit sorry for rage bigots like this, because of how dull their world and experiences must be. Like if he felt that the new Kratos felt narratively unsatisfying, or that his journey felt unsatisfying, that’d at least be an opinion with the potential to be interesting. But nah, it’s just “things are different”, with embedded implication that different = bad.

AnarchistArtificer,

I’m a little stressed

I’m a bit worried

I’m a lot better today

AnarchistArtificer,

I think this is a good point. It’s something I grapple with personally, because I’m a biochemist who is passionate about scientific communication, so “the high road” for me looks different than in many purely political discussions. I agree that there are cases when the appropriate and effective thing to do is to take the piss out of someone and not engage with their argument at all.

AnarchistArtificer,

I was talking to a friend recently about how the mechanisms of surveillance capitalism reminds me of a dark and a hollow version of how communities work. Earlier in the conversation, she used the phrase “communities are when 1+1 = 3”, i.e. when the collective output and capacity is greater than the sum of its parts. Data works a lot like that — you’re completely right that overemphasis on the value of individuals’ data misses the point

AnarchistArtificer,

I think what’s key here is that you used to be able to do this. I used to use Google assistant regularly and I feel like I’ve discovered dropped features through frustrated exchanges like this. It’s easy to miss that it specifically asked for time when you’re in autopilot mode and expecting that if there’s an error, it just misheard you

AnarchistArtificer,

Sometimes. The chess community is very weird in my experience. Like, anarchy chess is a thing and shitposting seems to have permeated chess culture. Case in point, the double bongcloud being played in tournament (1:32 length clip). (For context, the bongcloud opening is very bad, playing it is basically a self nerf. Because of the way that tournaments and points work, the end outcome of this game was basically a mutually agreed draw, but they did it in the most shitposting way possible.).

Personally, I think this is great, it’s made it harder for some people to be gatekeepy arseholes within the chess community. I am always slightly perplexed by the memes though - with absurd humour, it can be hard to tell whether I’m missing the joke, or whether the joke is that there is no joke.

AnarchistArtificer,

People like you confuse me, but in a way that makes me glad. Like, I think I will always be baby, but I’m happier being a baby when I know that there are people who are happy in their incomprehensible (to me) existence

AnarchistArtificer,

I think what chatokun is talking about is that some people don’t hear their own voice in the way that you describe. I think I am similar to you, in that my thoughts often form a clear, internal dialogue, but I know people who just don’t. It baffles me, because I can’t imagine what the inside of their head must sound like.

On the flip side, I am fairly sure that I have aphantasia (lack of ability to visualise), so often people get confused at this in a similar way. If you’ve never had a thing and don’t really understand what it feels like, it’s hard to understand what you’re apparently missing

AnarchistArtificer,

A thing to bear in mind is that you will never feel satisfied with your art, not even when you’re skilled enough to be able to capture the ideas in your head right now. That’s because as you execute your current ideas, you will cultivate newer and greater ideas that require you to keep pushing yourself.

It hurts sometimes, but it’s ultimately positive. It’s important to keep perspective of progress

AnarchistArtificer,

The impossibility of a sensible, coherent answer is part of why I find this stuff fun. Like, one of my friends enjoys arguing “every good is either a salad or a sandwich” and it’s a fun false binary to play with (cereal is definitely more of a salad than a sandwich, for example )

AnarchistArtificer,

Some T blockers, like spironolactone, can also come in pills, I believe.

AnarchistArtificer,

Will still occasionally throw “I’m sorry, I can’t”s but you just gotta remind it to follow the prompt and stay in character

This sounds like a kink scene with bad consent

GTA 6’s Publisher Says Video Games Should Theoretically Be Priced At Dollars Per Hour (www.forbes.com)

While Take-Two is riding high on their announcement that a GTA 6 trailer is coming, its CEO has some…interesting ideas on how much video games could cost, part of a contingent of executives that believe games are underpriced, given their cost, length or some combination of the two.

AnarchistArtificer,

I recently played Outer Wilds for the first time last week. Games like this, I always worry they’re overhyped, but it was great.

There’s a lot of good games on this list, plus ones I’ve never played before, I should probably check some of them out.

AnarchistArtificer,

Though to be fair, even this might be progress, of a sort; years ago, I had a girlfriend who had a bunch of apple products, partly because she worked in sound design. At the time, I had never used Linux and I found using her Mac distinctly unfamiliar. When I eventually tried Linux, some years later, I remember a few instances of going “oh, it’s like on a Mac”.

Those similarities made the whole thing feel a tad less intimidating and probably contributed to (or at least accelerated) me becoming the tech nerd I am today.

AnarchistArtificer,

I’m glad that you asked this question, because I also was like “wow, seems a bit extreme” before I saw people replying to you that that’s the studio name

AnarchistArtificer,

“I refuse to get hyped…”

Ugh, same. I really really really want this to be good. My late best friend introduced me to the first VtM Bloodlines game, as well as VtM more generally. It’d be cool if it did end up being decent, but I don’t think it will

AnarchistArtificer,

Yeah, the lack of transparency in the Pay-to-win game mechanics is annoying as heck. It’s frustrating to be lectured on F2P deck building strategies by someone who is P2P and pretending to be F2P (And that’s ignoring the contradictory advice of “Break out of the meta and do something new” and “Don’t spend your resources frivolously and don’t do anything too outlandish, stick with the established strategies”).

