Best or worst idea? Getting a Velotaxi/Rikshaw for private use

[Z-Man]

4. There are non-shithead ways to react to one of your children coming out as queer. Father enough of them, as he has, and that is bound to happen at some point, that's just math.

[Z-Man]

Z-Man You should give X a try again, if you follow / interact with people that spread good clean information, the posts you get on there are good.

Tried it, before checking my regular news sources. Probably on the worst day See, it was the first day of parliament in Thuringia where the oldest member is supposed to lead procedures and get the election of the president going. Only that this time, the oldest member was from the certified fascist AfD and nothing got done. There was a lot of shouting. What exactly happened was not reconstructible from X alone. At least, one of those contextualisations correctly told me on ONE tween what it was about, after I had it pieced the broad stokes together already. I got the full story later in one of my non-X sources.
Another contextualisation was indeed helpful, it was on a video shared like a "look at that dumb guy", where the clarification was that the video was staged. So that is something. However, I would have preferred not having seen the video in the first place. Which is what I get if I don't visit X (Or by ignoring the "For me" feed)
I have some overlap in my twitter follows with RSS feeds I have subscribed; for those, the RSS feeds are consistently better. Retweets are the worst for me. You don't know WHY exactly something was retweeted, you typically don't know the other guy, and you don't know what they're trying to say in the first place. It's just 90% drivel devoid of usable information, the rest is too unstructured for my tastes.

The contextualizations do help, where they appear. And at least today, X wasn't the haven for nazis people sometimes claim it is; I've seen other days. The main things I don't like about it were already in place before Musk took over, but on the other hand, he also didn't improve it. It still encourages doomscrolling, it still feeds on dissent, shouting matches and outrage. Maybe it's just not for me. I don't need my news right the instance things happen, I like it as clear as possible from the point I get it, and I like to be able to be DONE reading.

[Monkey]

If your parents were able to put you through a nice school and you didn't have to pay for it, or they were able to "loan" you a crapload of money to start your business, you are not self-made. I realize you're a Brit, so you get your school paid for, but in the USA, people take on tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt just to go to school. That debt strangles them for decades afterwards, preventing literally anybody who didn't come from wealth from being able to start their own businesses or what-have-you. Not to mention how difficult it really is to start a business without schooling, because you can't get funding, unless you come from wealth, which all of the people on your list did. Every single one of them started the race three steps away from the finish line while the rest of us had to start at the starting line, several miles away.

As you rightly say, it is different here in the UK. I had some friends at University who came from poor backgrounds but were still able to go to University despite this as the tuition was free then. Also, everyone was entitled to a student loan to help pay for accommodation, food, etc. The loan was only to be paid back when one earned above a certain threshold. A bit more recently, however, our right wing government altered this somewhat. Even under those scumbags though, you only had to pay back money when you earned over a certain threshold, which was still set at a reasonable level (and staggered so the more you earn, the more you pay back).

As for my list of self-made people, it takes a certain ability (along with ruthlessness and other ugly traits I fully admit), even with easy access to starting capital and possibly a good education too, to start up and grow a business. Not everyone could do that. In fact, I'd say many people could not do it. All those on my list finished with more than they started with, by quite a significant amount. Yes they had capital, etc but they are/were effective business men. I class them as self-made because of this. If self-made is to be taken 100% literally then pretty much no one on Earth is self-made. Also note that the only one on my list that is American is Bill Gates, the others are not. We may have to agree to disagree on this one.

]I'm a smoker. One of the things nicotine does in your body is it assumes a role in blood sugar regulation, resulting in many/most smokers only eating one meal a day.

I didn't know this. My partner, and some of my friends too, used to smoke but now vape instead. It has improved their health, to at least some extent, it seems. Of course vaping is still bad for you but not as bad as smoking (a minority of people may argue against this). Other good things about vaping are:

• Generally cheaper (there may be some exceptions)

• Less antisocial for non-smokers (it smells better)

• Easier to reduce nicotine intake over time

I don't know how prevalent vaping is in the US but have you ever tried it?

