Random Thread

[Travis B.]

damn! a richter 7 is no small thing. stay safe peeps in that region.

In this case the real threat is the tsunami, which from the time I saw should have hit San Francisco already (given that it is 1:02 PM PT as I write this).

Edit: Actually, the tsunami warning has been called off, so maybe not.

[Raphael]

Oh damn. Looks like the coup attempt in South Korea will succeed after all.

[bradrn]

Oh damn. Looks like the coup attempt in South Korea will succeed after all.

I don’t think ‘succeed’ is quite the right word here. I’d say it’s already failed — it’s just that the president might get off without any consequences. (Which is still pretty despicable, but a failure of the actual coup attempt nonetheless.)

[Man in Space]

In 2022, Spotify made the Car Thing—a device for your car so you could easily control Spotify without having to use your actual phone. It was announced earlier this year that they were going to brick it, despite these devices costing at least $70 and having a significant user and fan base, offering refunds instead. The date of brick was given as 9 December. My father and I much liked ours (him especially so, being older and finding it easy to use and less distracting). We were neither of us pleased at this.

Turns out, Car Thing is, somehow, open-source and so, a few hours ago, I jailbroke them hours before the deadline.

I did manage to get it to boot to DeskThing and was told I needed to get an API app thing from Spotify to do so. Somehow, attempting to authenticate the service led to an infinite number of tabs to spawn. It did this even after I force-quit Chrome the first time and restarted it. Eventually I just started clicking where the button would show up and I guess I got it stopped in a cycle where the input successfully registered on my system.

Haven’t figured out how to actually get the API or whatever to successfully operate on it yet, but at least crisis averted.

[Raphael]

In 2022, Spotify made the Car Thing—a device for your car so you could easily control Spotify without having to use your actual phone. It was announced earlier this year that they were going to brick it, despite these devices costing at least $70 and having a significant user and fan base, offering refunds instead.

Capitalism - because its top priority is customer satisfaction!

[Raphael]

Unrelated: Can anyone explain what happened in Syria? I mean, they've had a brutal civil war for over a decade, with no signs of it ever being resolved, and then, one side simply loses within a few weeks?

[bradrn]

Unrelated: Can anyone explain what happened in Syria? I mean, they've had a brutal civil war for over a decade, with no signs of it ever being resolved, and then, one side simply loses within a few weeks?

I don’t pretend to know anything, but the situation reminded me very strongly of Bret Devereaux’s article on Protracted War. After a long, slow period of gradual attrition, the stronger party becomes weakened enough that they collapse unexpectedly quickly once attacked by the notionally weaker party. A recent comparison might be Afghanistan, where the recognised government was overwhelmed by the Taliban as soon as the US pulled out (an instance which is also covered by that article).

[Raphael]

I don’t pretend to know anything, but the situation reminded me very strongly of Bret Devereaux’s article on Protracted War. After a long, slow period of gradual attrition, the stronger party becomes weakened enough that they collapse unexpectedly quickly once attacked by the notionally weaker party. A recent comparison might be Afghanistan, where the recognised government was overwhelmed by the Taliban as soon as the US pulled out (an instance which is also covered by that article).

Thank you!

[Travis B.]

Like seemingly most people, I was expecting the Assad regime to stay in power for the foreseeable future; I was too very much taken by surprise by the events of the last few weeks.

[Linguoboy]

Like seemingly most people, I was expecting the Assad regime to stay in power for the foreseeable future; I was too very much taken by surprise by the events of the last few weeks.

I figured it was too brittle to stay in power indefinitely, but I certainly didn't expect it to collapse as quickly as it did.

[Raphael]

Something random I've been thinking about a bit recently: How do you provide needed mental health services to people whose mental health issues are of such a kind that the symptoms include being very bad at keeping appointments?

I mean, usually, if there's an effective way of paying for people's mental health care, then they visit therapists or other mental health professionals, and ideally, this ends up helping them. But in practice, "visiting a therapist or other mental health professional" means "making an appointment with a therapist or other mental health professional, and then keeping that appointment". Which becomes pretty difficult if the mental health issues for which the people in question need help in the first place have symptoms that include being very bad at keeping appointments.

And, for the record, that's not some kind of weird hypothetical or silly mind game for me; it at least used to be directly personally relevant. I'm, thankfully, better at it these days, but I used to be very bad at keeping appointments myself.

[Ares Land]

Something random I've been thinking about a bit recently: How do you provide needed mental health services to people whose mental health issues are of such a kind that the symptoms include being very bad at keeping appointments?

