Cam Spry

( 🇺🇸/acc | cyberpunk/retrocomputing/infosec | nootropics/genetics/anthropology | pro-freedom/pro-america/anti-nonsense | ♥️ @KupKate95 ) shitposts are my own

[Cam Spry @16BitViking]

@KupKate95 and I saw this bear outside of our lodge in Gatlinburg on the first day of our honeymoon. Snapped some pretty good pics.

[Sleepy Man, Jolly Man @waygdh23]

@xwanyex American-style free speech is such an outlier and we take it horribly for granted

[SmellyGroyper @UhohStinky99]

@Xittermoreliken @revenant_MMXX In this house the only thing inverted is flight controls.

Anything else is blasphemy, agreed.

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

Daily reminder that neurotic people are the source of many problems:

[NPRG @CptHastings1916]

Also I believe very strongly in privacy and private life. But I don't see that any of the mainstream parties really value this stuff, except rhetorically.

[NPRG @CptHastings1916]

I am sort of in this category myself. I'm deeply attached to colourblind meritocracy, freedom of speech and association, academic autonomy, serious culture, tolerance and safety for oddballs and eccentrics, high standards in education and public life, and a broadly free economy.

[Hunter Ash @ArtemisConsort]

It’s possible to make a convincing argument for anything, from within any value system, if you’re smart enough because natural language is flexible. My friends and I used to do this as a game in college: “argue for gay marriage from an environmentalist perspective” etc. It’s just a test of verbal IQ. This is why it’s essential that you have criteria for belief other than “I heard a very convincing argument.” Empiricism can fill the gap sometimes, but for many questions about which people care deeply, there either can’t be data (values issues) or the data can be spun whichever way you want if you’re clever enough (social science). To avoid being a memetic open wound, you need *convictions*. Some ghost is going to be driving you. There is no ghost-free state of affairs. So choose your ghost wisely.

[wanye @xwanyex]

A belief in the merits of free speech, for example, is actually not only historically very weird, but also not really all that popular throughout the world today. If you invite people from all over the world to come here, then all things equal, you should expect support for free speech to dwindle, both because those immigrants will be less likely to support it and because they will create the political conditions in which people will be less likely to support it.

It’s endlessly funny that liberalism has this sort of built-in trap door. The actual paradox of tolerance is that in order to preserve your liberal society, you have to be fairly intolerant of outside influence.

[Sulla @spqr_sulla]

The implicit theory is that allowing certain ideas to be questioned leads to a certain % of people no longer agreeing with the idea and the potential that they could make that policy.

What’s interesting about this theory is it repudiates the idea that rational debate based on facts can lead us to a single conclusion. Instead, the people are a irrational mob likely to accept Bad Beliefs and through the power of Technocratic Governance it’s our job to protect society from that

Not a very liberal conclusion !

[Cam Spry @16BitViking]

@UsingLyft @Howlingmutant0 I agree. These jokes (and similar crudeness) are indeed off-putting to normies, particularly women.

I love offensive humor, myself, but most of the conservative Trump-voting women I know cringe and get upset when their husbands talk about "Big Mike".

[Cam Spry @16BitViking]

@xwanyex I find it somewhat useful to view this in terms of the MBTI Judging-Perceiving distinction.

J-types often do not comprehend when P-types make observations, explore ideas, and comment on them without any particular end-goal (or evangelism) in mind.

[𝔭𝔯𝔲𝔡𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔥𝔪𝔬𝔫𝔡「🌲❤️‍🔥」🏴‍☠️ @BIMBOSATTVA_]

honestly folks who people think are "bad people" for thought crimes are ironically far less machiavellian because they're being honest, whereas an actual machiavellian person would simply pretend to be a good person with the Correct Opinions that suffer no social problems

[𝔭𝔯𝔲𝔡𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔥𝔪𝔬𝔫𝔡「🌲❤️‍🔥」🏴‍☠️ @BIMBOSATTVA_]

i generally agree with this if someone has physically done something horrific, like rape, murder, or assault; but i think being nice to people is a much better indicator of someone's character than thought crimes, which is often why people get called a "bad person" online

[Cam Spry @16BitViking]

@HartZ677 @xwanyex What are you talking about? My first vote was for Obama, in 2012, and most of my friends and family voted for him in 2008. We helped him get elected!

[Cam Spry @16BitViking]

@DiaryofaSickGrl Your experience wasn't that unusual.

The growth in fast food and the obesity rate throughout the 90s makes it clear that "diet culture" wasn't some all-encompassing thing. I was a skinny kid, but I was around plenty of fat adults and we all ate whatever. Went to buffets a lot.

[Cam Spry @16BitViking]

Everybody is giving OP shit because "The 90s was the decade of diets/eating disorders!" while forgetting it was also a decade of massive growth in the fast food industry and the obesity rate. For every one anorexic, there were at least ten fat people happily eating fried slop.

[Candace D. @DiaryofaSickGrl]

One of my favorite parts about the 90s is we just ate whatever food we wanted. Food was food. No one argued about what food was bad and what food was healthy. We just minded our business in general. At least that’s how I remember it

[🌘ʀᴇᴠᴇɴᴀɴᴛ⚡ @revenant_MMXX]

We're still supposed to see the UK as a friendly foreign government even as they actively try to ruin the Internet. The Chinese at least have the decency to have a Great Firewall preventing their censorship policies from shitting up the rest of the Internet.

[Seattle Extremist @SeattleIndepen1]

The amazing thing about America is that it is a little crazy, and leaning into that is fun.

[Lee (Greater) @shortmagsmle]

Counterpoint: a bunch of dudes on dirt bikes hitting sick jumps over humvees with Marines in dress uniforms standing in front of the White House is cool as shit and everyone kind of knows why someone like you hates it

[Lachlan Phillips exo/acc 👾 @bitcloud]

The left won.

The world's richest man is an electric vehicle manufacturer who is decarbonising the atmosphere while helping quadriplegics, restoring space travel, and making the internet and freedom of speech widely available across the globe.

Unfortunately most of the people who identified as "left" were simply pathological grief merchants with oppositional defiance disorder. They build nothing. They stand for nothing.