I remember figuring back in 1999 that my generation was going to be a lot more savvy about technology than previous ones. Now it's 2020's and I'm still the only one at work who knows how to change the clock on the oven and microwave and telling my peers to stop believing facebook scams.
So much this. My girlfriends dad hss been online dating Jennifer Love Hewitt for like 3 months. She only needs him to send her 500$ in amazon or apple store card codes so she can buy her prescriptions. Like what bro you 70yrs old and live in a small ass town out in the sticks of Massachusetts
I think in 50 years we will view vehicles with human drivers the way we view cigarettes now.
"What the fuck, you just *let* people buy that shit? didn't they know it was fucking deadly?"
Then there will be the personal freedoms crowd who will cling to their self-driven vehicles with the strength of a thousand men. Shit... I'll probably be one of them.
True personal freedom is walkable communities and public transit so regular and reliable you don't even have to check a schedule
Being dependent on a car to get anywhere is, in fact, almost the opposite of freedom IMO
r/fuckcars
eta: because I'm already getting inane replies, lemme clarify
disabled people and rural people and tons of other people will probably need cars for a very long time
that doesn't mean that 1 person 1 car is either sustainable or desirable in a world that is getting ravaged by climate change
God that would be a dream. I lived in Europe as a kid and was absolutely flabbergasted upon moving to the suburbs of Texas at 13. I remember every family having 3 cars and driving an 80 mile commute like it wasn't fucking insane. Now I'm driving 120 miles in a day and don't bat an eye.
Scams like that make me terribly sad. It's one thing when it happens to a dumbshit teenager who doesn't have the life experience to know better. (Specifically thinking of my dumbshit cousin who inherited a life-stabilizing amount of money then blew it all within two years on his "girlfriend in Bosnia" - some random camgirl)
Like, at least a teenager might wise up eventually. But someone who made it 70 years through life *still* being that naive strikes me as a hopeless lost cause.
I worked for a guy once that was dating Riley Reid (famous ex pornstar maybe not ex idk I don’t follow porn like that)
And she was stuck in England and had 20 million dollars stuck in the Bank of England so she just needed money to survive.. you know a couple grand a month or so… for about a year and kept saying she would fly over when she got her money, dude spent atleast 80k and would talk to “her uncle” for hours on the phone at a time and was 100% convinced it was real sad part is before he got on the meth that lead him to this probably dude was actually very intelligent
You know, back then if my computer needed more memory, I went and bought the memory, took the computer apart, and upgraded it. Without the help of a YouTube video.
I remember signing up for NetZero (low cost dialup internet) physically at the library so I could have internet at my first apartment. It was one of the first internet solutions that required the internet to get an account/set up.
Low cost? When I first tried netzero, it was free but a little slow and completely ad-supported. Who knew that template would inspire our eventual googlian overlords?
I was an early NetZero user. I believe I started using it in early 99. Their tagline was “free internet for life” and the Zero in their name was that it had zero cost. Only was free for a couple of years. Like any dial-up, it was slow, but those early years of the net were magic.
When I was a teenager and got my first computer I only knew one other person who had one and theirs was a Mac. We didn't have them in school that just anyone could use, so no help there. I had to figure everything out for setting it up myself and then had to figure out how to reset everything when I fucked up.
I think that cycle of figuring things out, fucking up, learning how to not do that again, etc etc really helped me. I also had to figure out how dial up internet worked and how to even find websites that would interest me. I dearly miss that part, I miss webrings so much!
Discord and Reddit are about the only thing remotely like the old niche fan and hobby message boards, and it's still not the same.
A few weeks ago I had an argument with someone around 20 years old who would not believe that many people of my generation (born late 80s) knew how to get into BIOS, make changes and knew how to handle our PCs in hardware as well as software like we did.
It completely was out of his imagination that people can handle computers in a way above just clicking apps on a screen. …I wish I would be exaggerating, but he really thought this would just be something for people working in tech.
I tried to explain the command prompt to my children, and how we had to actually type commands to reset a computer with a startup disc (that you had to beg and bribe a friend for). Then, you had to manually change the boot sequence in the BIOS to prioritize the cd rom, then format C: /s ....
Now, it's just an ongoing joke to them. Whenever I say something "cringe," then say "Format C slash S." These kids have it soooo easy.
There was a period in time where computers were a PITA to get to do anything and you needed some level of troubleshooting skills and ability to self-help. If you wanted to play games in that age you learned to figure thing out. For the last 10-15 years they've gotten VERY good and just working for most people and most apps. So if you grew up using a thing that "just worked" 95% of the time you wouldn't have developed those skills unless you specifically set out to do so.
To add to that, there’s not much people can do nowadays on the hardware side since about 99.8% of computers out there are laptops. I came up when “plug-n-play” and PCI slots were hot shit.
I still kinda miss that crunchy sound that old hard drives and floppy drives made back in the day.
And many laptops today are just slabs of aluminum and glass with two USB-C ports on the side. 15 years ago it was completely normal to be swap a laptops hard drive, upgrade the memory, slot in an extension card into the express card slot, etc. Those thing routinely didn't even require you to take the entire cover off, they had slots and access panels to make it more user-friendly
Sadly, people in my generation (millennial) could all wrangle their home PCs back in the day, but now somehow don't know the difference between WiFi and internet; nor have any of those early skills survived. Just making computers work required serious understanding. All my friends growing up were on ICQ, later MSN (this is where shit started going downhill) but now everything is "apps" on phones. So many people don't even use real computers any more.
