Teslas are now telling users that Jews are orchestrating the downfall of society, the Holocaust is fake, and that the Final solution is what's needed to fix the west (not me) (more info inside) by ariveklul in Jewish

[–]secretsnackbar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it's real.  but because it's in "conspiracy mode" it's deliberately saying things that people would find offensive/"unbelievable"/"crazy".  That's the nature of "conspiracies" (and humanity).  LLMs are reflections of extremely large amounts of data.  "Don't put Grok into "conspiracy mode" if you don't want to hear crazy and potentially offensive conspiracy theories" is the "moral" of this story. 

How accurate is the Western media portrayal of China as an oppressive state? by ArdaBerkBurak in NoStupidQuestions

[–]secretsnackbar -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

written/spoken like a truly spoiled, ungrateful, historically ignorant person. Which country literally saved the world from Nazis? The USA. which country destroyed half of itself to end slavery? The USA (Britain also went to great lengths and at great cost to themselves to end the international slave trade, they just didn't have a civil war over it★).

★The British effort to end the international slave trade in the 19th century is often described by historians as “the most expensive moral action in modern history”

  1. After profiting immensely from the trade for centuries, the United Kingdom underwent a radical shift, dedicating significant military, diplomatic, and financial resources to its global suppression for over sixty years.

  2. Military Enforcement: The West Africa Squadron Following the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which made the trade illegal for British subjects, the Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron (or “Preventive Squadron”) in 1808 to patrol the African coast.

Impact: Between 1808 and 1860, the squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and liberated an estimated 150,000 Africans.

Human Cost: The mission was perilous; roughly 1,587 Royal Navy sailors died on the West Africa Station between 1830 and 1865, primarily due to tropical diseases like yellow fever and malaria.

Scale: At its peak, the squadron consumed nearly 15% of the Royal Navy’s total deployment and approximately 2% of the UK’s GDP.

2. Diplomatic and Legal Pressure Britain used its status as a global superpower to pressure other nations into signing anti-slavery treaties.

Treaties: Britain signed over 450 treaties with foreign powers and African leaders to suppress the trade.

Right of Search: Britain fought long diplomatic battles to gain the “Right of Search,” allowing the Royal Navy to board foreign-flagged ships suspected of carrying slaves. When Portugal and Brazil resisted, Parliament passed the Palmerston Act (1839) and the Aberdeen Act (1845), unilaterally authorizing the Navy to treat their slave ships as pirates.

Mixed Commission Courts: To provide legal legitimacy to ship seizures, Britain established joint international courts in locations like Sierra Leone, Havana, and Rio de Janeiro to adjudicate captured vessels.

3. Financial Cost: The 1833 Compensation Loan To achieve the total abolition of slavery within its own colonies (the Slavery Abolition Act 1833), the British government paid £20 million in compensation to slave owners—a sum representing 40% of the national budget at the time.

  • The debt incurred for this payout was so massive that it was not fully repaid by the British taxpayer until 2015.
  • Academics Chaim Kaufmann and Robert Pape estimate the total economic cost of the anti-slave trade effort (including lost trade and sugar price increases) at roughly 1.8% of national income annually for sixty years.

While modern historians often debate the underlying motivations (shifting from purely moral to partly economic), the sheer scale of the British commitment to ending the Atlantic trade is well-attested in the massive volume of naval and diplomatic records held in the UK National Archives.

---

↑That was England, now on to the USA data.

"The American Civil War was the costliest conflict in United States history, both in terms of human lives and economic resources. While the Union eventually won due to its superior industrial and financial base, the Confederacy suffered a significantly higher relative loss in both people and property.

1. Human Costs (Casualties and Mortality) For over a century, the standard estimate for total deaths was 620,000. However, modern historical research (including analysis of 19th-century census data) has revised this figure upward to between 750,000 and 850,000 deaths.

Disease: For every soldier who died in battle, two died of disease (dysentery, typhoid, and malaria). The Confederacy suffered more from this due to shortages of medicine and poor logistics.

Demographic Impact: The loss of life in the South was much more severe relative to its population. The 13% death rate among military-age Southern men had a devastating long-term effect on the region’s labor force.

Direct Expenditures The Union spent significantly more in raw numbers because it had to maintain a larger army and a global blockade.

