I Had A Random Thought...

[Zeusthecat]

Hey don't sell yourself short. Retirements or no, I'm sure you've earned it.

 

I'll try to pop in from time to time with some random thoughts. I've been delving a bit more into epistemology over the last few years and that's been pretty interesting. It's given me some pretty good insight into just how shaky the foundation is for many of the opinions and beliefs that I hold and increased my level of empathy for my fellow human beings holding opinions that differ from my own. It's got me pining for some of the old debates we used to have on these forums. Those are hard to come by these days with many people immediately either labeling people they disagree with as 'evil' or just outright assuming they are arguing in bad faith. And pretty much every major media outlet dials that up to 11, pouring gasoline on an already raging fire.

 

So yeah, that's kind of where I'm coming from with my original CNN/FoxNews comment. I just see everyone organizing into their little diametrically opposed camps, seething with vitriol for those that disagree with them. It's heartbreaking. I'd like to see some warmth come back to humanity and for everyone to collectively chill the fuck out. 

 

Sorry for the rant. This used to be the one place where we could delve into shit and then everyone moved to Slack and the dynamic fundamentally changed. If anyone else shares my general sentiment, then please chime in. If not, I'll remain in the background and bring my reanimated corpse in here every 6 months or so to try to keep Idle Banter limping along.

[Gormongous]

Posting here as a reminder to post more later. I miss y'all too, and I miss this space.

[chunks]

On 6/17/2024 at 8:16 PM, Gormongous said:

Posting here as a reminder to post more later. I miss y'all too, and I miss this space.

The internet is in a stage of dystopia, hope it returns somehow to the golden years.

[castorp]

And now what?

[brkl]

There's a little part of me that's still shocked and hurt that Idle Thumbs just went away without a proper sendoff or explanation. It's silly but there we are.

 

Taking a wider view, the whole Internet has really gone to shit since Idle Thumbs' hayday. And of course, most things unrelated to the Internet as well. Merry Christmas everybody

[clyde]

On 3/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, Zeusthecat said:

 

Anyone else notice that almost all information out there has become completely unreliable unless you have a super strong bullshit detector? I swear, almost every "fact" I try to research has reams of information that both support and disprove it. Something fun that I've started doing (well, technically not fun, but interesting at least) is to pull up CNN and FoxNews side-by-side and just observe the wildly different universes they are portraying. And each supposedly backed by facts! It's gotten to the point that I eschew any and all group identification and prefer to just make up my own mind about each thing/topic on a case-by-case basis.

 

 

The thing is that I would have been willing to say the same thing 10 years ago, but I'm noticing it in a different way. I'm pretty sure that the problem I'm seeing is related to the motivation to make content for money at a frequent pace and the way the algorithms work and what makes something clickable. I'm becoming more impatient with books as well.