OpenStars

joined 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (2 children)

"Job titles are actually a fluid concept - why feel a strong need to label everything?" :-D

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (4 children)

First, a lot of people are indeed falling into solipsism. However, not everyone is, and not everything is "impossible". It is true that the barriers can sometimes be high, but they are never insurmountable - e.g., how hard would it be for someone to go get a medical degree? Okay, so that one is high, but there are other, much more low-hanging fruit! e.g. if a religious authority figure says that "nobody will die", and then a couple of months later, half the congregation dies, that does not need a decade's worth of study to figure out that the person "lied". Either knowingly or unknowingly.

Which brings me to point 2: if you can say the former phrase about lying unknowingly, then the definition of lying must be a bit broader than what you are using? People can be said to be "living a lie", as you said b/c they find out later - but perhaps even if they do not? Google's AI when I type in "lie" says:

used with reference to a situation involving deception or founded on a mistaken impression

So someone can be lying unknowingly if they pass on a statement that is itself a lie - and depending on the context, the punishment might not even be that much less severe, i.e. whenever the consequences are highly severe. But it varies with the level of "responsibility" aka the expectations set forth. Example: a nurse repeats word-for-word what they are told by a doctor to say - are they lying? Not really, especially if they are clear to attribute what is being done, in terms of merely "relaying" the message. The message itself may be a lie, but the person was clear, so is not a responsible agent for the deception, even if participating in it. But a doctor prescribing ivermectin on the other hand? They should have known better, and thereby for a person in such a position of responsibility to pass on improper information, may still constitute a "lie" in that case, even if an unknowing one - b/c they should have known. And if they did not know, then they should have found out. Others may need DECADES of study to catch up to them, but for a doctor who already knows the foundational framework, it is only a matter of a few hours to read some primary source material to catch up on exactly whether that drug is indicated in that scenario, and like what the side-effects are, etc.

In the above I had to make a major presumption here, in that someone did not pollute the various information streams that doctors have access to. Indeed if that were to happen, then it is possible for even doctors to, while passing on incorrect information, not be "lying" while doing so, in the same manner as a nurse. But I think at least that my former scenario is what happened during the pandemic? Someone started talking about using that horse drug, doing the work of a scientist except skipping the parts about actually doing proper testing, and so essentially doing unauthorized "human trial experiments" on actual, live human test subjects! :-( Perhaps they thought it was for the greater good even, like if people were going to die anyway then at least they could offer some protection? Except that's not even how that drug works under the most ideal conditions, thus doing so violates the most foundational and sacred oaths of the medical profession: to first do no harm. So then... it's a lie either way? Whether through nearly criminal ignorance or to fully criminal and unethical behavior. Tbf, not every "doctor" is a good one, BUT, in defense of my position, EVERY doctor (in the USA at least, and I thought in every part of the world?) MUST take the Hippocratic Oath. So it gets REALLY hard to defend such a person then, who either lied while taking it (in that they could not in fact manage to uphold those standards of integrity) or got lazy later on in terms of upholding it.

Which begs the next question: how can someone both "lie" and yet "not know that they are lying" at the same time? Admittedly this one is fairly complex in needing to dig deeper into human psychology. Or, I don't even think this is unique to humans, though it does seem far more developed in us than in animals. Let us switch scenarios b/c I think I have an easier one here. Let us say that a person has read the Christian Bible, and know for certain what the commandment by Jesus to "love one another" means - it means to be patient, and... you know what, let's just stop there. So when someone KNOWS that they have been COMMANDED to be patient, and yet they are NOT patient, but they still call themselves a "Christian" - that word means "follower of" btw - how then are they not "lying"? The answer, I believe, is that they are lying to themselves. Specifically, I am referring to cognitive dissonance: b/c our brains are complex enough that we utilize neural pathways that interconnect with one another without necessarily having to uphold one single, consistent Truth, it is fully possible for someone to both "know that they are lying", but also "not know that they are lying", at the same time. Such a person is usually LOUD in their condemnation of others who lie, and who e.g. are impatient, and yet they do not choose to see that they themselves are being thus. Hence the lie, b/c this is "knowing / willful misrepresentation of the Truth", the caveat being that here, only half of the cognitive processes are aware that it is a lie, while the other half act as if it is legit. These people will look you full in your face and claim that they are telling you the Truth. And that is the Truth. But it is also a lie.

2+2=4 | {2, 4} ∈ ℤ is a True statement? But if I say then that 2+2=2 | {2, 4} ∈ ℤ is also a True statement, is that a lie? What if I have no idea what those things ("numbers") mean? That gets back to that "accountability" issue from above - I really should know that, and all the more so if I am the one bringing them up? So acknowledging that and setting it aside, adding statements that are untrue converts a True statement into a False one. "There exists a True statement within this pair of statements" is True, but the overall pack of them is False. Hence, someone suffering from cognitive dissonance is guilty of telling a lie, to themselves. We all do it I am sure, it takes ENORMOUS efforts not to, especially when our culture is... well, as you mentioned, the way that it is. Though as we agreed: it is a descriptive statement to say that if and when that happens, those statements are still "lies", even if they are only partially known while partially unknown.