The P2P playerbase are functionally playing an entirely different game, and whilst I am fairly sure that game is still grindy and difficult in its own ways (I’ve noticed that P2P players are often so OP that they only engage with the co-op mechanics superficially, if at all. That makes me sad because the only reason I’ve stuck playing this game is how incredible the co-op multiplayer is and as salty as I am about P2P advantages being OP, I want everyone to experience the parts of this game that I have truly loved).

This is why solving the real life problems stalls so much, because “progress” literally means something different across different chunks of players. It’s why griefers sometimes say “I don’t know why you’re getting angry, I’m literally just playing the game”. That used to make me rage, but I’ve realised they’re not lying, they’re just playing a different game. Now I’m just sad that I have to spend so much energy trying to keep them out of my game if I want to make any progress

What games have you played in the last 365 days that stand out to you as the most memorable experiences?

I think the most common answer is going to be Tears of the Kingdom, and that is one for me that stands out for sure, but I will try to add some more unique inputs as well. Many are games that came out longer than a year ago, but i didnt get around to playing until more recently....

AnarchistArtificer,

I enjoyed Cassette Beasts. I was talking to a friend about how remarkable it is that the game simultaneously feels like just a reskin of Pokémon, yet still has its own distinct personality. It’s a difficult balance for any game that’s taking inspiration from such an iconic game series, but it did great

AnarchistArtificer,

I’ve not played any other VtM games, but I loved bloodlines. I played it a couple of Christmases ago and my friend who introduced me to World of Darkness watched me play it and it is one of my favourite memories. I played a Malkavian

AnarchistArtificer,

I need to play Outer Wilds. I think I actually own it already, but I’ve not got round to it. You’re like the fourth person I’ve seen in this thread mention it

AnarchistArtificer,

Deep Rock Galactic (DRG) will always have a special place in my heart for the role it played for me over the pandemic. My late best friend made a discord server for a bunch of his sad and lonely friends over lockdown, and DRG is probably the game we’ve played the most of.

I tend to play the hell out of a game and then get sick of it for a while, and that would’ve happened a couple hundred hours ago at least, but it’s more than a game, it’s a means to connect with my friends. We try to find time each week to do the Elite Deep Dive and having that checkpoint has saved my sanity.

It’s such a well designed game that I don’t just like it, I respect it. I’ve played a lot of co-op games like it, but I love the synergy of the classes and how each class has a wide variety in their potential loadout and how they fit into the team, but also a very clear identity

AnarchistArtificer,

I reckon it’s gotta be Disco Elysium ; that game changed my life. I just came to it at a particular point in time where some of the messages of the game hit especially hard.

A friend was recently telling me that it seems like it’s exactly their kind of game in many respects, but that their impression is that they would find it too depressing to play. Whilst it is true that the setting is pretty grim, I also found it to be one of the most hopeful games I’ve ever played.

If anyone isn’t familiar with Disco Elysium (DE), it’s a RPG where you play as an amnesia cop trying to solve a murder. It’s very introspective and quite heavy on the text, which I personally loved. It’s a very grey world where there isn’t a clear right answer in anything and it’s so well executed that it made things feel real.

As an example, one of the things DE is known for is its creators thanking Marx and Engels when receiving an award for the game, leading many to view DE as “that communist game”. However, although you can play as a communist, the game pulls no punches for any of the ideaologies, especially communism. It was made by an Estonian game studio, and it never feels overly idealistic - this particular kind of sad wistfulness towards history is something that only a post-Soviet country could pull off, I reckon.

AnarchistArtificer,

Oof, the last paragraph hit me hard:

“It gave me space to breathe a little more,” she said. “I remember a moment where I did get harassed, I don’t know what it was, but it was either a Twitter [message] or an email. And [when I saw it], I was like, Oh, that hurts. And then I was like, Wait a minute. That hurts. That’s cool. Being able to feel again, that’s a form of healing.” And by stepping away for a bit, she hopes to keep giving herself more and more space to grow.

I learned a lot from Anita Sarkeesian’s work, and it was a nice thing to see, growing up as a girl who had to justify my existence in the space, despite gaming making up a huge portion of my youth

How often have games made you do a double take in real life? (i.imgur.com)

Maybe you see a plant you have to collect in game or a rock wall that looks different. What items have you caught out of the corner of your eye that you realized was just your brain so focused on looking for things in a game that you saw it IRL and made you double take?

AnarchistArtificer,

After playing Valheim, I started pointing out birch trees to one of my friends who also played.

“Ooh, look, a fine wood tree. And another. And another. Oh wow, is this the plains?”

AnarchistArtificer,

I loved that game. It’s really nice to come across people who share my feelings about it so many years on.

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