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frankPodmore

@ frankPodmore @slrpnk.net

Posts
7
Comments
258
Joined
2 yr. ago

London-based writer. Often climbing.

  • What's an album with a completely unique sound

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  • Ha, I came here to say Bitches Brew before seeing it was in the OP!

    I'd add Loveless by My Bloody Valentine: much-imitated, but there's nothing quite like it.

    Also, my early '90s bias is showing here, but In Utero by Nirvana is uniquely brilliant. No one's melded beauty and ugliness so successfully in any medium.

  • Can we have a healthy life only with fruits or fruits and plants combined alone, and if not why?

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  • Yeah, that's it: you can get some of that stuff from some fruits, but you're looking at a lot of avocados!

    Bacteria synthesise B12 inside various animals. Even our gut flora synthesise it, but they do it too far down our digestive system to be useful!

  • Can we have a healthy life only with fruits or fruits and plants combined alone, and if not why?

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  • You can't live on fruit alone because you need vitamin B12, which you can only get from animal products or supplements. Fruit is generally also low in carbohydrates, fats and proteins, all of which you need to live!

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  • Aside from your odd definition of capitalism and its outcomes, which other people have addressed, the answer to the headline question is: yes.

    Karl Marx, for example, believed that you could not have capitalism without exploitation and that it was therefore an unethical system that should be defeated. He also held that capitalism was inherently contradictory and that it therefore not only should be destroyed, but that it must be destroyed.

    However: Marx also believed that capitalism was an enormous improvement on the previously existing social system of feudalism, because it produced far greater wealth through the development of new technology. This is a key difference between Marxism and the earlier 'utopian socialism' (which his theories largely replaced), which saw technology itself as an evil.

    Marx also welcomed the fact that capitalism destroyed (as he saw it) some earlier forms of oppression (albeit while introducing new ones). Marx's letter to Abraham Lincoln congratulating him on his re-election discusses the American Revolution and Civil War in precisely these terms.

    So, you can enjoy the greater (obviously not 'infinite'!) abundance of goods that capitalism has produced, you can acknowledge its positive impact on technological development and its material improvements of the lives of millions of people and be not only a leftist but a fully orthodox Marxist... just so long as you also acknowledge that capitalism is also an exploitative and self-destructive force that should, can and must be defeated.

  • What's an uplifting fact that might counter the doom of our current reality?

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  • True, but it was more restricted in its potential application (because you had to be near a reliable water source). Modern electricity generation, including renewables, doesn't have that limitation - as the application of coal to steam power demonstrates!

  • What's an uplifting fact that might counter the doom of our current reality?

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  • But the economics are clear: if renewables stay cheaper than fossil fuels (and there's no reason to think they won't), governments will make the switch anyway.

  • What's an uplifting fact that might counter the doom of our current reality?

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  • We're actually doing pretty well, globally, at shifting to renewables. We're making more, more quickly and more cheaply than ever before.

  • What obscure thing you enjoy do you never get to talk about?

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  • Ha, can't blame my version, more likely my faulty memory!

  • Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Drops Official First Look Teaser Trailer

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  • They wouldn't put this tease in the trailer if they weren't actually bringing Him back, right?

    Right?

  • Why are most religious people so easy to manipulate? (serious)

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  • I often wonder about this with regard to right wing Americans believing such ridiculous things. It's seem that what Trump supporters ultimately have in common is not one set of beliefs but a shared belief in things that make no sense: that all Democrats are paedophiles, that JFK wasn't really assassinated, that vaccines don't work, that climate change isn't real, that Donald Trump is anything but a foolish, evil corrupt man. What do these views have in common? They're fundamentally foolish things to believe.

    The fact is that once you believe one patently absurd thing - for example, that an interventionist god exists - your thinking gets warped. When you then make this absurdity the centre of your worldview and your identity, your views on everything become warped. After a certain point, they seem to start believing things because they make no sense.

    If a person believes God actually answers prayers, something there is no reason whatsoever to believe, they're primed to believe all kinds of other nonsense. This is exactly why many religious people have stopped believing in that kind of thing, and now take refuge in the idea of prayer as comfort or as asking for 'strength' rather than asking for anything specific (note that even this compromise requires them to ignore the plain meaning of the words of, e.g., the Lord's Prayer). Most people find it uncomfortable to believe in nonsense. For others, it becomes the point.

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    What is a good example of a necessary evil?

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  • Right, but we mitigate that harm (good) by depriving people of their freedom (bad). It is necessary to do it, for the exact reasons you suggest - to reduce evil overall.