And all the more so when someone raises themselves up to become a (co-)leader of a nation - e.g. by voting. In that case, the statement that "they should have known" raises that specter, yet again, of responsibility: if they are going to chart the way forward for the entire nation - i.e. by depriving people of certain rights, like to medical care - then they should have thought deeper about the matter, and the excuse "but I did not know" does not work anymore. The reason it does not work anymore is b/c if you ever cross one of these people, they will cite this exact thing to you: YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER. It is the metric by which they judge - so it is not even me judging them, so much as acknowledging that this is the metric by which they judge themselves, and indeed by which we all judge our "leaders". At which point... they really should have known better, than to believe in a lie so hard that they actually vote on it, and all the more so when they do that in order to overturn the determinations of the people who actually DO know better - e.g. the doctors, who are aware that ivermectin is a horse drug, and if ever to be used in humans is only for extreme cases and for malaria, not covid and especially not as a preventative, and all the more so not as a substitute for a vaccine.

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

I would naively think that as well - you would expand your alphabet of "symbols" to include both single letters and numbers and punctuation but also common words as well. It is still a lot of combinations to have to try though, even if less than each letter by itself.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think you have 2 replies here that went to the wrong place - instead of to the person you likely aimed them at, they are to yourself. I just thought that you might like to know!:-)

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

I would dare say that the vast majority of the people on Lemmy are by no means "average". Not necessarily better or worse, but we do have biases: we seem to trend towards older IT professionals who will put up with all the website glitches, as compared to e.g. a normal tween that would not.

Example "average" lie (in my own addled mind): "Gurl puh-lease, you lookin' MIGHTY fine right about now!" (translation: bish please, you look like a dumpster fire wrapped in bacon, insteada puttin on makeup and pounds, you need to be going to the GYM!:-P) Or at least this is my impression based on Twitter and YouTube, though tbf I don't really look at either of them and what posts do make their way onto Lemmy (or Reddit before the collapse) may have been... slightly skewed? :-D

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I used to just tell people. It... did not go over well:-P. After that I lied, for their sakes b/c they did not truly want to know.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Having read this over, fwiw I am definitively siding with @[email protected] on this. Here is an illustration that I think will help:

Child 1: Hey, let's grab some cookies!

Child 2: Okay! (reaches for cookie but before they can grab one...)

Mother: Hey, what are you doing - you two are not eating cookies are you, hrm!?

Child 1: No mummy dearest (choose appropriate slang of choice here:-), we two are not eating cookies...

Question: did child 1 lie? Technically their statement is accurate according to the narrowest possible interpretation - they both were not eating cookies, yet, even though the intentions of them both were fairly blatantly obvious.

Communication among humans is not math - the meaning of a message requires interpretation from the multiple parties involved. And in particular the recipient is usually in possession of additional data than the sender - at the very least, once the sender chooses to send the message packet, then the receiver has obtained +1 message that prior to the sending did not yet exist between them (and which may contain additional data, such as "a sender exists" and "the sender was located in this direction, at the time of the sending").

Anyway the child KNOWS what the mother intended to ask, but deliberately and blatantly told an extremely skewed version of the truth that is SO distorted, SO unwieldy, SO twisted, that there is no doubt that the intention was to deceive. In a normal situation anyway - though ofc exceptions always exist e.g. an autistic child, or one who has suffered some form of brain damage that causes them to struggle with over-literal statements might somehow literally be confused what the intention of the mother was. But in a normal situation, the meaning is clear: the child lied.

Any judgement about that is ofc up to interpretation - maybe the mother is actually pleased at having taught her children to lie so well? :-P

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

And I for one appreciate so much that you do - take all the time that you need and I will know that the response will be all the better for it.:-)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This presumes that all people are informed. New people, by definition, are not that. Arguably their fault for (checks notes) getting on a social media site then?

I am saying that it is easy for a day-1 noob to feel "dunked on" based on this absolute rush of feedback, especially for e.g. someone on the wider Fediverse who was not even aware that hexbear was that way, so especially they had no chance to consent to that - no pop-up messages appeared, nothing really unless you hunt around dig and also scroll down to see it, underneath the community, they just saw a post and replied as normal but then WHABOOSH!

Also you did not explain how the person you were responding to was not merely "wrong" but rose to be fully "disingenuous". Sadly this is something I notice often with hexbear - the culture seems to value "fights", which ngl could be helpful if the goal were to use socratic discourse to achieve some end goal like Truth and/or Compassion, but far more often it looks to me, from the outside, like people who just enjoy fighting/dunking for its own sake.

You are free - and I will fight to the death for your rights to do precisely this - to do as you please, as it pertains to yourself, but when it crosses over to affect other people, then different rules come into play. Specifically, if people from hexbear will not control themselves, then that leaves others to have to do it for them - e.g. warn people what to expect from hexbear users. i.e., it is not "disingenuous" to say that hexbear users seem to be spoiling for a fight, if that is literally what happens.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I dunno, all I do is hit copy, then go to the website and hit paste, and that's pretty easy as well:-P.

I do need to step up my game for work though, b/c it keeps asking me a password multiple times a day so if I could rattle one off that would be better than having to open up my password manager and get it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Yeah I thought about adding a note that it's pretty outdated - and dictionary based scans were always possible even if less common in the old days - like those infamous passwords "God", "Love", "secret", or like "admin".

The artist is pretty smart most of the time though so I presume they were aware of that possibility and meant that on a more basic level there are multiple ways to make passwords easier for a user to remember, not necessarily just this one rather simplistic take but as part of a whole approach. Then again, they didn't say that, and instead said this, thus the controversy.

Personally I gave up entirely and now I don't even know what any of my own passwords are, though my password manager does:-). I guess... if you cannot beat them, join them!?:-P

[–] [email protected] 62 points 9 months ago (38 children)
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