Libra

'HA ha!' -Nelson Muntz

Star Wars doesn't really do 'super advanced technology'. Like they've got space ships and hyperdrive and laser swords and shit, but they don't treat it like high-tech stuff, they treat it like we treat cars and swords.

Absolutely, I don't mind at all.

1. That's complicated. I grew up in the 70s and 80s when there wasn't a word for it, so I spent a lot of years just thinking I was broken/defective and hating the world as a result (I had some other stuff going on as well, medical problems and such, so I felt like I had just been dumped on and it was somehow the fault of the world and everyone in it.) Puberty was fuckin' weird because my younger sisters and cousins and such kept bringing home boy/girlfriends and everyone would look at me like 'Where's yours?' They did eventually stop asking questions, but the looks didn't stop for a long time. I didn't come across the word 'asexual' until maybe ~15 years ago, and even then it kind of took a while to realize that it was an accurate description. So.. anywhere from puberty in the late 80s to maybe 10 years ago depending on definition? I kinda went from 'I'm broken and unlovable', to 'This is just how I am and fuck anyone who has a problem with it', to 'Oh, there's a word for that. Hi, I'm Libra and I'm asexual.'
2. I do now. When I was younger I keenly felt like I was missing out on what everyone else took for granted, especially that life-partner thing, and I was depressed for many years as a result. What pulled me out of it and made me see the value of my life was two things. First, and this is kinda dark, but I got literally to the point of putting a gun in my mouth and realized that for whatever reason I just couldn't do it. That left me no option but to find ways to make my life even marginally less unbearable because I had no escape, it immediately got rid of all the excuses I had used to not work on myself, my situation, etc. The second, and this might sound strange, was philosophy. I've long been a student of religion (but not a member of one since I was a teenager) and in my 30s I branched out into philosophy as well. There I came across the works of the absurdists like Camus, and the Myth of Sisyphus especially (though it took some time) was a big help. It made me realize that if there is no meaning inherent to anything then I get to decide what it all means to me. I had been deciding sort of subconsciously that life was a hateful, burdensome thing to be endured rather than enjoyed, but I could decide instead that even if I wasn't leading the kind of life the people around me expected that I was still enjoying the moments, that I could even enjoy the struggle ('The struggle itself ... is enough to fill a man's heart'). I slowly stopped being an angry, cynical asshole who hated the world and learned to embrace the things I did enjoy about life until I realized one day that that was most things actually. It also helped that I had a good friend for ~25 years who was basically a life partner without being a romantic partner, though he sadly died a few years ago. I still miss having someone to share my life with now sometimes, but most of the time I can fill that void with friends, community, and hobbies (I'm disabled so I have lots of free time for tabletop RPGs, gaming, reading, etc.)

I'm still a little awkward in social situations too, but I've gotten much better about it, I'll actually talk to total strangers in the store instead of being weirded out that someone I don't know would talk to me, etc. I feel like I fake being a relatively normal, socially well-adjusted adult pretty well, to the point that most of the time I actually feel that way too. I have to imagine that the modern relatively easy access to therapy could speed that process along for most people, but I was born too early and was too poor/stubborn to try to get help so I had to bull my way through it on my own. It sucked, and it has had some lasting consequences that I hope others don't ever have to go through, but at the other end if it I'm a pretty content person, which I guess is all that matters.

I haven't really talked with other asexual people (internet or otherwise) myself, so I welcome the opportunity to do so. In fact if you ever want/need someone to talk to about this stuff you are more than welcome to hit up my DMs (does lemmy have DMs? I'm still new here.)

That sounds pretty good too, yeah. The program could be expanded to include safe spaces/training for teenagers and such too, probably include a rec center that always has stuff going on for them to participate in, etc. At that point it turns from a housing/job training project to basically a community, built around safe spaces, opportunities, and education for the future.

Humans need to go close to the infected animal to get infected.

To some extent yes, but 'get close to' is pretty broad: breathe contaminated air in the general vicinity of animals, drink water they've pissed or shit in, etc.

Oh, so being exposed to new viruses reduces the risk of dying to a virus you got … because you were exposed to it?

That is in fact how a vaccine/our immune system works, yes.

I realized a while ago that I didn't even enjoy the time when I wasn't doing the thing because I was dreading the thing or its consequences of not doing it the entire time, so I've been practicing just telling my procrastinating brain to shut the fuck up and go do it and it's sort of been working.

I don't want to say never, but probably never. Regardless of AI slop filling social media there will always be places where people congregate that are at least less-impacted by these trends than others. Personally I live in Texas and aside from a few family members everyone else I know lives elsewhere in the country/world and I would have no contact with them whatsoever if not for the internet, so that's always going to be a draw for me no matter what else is going on. Also I don't think it's quite as apocalyptic as you make it out to be; before AI the big concern was 'zomg the ads will be everywhere', but then adblock came along and aside from walled-garden mobile apps I virtually never see ads. Dissatisfaction with AI slop will lead to tools meant to find, identify, and combat it, just like it has with everything else. The only danger is if we let companies wall us totally into their little app ecosystems where it's illegal to modify them to block the stuff you don't want to see.

Nearly all of history's worst diseases have come from animals, and animals have those diseases whether we eat them or not. Factory farming certainly enhances the danger, but cows don't stop existing just because we don't eat beef. There is, however, also an upside to meat consumption: being around/eating animals all the time also builds up your immune system's defenses against diseases that originate in those animals. See: indigenous people in the Americas dying in droves to diseases they had no immunity to because they didn't farm/ranch animals. I mean and also the smallpox blankets, but you get my point.

If the virus originated in a wide area around Yunnan/Hubei (the latter of which is where Wuhan is) then it seems pretty unlikely that it came from a single source within Wuhan, right? I agree that the headline might be a bit ambiguous, but it's like saying 'It came from all over Texas' vs 'It came specifically from El Paso.' But I haven't read the study myself.

Well I'm not sure which was the biggest shock, discovering that I have a partner or discovering that we're having a baby. Both, as you might imagine, came as quite a surprise to an asexual man in his 50s who has never had a girlfriend. ;)

Do they need to? I don't think they do. They exist to make money so I get that they want to, and they're pretty good at it, but they could try not exploiting people for profit. But the idea that 'it exists therefore anything is justified in order to make a profit' is absurd.

You don't need to be a billionaire to eat the rich, but it definitely helps to insulate you from the legal ramifications thereof.