Andrew Carnegie built a lot of schools and libraries and is indirectly responsible for the quality of US education improving throughout the 20s and 30s and making us competitive enough to be on the winning side of WWII. But he was also the most ruthless robberbaron and ruined thousands of people's lives with his greed and ambition.

It is a similar story for Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who is celebrated here in the UK, unfortunately.

[Lucifer]

As for my list of self-made people, it takes a certain ability (along with ruthlessness and other ugly traits I fully admit), even with easy access to starting capital and possibly a good education too, to start up and grow a business. Not everyone could do that.

I'm not saying they don't have talent, too, although Donald Trump is proof that you don't need talent, either. I'm saying that there's a lot more talent out there that never gets a chance because of where they started, and that it's just plain wrong to celebrate people for accomplishments that they wouldn't have been able to make if they hadn't started so far ahead of everyone else.

In fact, I'd say many people could not do it.

In the US, at least, and again, this is something that could very easily be different in the UK and the EU, I'd say that somebody who clawed their way out of generational poverty to get to a middle-class/upper middle-class life are just as talented as anybody on your list, and had they started in the same place as the people on your list, would have made your list. Especially when you start adding in factors like not being white, being an immigrant (like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs), etc.

If self-made is to be taken 100% literally then pretty much no one on Earth is self-made. Also note that the only one on my list that is American is Bill Gates, the others are not. We may have to agree to disagree on this one.

I think that was the point of Obama's "You didn't build that" tour, where he pointed out that these extremely useful and profitable factories wouldn't have been able to exist without all the infrastructure built up around them. I really enjoyed how it riled up conservatives at the time, because they wanted to take credit for that same infrastructure after doing everything they could to prevent it from being built because "small government".

I don't know how prevalent vaping is in the US but have you ever tried it?

I vape, too. For a little while, to cut costs, I was only vaping at work, meaning I left my cigarettes at home and took only my vape to work. That took me down to less than half a pack a day. I still do that, but now my home is the van I drive to work, so my cigarettes are in the parking lot.

It is a similar story for Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who is celebrated here in the UK, unfortunately.

I'm not familiar with this guy. I'll try to google it up later, but for now, I have to get back to work. I'm going to write the script for a 12-step takedown video, because I went and posted on NextDoor asking for people who are interested in a secular recovery meeting to contact me, and I got a bunch of AA people telling me to find Jesus. So I'm going to a civil and rational takedown of 12-steps, and then propose a new meeting format based on science, and then email LifeRing to see if they're interested in being associated with it so I can have a national organization to back me whenever I finally get this meeting started.

[Z-Man]

Well, we celebrate top scientists, athletes and artists. Like in economics, in all of these fields you need talent, opportunity and a big dose of luck to make it to the top.
The difference is in how much ruthlessness helps. I'd say it helps most in economics. There are just so many more opportunities to screw over business partners that go unpunished. That would be my leading hypothesis on why there are so many assholes on top.

In continued X re-evaluation news, yesterday and today the trending topics were again flooded by nazis, most of them raging against the perfectly orderly resolution of the kerfuffle the AfD caused. So nope, to make my earlier statement more precise, it's bad for Democracy. And you can't disable seeing the trending topics. You used to be able to at least make the default view only those people you follow, but now it always goes to the 'for you' page, which adds random distractions. No contextualisations in sight over the last two days, so much for that improvement.

[kyle]

Thanks for the list Lucifer on reasons why, I don't think I can sway your mind on them, so not going to attempt to argue, at least now know. I just wanted an idea as to why some people felt this way, I may dig into it a bit more at some point though.

In continued X re-evaluation news, yesterday and today the trending topics were again flooded by nazis, most of them raging against the perfectly orderly resolution of the kerfuffle the AfD caused. So nope, to make my earlier statement more precise, it's bad for Democracy. And you can't disable seeing the trending topics. You used to be able to at least make the default view only those people you follow, but now it always goes to the 'for you' page, which adds random distractions. No contextualisations in sight over the last two days, so much for that improvement.