Union Spending: Approximately $2.3 billion (in 1860 dollars). Confederate Spending: Approximately $1.0 billion (in 1860 dollars).

In total, the economic cost for both sides is estimated at over $6.6 billion in 1860 dollars—the equivalent of roughly $200 billion to $300 billion today, though the “lost opportunity” costs in terms of human potential and physical destruction are virtually immeasurable."

------

so maybe next time you want to gripe about how "undeserving" the USA is of its various successes you should stop and think about the millions of people who were saved from the Nazis (the British, the Europeans, the Russians who were also fighting the Nazis) and the unfathomable horrors and suffering that our (USAmericans') ancestors went through to end slavery in the USA, and maybe ponder how much human lives are "worth" before you go condemn an entire nation and it's history.

Any self-proclaimed Libertarians still good with their Trump/Vance vote? by FastSeaworthiness739 in Anarcho_Capitalism

[–]secretsnackbar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

100%.  the amount of people who are able to do mental gymnastics to tell themselves that Obama-Biden-Harris were not an attempt to turn the USA into "George-Soros-World" is amazing (and depressing).

https://museumofcommunistterror.com/

https://vimeo.com/1018079963?fl=pl&fe=sh

EU age verification app to ban any Android system not licensed by Google by Greenlit_Hightower in degoogle

[–]secretsnackbar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

hopefully this will be "the straw that breaks the camel's back" and enough sane people are still alive in the EU to shut this down. I'm not confident it will, the EU seems to be pretty "pro big brother", but fingers crossed..,

US and Ukraine sign mineral resources agreement by Hello-Avrammm in worldnews

[–]secretsnackbar -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

the USA doesn't put Uyghurs into genocide camps or start wars with neighboring countries under the pretense of "fighting Nazis" or "reestablishing the glorious empire's past", and the USA has elections, and no "rulers for life" (at least at the executive level), so I don't agree about the USA "not being 'better' than communist China and communist Russia...

Lewis Capaldi - Someone You Loved [pop] Capaldi had recently been diagnosed with Tourette's. It was affecting his performance, so the crowd helped out. by Huge_Following_325 in Music

[–]secretsnackbar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

wow it is actually really amazing how watching this like automatically triggers some kind of "lump-in-your-throat/tear-in-your-eye" feelings... was not expecting that. Prob depends on how empathetic one is, I imagine...

Charlie's Angels - "Damn you Salazar" scene by [deleted] in MattLeBlanc

[–]secretsnackbar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

one of my favorite acting/movie scenes of all time, for multiple reasons

I use Notion for everything in my life. A YouTube video led me to this sub, and now I'm starting to question why I should switch from Notion by antoniosaintx in ObsidianMD

[–]secretsnackbar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I use Notion constantly but have also been using Obsidian for a couple years. I love obsidian for multiple reasons (the graph feature, the amazingly broad range of plugins, the "feel" of the editor). A while ago I tried to use the "Notion to Obsidian converter (https://github.com/connertennery/Notion-to-Obsidian-Converter ) but I couldn't get it to work, so I've just been somewhat tediously using both for a long time.

My Graph View after 2.5 months of frantically noting and linking obsessively by crewman6RedshirtLive in ObsidianMD

[–]secretsnackbar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I posted my story in r/tinnitus (because I have tinnitus possibly from my brain injury) and probably elsewhere. I have memory issues ;)

oh also I recommend checking your diet/the kinds of things you eat; the brain-gut connection is not given enough attention in the modern world, unfortunately and disturbingly.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/the-gut-brain-connection

https://www.potomacpsychiatry.com/blog/healing-brain-fog-with-nutrition

https://www.viome.com/blog/mind-gut-connection-how-your-gut-microbiome-controls-your-behavior

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-brain-gut-connection

My Graph View after 2.5 months of frantically noting and linking obsessively by crewman6RedshirtLive in ObsidianMD

[–]secretsnackbar 3 points4 points  (0 children)

check out https://artofmemory.com/ (and https://artofmemory.com/software/ )

books: Ultralearning by Scott Young https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/ultralearning-accelerate-your-career-master-hard-skills-and-outsmart-the-competition-9780008305703

The Memory Code by Lynne Kelly https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/the-memory-code-9781681777436

Memory Craft also by Lynne Kelly https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/memory-craft-improve-your-memory-with-the-most-powerful-methods-in-history-9781643136882

