I got accused of being an AI for writing a comment reply to someone which was merely informative, empathic and polite!

Once user trust is burned it’s not coming back.

There are no positive outcomes available now - it’s time to abandon Google.

Linux phones arriving sooner? Hopefully that’s the silver lining.

Thanks, I appreciate the catch up!

Much happier to hear the meme isn’t anything to do with creepy unfuckable dudes who imagine it’s only a matter of time until teenager pussy is theirs. Seems there’s a lot of those around in this timeline… mostly in the age bracket about 15-20 years older than me (I’m mid 40s) where I live, which makes it my turn (as it always fuckin was) to call them out.

Only this time I’m a dad of teenagers, and I’ve practised martial arts and being very firm with my words (when necessary) in my working life for decades.

Turns out these “men” are absolute cowards and the best action so far is seemingly to do almost nothing, as they preemptively out themselves by protesting too hard to completely uninvolved people in our local community. We shall see.

Anyway that’s been my year this year, helping my aunty-friend escape from one such shitty relationship full of lies and deception. So I’m particularly sensitive about this topic at the moment.

Glad to hear I totally didn’t get the context of the meme!

Right, time to touch grass. Cheers!

I was thinking that it was coming from a place of Linux “dudes by default” and hadn’t clocked that it’s apparently a Linux/trans meme.

I misunderstood the meme.

I don’t give a fuck what “men” wear though, so I don’t know what you’re referring to either. Perhaps we’re both confused!? :-P

I like the way you assumed I even know what the unix socks meme is. Because somehow I don’t beyond… socks and sandals? I dunno. It flew over my head, in this form. 25+ years on Linux. I have no explanation.

The transwomen I’m friends with aren’t into Linux or stripey stockings AFAIK.

Whoosh!

Thanks for your understanding! The meme definitely went over my head.

I was indeed reacting to the “cis dude by default” thing which as a gender nonconforming guy has pissed me off for decades about computing spaces. “Riced” Linux desktops with basically cartoon tits for wallpaper, still all over Reddit any week. (I left Reddit, thankfully.)

I’ve been nerding out on Linux over 25 years and I have no idea about the socks thing, at least not enough to get the meme. I’m a longtime electronic music production nerd too so I got into raves and running sound systems in fields - I’m more “army boots and piercings” than “socks and sandals”. There are many flavours of geek!

Well in that case it went sailing over my head. I hope you’re right! I’m a trans ally (my child is nonbinary) albeit nowhere near up to speed on a lot of stuff particularly memes.

I’ve lately been helping an older female friend through a shitty breakup where the fact the guy purely objectifies women in a cartoonish porno and pedo sense has been one of many disturbing revelations about what a creepy bastard he has turned out to be.

I guess I saw "disembodied vaguely sexualised teenage girl legs’ and just felt grossed out because there are still a bunch of creepy old sexual predators out there and this meme gave me the same ick feeling I’ve been dealing with, knowing for sure that my teenagers are definitely not too young for a particular 65 year old in our town.

Basically I’m sick and tired of sexually predatory men and I will take them down whenever we encounter each other!

Anyway apologies for not getting the meme… which remains a meme I don’t like, but obviously there’s more to it than I realised.

[ Edit: I didn’t understand the meme! See comments for context.]

Can we choose to stop having teenage girl manga leg fetish memes associated with Linux? That’s my choice because it’s not the 90s any more and I’m a middle-aged beardy father of three daughters. This meme is totally seedy and doesn’t do any favours for Linux or Open Source.

It’s not particularly funny and we can come up with far better memes without making it seem (yet again) like Linux might be mostly for creepy basement-dwelling nerds who haven’t met many real women and who aren’t creating a welcoming community which truly views women as something more than sex objects.

It’s dinosaur-era shit, guys. Please make better memes!

Welp, that’s a fuckin stupid idea. Next!

So glad to read your comment @SparrowHawk. This is exactly it, and why I am no longer a hardcore atheist. We can’t connect with anyone while we’re in the middle of telling them that they’re wrong - even if they are completely wrong about factual matters. It’s essential to build connection first, then conduct any education through the connection. Without connecting it’s wasted effort.

The educating can’t come through coercion or condemnation either, because those shut people down. If we don’t offer something better then we push those people away. We might write them off and say “fuck em, who cares!” and that’s how we end up at political deadlock and perpetual war.

This is why the fascists are so terrified of empathy, because intelligent, educated people (lots of those around!) who are highly empathic (not so many, it’s a harder skill) joining together and building connections with and between the masses, already have all the tools to dismantle the whole scam we’re living in.

Empathy and education, from kindness not condemnation, is unstoppable. Though I will grant that there’s not much in it for rugged individualism, but lots in it for diverse, individuality-celebrating collectivism.

Of course we’re supposed to be arguing - we’ll never get anywhere that way.

Empathy lets you say “I absolutely disagree with your view, yet I still value you as a human, so am committed to your long-term wellbeing” and other similar bits of “radical hate speech” which, put into action will dismantle capitalism, fascism, authoritarianism, religions, prisons… you name it.

But it can’t be passive, it is something for each person to be putting into action all the time.

That’s my spiritual practise and I don’t feel personally affronted if someone disagrees with it or doesn’t understand it any more, because it’s just with myself and how I want to be in life with myself and others anyway.

There are billions of us humans and we’re unstoppable when we put aside our petty differences and work together for common dreams.

…besides, if you don’t agree with me, you’re wrong! /s

1. Invent incredibly dumb device.
2. Brand it as “Smart” to lean into Dunning-Kruger effect sales.
3. Profit!!

Extremely destructive to the future of the company, you say? Go on…?

We’ve been having short power cuts lately (rural area, windy!) and now it’s starting to look like my Dell Optiplex sMaRt RaDiAtOr 50w homelab/studio/shed heater could do with a UPS to protect against data loss! Though it does have btrfs raid1 which is pretty handy for a radiator RAID1ator!

They’re heating the room too so technically it’s a radiator with network attached storage!

Windows: creates e-waste

Linux: collects e-waste under the stairs “just in case it’s useful”