dandelion (she/her)

you must live in a conservative place where climate change denial is a part of their cultural-political identity … it’s the exact opposite where I live - strangers I chat with in a waiting room will openly and proudly state they believe in climate change in the midst of an otherwise banal discussion of the weather.

wow, that’s nice of you to say 😅 I feel like this is even better than getting “reddit gold” 😄

for example, understanding an enemy is important to combating them - being able to understand and anticipate their psychology helps approach them in a better and more informed way

e.g. I learned that religious fundamentalists cast a stark, black-and-white picture of a war or battle between insiders and outsiders, so by not playing into that dynamic I can sort of undermine their worldview, which then opens the room for humanizing outsiders and helping insiders escape their cult

the real question: where is the liberal equivalent of @[email protected]

yes, that’s admittedly valuable, this is why I’ve spent so much time studying Christianity and talking to Christians about their beliefs; but the OP put me in the mindset of thinking about diversity of viewpoints to ensure an accurate or correct viewpoint, which is a separate goal or concern - so I thought it was being implied that reading /r/conservative views is a valuable exercise because it helps us develop more accurate or better views (which I don’t think is likely)

is there an online service that eliminates capitalism?

does she have any Canadian grandparents (like anywhere up her family tree, great-great-great grandparents, etc.)? I think they just made a new rule that Americans who can prove they are descended from a Canadian can apply for citizenship?

well, at least enjoy the satisfaction that I cannot dissent with your comment by downvoting it 😉

there are absolutely conservative lemmy instances, but again I’m not sure what the value is of this - conservative ideology is broadly reality denying (even by their own admission), and it’s just poor reasoning that different opinions are always valuable to be acquainted with and take seriously.

For example, I do not think that medical students should be taking classes in astrology, alchemy, homeopathy, and chiropractic as well as their classes on biology, chemistry, anatomy & physiology, etc.

We can evaluate different viewpoints on the merits of how well they are based on reason or evidence, and dismiss poorly reasoned or poorly evidenced views (or better, views that are proven wrong through reasoning or evidence).

you should probably feel some amount of discomfort with your own views and be willing to adjust them as your exposure to better reasoning and evidence supports a different view

but I also don’t think we should have obligatory “both-sides” on everything either, sometimes it’s OK to have a consensus, like the Holocaust was wrong - I’m OK that most people on Lemmy agree with that view

right, but that doesn’t convince anyone that consensus itself is wrong - you can also have informed consensus, it’s not guaranteed to be ill-informed

I propose we call this “lawful good upvoting” 😄

some people like the censorship language that arises, e.g. “pdf” instead of “pedophile” has emerged as language my IRL friends use because they enjoy it, not because they’re being censored in our conversations … I only share this because I also really don’t like the “censorship culture” when it is used in contexts where censorship isn’t applied, and my friend’s preference for “pdf” challenged my view a bit

there are a few others that have disabled downvotes as well, for other reasons (like moderation burden, downvotes can be a way to harass people and it is a vector of abuse where users will try to automate coordinated downvoting with bots, so it’s just less work and easier for the admin to just remove the functionality)

I don’t downvote because my instance has disabled downvotes (because they’re often used to harass the minorities the instance I’m on is dedicated to protecting)

I upvote things I like or agree with, and sometimes just when I feel good-will towards a user even if their message is problematic (like when in a disagreement, but there is a desire to maintain and build trust still)

what’s the point of that? I’m sorry, I just don’t understand - is it so it can reference your transaction history and help with budgeting or something?

financial services … like investments? I’ve heard of people using LLMs to get advice on how to invest - but I’ve also read that this rarely goes well

I have the great pleasure of saying I have no idea what openclaw is - is this the agentic AI that just does a recursive prompt loop so it’s talking to itself to give it “agency”?

If we don’t program it to do something, it won’t.

yes, the only caveat would be that people could hook AI up to things that they shouldn’t and not provide sufficient oversight to ensure it is acting reasonably … but the same could be said of cruise control in a car, for example

I do wonder what scary things a text-prediction program will be capable of that has everyone so worried … it’s as simple as just not using it further. LLMs have no agency or independent intelligence.

The harms and concerns are many, but not related to concerns about its intelligence.

they’re not too noisy in my experience - but it absolutely is an adjustment to sleeping with them

they also really help with overheating in the summer compared to most other kinds of pillows, they breathe much better