this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
59 points (98.4% liked)

Asklemmy

44765 readers
873 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 minutes ago

Hanlon's razor. It's pretty clear some people can be stupid and malicious simultaneously, or will even feign stupidity to hide malice.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 51 minutes ago

The notion that "facts matter".

I've spent my entire life believing that facts don't care about feelings. That scientific truth doesn't require your belief in it in order to be true. That at the end of the day, reasoning will beat emotion...

By far the most dis-heartening thing about the last few years (to me) has been accepting the idea they "facts" are "whatever is shouted the loudest".

It, more than anything else, makes me feel helpless. If the enemy isn't even playing with the same fact-sheet... How do you even begin to fight that?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 hours ago

The average person having empathy

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

Ghosts. My 18 year old cat passed end of last year and she was one of my best friends. I just wish that instead of me knowing that the shades of her I see are actively produced by my mind (i notice me doing them) that she'd really spook around me, that i could just embrace the little shade and show her that i still love her. Well now I'm crying at work

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 hours ago

The revolutionary potential of the American people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 hours ago

Trickle-down economics.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 hours ago

U.S. democracy

[–] [email protected] 41 points 11 hours ago

Karma - there are way too many shitty people who just continue to be shitty because nothing ever comes back to bite them. Meanwhile, people who actually try to help are kicked around the most.

[–] [email protected] 94 points 13 hours ago (6 children)

Most people at their core are good people

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I don't remember where I read this quote originally and I can only paraphrase it, but observing people living in a capitalist society and concluding that human nature is self-centeredness and greed is equivalent to observing workers in a factory that is poisoning their lungs and concluding that human nature is to cough.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

That's a nice quote, thank you. I looked into it. It's by Andrew Collier:

To look at people in capitalist society and conclude that human nature is egoism, is like looking at people in a factory where pollution is destroying their lungs and saying that it is human nature to cough.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Primary goal is to survive in the environment you are in, how many might have a desire to escape that environment but lack the ability to do so? Leave it all behind and live in a cabin in the woods isn't exactly an unheard of idea.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

The issue, as I see it, is that most people struggle to envision a society beyond capitalism. Capitalist ideology is embedded in every aspect of our lives. It appears in our mindset, in books, movies, and even in children's television shows. The narrative that anyone can succeed if they work hard enough, and that poverty is simply the result of laziness, is both powerful and pervasive.

The idea that everyone should live in isolated cabins is neither a realistic vision nor a desirable goal for society.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 42 minutes ago

Not everyone thinks "society" is a goal.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Damn, ya beat me. I'm not good people to so I know from first hand experience.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Don't worry, people can change.

Trust me, I used to be a huge piece of shit

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

No one can stop you ordering a huge steak and a glass of water.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 12 hours ago

I was gonna go with "most people give a damn", but I think you phrased it a bit more positively.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago

I think β€œgood” and β€œbad” are hard terms to apply to people objectively, but I do believe that most people value social coherence and are willing to do (the minimum amount of) something to maintain it. If you can’t believe at least that it means that all of those thin blue line people are right, and I’m just not willing to believe that’s true.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Showing people irrefutable proof of something will change their minds.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

There are only finitely many prime numbers and I will not hear otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

And your irrefutable proof is...?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

That humans can survive the climate disaster they created.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 hours ago

It's ok the earth will survive.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 40 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

That our benevolent alien overlords are gonna show up aaaaaany minute now...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

Our benefactors.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 12 hours ago

Fucking seriously... I wish there were aliens that could save us from ourselves, but it's just oligarchs all the way down...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago

Yeah, I think Posadism is my answer too

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 hours ago

Material conditions will improve in my lifetime

[–] [email protected] 29 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Religion, mythology and probably anything mystical. It's very easy why people believe in them, they're so alluring and genuinely wish they had truth to them. Unfortunately the only truth to be found is ancient wisdom, and even that can be very iffy sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

you may be interested in mysticism then.

I've always held that the true purpose of religion is to create atheists, and not in the modern edge lord I reject your god way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago

What does mysticism have to offer generally?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 22 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Reincarnation - I’d like to believe I’ve met others before, maybe even many times. It would explain some stuff like why you’re irrationally drawn or repelled by certain people.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago

The thing that's always gotten me about reincarnation is the lack of memory of past lives. Even if it were true and some small part of a person lives on, is it functionally different than a permanent death if they retain nothing from their past lives?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 13 hours ago

An afterlife. Might be nice.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

The 'common' part of 'common sense'

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

The falseness of it has been well theorized by Antonio Gramsci https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony

The Fascism of Common Sense

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 12 hours ago

There is a gospel passage about how much will be expected of those whom have been given much. I've always heard this interpreted as how church leaders will be judged harshly in the afterlife. I wish this and hell were true, just for the sheer shock and disbelief of all the hypocritical religious leaders who've done so many terrible things and continued to preach hate.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

My cat can understand everything I say but chooses not to listen

[–] [email protected] 7 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Aliens visiting Earth.

I know it's a statistical impossibility that we're the only life out there. I just don't believe they've ever been here. Since we haven't been either conquered or uplifted yet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

Personally im in the they came, they saw, they said "wtf", they left, camp.

I mean lets be real. If i were an alien i wouldnt wanna uplift humans. Id want us to stay on our little rock and not bring our drama to their solar system.

load more comments
view more: next β€Ί