Signtist

My mom went from stage “0” DCIS to dying of stage 4 breast cancer in just 3 years while attempting to treat it with scam therapies.

When it was stage 2 she tried to treat it with localized vibration therapy, where her therapist used a massage gun on the area to try to resonate her body with the “healing frequency of the universe.”

Given that the stage 2-3 jump is when cancer cells begin to dislodge from the first affected lymph node into the lymphatic system and spread throughout the body, I’m fairly certain her “treatment” significantly accelerated that jump.

I’ve recently gotten into vinyl, and what I’ve learned is that convenience is often antithetical to experience. When just about every song ever made is immediately available to me at a moment’s notice, I stop caring; I’ll listen to a song I like for a little while then move onto the next one without thinking about it, and I won’t form any lasting memories along the way. When music is something that takes time and effort to enjoy, I have a chance to form a memory about my enjoyment, and when I have to physically find a song in order to listen to it, it gives that song much more meaning than if I spent less than 5 seconds typing the name in on Spotify.

This is what people don’t understand. Those in power, whether they’re part of the government, a wealthy CEO, or a religious leader, will do what benefits themselves if they think they can get away with it. We keep talking about powerful organizations and what they could do to benefit everyone, but fail to realize that powerful people don’t want to benefit everyone.

They only do what benefits everyone if they feel like they can’t get away with just doing what benefits themselves. It’s our responsibility to make sure they don’t think they can get away with it, and clearly strongly-worded letters and quippy signs held outside their offices for an afternoon or two isn’t enough to do that.

I wholeheartedly believe that anyone who’s amassed more than 10 million dollars in this country is doing something unsavory to get it - we shouldn’t blindly trust anything they say about anything. Mark has orders of magnitude more than that; everything he says should be considered a lie until proven true from multiple sources.

Good to know, thanks! I’ve seen a lot of good things about Hyundai as well, though I do get concerned given how many issues I’ve had with my 2 Kias over the last several years. I was considering waiting to get an EV Corolla when they apparently come out in a year or two, but I also don’t know if I want to wait that long.

I’ve been considering getting an electric car, and have been researching good models, and I can’t believe how many places are still recommending Tesla. I know the fediverse is far lefter than most other places, but I thought at the very least the general population had stopped trusting Musk and his scams.

“Coward” implies that they want to do good, but are too scared to do so. There’s no reason to think that, and indeed we shouldn’t. They want money and Elon makes them money; that’s all there is to it. If ethics mattered to them at all, they wouldn’t have been able to climb to the position of CEO of a major corporation in the first place.

What you see as “spot the error” type training, another person sees as absolute fact that they internalize and use to make decisions that impact the world. The internet gave rise to the golden age of conspiracy theories, which is having a major impact on the worsening political climate, and it’s because the average user isn’t able to differentiate information from disinformation. AI chatbots giving people the answer they’re looking for rather than the truth is only going to compound the issue.

This is the real concern. Copyright abuse has been rampant for a long time, and the only reason things like the Internet Archive are allowed to exist is because the copyright holders don’t want to pick a fight they could potentially lose and lessen their hold on the IPs they’re hoarding. The AI case is the perfect thing for them, because it’s a very clear violation with a good amount of public support on their side, and winning will allow them to crack down even harder on all the things like the Internet Archive that should be fair use. AI is bad, but this fight won’t benefit the public either way.

Yeah, she had just broken up with her boyfriend and found a bunch of “self-help” youtube videos that basically just said everyone who disagrees with you is a narcissist, then the algorithm started recommending her videos that said everyone who disagrees with you is actually an “energy vampire” literally and maliciously draining you of your life force. From there she got into all the crazy health conspiracies - which of course happened right as she was diagnosed with DCIS, which is easily treatable, but if left untreated becomes breast cancer. She dove head-first into all of the conspiracies after that, throwing money at anyone claiming to cure cancer so long as the method wasn’t backed by “big science,” and died of breast cancer a few years later.

It took my mom less than 4 years to go from crying in horror when Trump was elected in 2016, to crying in horror when he wasn’t elected in 2020, and lamenting her inability to join Jan 6 due to her cancer that was mysteriously worsening in spite of all the 5g blockers and expensive heal-all herbal teas she bought.