I think I can see more colours in the stars than most people. I can also tell the northern lights are coming up earlier, so probably just low-light cone sensitivity.

A wasp died in a vent a bit ago and it smelled awful to me, but nobody else noticed.

I have a different reason, but just a nice sturdy brush, and the hard edge to scrape anything stuck on.

Kitchen sponges are basically the dirtiest thing in your house, by amount and harmfulness of bacteria contained. It might just be something one of the species gives off.

Also notice that Lemmy is actually multiple sites connected together, so there might be more than one of each community, which can be confusing at first.

Other ones on other instances, too.

Not in an apartment right now, but I do tend to absentmindedly slam things. Sorry, I don’t mean to be loud.

I’m guessing there’s a lot of smaller steps they could take to make the US hurt, but yes, they shouldn’t ignore it. Going to the media was probably step 1.

Keeping it practical, I’d like to know the basics about every regionally important city in the world. Capitals should be easy, I probably have most of them down already, and I have a few ideas about how to compile a list of the rest.

They named specific groups under the umbrella, though.

I think the premise is a bit off, although it might just be your choice of wording. Only a very small subset of people at at any time tend to get away with violence, and it’s not necessarily the most aggressive ones. Stick up a convenience store and see how well that goes for you.

Violence seems likely to always be a part of life, at least in the background.

So are you an art fan who thinks 4’33" is a work of genius? Or one of the ones who thinks it’s garbage? I’m almost tempted to go for visual art where these controversies are more common; musicians are actually pretty chill about it most of the time. (And I’ll avoid the derogatory term if we’re discussing whether it’s good, as opposed to just if someone in particular is doing it)

Scientists come to consensus, and update that consensus in sync as new discoveries are made. Art fans do not. There’s also anthropology showing the existence of non-Western systems of music completely different from and alien to our own, divergences between systems within Western music history, and a long history of new kinds of music associated with minorities being deemed “wrong”. Meanwhile, other people have known beauty is subjective continuously since Plato.

All that adds up to gatekeeping art being done for essentially the same reasons people gatekeep anything.

Okay, now I’m really curious. What do they say?

Channeling what therapists have said to me a bit: it’s not what happens that causes feelings, so much as what you think about what happens.

Maybe you’re looking at things is a winner-takes-all way here? Like, if you’re not better than them in every way, they win. It’s not actually like that, of course. There’s billions of people on Earth, and you should be the best version of yourself you can be regardless of what everyone else is doing. Changing other people is nearly impossible (another thing therapists like to bring up) while improving your skill is not, and the two are very separate here.

IRL, that I’m left-wing and atheist, because it’s a loyally right-wing area, and because the latter thing pisses off an important minority. I also avoid anything that could be seen as “playing a card”, although in the right conditions I might bring whatever personal consideration up. The only way I’m admitting the first two is if either they did first, or I’m asked point blank.

Yep. Same vibe as old legends about the glory of battle. The tropes exist because the most powerful people are trying to motivate cannon fodder. Edit: Or justify their own position - either as a brave, chivalrous lord or a hard-working, street smart CEO.

You see the personal impact of success in whatever environment you’re in exaggerated for similar reasons. For example, good grades are worth something, and doing either really badly or better than average has consequences, but there’s diminishing returns on very high or low levels beyond that. From what I’ve seen in my life, nepotism, luck and schmoozing skills are all worth substantially more than crazy high grades. (And having the right temperament to actually build on what you earn - that one’s underrated)

“Slop” feels like a weird description when it’s something widely loved and appreciated. Like, either you mean it in the snobby “most people don’t understand real art” sense, or what’s not slop?

Compare to when it’s used to describe, like, one of those SEO clickbait sites, which are full of hallucinated answers to whatever you were looking for. Nobody likes that, but it’s hard to shut down.

Okay, then I won’t try.

I’m sorry, I think they have a lead. You (?) can come up from behind and get ahead afterwards, though, like in the space race!

Indeed. If this happened it seems unwise - even if it was part of an essay suggesting doubling down on Putinist “family values”. I don’t recognise the source, though, and not much else comes up that I trust more on a search.

Edit: I found this. Maybe it’s time to get my Russian practice in. The title does indeed read as described, at least.

Update, it was a journal article/paper, I don’t have access, and I didn’t find a copy anywhere.

It’s always amazing when someone discovers a new way to be shitty that I hadn’t even thought of.