Glad you've tried X a bit, from what I gather, you would prefer your for you to be stuff from people you follow, but important posts you may have missed in the chronological following tab. You can always hit the 3 dots at the top of posts to mute, block, or just say you are not interested in that specific post, this does help that feed a lot.

[Monkey]

<snip>

I'm saying that there's a lot more talent out there that never gets a chance because of where they started, and that it's just plain wrong to celebrate people for accomplishments that they wouldn't have been able to make if they hadn't started so far ahead of everyone else.

Totally agree.

I'd say that somebody who clawed their way out of generational poverty to get to a middle-class/upper middle-class life are just as talented as anybody on your list, and had they started in the same place as the people on your list, would have made your list.

I feel that is correct for only a small number of individuals. Both of my parents clawed their way out of generational poverty to get to a middle class life but I know that neither of them has/had/w/e the ability to do as well as those on my list. It's not for lack of wanting/trying either. I know a lot of other people that fall under this category too. My uncle did this too, and he is desperate to become filthy stinking rich, working all the hours he can but he just doesn't have enough intellect, IMO, to do it. He has built up his own accounting firm, with about 16 employees but he is struggling to do better.

I think that was the point of Obama's "You didn't build that" tour, where he pointed out that these extremely useful and profitable factories wouldn't have been able to exist without all the infrastructure built up around them. I really enjoyed how it riled up conservatives at the time, because they wanted to take credit for that same infrastructure after doing everything they could to prevent it from being built because "small government".

The same shit happens here. It works in reverse too; our new government are trying to rebuild our ****** up country and are having to make some unpopular decisions to save money, because of what the previous government did for 14 years. Members of this previous government then come out with criticism of what the new government are having to do, because of *them*.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a British guy famous here for building stuff, like bridges, railways I think, etc. A lot of his workers died on the job, you know, the usual story of slave labour. Talented builder/designer but terrible man.

I went and posted on NextDoor asking for people who are interested in a secular recovery meeting to contact me, and I got a bunch of AA people telling me to find Jesus.

LMAO that's AA alright

So I'm going to a civil and rational takedown of 12-steps, and then propose a new meeting format based on science, and then email LifeRing to see if they're interested in being associated with it so I can have a national organization to back me whenever I finally get this meeting started.

Good luck with that, I hope it goes well. Where I live we do have a secular recovery organisation, called KAAS (Kirklees Alcohol Advisory service). Despite the uninspiring name, people do go to it. I can't divulge too much information about my friend but I will be attending this with my friend soon. They meet 3 times per week, twice in my area and once in another nearby area. My friend has been to AA too but is not too keen on the religious/spiritual aspects of it.

In continued X re-evaluation news, yesterday and today the trending topics were again flooded by nazis

You know what, my Android phone does the same thing. Google's algorithm, that decides what news I would like to see, must be written by nazis. It comes up with the most right wing extremist news feeds/content based on right wing extremist opinions/views. I search for carp fishing, car and DIY stuff yet I get these recommendations. Google has gone so downhill over the years and I really hate Google now.

[Z-Man]

Google? The regular google search? Really? I mean, the recommendation page isn't good, that's for sure.

Kyle: Thanks for the tips. What works for me is the addon "Control Panel for Twitter". It is configurable, by default it removes the 'trending' pane and the 'for you' feed and leaves you with your follows. And a couple of other things that are bad for people with poor impulse control, like apparently me. And it restores the blue birdie There are still plenty of unpleasant people out there, but they only occasionally show up in replies.

[Lucifer]

In continued X re-evaluation news, yesterday and today the trending topics were again flooded by nazis

You know what, my Android phone does the same thing. Google's algorithm, that decides what news I would like to see, must be written by nazis. It comes up with the most right wing extremist news feeds/content based on right wing extremist opinions/views. I search for carp fishing, car and DIY stuff yet I get these recommendations. Google has gone so downhill over the years and I really hate Google now.