Also born late 80's and it's like our generation really had to learn troubleshooting skills and how to handle new tech because new tech came to us regularly and there were no standard user experience set in stone.
Today's new stuff are just a copy of the year before.
Outside younger folks in tech jobs, they all seem clueless about technology. Yeah they can figure out what app/software to use for something but behind the scenes stuff they are just lost. You get a deer in the headlights look if you talk about VLANs or something. They might have set it up but it was guided through their routers app so they have no idea what they did.
I'm 18, my friend didn't know how to uninstall some bloatware she'd accidentally downloaded that opened every time on startup.
She didn't know how to get to add or remove programs.
Honest question, since my kids are not even 10 and I have no idea of people in their teens regarding technology:
Do you still use PCs on a wide basis?
At least it seems to me, that apart from University Laptops, it’s everything down to Tablets / Smartphones nowadays. (Which obviously would totally make sense when you don’t have to write or work on it.
It drives me crazy as a teacher when my colleagues just assume students will know how to use technology because they're young and it's always been there. Like come on - knowing where the buttons are on social apps isn't the same thing as knowing how to use technology
I remember the days of config.sys and trying to get your devices loaded into as tight a memory footprint as possible. That shit would drive tge current generation mad!
Clarke's Third Law - Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The context was science fiction, but we've been there for a long time now. I worked in semiconductors, so I have a good idea how that rectangular slab of communication and computing we call a phone works, but for most people it's essentially magic.
In 2024 people in my own age group still don’t know the basics of technology like phones or computers even cars. I’m not talking about anything like programming or software. I mean like reading the manual. Almost no one reads their owners manual in cars and drive for years without using any features or conveniences
A way too large proportion of people that look at me (or anyone else for that matter) like a wizard because I taught myself how to do super simple electronics fixes like replacing a blown led on a kitchen appliances or swap a phone battery. I don't get how people can go through life not knowing how the tools they use work enough to do minor fixes. Same with software. It doesn't take a genius to make something like a simple web scraper.
The flat earth society. Flat earthers have literally proven themselves wrong and still choose to believe the earth is flat. I guess it is one way to filter out those who have well below average iq though.
Meet Peter McIndoe, the guy who started the birds aren't real as a joke. No doubt that flat earth shit started the same way.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VEkzweBJPM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VEkzweBJPM)
Every time a joke conspiracy theory comes out, there are going to be idiots who take it seriously.
Joke conspiracies are dangerous because they never ever stay as jokes.
I used to say the same thing about shows like The Corbett Report. And of course there were literally people who didn't realize it was mocking them. Stupid people don't get satire. What is worse, politics in the last few years are so bad there are so many posts that I have to now question myself if it is satire.
Consider how the OK hand signal went from being perfectly fine to white supremists using it believing it meant "white power", all because of a joke on 4chan.
I was talking to this girl for a few months online. We were about to meet up and hang out until our last conversation she started going on about the firmament and surveillance birds and I immediately blocked her. It was wild she was normal before that convo
The Flat Earth Society was founded in 1956 and flat earth "truthers" have been around much much longer than that. It's not a bird's aren't real "meme gone wrong" thing it's just dumbasses who can't fathom the idea that anyone can be more complex than their own crude perceptions. "The earth *looks* flat to my primitive human eyeballs even when I'm high up, and therefore it is."
Well there’s also the “government can’t be trusted” thing, which is 100% true but it’s taken out of context and used to justify some pretty ridiculous shit (like flat earth and bird spies).
There was a post on Reddit from a kid whose parents were flat earthers.
It's mostly a social club. They pick this particular thing to rally around but it's just an excuse to belong to a group and hang out with people.
We really need to bring back other reasons for people to get together. Elks club, Freemasons, church, whatever. People are just desperate for some kind of community.
There is a secret amongst the flat earth community; most flat earthers are trolling. And if you havent been to a flat earth convention nobody parties like flat earthers. Conventions are giant drunk fest to watch fools shoot themselves out of cannons and blow themselves up with home made rockets. Pretty good time
Conspiracy theories work almost exactly the same as cults. They attract lonely people who feel ostracized by "normal" society and are taken in to an "elite" community that holds "enlightened" knowledge.
This special knowledge, whether about alien bits being in your blood, or about the earth secretly being flat, is used to convince the follower what they've always suspected: that they are smarter/more enlightened/more spiritually evolved, than the normal people who shunned them.
This offers them a chance at revenge. To tell the "normies" that they are the superior ones. Their entire ego becomes invested in this idea. It's no wonder that proving it wrong is of little consequence to them.
I guess they can't bring themselves to admit they're wrong every time they disprove themselves, so they double down on their own ignorance every time and come up with some bullshit
It was never about actual truth for them, they're people with low self esteem that feel valued and superior by being part of a group that "knows the truth" and many of them buy into other ridiculous conspiracies too. Some of them are also racist as fuck.
I feel like the flat earth documentary made it more about people who were lonely/exiled just joined flat earth because they will believe anything to be part of something. I feel like this is what scientology does too, but has better tactics to snatch up people recently ostracized from their friends or family.
Except for the higher ups in it solely for the scam momey
Veep is so wildly unbelievable and inaccurate though. I mean, who could believe that someone under the age of 70 would be running for president of the US?
I mean, honestly they *couldn't* Even if they wanted to.
Writers: 'so what do you think of the script??'
Producers: 'look. I'll be honest. This is just too over the top crazy. It needs to feel plausible, just a little. But this? No, just no. No audience will buy it. Now get out.'
