shazbotter

I dunno, I try not to make corporation use part of my identity. It's a fact I use their products, and I think I like that product, but I'd never claim some attachment beyond they make a decent thing worth paying for.

> Anyone who claims there is no difference between the parties at this point is trolling or sufficiently ignorant as to be indistinguishable from a troll.

Good thing that's not what I said.

Biden dramatically increased Arctic oil drilling, shut down labor strikes, increased police funding and militarization, declared the Covid pandemic over prematurely, deported 4.6 million people (vs Trumps 2 million), reduced protections for lgbtq individuals, and enabled a genocide.

> Not have the federal government trying to criminalize their existence.

Biden is a big part of why we have "truth in sentencing" and "three strikes" laws. See the 1994 violent crime control and law enforcement act. He's literally one of the poster children for the carceral state.

Biden deported over twice as many people as Trump, he eliminated protections for trans youth, he bombed Gaza. Clean air? The man pushed oil drilling. The concessions in the IRA alone will be polluting for generations.

You can convince me there are good Democrats, but not Biden. Biden was a right wing politician. One left of Trump, no doubt, but he would fit right in with a Bush or Reagan.

I use Kagi on my phone. Pretty easy switch. Will anyone switch? Demonstrably yes?

No credit card, no mortgage, no "you cover dinner tonight and I'll Venmo you later"...

It really does not matter. Biden didn't meaningfully solve anything (and if anything, he made Trump's ascendency easier). Harris would not have solved things either. She'd continue to empower corporations and the wealthy, just like Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, and Clinton.

You know what does help people? Community building. Feeding people. Organizing workplaces. Forest conservation. Building housing. Forming tenant unions. Organizing anti-ICE demonstrations. Etc.

Actions solve problems commensurate with the time and effort it takes to perform. Voting takes very little effort, and solves very few problems. Community organizing takes a lot of effort and solves lots of problems.

Vote for whomever you want, I'm not going to demonize someone for voting for Harris. But like, that should be the smallest contribution you make by at least two or three orders of magnitude.

Because they are. Autism is a diagnosis of a collection of symptoms, not a diagnosis of a root cause. We don't know what causes autism, and there may be many many things that do.

I think you may be projecting your experience as the "normal" one, or not understanding the magnitude of "I had to". It's not like, "this is unpleasant" it's like, "I am in a life threatening situation and I must leave to survive".

If you feel a fight or flight response to someone playing music, then you might be autistic, but that's certainly not the reaction everyone has.

Because certain autistic traits are will supported by certain therapies and medications and supports, while other neurodiversity is supported by other forms of therapy, medication, and supports.

You cannot fix the root cause, nor should you seek to, but you can support people in making their experience easier.

> Nearly 100% of people I know (including myself) have small idiosyncracies that are comparable, i.e. one friend can't leave the house without checking multiple times that the stove is off

The difference between an idiosyncrasy and a disability is the degree to which it impairs your life.

My need for routines causes anxiety and meltdowns, even at an advanced age. Hearing people chew causes a flight or fight response. I cannot hold conversations in noisy environments. I need support to deal with those things or else I cannot effectively participate in society. I have a disability.

I have a friend who prefers to never use contractions. She can still function just fine even when she must use "can't". She has an idiosyncrasy.

Indeed, the DSM has three levels got two categories of autism. The three levels represent the different support needed to function. "Requires support", "requires substantial support", and "requires very substantial support".

Are you asking if people with Down's syndrome are unique people with unique experiences and personalities? Because I hope you'd pretty quickly arrive at "yes, of course people with Down's syndrome are unique people with unique experiences".

Yep. Too much empathy can be a diagnostic signal for folks with autism. (These days Asperger's is now diagnosed as autism and not a separate diagnosis.)

I voted third party. But ultimately a presidential vote is worth very little compared to actually putting in the work in one's community. Too many people think if they vote once every four years they've done their civic duty and can return to branch or whatever.

I largely agree it's fine to cut those people out of your life. But I go to things like food not bombs and if someone shows up a decade from now and confides they voted for Trump but they've since learned why that was bad, and they are actually putting in the work to undo the damage it caused, maybe I am willing to give them a chance.

Ultimately a vote matters very little. What other actions a person takes matter far far more. If they have other things to atone for, they probably have more work to do than a few votes.

As an autistic person, what you say is correct to my experience. I have all sorts of sensory processing issues that all basically are variations on "I can't ignore signals".

An autistic person can absolutely be good at that. It might not be intuitive, but that doesn't mean they can't be good at it.

> But more to the point, not everything is an attack on autistic people

No one said it was. I said it perpetuates a stereotype. I think that's different than an attack, personally. It's careless, not malicious.

But careless can still be irritating.

Not in the least?

And that led to under reported statistics?

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is today. Let people become allies and reconcile with why they took so long another time.

> People with WS are empathetic, social, friendly and endearing but they tend to have a low IQ, making tasks such as counting money difficult.

> They can feel anxious over stimuli such as the buzzing of a bee, or the texture of food.

Plenty of autistic folks are empathetic, social, and friendly. And many experience stimuli that cause anxiety.

The whole "it's the opposite of autism" doesn't actually help anyone understand and, IMO, reinforces the incorrect idea that autistic people are asocial, emotionless automata.

That's how I do it, but my needs socially are mostly already met, so the incremental gain for being outgoing serves no practical need, but has some notional risk and cost.

I'm autistic, and what you describe doing sounds impossible to me. I live in constant fear of inconveniencing others. I personally find it inconvenient when someone outside my close circle wants my time.

It's expensive for me to perform socialness, so I tend to assume it's not free for others as well and avoid placing that burden on them.

Which billionaires haven't hurt anyone in the process? To accumulate a billion dollars, don't you necessarily have to hurt people in the process?

Do you have tattoos? I find most sensors cannot read my vitals through my tattoos.

There is no human alive who can ethically enjoy a billion dollars. Give them each a hundred million and say, you've hit your cap, everything else goes towards the public good.

A hundred million dollars buys you a life of comfort and luxury. Anyone with a billion has too much influence, imo.

> Well the railroads aren't the seat of power that they used to be

You don't think that Carnegies, Vanderbilts, Goulds, etc don't have outsized influence and wealth?

I was using computers in the 80s, Usenet by the late 80s. The hacker ethos back then was about as far from fascism as one might imagine.

Hacker culture has always been left leaning, lol. Open source is a grand anarchist experiment.

You expect hackers to be like, "we love capitalism! We love strong hierarchies!"? Don't be daft.

Damn, DEF CON used to be a real one. It's a damn shame to see this happen to a group of hackers.

I'm sure other venues and community events will take up the mantle given time, but it's still a bummer to see an event that used to be so fiercely independent out here cheering on the feds.

Please be substantive in your replies.

This is the expected outcome in capitalism. The general flow is money -> commodities -> greater money, and while it's not zero sum eventually that flow necessarily concentrates the money into entities that have the most money.

Once you become large enough, your "commodities" become other companies that are growing, enabling you to simply purchase growth and income directly with your capital.

In game design we call this a snowball effect or a "winners win more" system. It necessarily disadvantages everyone who is not at the top.

Unfortunately, there seems to be little appetite for limiting the capacity of capital to accumulate in only a few winners.