SecondJon @SecondJon@qoto.org

#mastodon makes the internet fun again, we need more places like this online. Places to have adventures and explore.

google working toward unilateral control of the web

amazon working toward unilateral control of commerce

facebook working toward unilateral control of data

kinda makes you think, don't it

The longer I've followed the news, the more of it reads like nonsense to me. It's mostly just a heap of non-newsworthy stuff presented as if it actually matters.

It's the same with political debate, really. It doesn't really matter what arguments are presented, because I've heard most of them before, and they didn't convince me the first time either.

When you boil down politics to its essentials, it's all just a big game of justifying various feelings. You present an argument, but it's just a decoy for your true feelings. Defeating the decoy doesn't change those feelings; it merely forces the person to find a new decoy argument for the same feelings that didn't go away. The only way of resolving such conflicts is to vote according to your conviction, or if that isn't enough for you, go to war over it.

In my opinion, personal experiences can change political convictions. If you're anti-gay, discovering that your beloved son is gay might trigger a change of heart. If you can't stand black people, positive experiences with black people might make you feel otherwise. Living in a properly functioning social democracy might make you change your views on socialism.

Arguing on the Internet is usually a rather futile exercise. When I share things on here, they're more like conclusions than the beginning of a debate. I have reached that stage of life where I'm fairly settled, perhaps even a bit stubborn, in my ways.

I have a theory that the popularity of the super hero genre of movies is the (mostly) complete escape of the mind-numbing wall-to-wall SJW/NPC regurgitation you get 24/7 - 365.

We'll see if Captain Marvel refrains from being "preachy" and is a success like Black Panther... or if is succumbs to SJW/NPC madness and ends up like Solo - A (boring) Star Wars Story.

#Socialmedia has reached a place where it is somehow accepted and normal that Fortune 500 companies in Silicon Valley police the morality of our thoughts to the extent that you are sent to a digital purgatory if #Jack or #Zuckerberg decide you have sinned.

#Facebook #Twitter #Birdsite #socialmedia

#Facebook vs #Santa

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.

To those who don't, Happy Holidays to whatever celebration you honor!

Love to everyone!

Feels like a lot of good fedi accounts have gone dormant. I don't have a lot of time to sit around and skim through federated timelines to find good ones right now, so it's getting less and less interesting to read my home timeline. I mostly just post when I have something to say, without much time spent sifting through feeds.

I'll give the alt-right this: They aren't afraid of fearlessly debating taboo subjects, and of saying exactly what comes to their minds. They seem more liberated than the politically correct crowd, who appear to be deathly afraid of getting real.

There is this persistent denial of painfully obvious things, which is exactly what sowed the seed for the alt-right movement to begin with.

If you want to fit into polite society, there are certain opinions you can't hold, for fear of being ostracised; opinions that once had wide appeal among people of European descent until the middle of the 20th century.

The facts on the ground didn't change; it just became unfashionable to interpret them in a certain way due to political events and ensuing changes in the political climate during the latter half of the 20th century.

I don't think it's self-evident that the idea of progress should apply to social issues. Progress in science and medicine is easy to objectively measure. Progress in social issues is merely a matter of opinion. While it's possible to argue that the suffering of oppressed groups should be reduced, it's equally possible to argue that this will lead to increased suffering for the majority on the long term.

The culture of the present will always be narcissistic, believing itself to be an improvement on past cultures, but again: What is your measuring stick for that?

Look away from your screen for a bit. Allow your eyes and mind to rest.

RT @TrutherUfo@twitter.com

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/TrutherUfo/status/1077011236708143104

Everyone remember what Christmas is about. It is about God the Son, who came to Earth to die, so we may be reconciled with God.

#christmas

was tearing my hair out yesterday for HOURS trying to diagnose a programming bug last evening. i went to sleep, woke up, had a cup of coffee, looked at it for literally 5 minutes, and fixed it immediately

if youre a newbie programmer, the best advice i can give you is just... go the fuck to sleep honestly

this is an open letter to "Steingard & Testa Medical Associates" located in south philly. Please everyone **reshare** this so it reaches as many as possible. This doctor was my doctor of 5 years and was so cruel and self serving they pushed me to severe risk and trauma because they refused to help me when I needed medical attention most...

While i am very sympathetic to the opiate epidemic and do agree we need to solve it, the problem is the current approach makes it much much worse, let me relay my own expiernce to tell you why.

I recently had a very severe disc herniation. Much of the time i cant make it even one step away from my bed. I needed some sort of pain killer to help until it could be resolved, i also tried all the alternatives first, NSAID, steroids, ice, etc. NSAID did almost nothing for the extreme pain and steroids helped a lot but I wasnt allowed to stay on them for more than a week and the second i was off them I was worse then when I started. I needed some sort of pain medications or else my life felt like constant and literal physical torture.

So I approached my doctor of 5 years, he knew well that I have never asked for any scheduled drug of any kind. In fact the few times he offered Adderall i refused (for my ADHD). He flat out refused me any pain medications because he said i had to pass a drug test to get them, well i live in Holland and only stopped by america to pick something up and got stuck there. I told him "I would pass on all drugs but marijuana, but it was legal where i smoked it". Hearing that he refused me any medication and told me he could not since i couldn't pass a drug test.

Later in dire pain i called the office and begged and pleaded in tears. On the spot he dropped me as a patient all together and told me i could not be seen by him again (in the middle of a major injury). I then went on to call at least 20 doctors to get help and they all said under no circumstances would a new patient be prescribed a controlled substance. Now keep in mind i had an MRI and an X-ray to confirm the severity of my condition.

Now all i really needed or wanted was Tylenol II (basically Acetaminophen + codeine). While it is an opiate it is the absolute weakest form of opiate you can get. Since I was refused, and since i will not accept others abusing me or telling me what i can or cant do with my own body, my only solution was to scavenge drugs. I called every drug addict and family member i knew to try to get some pain killers to help. I finally got a nice collection together but since all drug users want are the strong things like morphine, oxycodon and hydrocodone all i had was a pile of stuff 10x - 100x stronger and more addictive than i needed. I did manage to get 4 codeine pills but they only last 4 hours each so that only held me over for a day.

In the end due to a pathetic attempt to address the drug epidemic they forced a non-addicted suffering patient to take drugs far riskier and more addictive than needed and drastically increased my risk of addiction, all in the ironically vain attempt to prevent my addiction.

Luckily as of yesterday I managed to reduce my swelling through use of a ketogenic diet enough that the pain is lessened and I stopped taking morphine. 2 days in with no morphine and I am not addicted, but I am one of the lucky few who isn't very easily addicted.

Long story short it NEVER pays to dictate what people can do with their own body, even drugs. Provide advice and support and leave the power with the individual.

#Traitor #Trump #Putin #Russia

More on the Amazon vs Google race to be the most evil. https://www.libertynation.com/amazon-goes-full-orwellian/