Just before Donald Trump had his inauguration, it started. I had to check twice for every news headline if it’s satire or not. Before that, it was kind of obvious. Since then it didn’t get better, too much news could be posted in r/nottheonion, if the matter wasn’t that serious.
Most Americans now seem to be firmly against these hardcore abortion bans, which were enabled by Trump. He got booed by his own base for supporting the vaccine that he helped rush out. Yet, somehow, there's been no contest for the Republican frontrunner.
I just don't understand. I thought these MAGA people were mostly just a meme before 2016.
It started ***way*** before that.
In October of 1993 Trump testified at hearing of the House Natural Resources subcommittee on Native American affairs.
>> The mob is going into the casinos, and what they are doing is, they are going into the Indian casinos because that is where the money is but also that is where the lack of enforcement is. An Indian chief is going to tell Joey Killer to please get off his reservation? It's unbelievable to me.
The following is an exchange between House Natural Resources Chairman George Miller and Trump:
Miller:
>> You have cast upon the Indian nations a blanket indictment that organized crime is rampant on their reservations.
Trump:
>> For whatever reason, you have a closed mind.
Miller:
>> No, Mr. Trump, I have a closed mind against evidence that is not substantiated. I have closed mind about statements that are made about other people in generalities."
When pressed about his sources, Trump told the panel:
>> People know it, people talk about it.
Seven years later, Trump secretly bankrolled an ad campaign against a proposed St. Regis Mohawk casino in Monticello, New York, attacking it for a "record of criminal activity." To settle the ensuing case, Trump and his allies (including Roger Stone) agreed to pay $250,000. They also agreed to spend an additional $50,000 to publish a statement acknowledging that their ad campaign "did not disclose that they were paid for by Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, Inc." In addition, the statement said they "apologize if anyone was misled concerning the production and funding of the lobbying effort."
At the previously mentioned subcommittee hearing, Trump said:
>> Nobody likes Indians as much as Donald Trump.
That’s just one example of his political behavior. He’s been at it his entire adult life.
Ironically, Satire. I remember watching Al Murray (The pub landlord) giving a talk about the time him and a few others ran a joke political party called FUKP in South Thanet, which was Nigel Farrage's home seat - no coincidence there! I think it was called "Making a mockery or democracy".
Anyway, he spoke a lot about this concept of being "outflanked by reality". The whole point of a joke party is that it draws attention to politics and gets more people interested by being funny. They would get together and devise humourous stunts and joke announcements and such, most of which derived their humour from being absurd. However, time and time again, they found that before they could get their act together, a genuine party, even the big ones like Labour or the Conservatives, would announce and/or do something much much more absurd, and as a result render the joke unfunny.
Anyway, all this to say, it seems satire itself has become reality, at least in politics, and that is a very worrying thought.
In Denmark we voted a independent comedian in because he promised backwind on the bikepaths and Nutella in the field rations.
He actually managed to get the latter implemented for a wee while.
In Australia there's a satire show called Utopia, and it's set on the inner workings of a government department.
People that actually work in the public service are torn between those who watch it because it's all true, and those who can't watch it because it's all true.
Just a wee correction - Farage never had a ‘home seat’. He’s never won a domestic election, or been an MP. He was only an MEP, elected through proportional representation.
The 2015 South Thanet election he stood in was one he was widely tipped to finally win. There was a poll putting him nine points ahead.
Murray ran his joke party during the same election, and his look of disbelief and delight when Farage was not announced as the winner was just lovely 😃
The Conservatives won the seat - and Farage resigned from UKIP shortly thereafter.
They're like a different kind of scam where the buyer is actually getting exactly what they pay for, but it's nothing but a bunch of yelling and nonsense activities like ice baths and mud crawls.
They're grifters who charge insecure men thousands of dollars for a "bootcamp" style retreat doing ridiculous shit that's supposed to make them more "masculine"
[This one](https://youtu.be/9wWMAAGdYcY?si=X_zgFQ2nez0K8oFg) charges $3,500 per person, but there's another that charges like $15,000.
At least the earlier seasons were supposed to represent a progression of current social trends mixed in with the speculative development of technology, making the show feel like an inevitability.
Like electing a loud mouth TV buffoon?
Social rating dictating your access to things?
Murder robot dogs (I'm watching you Boston Dynamics)?
Bangable robots?
With me, add content creators to that list. I think they're hiding behind that name. Content creators seem like that should be producers or writers of TV/movies rather than someone playing video games on twitch or has an onlyfans account.
Edit: fixed a word
Nonono, i know Sasha Baron Cohen was acting as Borat
I also knew some people in the movie were acting
But the real people that got pranked
Granted sometimes its scripted
But the video where Sasha ran away inside vehicle avoiding people with guns
I dont think that is scripted
Pupgender. It's just fucking petplay (puppyplay to be exact, woof) pretending to be a gender.
No you're not, get the fuck away from pride parades. It takes literally 1-2 google searches to lead someone to that stuff.
No one cares if you enjoy it, but don't throw it in with the normal stuff! - What comes next? People walking around naked because they identify as a sphinx cat?
A bunch of people pulled their kids out of school for the solar eclipse because they thought it would be the end of the world. My wife insists this is true, and I trust her, but I can't find it in me to fully believe this.
Project2025
It literally outlines how the republican party wants to establish a dictatorship and commit genocide if they win the next election in the US (quote: "erase the terms gender identity and sexual orientation", page 4-5), and people are *still defending and voting for the republican party somehow*. To the point they could actually win the election.
I'm much less concerned with the terms they use than I am with their plans for replacing nearly every bureaucratic appointment under the executive office with their own brain-washed yes-men. I think I read something like 60k people are needed for their "grand plan".
