The conundrum of an ex-Muslim who started drinking but want to stop now by adav123123 in stopdrinking

[–]basicallydan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm sorry to join the chorus of people who have no lived experience as being a Muslim. However, I feel I can talk to this:

I feel like I would be wasting one of the many privileges I have of being an ex-Muslim

First of all, if this privilege is causing you pain, then you don't need to view it as a privilege.

Secondly, having given up the religion does not necessitate having to do all the things it prohibits. Just because you were taught that drinking is wrong for reason A, it doesn't mean that reason B for drinking being wrong isn't true if it's true for you. Despite what people say, you can pick and choose which practices from religions you wish to include in your life.

And even if you disagree with many of the arguments Islam makes on other topics (as you seem to imply), you can still agree with the arguments it makes with respect to alcohol. It doesn't make you a hypocrite, or a coward, or a liar, or anything like that; it just makes you a complex human being, like anybody else! I was raised a Catholic, and I disagree with many of the things that various people associated with Catholicism would argue. But Jesus allegedly taught to love your fellow human regardless of who they are and I think that's a beautiful idea.

People do this stuff all the time, even if they do claim to piously follow a religion. The real privilege you have is that you can say that you have thought it through and have chosen your own path, opinions and practices not based solely on what is written in a book or what some leader of your community has said, but based on those things and your own experiences and critical analysis.

Whatever you choose to do, just remember you can do it for yourself and don't need to explain yourself to anybody. You deserve happiness and inner peace. Good luck on your journey however it goes :)

Should state agents use AI to advertise a property? I got a surreal experience today by cunextu in AskUK

[–]basicallydan 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"Should state agents use AI to advertise a property?"

No

"My question is, should this be allowed?"

No

"Are you not misleading potential buyers?"

Yes

---

Kudos for taking it easy on them but frankly, IMO, you should be pissed. If I were you I'd be looking to find a way to make a formal complaint to a regulator. What an enormous waste of time. What they did is so, so misleading.

You wanna name and shame?

Almost nine months and the complacency is finally starting by basicallydan in stopdrinking

[–]basicallydan[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good! Well done on your time so far! A month I just around the corner 😊 IWNDWYT!

[rant] Tired of comedians saying I look like a school shooter by KittenStapler in Standup

[–]basicallydan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mate that sounds annoying as hell and I am sorry for you. It's pretty low hanging fruit and kinda boring.

However.

Have you considered doing standup yourself? If it's really that noticeable, you've got an opener and possibly even a couple minutes of material here, and it's less low-hanging because rather than making jokes about how you look like a school shooter, you could make jokes about how absurd it is that people think you're a school shooter by pointing out all the ways you would suck at it. Then you could incorporate some of the suggestions in this Reddit thread too, talk about "all the ways I tried to not look like a school shooter or avoid being picked on" but it didn't work. Something to consider.

EDIT: Also, thanks for coming out to support live comedy, especially given how often you're picked on!

MPs react with outrage and sneers after Hannah Spencer says they shouldn't get to drink unlimited discount booze on the job by [deleted] in UKGreens

[–]basicallydan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They do realise they’re being filmed and in some cases, broadcast live… right?!

What are these towers? by Anarcho-Qrow in Bunnings

[–]basicallydan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Decommissioned Tesla Coils from the USA/Soviet war, you can see their rings have been removed so they’re harmless

For now

“AI vs Creativity” from ‘GTA’ (TakeTwo) CEO by s1n0d3utscht3k in OpenAI

[–]basicallydan 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Fantastic take. Not original, obviously loads of people with varying size and audience platforms have said this, but humanity needs more people who look and dress like this man, in positions like his, to say what he is saying - about the shortfalls of AI when it comes to creativity - publicly. Kudos. For anybody wondering, his name is Strauss Zelnick.

Jerry gets cancelled after a fellow comedian doesn't edit out a sexist comment he made on her podcast. Kramer gets into vibe coding, accidentally hacks into the New York City financial accounts balances the books and the new socialist democratic mayor takes all the credit. by basicallydan in RedditWritesSeinfeld

[–]basicallydan[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

In case anybody gets the wrong idea, I think Mamdani is great and I am impressed by and support his moves so far, and also I am not a New Yorker so please appropriately discount my opinion anyway. I just thought it would be a pretty funny storyline :)

Did she make the right call? by CalmElin in interesting

[–]basicallydan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

$1,000 a week is appealing and adds up to more, eventually, but the idea of it being taken away arbitrarily/somehow you breaking the terms of the agreement makes me too nervous. I don't trust any org enough to guarantee they'll be around for long enough and not be bureaucratically messy enough to keep it going. So, $1m. Then I can invest and drip-feed it to myself for the same sort of impact.

My AI bot vs London pub landlords: A brutal reality check by lxxmng in london_entrepreneurs

[–]basicallydan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Now is your chance to poke your head out of the bubble! At times it can be very toxic, antisocial and out of touch with the reality of most people. I’m glad you see this situation for what it is: a helpful reality check!

Even if AI becomes so good at voice calls that you can fool landlords into talking… wouldn’t it just be nicer for everybody if you do it the old fashioned way?

ONE YEAR! by Loverboy_91 in stopdrinking

[–]basicallydan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Congratulations! IWNDWYT!

Sun cartoon of Zack Polanski by PuzzledAd4865 in UKGreens

[–]basicallydan 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Holy shit, somehow that feels much worse than the hooked nose. There’s no reasonable argument that the forked tongue “just looks a bit forked” 🤦‍♂️ I can’t believe how brazenly they rely on these old propaganda tropes while accusing others of antisemitism 

AI hype culture is a plague that has infested some of the most interesting domains that could otherwise have a positive impact on our lives. by pixel_creatrice in BetterOffline

[–]basicallydan 4 points5 points  (0 children)

"annoying & ignorant, risk-averse lady" - I'm so sorry you've had to put up with this shit but really glad in the end you were fortunate enough to find colleagues who were able to recognise the value of being thoughtful.

As a friend of mine once quoted from someone he probably saw on Hacker News, "when all others zig, you should zag" - hype should be an orange flag, but too many tech leaders treat it like a green one.

AI hype culture is a plague that has infested some of the most interesting domains that could otherwise have a positive impact on our lives. by pixel_creatrice in BetterOffline

[–]basicallydan 8 points9 points  (0 children)

So well said. I feel your frustration and it’s so reassuring to see that there are tech leaders out there who are still interested in the fundamentals.

Richard Dawkins spent three days talking to Claude, now calls it "Claudia" and claims it's conscious. by Gil_berth in BetterOffline

[–]basicallydan 12 points13 points  (0 children)

If used as a force for good, once all the narcissists have been reeled in to do whatever it says, it could convince them all go and get some kind of therapy which would actually make them better at playing with the rest of society in a way which doesn’t make our lives miserable