I made .iso files and mounted them in virtual drives to do the same thing. I could have used cracks but I didn’t want a virus and I still had the delusion that doing things “fairly” actually meant anything.

I spent 30 years thinking I was cishet (and suffering for it). When I finally realized that I’m trans, it was like a dam bursting; suddenly everything about my identity was in question. I’ve gone from “Maybe I’m a girl” to “I’m a trans demi ND plural therian” in three years and I don’t think I’m done discovering things about myself yet.

If the AI could really detect any discrepancies between human and AI-generated text, it would stop making them.

No mention of trans people, which is odd given that Florida is a Do Not Travel state for its government’s efforts to criminalize being transgender.

This was before they added F2P, but ten minutes a day of checking my two hisec market alts (who didn’t have a lot of skills because it meant pausing my main’s training) was making me just enough to pay for my account and there was room to expand further. Granted, it did take me several months of trading to build up enough funds to support this operation, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect to do this on day 1.

It’s because the furry fandom, when it was founded back in the late 70’s by a gay polycule of sci-fi fans, was one of the only communities in existence that accepted openly gay and trans people. (And the only non-fetish community.) For many queer people, the furry fandom is the first place they ever feel welcome.

I’ve never heard it put that way before, but it’s an interesting observation. A lot of animals are culturally associated with personality traits (e.g. clever foxes, loyal dogs, proud lions) and furries usually choose a species they relate to, so it creates a system where people tend to self-sort into various tribes based on values and personality type. Look at any decently popular species and you’ll likely find that most of the people repping it share a common set of traits.

I hadn’t seen any significant hate speech until this June, when a handful of dumbasses decided to start spewing homophobia in multiple comment sections because they’re mad rainbows exist. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were a lot more on shows I wasn’t watching.

Remember the NYPD who were jumped by a gang of illegal immigrants?

No, but I do remember the NYPD harassing a small group of migrants that were just minding their own business on a public sidewalk (without blocking it), ordering them to leave, and then assaulting one of them while he was attempting to comply.

I don’t think streamers and video creators are more likely to be sex pests. You’re just more likely to hear about a sex pest if their career involves trying to be seen by as many people as possible.

Oh, sorry, I had the wrong guy. I was thinking of Dan Vasc, whose red-faced screaming meltdown is embedded in the article you linked. Must have gotten the names mixed up.

Let me try this again.

Why am I not surprised that the guy who turned out to be a pedo also gets upset about other people having pronouns?

Why am I not surprised that a guy who had a full crying meltdown over the existence of pronouns would turn out to be a pedo?

Let’s also not forget that a lot of those “lazy” people are actually struggling with illness, insecurity, lack of critical resources, discrimination, burnout from “the grind”, or just plain don’t see the point in contributing much to a system that never seems to contribute anything back. Guaranteed housing, food, and healthcare would fix a lot of the problems that cause “laziness”.

I used to believe the “shitpost that got out of hand” excuse too. Let me tell you about something I witnessed a few weeks after that story first blew up:

I was watching an Overwatch esports stream because I still played back then and Blizzard was bribing us players to inflate viewer counts. It was a home game for the Dallas Fuel, so the match was taking place in Texas. Unsurprisingly, this meant the vast majority of the in-person audience was young white gamerbros with a conservative aesthetic.

It also happened to take place on International Women’s Day, so between rounds they would have one of the women who worked on Overwatch give a short speech or interview. These were generally focused on their experiences as a woman (and often racial minority), the value of diversity and tolerance, etc. I remember one of the people they brought in to speak was Anjali Bhimani, an American of Indian descent who voiced the character Symmetra.

Every single time they announced one of these presentations, a large number of audience members (Remember: white gamerbros in Dallas, Texas) would immediately raise one arm, make the OK sign with their hand, and wave it around rapidly while frowning. I had never seen anything like it, and given the context it was obvious what they were doing it for.

Blizzard banned use of the gesture during esports matches a few days later. The subreddit was predictably full of posts like yours, downplaying what had happened and ridiculing the ban as an overreaction to a stupid prank. Maybe it really was just a prank at the start, and I don’t know if they’re still doing it now, but there was definitely a time when fascists were using the OK sign as a dogwhistle and relying on the “media fell for a 4chan prank” story for plausible deniability.

There’s a novel titled Glasshouse, by Charles Stross, where members of a far future civilization sign up to live in a simulated mid-20th century town. At one point the protagonist disassembles a flashlight and discovers that it’s just a flashlight-shaped case containing a small wormhole whose other end is in close orbit around a star. No one knew how to make an LED or incandescent bulb, or understood enough about early electronic components to hook one up to a switch and a battery. It was easier to make a wormhole generator and stick it in a metal tube.

My father pulled that “just ignore it” shit, too. Somehow it wasn’t the bully’s fault for attacking me, it was my fault for being such an entertaining target.

Conservatives are still quick to suppress speech they don’t agree with, though. Their criticism of censorship isn’t a cause, it’s a smokescreen.

That gay and trans people are all disgusting perverts who hate me and want to destroy everything good. My queer friends provide more emotional support in a day than I ever got from my family, the church, or anyone else inside the Evangelical bubble I was raised in.

That people in “The World” (those outside the church) are all evil or unknowingly controlled by Satan and will always try to hurt me. Textbook cult programming from the people who were emotionally abusing me.

That God is speaking directly to me through a voice in my head, except when that voice says I’m a girl, then it’s actually a demon or something. (It was likely undiagnosed DID as a result of childhood emotional neglect and repressed gender dysphoria.)

That scientists are all part of a massive satanic conspiracy to trick people into leaving the church.

Dungeons & Dragons being a satanic conspiracy. Satanic Panic stuff in general.

Lots of anti-evolution propaganda that turned out to be misrepresentations of science or complete fabrications.

That they actually believed in all that stuff Jesus said about loving thy neighbor, helping the poor and the sick, and being kind to immigrants, instead of spending their whole lives voting to hurt all of those people as much as possible.

I already turned down a free copy of this game because it installs a rootkit, and now this happens. I hear the game itself is a lot of fun, and I feel bad for the actual developers who are watching people shit on their work because of management and publisher bullshit.

My oven uses some weird “eco-friendly” self-cleaning process that involves pouring water into it and steaming the dirt off, which doesn’t sound like it would be good for the pan. Got any alternatives? I found a Griswold at the thrift store a few years back and I’d like to be able to restore it without damaging it.