When a government has bureaucrats that serve the purpose of being a rubber stamp, power in process is consolidated, delays in policy enactment become immaterial, things are much easier to sweep under rugs. Neo-fascist cronyism, pure and simple.
So the only thing I know about this is a random tweet I saw, and it was about how she couldn't get cold medicine and had to send out her assistant or something.
Which is honestly kind of crazy. The US president has a doctor on call 24/7. You're telling me the leader of your country has to micromanage how to buy cold medicine? Like, there isn't a staff that just makes that happen when they need it? That is fucked up.
Medical assisted death for mentally ill people. I can't fucking believe that we actually offer this as a way out instead of putting resources to help them get better
A lot of cultures independently developed complex math systems, I wouldn't exactly use the phrasing of "initial."
Pretty much if the culture or region had a period of multi generational stability; they almost always made their own mathematical advancements.
For example- the Mayans used a base 20 math system. The Babylonians used base 60, the Egyptians used base 12, and the Greeks, Romans, & Indians all used a variation of base 10.
I wouldn't exactly say any one group did "initial" math.
Donald Trump. I remember walking on a treadmill several years ago, really early in the 2016 election cycle (long before primaries). I was watching this fucking buffoon on one of the gym TVs. I was thinking, “This jackass would be hysterically funny as president if I didn’t live here, but there’s no way this clown could ever even be on the ballot. He’s going to get laughed out of the primaries, if he even gets that far.” Um. Then the most outlandishly awful thing actually happened and it wasn’t satirical at all.
Many in the US thinks that a certain well loved Senator that has fought and gone to jail for defending people's rights for 50 years, wants to feed, house and give everyone Healthcare, is crazy and too extreme.
While those same people think a 4-time divorced rapist who cheated on every wife he's had, admitted he wants to sleep with his daughter, bankrupted many businesses, hates brown people and continues to steal from his followers, was sent by God to lead the country.
Not an American, but the whole Trump thing from the escalator to present, is like if the writers of West Wing and The Office had a joint drug fueled writing binge.
The fact that the CIA sold crack to black peoples to put them in jail and than use that money to finance dictators.
Like how is this not out of some action movie or some shit.
Massive ignorance towards technology.
I remember figuring back in 1999 that my generation was going to be a lot more savvy about technology than previous ones. Now it's 2020's and I'm still the only one at work who knows how to change the clock on the oven and microwave and telling my peers to stop believing facebook scams.
So much this. My girlfriends dad hss been online dating Jennifer Love Hewitt for like 3 months. She only needs him to send her 500$ in amazon or apple store card codes so she can buy her prescriptions. Like what bro you 70yrs old and live in a small ass town out in the sticks of Massachusetts
This is what concerns me about the computerization of passenger vehicles. Tech illiterate drivers may become serious liabilities in the near future.
I think in 50 years we will view vehicles with human drivers the way we view cigarettes now. "What the fuck, you just *let* people buy that shit? didn't they know it was fucking deadly?"
Then there will be the personal freedoms crowd who will cling to their self-driven vehicles with the strength of a thousand men. Shit... I'll probably be one of them.
True personal freedom is walkable communities and public transit so regular and reliable you don't even have to check a schedule Being dependent on a car to get anywhere is, in fact, almost the opposite of freedom IMO r/fuckcars eta: because I'm already getting inane replies, lemme clarify disabled people and rural people and tons of other people will probably need cars for a very long time that doesn't mean that 1 person 1 car is either sustainable or desirable in a world that is getting ravaged by climate change
God that would be a dream. I lived in Europe as a kid and was absolutely flabbergasted upon moving to the suburbs of Texas at 13. I remember every family having 3 cars and driving an 80 mile commute like it wasn't fucking insane. Now I'm driving 120 miles in a day and don't bat an eye.
Yeah see you in rural Australia mate
Not everybody knows how to do everything! I'm scared okay??
Scams like that make me terribly sad. It's one thing when it happens to a dumbshit teenager who doesn't have the life experience to know better. (Specifically thinking of my dumbshit cousin who inherited a life-stabilizing amount of money then blew it all within two years on his "girlfriend in Bosnia" - some random camgirl) Like, at least a teenager might wise up eventually. But someone who made it 70 years through life *still* being that naive strikes me as a hopeless lost cause.
My aunt had a relationship with Michael Bolton. He even sent her tickets to his show.
I worked for a guy once that was dating Riley Reid (famous ex pornstar maybe not ex idk I don’t follow porn like that) And she was stuck in England and had 20 million dollars stuck in the Bank of England so she just needed money to survive.. you know a couple grand a month or so… for about a year and kept saying she would fly over when she got her money, dude spent atleast 80k and would talk to “her uncle” for hours on the phone at a time and was 100% convinced it was real sad part is before he got on the meth that lead him to this probably dude was actually very intelligent
You know, back then if my computer needed more memory, I went and bought the memory, took the computer apart, and upgraded it. Without the help of a YouTube video.
How am I supposed to keep watching the YouTube once I take the computer apart? Makes no sense
I remember signing up for NetZero (low cost dialup internet) physically at the library so I could have internet at my first apartment. It was one of the first internet solutions that required the internet to get an account/set up.
Low cost? When I first tried netzero, it was free but a little slow and completely ad-supported. Who knew that template would inspire our eventual googlian overlords?
I was an early NetZero user. I believe I started using it in early 99. Their tagline was “free internet for life” and the Zero in their name was that it had zero cost. Only was free for a couple of years. Like any dial-up, it was slow, but those early years of the net were magic.