This isn't google, specifically. It's all social media, and one of the biggest reasons is that they haven't stopped the bot army from Russia/China/Iran/Whoever else is involved. The bot army posts and reposts and likes and all that stuff to push this stuff up into everyone's recommendations. They're gaming the algorithm.

One of the things that makes Elon Musk taking over Twitter so terrible is that the work done to the algorithm and to the system to prevent exactly this ongoing attack is also what he objected to, calling it "free speech". Bots don't have rights, but here we saw a billionaire buy a company to protect bot rights.

[Z-Man]

Some of those 'bots' are actual humans (typing away at computers in damp basements in Moscow, I imagine). Wasn't a network of them found and eliminated just last week? And didn't Musk himself often agree with their posts?

Anyway, I realized my transormation a) undid everything Musk did to Twitter and some more and b) it now works exactly like Mastodon. And since I already have that, with a good mobile client to boot (Tusky), I didn't know what to do Most of the posts come from the same people, even, so it is even more redundant. I didn't want to unfollow anyone, so I muted them on Twitter, but still follow them. That's twice the engagement, right? That's how that works?

[kyle]

One of the things that makes Elon Musk taking over Twitter so terrible is that the work done to the algorithm and to the system to prevent exactly this ongoing attack is also what he objected to, calling it "free speech". Bots don't have rights, but here we saw a billionaire buy a company to protect bot rights.

Sort of true, but I also pay for X and unless I know someone who does not pay for X is a valid user I just ignore the stuff from them, because yes it could be a bot farm. If all users were willing to pay, the a lot of the bot armies go away, as there is more incentive to remove them. IMO paying for X is cheap to get access to grok. Grok 2 is actually really good. Today I used it at work and it lead me to the answer I needed, where as MS Copilot failed, and funny enough, it was with C# code.

[Lucifer]

Some of those 'bots' are actual humans (typing away at computers in damp basements in Moscow, I imagine). Wasn't a network of them found and eliminated just last week? And didn't Musk himself often agree with their posts?

So Elon is a Russian bot? That would explain a few things.

[Monkey]

Google? The regular google search? Really? I mean, the recommendation page isn't good, that's for sure.

On my Android phone, there are three home screens. The middle one shows the time, the right one (selected by swiping right) shows my most used apps and the left one (selected by swiping left) shows a Google search bar followed by loads of news articles. It is these articles that I'm talking about. I don't even want news articles, I never asked for them, let alone racist/fascist ones, Google just puts them there, along with non-racist/non-fascist nonsense that I also don't care for.

This isn't google, specifically. It's all social media... They're gaming the algorithm.

I don't use social media (well not intentionally anyway), not even Facebook. This does not surprise me at all.

I also pay for X...IMO paying for X is cheap to get access to grok...Today I used it at work and it lead me to the answer I needed, where as MS Copilot failed, and funny enough, it was with C# code.

It scares the hell out of me not only that things like this exist but that people are willing to pay towards them. As for MS Copilot not being able to help with C# code, that sums up Microsoft to a tee, hence why I haven't had Windows on any of my own computers since Windows Millennium Edition (basically Win98).

[Z-Man]

unless I know someone who does not pay for X is a valid user I just ignore the stuff from them, because yes it could be a bot farm.

That is incredibly discriminatory! I ignore all users by default.

Monkey: Oh yeah, that thing. For me, it is not too bad, mostly science and tech news. The titles are often clickbaity. I never even go to that page on purpose, I wish I could just disable it.

Fun grok story: https://www.comicsands.com/mark-cuban-g ... inkprogram

[Monkey]

Everywhere in America will be like the nightmare that is downtown San Francisco

Wow, is he referring to the gay capital of America here by any chance? What a guy...