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    What is a good example of a necessary evil?

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  • I've been meaning to read some stuff about how to approach criminal justice if we don't have free will, but I keep reading other stuff instead. So many books, so little time!

    I still think prisoners should be treated well, no matter the crime.

    Yes, absolutely. Even for the worst of the worst, their should be rehab attempts, whether it's anger management, getting them away from gangs - whatever it is they need. I think there are only small numbers of people, if there are any at all, who are really irremediably violent and dangerous, but even for them I'm not exactly happy about putting them away indefinitely.

  • Locked

    What is a good example of a necessary evil?

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  • Prison seems the obvious one. It's obviously (to me, that is) not desirable to deprive anyone of their freedom, but for persistently violent people I don't think there's a better solution, unfortunately.

  • What's your creative solution to solve the loneliness epidemic?

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    • Sport and art
    • low cost and free places to do sport and art
    • linked together by public transit and clean, safe places to walk, run or cycle (or scoot or skate or whatever)
    • a shorter working week, so people have time to do the above
    • a higher minimum wage, so people can afford the (ideally low, if necessary) costs involved

    So, e.g., lots of parks with publicly accessible five-a-side football pitches, ping-pong tables, basketball courts, skateparks whatever - that's your sport. The parks also have bandstands or outdoor theatres, where there's space for that.

    Public libraries with rooms people can hire (or use for free) for book clubs, sewing circles, art classes - that's your art.

    Good thing about the above is that all these ideas already exist in lots of forms, you just pick whatever works best for your current situation.

  • Who's more influential to you and why? Che Guevara, Ted Kaczynski, Luigi?

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  • Heh. Yeah, I can't really hold up a country backsliding on trans rights as an example of an effective constitutional monarchy.

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  • I think taking a broad view, there are quite a lot of constitutional monarchies that are really great places to live (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Canada, the Bahamas, Japan, to name a few). There are also quite a lot of republics that can claim the same. So, from a sort of human development POV, I don't think it really matters very much.

    [EDIT: Should've added that there are also plenty of republics and monarchies that are disasters, too. My point is that there's no consistent pattern of one works and the other doesn't.]

    Sure, monarchies are a bit daft but I think 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' is quite a good rule. Especially since spending time on fixing things that ain't broke is time you could be spending on fixing things that are broke. I live in the UK and we have a lot of major problems that need our attention. It's better to focus on those than have a big argument about the King when, as we can see from international comparisons, the King isn't really the issue.

  • What would you bring with you to the past to pove to people time travel is real?

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  • Assuming we're going back far enough, antibiotics. Cure one person of the bubonic plague or tuberculosis and people will start taking you seriously.

  • do you hate AI generated art? why?

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  • Again, you've written quite a long comment, almost none of which is pertinent.

    Music is not math. Some aspects of it can be expressed mathematically, yes, but that's not the same thing.

    Imagining the idea 'I'd like to see an image of a lemming', which is what you've done, does require some imagination. However, the output is not art because the process used to go from your 'prompt' to the image was not a creative one. (Also, this isn't entirely pertinent, but the image output is really bad. If it had been made by a person and otherwise looked like this, I would still say that it was just ugly, bad art.)

    You may well be a creative and imaginative person; I don't know you and I wouldn't want to judge! However, your image of a lemming was not the result of a creative process and so is not art.

  • do you hate AI generated art? why?

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  • Current AI is lacking both.

    Only word wrong here is 'current'. AI will never have creativity or craftmanship. It's impossible.

  • Star Trek Social Club @startrek.website
    frankPodmore @slrpnk.net

    Colm Meaney to Receive Irish Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award

    variety.com /2025/film/awards/colm-meaney-irish-academy-lifetime-achievement-award-1236271517/
  • Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world
    frankPodmore @slrpnk.net

    Assuming we don't have free will, why do we have the illusion that we do?

  • Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world
    frankPodmore @slrpnk.net

    Has there ever been a political system where legislative votes were weighted by how many votes each legislator received?

  • Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world
    frankPodmore @slrpnk.net

    What's the earliest film featuring Jesus of Nazareth as a character?

  • Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world
    frankPodmore @slrpnk.net

    Did people ever use Oliver Cromwell as a cautionary tale about revolutions in the same way people use Stalin now?

  • Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world
    frankPodmore @slrpnk.net

    Can someone help me understand this maths riddle?

  • No Stupid Questions @lemmy.world
    frankPodmore @slrpnk.net

    Is there a reason I should donate a kidney to a stranger now, rather than just waiting till I die, at which point both kidneys will probably be donated to strangers anyway?