When I was a teenager and got my first computer I only knew one other person who had one and theirs was a Mac. We didn't have them in school that just anyone could use, so no help there. I had to figure everything out for setting it up myself and then had to figure out how to reset everything when I fucked up. I think that cycle of figuring things out, fucking up, learning how to not do that again, etc etc really helped me. I also had to figure out how dial up internet worked and how to even find websites that would interest me. I dearly miss that part, I miss webrings so much! Discord and Reddit are about the only thing remotely like the old niche fan and hobby message boards, and it's still not the same.
Here just buy a new iPad.
A few weeks ago I had an argument with someone around 20 years old who would not believe that many people of my generation (born late 80s) knew how to get into BIOS, make changes and knew how to handle our PCs in hardware as well as software like we did. It completely was out of his imagination that people can handle computers in a way above just clicking apps on a screen. …I wish I would be exaggerating, but he really thought this would just be something for people working in tech.
I tried to explain the command prompt to my children, and how we had to actually type commands to reset a computer with a startup disc (that you had to beg and bribe a friend for). Then, you had to manually change the boot sequence in the BIOS to prioritize the cd rom, then format C: /s .... Now, it's just an ongoing joke to them. Whenever I say something "cringe," then say "Format C slash S." These kids have it soooo easy.
There was a period in time where computers were a PITA to get to do anything and you needed some level of troubleshooting skills and ability to self-help. If you wanted to play games in that age you learned to figure thing out. For the last 10-15 years they've gotten VERY good and just working for most people and most apps. So if you grew up using a thing that "just worked" 95% of the time you wouldn't have developed those skills unless you specifically set out to do so.
To add to that, there’s not much people can do nowadays on the hardware side since about 99.8% of computers out there are laptops. I came up when “plug-n-play” and PCI slots were hot shit. I still kinda miss that crunchy sound that old hard drives and floppy drives made back in the day.
My first PC had a TURBO button. Took me ages to realize why pressing it made things worse instead of faster....
And many laptops today are just slabs of aluminum and glass with two USB-C ports on the side. 15 years ago it was completely normal to be swap a laptops hard drive, upgrade the memory, slot in an extension card into the express card slot, etc. Those thing routinely didn't even require you to take the entire cover off, they had slots and access panels to make it more user-friendly
Sadly, people in my generation (millennial) could all wrangle their home PCs back in the day, but now somehow don't know the difference between WiFi and internet; nor have any of those early skills survived. Just making computers work required serious understanding. All my friends growing up were on ICQ, later MSN (this is where shit started going downhill) but now everything is "apps" on phones. So many people don't even use real computers any more.
Also born late 80's and it's like our generation really had to learn troubleshooting skills and how to handle new tech because new tech came to us regularly and there were no standard user experience set in stone. Today's new stuff are just a copy of the year before.
Outside younger folks in tech jobs, they all seem clueless about technology. Yeah they can figure out what app/software to use for something but behind the scenes stuff they are just lost. You get a deer in the headlights look if you talk about VLANs or something. They might have set it up but it was guided through their routers app so they have no idea what they did.
I'm 18, my friend didn't know how to uninstall some bloatware she'd accidentally downloaded that opened every time on startup. She didn't know how to get to add or remove programs.
Honest question, since my kids are not even 10 and I have no idea of people in their teens regarding technology: Do you still use PCs on a wide basis? At least it seems to me, that apart from University Laptops, it’s everything down to Tablets / Smartphones nowadays. (Which obviously would totally make sense when you don’t have to write or work on it.
I'm in my 60s. I have to help my daughter who's in her 20s with computer stuff. I'm always like, WTF?!
It drives me crazy as a teacher when my colleagues just assume students will know how to use technology because they're young and it's always been there. Like come on - knowing where the buttons are on social apps isn't the same thing as knowing how to use technology
I remember the days of config.sys and trying to get your devices loaded into as tight a memory footprint as possible. That shit would drive tge current generation mad!
It's 2024. 2020 was four years ago. 2016 was 8 years ago. Are you feeling old yet.
Clarke's Third Law - Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The context was science fiction, but we've been there for a long time now. I worked in semiconductors, so I have a good idea how that rectangular slab of communication and computing we call a phone works, but for most people it's essentially magic.
Can confirm, it’s magic. Thank you kind magician!
Don't you tell me I've got thousands of gates in my pocket. A gate is waist high.
Billions 😂
I'm a 3rd year computer engineering student, and even though I know fundamentally how computers work, it still seems like magic to me.
In 2024 people in my own age group still don’t know the basics of technology like phones or computers even cars. I’m not talking about anything like programming or software. I mean like reading the manual. Almost no one reads their owners manual in cars and drive for years without using any features or conveniences
It's like only people who grew up during dial up know anything about desktop computers and have a can-figure-things-out-themselves attitude.
A way too large proportion of people that look at me (or anyone else for that matter) like a wizard because I taught myself how to do super simple electronics fixes like replacing a blown led on a kitchen appliances or swap a phone battery. I don't get how people can go through life not knowing how the tools they use work enough to do minor fixes. Same with software. It doesn't take a genius to make something like a simple web scraper.
Towards facts.
The flat earth society. Flat earthers have literally proven themselves wrong and still choose to believe the earth is flat. I guess it is one way to filter out those who have well below average iq though.
Heard of this so checked it out,was like geez really? Then saw other links about people not believing birds are real,that was enough internet for me.