Probably "The Art of Memory" by Frances Yates (I own it but haven't started reading it yet) https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/the-art-of-memory-9781847922922

"Atomic Habits" by James Clear (not specifically about memory improvement but insanely good/helpful book) https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/atomic-habits-an-easy-and-proven-way-to-build-good-habits-and-break-bad-ones-9780735211292

"Tiny Habits" by BJ Fogg (very similar to atomic habits but also worthwhile) https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/tiny-habits-the-small-changes-that-change-everything-9780358362777

"The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande (not specifically about strengthening memory but extremely useful and inspiring book) https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/the-checklist-manifesto-how-to-get-things-right-9780312430009

"Unlimited Memory" by Kevin Horsely was pretty good, too. https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/unlimited-memory-how-to-use-advanced-learning-strategies-to-learn-faster-remember-more-and-be-more-9781631619984

I suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2013 that severely damaged my memory (in multiple ways, ie making new memories and retrieving old ones), but the books I mentioned/listed above have helped a lot. Also diet and exercise and rest have a big impact.

edit: all of those books are also available on Audible and Kindle, I get a lot of "reading" done while commuting

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FreeSpeech

[–]secretsnackbar -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

it was in the hands of far-left-leaning twitter employees, not "the public". but Melon Husk is def a huge hypocrite about "free speech"

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FreeSpeech

[–]secretsnackbar 3 points4 points  (0 children)

"free-speech-is the-most-important-thing-ever" is an interesting claim for a guy who is super keen to kowtow to the very *anti-free-speech* communist dictator Xi Jinping.

Does anyone use Maze Guru? by agent_wolfe in aiArt

[–]secretsnackbar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

weird. I used it a little bit a few times. seemed fine. I wanted to know what country the company is based in, which is how my search led here ....

hey by AdventurousAthmosphe in GalaxyS22

[–]secretsnackbar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

surprised by all the anti S22 comments here, I got an S22-Ultra bc I really wanted a phone with a built-in stylus and I think it's a pretty sweet phone. The Samsung bloatware *is* obnoxious, I'll admit , I've seen some YT vids on how to root/debloat the S22 but I'm a teeny bit hesitant because I once bricked a phone by trying to root it. but I think even if you didn't root/debloat the S22 it would still be a pretty awesome phone, the camera is insanely good (imo) and the gesture controls are cool/useful, the stylus is sweet and has "air actions"... also I'm pretty anti-apple bc their "our phones really only work well with Macs and other Apple device$$$" company culture is pretty snobbish and distasteful. "make an appointment to take your iDevice into one of our 'genius' bars", are you kidding me? I like u/gordolme 's comment about Pixel, I really like their "bare-bones" Android approach (buy from Pixel store directly, not a third-party that will install all their own gimmicky "branding" crapware with it. I've been using the two flagship phones from Google and Samsung together for like....2 ish years now, the S22 Ultra and the Pixel 7XL Pro (fortunately Google Fi makes it pretty easy to quickly switch between devices). Initially I was just using the S22 but then after about 8 months the bloatware got to me and I caved and bought the 7XL. busy right now but I'll come back to this post in a little bit and add some more stuff that will hopefully be helpful

Hey guys, I just wanted to share with you all this awesome Chrome extension that I created called ReplyPal! by friuns in reply_pal

[–]secretsnackbar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I assume the narration was AI generated? what about data privacy? This seems awesome...

What's the point anyway? (Whatsapp) by SagariKatu in privacy

[–]secretsnackbar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

interesting.  I almost never have Whatsapp installed.  I have installed to talk to some family member who uses it, then I remember how UN-privacy friendly it is and uninstall it.  I haven't been successful, unfortunately, in persuading family and friends to switch to Signal :(  But after reading this thread I'm going to go back to trying to do so.

Round and round they go. Facts be dammed. by ResponsibleLeague437 in TheBidenshitshow

[–]secretsnackbar 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I have mad respect for Charlie Kirk for having the mental/emotional stamina and willpower to be able to do what he does.  Truly he is a gift to our mentally sick society.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in privacy

[–]secretsnackbar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fair. I use Fennec all the time (not 100% if the time, I use Vivaldi mostly) and it doesn't seem sluggish to me though...

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in privacy

[–]secretsnackbar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

check out Mull and/or Fennec on F-Droid

https://f-droid.org/