I mean, usually, if there's an effective way of paying for people's mental health care, then they visit therapists or other mental health professionals, and ideally, this ends up helping them. But in practice, "visiting a therapist or other mental health professional" means "making an appointment with a therapist or other mental health professional, and then keeping that appointment". Which becomes pretty difficult if the mental health issues for which the people in question need help in the first place have symptoms that include being very bad at keeping appointments.

And, for the record, that's not some kind of weird hypothetical or silly mind game for me; it at least used to be directly personally relevant. I'm, thankfully, better at it these days, but I used to be very bad at keeping appointments myself.

I got people in my family with serious mental health issues. Symptoms not only include trouble keeping appointments, but trouble making appointments in the first place, or even not giving up on treatment entirely.
It's also a problem for other health conditions.

My experience was this wasn't really positive -- health care professionals didn't seem to think it was really their problem, so as a close relative, it ended up being my problem.

[bradrn]

Something random I've been thinking about a bit recently: How do you provide needed mental health services to people whose mental health issues are of such a kind that the symptoms include being very bad at keeping appointments?

If there’s not someone else available to help them out, then it would be very difficult, I think.

[keenir]

Something random I've been thinking about a bit recently: How do you provide needed mental health services to people whose mental health issues are of such a kind that the symptoms include being very bad at keeping appointments?

If there’s not someone else available to help them out, then it would be very difficult, I think.

*nods* Insofar as I am aware, it tends to be handled by relatives, legal guardians, and social workers & PTs & OTs {physical and occupational therapists}

that may not be a complete list, but its the people who handle such people {those who aren't good at keeping appointments due to one reason or another} for people I know and for people I've sat through conversations about {myself included}

[Raphael]

Thank you, everyone!

[malloc]

Out of curiosity, what would people here consider a legitimate reason for me to commit suicide? If the existing slate of catastrophes facing the world and by extension me does not suffice, then what would?

[Travis B.]

Out of curiosity, what would people here consider a legitimate reason for me to commit suicide? If the existing slate of catastrophes facing the world and by extension me does not suffice, then what would?

Facing certain capture by one's enemies, followed by certain torture, in which one will inevitably betray one's comrades (leading to their likely capture and execution), followed by either execution or being coerced into further betrayal of one's comrades. That does not apply here.

But seriously, just that you are saying this indicates that you seriously need help. Really.

[malloc]

What about the knowledge that the entire project of emancipatory politics and Enlightenment philosophy is about to enter the ashcan of history just in time for global warming to kill us all? It feels increasingly difficult to continue living when I know the horrible future that awaits us. As it currently stands, I am simply waiting for the other jackboot to drop and the death camps to reopen.

[Torco]

what do you mean *re*open? there's two million people in one. we know which one it is, but let's not say it lest we get explained why god gave them that land or whatever. and various assorted other millions in various other camps or similar conditions. coltan mines, yemen, sudan... they never closed.

I understand how you're feeling, i often feel like this too, but also it's very much doubtful things were ever better. the whole enlightenment project you -rightfully- mourn-before-its-death was written by literal enslavers, for example, so their time wasn't much better. a fair bit, often most, of people's waking lives have consisted on pointless, miserable drudgery in order to maintain the lavish luxury of a few oppressors since... well, I don't know, possibly agriculture. a fair number of deaths have been preventable in the past, just like now, except they weren't prevented because preventing them would have been inconvenient to some noble, priest, soldier or rich person. just like now. a lot of the natural diversity of humans has been mercilessly suppressed to the point of people being killed for not conforming to totally arbitrary standards of gender, or culture, or piety, or whatever other bullshit, just like now. I know it *feels* like things are getting worst, but that's mostly the doomscrolling: things were never great to begin with, it's just we're exposed -or can be, if our algorythms want us to be- exposed to *all of the horror*. but if social media had existed back in the 1200s people would have watched endless videos of persians being exterminated by mongols, and dreading whether or not the black death would arrive to their town, and watching their governments be like "the black death is not real, go back to work peasants", just like we have access to endless videos of the current ongoing genocides and ecocides of our own age.

so like, maybe quit the social media life before you quit, you know, life more generally. look who's talking, i check insta a lot more than i should. or maybe even change it up, doomscroll somewhere else. i hear bluesky is lovely this time of year.

[malloc]

Sure but it was hardly that long ago when the far right was taboo instead of winning pretty much every election where it has appeared on the ballot. Right now pretty much every country in the world has either embraced some form of reactionary authoritarian politics or will in their next election. There are no longer any redoubts of liberal democracy, let alone signs that we can advance beyond it. Your neighbors in Argentina have enthusiastically and overwhelmingly taken up the cause of far right libertarianism. How long do you think Chile will withstand the reactionary tide?