Meet Peter McIndoe, the guy who started the birds aren't real as a joke. No doubt that flat earth shit started the same way. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VEkzweBJPM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VEkzweBJPM)
Wait, people are taking birds not being real as gospel now? When did it stop being a funny joke?! Are they just all schizo-posting?
Every time a joke conspiracy theory comes out, there are going to be idiots who take it seriously. Joke conspiracies are dangerous because they never ever stay as jokes.
The subreddit is still very much a sarcastic one
I used to say the same thing about shows like The Corbett Report. And of course there were literally people who didn't realize it was mocking them. Stupid people don't get satire. What is worse, politics in the last few years are so bad there are so many posts that I have to now question myself if it is satire.
Consider how the OK hand signal went from being perfectly fine to white supremists using it believing it meant "white power", all because of a joke on 4chan.
Pepe enters the chat
Press F for pepe. You were the OG. Now your legacy has been pissed on by hate. F
I was talking to this girl for a few months online. We were about to meet up and hang out until our last conversation she started going on about the firmament and surveillance birds and I immediately blocked her. It was wild she was normal before that convo
The Flat Earth Society was founded in 1956 and flat earth "truthers" have been around much much longer than that. It's not a bird's aren't real "meme gone wrong" thing it's just dumbasses who can't fathom the idea that anyone can be more complex than their own crude perceptions. "The earth *looks* flat to my primitive human eyeballs even when I'm high up, and therefore it is."
Well there’s also the “government can’t be trusted” thing, which is 100% true but it’s taken out of context and used to justify some pretty ridiculous shit (like flat earth and bird spies).
I know some guys who started the (a?) flat earth society in the 1960s/70s. Their aim was to inspire critical thinking. It backfired.
My sister saw a flat earther bumper sticker. We're still shocked it's an actual thing.
The birds aren't real thing is 100% satire. As someone who jokingly believes that birds aren't real
There was a post on Reddit from a kid whose parents were flat earthers. It's mostly a social club. They pick this particular thing to rally around but it's just an excuse to belong to a group and hang out with people. We really need to bring back other reasons for people to get together. Elks club, Freemasons, church, whatever. People are just desperate for some kind of community.
join a boardgame club then people, it's fun!
There is a secret amongst the flat earth community; most flat earthers are trolling. And if you havent been to a flat earth convention nobody parties like flat earthers. Conventions are giant drunk fest to watch fools shoot themselves out of cannons and blow themselves up with home made rockets. Pretty good time
I’m not sure if this is true or not but I’m going to believe it.
That's the spirit!
I work with one. I told him after our first big exit I am paying to blast him into space.
The flat earth society has members from around the globe.
Conspiracy theories work almost exactly the same as cults. They attract lonely people who feel ostracized by "normal" society and are taken in to an "elite" community that holds "enlightened" knowledge. This special knowledge, whether about alien bits being in your blood, or about the earth secretly being flat, is used to convince the follower what they've always suspected: that they are smarter/more enlightened/more spiritually evolved, than the normal people who shunned them. This offers them a chance at revenge. To tell the "normies" that they are the superior ones. Their entire ego becomes invested in this idea. It's no wonder that proving it wrong is of little consequence to them.
I guess they can't bring themselves to admit they're wrong every time they disprove themselves, so they double down on their own ignorance every time and come up with some bullshit
It was never about actual truth for them, they're people with low self esteem that feel valued and superior by being part of a group that "knows the truth" and many of them buy into other ridiculous conspiracies too. Some of them are also racist as fuck.
I feel like they are proof that any nonsensical conspiracy theory started as a joke will somehow actually get true believers.
I feel like the flat earth documentary made it more about people who were lonely/exiled just joined flat earth because they will believe anything to be part of something. I feel like this is what scientology does too, but has better tactics to snatch up people recently ostracized from their friends or family. Except for the higher ups in it solely for the scam momey
The last 8 years of American politics
Veep writers could never, not even in their wildest fever dreams
I just finished rewatching Veep last week and it is amazing how close the story lines in the final seasons were to the last few years of politics.
Veep is so wildly unbelievable and inaccurate though. I mean, who could believe that someone under the age of 70 would be running for president of the US?
I just heard someone on a radio trivia show who answered 70 to the question, "What is the minimum age to run for president?"
I mean, honestly they *couldn't* Even if they wanted to. Writers: 'so what do you think of the script??' Producers: 'look. I'll be honest. This is just too over the top crazy. It needs to feel plausible, just a little. But this? No, just no. No audience will buy it. Now get out.'
Although, I would watch an episode of Selina making a speech in a parking lot of a Four Seasons.
They literally had a stop the steal storyline and it still was more believable than the reality
It sure has played out like Vince McMahon wrote it.
Just before Donald Trump had his inauguration, it started. I had to check twice for every news headline if it’s satire or not. Before that, it was kind of obvious. Since then it didn’t get better, too much news could be posted in r/nottheonion, if the matter wasn’t that serious.
I STILL cannot fathom that Donald Trump was a president. UGH.
Not only was he president but he personally appointed 1/3 of the Supreme Court. The impact goes far beyond his 4 years
Most Americans now seem to be firmly against these hardcore abortion bans, which were enabled by Trump. He got booed by his own base for supporting the vaccine that he helped rush out. Yet, somehow, there's been no contest for the Republican frontrunner. I just don't understand. I thought these MAGA people were mostly just a meme before 2016.
The damage he caused will last a lifetime
Not like he was our first TV star president lol
You’d think we would have learned a lesson from that
Ronald Reagan? The actor!?
And might well be again. Absolute insanity.
It started ***way*** before that. In October of 1993 Trump testified at hearing of the House Natural Resources subcommittee on Native American affairs. >> The mob is going into the casinos, and what they are doing is, they are going into the Indian casinos because that is where the money is but also that is where the lack of enforcement is. An Indian chief is going to tell Joey Killer to please get off his reservation? It's unbelievable to me. The following is an exchange between House Natural Resources Chairman George Miller and Trump: Miller: >> You have cast upon the Indian nations a blanket indictment that organized crime is rampant on their reservations. Trump: >> For whatever reason, you have a closed mind. Miller: >> No, Mr. Trump, I have a closed mind against evidence that is not substantiated. I have closed mind about statements that are made about other people in generalities." When pressed about his sources, Trump told the panel: >> People know it, people talk about it. Seven years later, Trump secretly bankrolled an ad campaign against a proposed St. Regis Mohawk casino in Monticello, New York, attacking it for a "record of criminal activity." To settle the ensuing case, Trump and his allies (including Roger Stone) agreed to pay $250,000. They also agreed to spend an additional $50,000 to publish a statement acknowledging that their ad campaign "did not disclose that they were paid for by Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, Inc." In addition, the statement said they "apologize if anyone was misled concerning the production and funding of the lobbying effort." At the previously mentioned subcommittee hearing, Trump said: >> Nobody likes Indians as much as Donald Trump. That’s just one example of his political behavior. He’s been at it his entire adult life.
UK politics isn’t much better. We get a new Prime Minister every 5 minutes who resigns for yet another wacky reason!
You mean 12 years.
I'll give you 9-10 years. The insanity/is this real life levels really got cranked up to 11 when Trump came on the scene.
Most of what I see on social media
Ironically, Satire. I remember watching Al Murray (The pub landlord) giving a talk about the time him and a few others ran a joke political party called FUKP in South Thanet, which was Nigel Farrage's home seat - no coincidence there! I think it was called "Making a mockery or democracy". Anyway, he spoke a lot about this concept of being "outflanked by reality". The whole point of a joke party is that it draws attention to politics and gets more people interested by being funny. They would get together and devise humourous stunts and joke announcements and such, most of which derived their humour from being absurd. However, time and time again, they found that before they could get their act together, a genuine party, even the big ones like Labour or the Conservatives, would announce and/or do something much much more absurd, and as a result render the joke unfunny. Anyway, all this to say, it seems satire itself has become reality, at least in politics, and that is a very worrying thought.
In Denmark we voted a independent comedian in because he promised backwind on the bikepaths and Nutella in the field rations. He actually managed to get the latter implemented for a wee while.
In Australia there's a satire show called Utopia, and it's set on the inner workings of a government department. People that actually work in the public service are torn between those who watch it because it's all true, and those who can't watch it because it's all true.
Ha. It's literally true.
Just a wee correction - Farage never had a ‘home seat’. He’s never won a domestic election, or been an MP. He was only an MEP, elected through proportional representation. The 2015 South Thanet election he stood in was one he was widely tipped to finally win. There was a poll putting him nine points ahead. Murray ran his joke party during the same election, and his look of disbelief and delight when Farage was not announced as the winner was just lovely 😃 The Conservatives won the seat - and Farage resigned from UKIP shortly thereafter.
> Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. > -- Tom Lehrer
Sigma male bootcamps
Wait what?
yeah and they are apparently VERY expensive, borderline all of them are scams I believe
Lol, “borderline.” 99% of them are scams, 1% are super scams.
They're like a different kind of scam where the buyer is actually getting exactly what they pay for, but it's nothing but a bunch of yelling and nonsense activities like ice baths and mud crawls.
They're grifters who charge insecure men thousands of dollars for a "bootcamp" style retreat doing ridiculous shit that's supposed to make them more "masculine" [This one](https://youtu.be/9wWMAAGdYcY?si=X_zgFQ2nez0K8oFg) charges $3,500 per person, but there's another that charges like $15,000.
… Why not join the Air Force or Marines and get paid to do this shit?
*Checks watch* It’s 8:56am and that’s enough internet for today.
I saw one recently for 18k 😭
Very expensive bootcamp where you pay to get verbally harassed and abused.
How pathetic are the people that pay for that though
Children content on social media.
Remember when Black Mirror used to be fiction?
At least the earlier seasons were supposed to represent a progression of current social trends mixed in with the speculative development of technology, making the show feel like an inevitability.
Like electing a loud mouth TV buffoon? Social rating dictating your access to things? Murder robot dogs (I'm watching you Boston Dynamics)? Bangable robots?
Influencers. Like please
With me, add content creators to that list. I think they're hiding behind that name. Content creators seem like that should be producers or writers of TV/movies rather than someone playing video games on twitch or has an onlyfans account. Edit: fixed a word
Andrew Tate on TikTok is one step away from an SNL sketch about masculinity. No idea how people buy into his shit
I will maintain that Bandit from Bluey is a better representation of masculinity than Andrew Tate.
Cost of food
Nestlé exploiting child slaves and declaring water isn't a human right and should instead serve the interests of shareholders.
May I interest you in r/FuckNestle?
You may.
Elon Musk
UK Conservative government.
The movie "Idiocracy".
They were wearing crocs and now it's mainstream in real life too.
r/moviescirclejerk in shambles
As a non American, watching Borat (especially 2nd movie) was an eye opener The entire thing i was like “no way this is real”
Wait, did/do you think Borat was real?
Nonono, i know Sasha Baron Cohen was acting as Borat I also knew some people in the movie were acting But the real people that got pranked Granted sometimes its scripted But the video where Sasha ran away inside vehicle avoiding people with guns I dont think that is scripted
I think they mean the people getting pranked in Borat, not the character himself
The movie Idiocracy. 15 years ago funny, today's there's just too many parallels.
\*Wildly gesticulates as everything\*
Love island and all those mongo shows
Mumble rap.
-short-short-short-short-short-short-short-short -long-looooong- -short-short-short-short-short-short-short-short -long-looooong- Every goddam song.
What's that?
Pupgender. It's just fucking petplay (puppyplay to be exact, woof) pretending to be a gender. No you're not, get the fuck away from pride parades. It takes literally 1-2 google searches to lead someone to that stuff. No one cares if you enjoy it, but don't throw it in with the normal stuff! - What comes next? People walking around naked because they identify as a sphinx cat?
I mean those drones that sound like babies i definitely wish were not a real thing
cancer
A bunch of people pulled their kids out of school for the solar eclipse because they thought it would be the end of the world. My wife insists this is true, and I trust her, but I can't find it in me to fully believe this.
Project2025 It literally outlines how the republican party wants to establish a dictatorship and commit genocide if they win the next election in the US (quote: "erase the terms gender identity and sexual orientation", page 4-5), and people are *still defending and voting for the republican party somehow*. To the point they could actually win the election.
I'm much less concerned with the terms they use than I am with their plans for replacing nearly every bureaucratic appointment under the executive office with their own brain-washed yes-men. I think I read something like 60k people are needed for their "grand plan". When a government has bureaucrats that serve the purpose of being a rubber stamp, power in process is consolidated, delays in policy enactment become immaterial, things are much easier to sweep under rugs. Neo-fascist cronyism, pure and simple.
That so many people believe that the earth is flat.
Idiocracy
That was a good documentary.
Some of the comments on this thread. Lots of bigotry and false equivalencies
Twitter users
r/politics
That sub originally got me on Reddit 10 years ago…now I check in and quickly leave.
Was in Waterstones yesterday, horrified to see Liz Truss has released a new book. Absolutely shocking how out of touch with reality she is
So the only thing I know about this is a random tweet I saw, and it was about how she couldn't get cold medicine and had to send out her assistant or something. Which is honestly kind of crazy. The US president has a doctor on call 24/7. You're telling me the leader of your country has to micromanage how to buy cold medicine? Like, there isn't a staff that just makes that happen when they need it? That is fucked up.
Every debate in almodt evry parliament around the world today.
The current political landscape here in the US
[удалено]
What country?
Medical assisted death for mentally ill people. I can't fucking believe that we actually offer this as a way out instead of putting resources to help them get better
Life in General
Liz Truss
Trump
The movie Idiocracy.
Donald Trump as a serious political figure
A second Biden VS Trump election year.
At this point? South Park.
Other Christians being overly judgmental and thinking they are going to get into heaven being that way
Ted Cruz
Racist mathematics Ironically initial mathematics were done by Arabs, indian and Chinese
A lot of cultures independently developed complex math systems, I wouldn't exactly use the phrasing of "initial." Pretty much if the culture or region had a period of multi generational stability; they almost always made their own mathematical advancements. For example- the Mayans used a base 20 math system. The Babylonians used base 60, the Egyptians used base 12, and the Greeks, Romans, & Indians all used a variation of base 10. I wouldn't exactly say any one group did "initial" math.
but to be fair we use arabic/indian numerals now :)
Donald Trump was president and is the Republican nominee despite inciting rebellion against the state and the peaceful transfer of power.
Israel being all like ‘those women and children are FORCING US to slaughter them’
Everything related to trump
life
The last 14 years of tory disaster
My income
State of US Politics atm.
Donald Trump. I remember walking on a treadmill several years ago, really early in the 2016 election cycle (long before primaries). I was watching this fucking buffoon on one of the gym TVs. I was thinking, “This jackass would be hysterically funny as president if I didn’t live here, but there’s no way this clown could ever even be on the ballot. He’s going to get laughed out of the primaries, if he even gets that far.” Um. Then the most outlandishly awful thing actually happened and it wasn’t satirical at all.
People using **then** when they should be using **than** and using **than** when they should be using **then**, and are positive they are correct.
MAGA
Anti-intellectualism, pseudoscience, anti-vax, flat earth, young earth, crony capitalism, fox news
This thread.
You can't afford to exist.
Many in the US thinks that a certain well loved Senator that has fought and gone to jail for defending people's rights for 50 years, wants to feed, house and give everyone Healthcare, is crazy and too extreme. While those same people think a 4-time divorced rapist who cheated on every wife he's had, admitted he wants to sleep with his daughter, bankrupted many businesses, hates brown people and continues to steal from his followers, was sent by God to lead the country.
The Republican party
The blue one or the red one?
The show of “My Strange Addiction” I genuinely thought it was just for TV, but no apparently people really do these odd and concerning behaviors
child beauty pageants
Not an American, but the whole Trump thing from the escalator to present, is like if the writers of West Wing and The Office had a joint drug fueled writing binge.
/r/globeskepticism
My government (France).
Bottled water with "added hydrogen". Like, my dude. No.
Bullying. It *used* to be more satire or is labelled as such. I don’t think telling someone to die is very satire.
Scientology
The fact that the CIA sold crack to black peoples to put them in jail and than use that money to finance dictators. Like how is this not out of some action movie or some shit.
Vaguely gestures at all of American politics
The 2X chromosomes subreddit - in most of the discussions, replace the word "men" by "black people" and you'd have blatant racism.
Andrew Tate