Unfortunately in LibreOffice all the pages in a PDF need to render with the same orientation and size :/ It adds whitespace to pages to make them all the same size, and this whitespace remains even when exporting as PDF.

There's been a formal request made to change that, but it's been years with no movement.

Yes it is. Conservatives have shown time and time again that they will vote and cheer for fascism if conditions are bad enough.

You are part of the problem. The normalization of conservative politics leads directly to fascism.

cope harder 🤡

Well, it's not so simple for gaming. People who don't already own a gaming PC will need to drop a lot of money to buy one, and then get used to gaming on Linux (which can be janky, as I'm sure you know).

But, it's worth it. Our convenience shouldn't cost us our humanity.

To be fair, variety makes groups more resilient. If Signal were to ever become compromised somehow, people who use other apps like Session will be okay.

It's not a zero-sum game, either -- people can use Signal and other apps.

hell yeah 🔥🔥🔥

It has to do with the societal consequences of how them "valuing their time" impacts people. Nurses refusing to do volunteer nursing has little impact on the overall system of access to healthcare.

Healthcare is heavily regulated through legislation, and is going to be free or paid or corporate or not corporate largely as a result of the legislation. Nurses can't just do what they want. People who are concerned about the state of healthcare should therefore change things by targeting legislation, not by targeting nurses.

Creative work is not like this. Creatives refusing to do do volunteer creative work means that either they will charge for their work, which creates a barrier to access, or they will use (and push others to use) platforms like YouTube and TokTok that make money from ad data.

The former choice results in class differences in access to art, and the latter choice results in everyone using platforms that have proven themselves to be hostile to minoritized groups and progressive causes. These outcomes aren't legislated -- they are the result of creatives choosing to "value their time".

In otherwords, creatives choosing to "value their time" means that they will happily enforce class-based restrictions in access to art, and will happily support conservative corporations and surveillance capitalism.

And I practice what I preach, too. I have spent thousands of hours developing free software and making free educational materials for people, donating my labour to support progressive causes and supporting others who do the same. Creatives who insist on charging for their work are a ball and chain on the movements I support. They are leeches and class traitors.

Creatives should value other people. Fuck their time.

No, my point specifically relates to creative work. You said in your comment:

under our current economic model people require money to survive and if they do not get money for doing their creative work they might not be able to continue making that work.

This is false, basically. They can do other types of work. Creative work can be done without making money for it. Plenty of people have a day job and make creative work in their free time. The same option is not available for most other types of work, such as government, doctors, lawyers, etc. If you try to do these types of jobs outside of the framework of a regulated business, you'll get the book thrown at you.

The issue I'm getting at isn't "are you responsible for the actions you take to make a living". Rather, I'm getting at the issue of "does creative work require becoming an employee of a capitalist company, thereby siding with its shareholders in having a vested interest in increasing that company's profits regardless of the societal damage caused?"

The answer to that question is a resounding "no". Creatives need to grow a spine and get a day job.

you're not a leftist unless you have daddies money to support you wasting 100 hours on a 20m video.

I didn't say that, though. Clearly it's not worth engaging with you.

It is not selfish to want to be payed for working on something like a video that in some cases takes hundreds of man hours of work to complete

Yes, it is, if your desire to get paid causes you to remain on corporate-controlled social media, to the detriment of society.

Not to mention, plenty of people can and do put hundreds of hours of work into projects that they don't ask for payment for.

"Content creators" who get paid through advertisements are class traitors whose interests are aligned with the capitalist class. They will fuck over society to make a buck for themselves.

Tbf, they are disappearing nonviolent protestors and cutting off aid even to their own supporters.

Why did the noble Japanese Buddhists boil Portuguese Christians alive? Was this one of those Brahman Deeds?

Because of their afflictive emotions of fear, hatred, and so on, which are the real "enemy" that Buddhists should oppose. Unfortunately, most Buddhists are just ordinary people with no particular control over their disturbing emotions.

Much as Jesus critiqued the Pharasises. And yet modern Christian Dominionists have far more in common with Pharasises - even Roman Pagans - than the fishermen and slaves and prostitutes that were it's original disciples.

Yes. Unfortunately it's easier for one person to be exceptional than a whole society. I think religions' greatest failure has been their neglect of the role that material conditions play in people's lives. Until we have exceptional material conditions, exceptional people will not be the norm.

As someone who uses generative AI, I don't use it out of some mindless obedience to corporations, but rather because it can massively reduce the work needed to perform certain tasks.

I think the fight against AI is a losing battle. Better to push for regulations in energy usage. (And no, I don't give a fuck about artists' intellectual property. I think intellectual property rights are holding humanity back in order to enrich a few artists who falsely and arrogantly believe themselves to be original thinkers, and who furthermore believe that being an original thinker gives them the right to prevent other people from spreading their ideas or thinking of the same thing.)

They are strange, but in an ordered way. They are using commas when a complex noun phrase ending in a noun of the same number is the subject of a clause. (See what I did there?) I wish they used a different punctuation mark, to be honest, but I get how it reduces the number of possible readings that the mind has to juggle.

As an aside, people who are bothered by my arguments should consider watching Contrapoints' recent video on conspiracism. The points I am making in this thread are the same points she makes against conspiracy theories.

Atheists like the OP suggest (ironically) that religion is an intentionalist, evil force, but a basic survey of the history of religion easily disproves this type of thinking. Intentionalism and binarism are cankers on the pursuit of truth. Like politics, religion is nuanced; it is not a grand conspiracy, even if there are groups in it who conspire. Atheists would do well to be wary of conspiracism, lest they place their hatred of religion over their pursuit of truth.

basically it's not that religion has aided studies, but rather studies have made it despite religion

In some cases, sure, and in other cases, no. For example, Buddhism is supported by nine other fields of knowledge -- the vidyasthanas -- including such things as grammar and logic. Religious teachers draw examples and ideas from these fields when giving religious teachings. One must study these other fields to become a "learned one" (pandita/mkhas pa).

This is a living tradition that continues to the present day. For example, the Dalai Lama has heavily promoted education in modern science among Buddhists, and has co-authored several books on the connection between the two.

The idea that religion is just some anti-educational brainrot is, ironically, anti-educational brainrot. Religion definitely can function that way, but it cannot be reduced to it.

Not to be Muslim-phobic, I am aware if the rich history of debate and science in the Middle East, but the material conditions have changed now, conservatism has been on the rise since the 70s.

Yes, we seem to agree here. And if you acknowledge that material conditions influence how religion plays out, then you must acknowledge that it is not really intellectually honest to reduce religion to one form or another. Religion isn't inherently either intellectual or ignorant, it is subject to the material conditions that it appears in.

You speak of mahaviharas, but Buddhists I have met are just as conservative as the average religious person when it comes to women's rights, feminism and gay rights.

Yes, most old religions have unfortunately inherited prejudice and closed-mindedness from broader society. Although, I think you must also acknowledge that educated people can be bigoted, and we see this among non-religious people too.

Mansoor al-Hallaj was executed for saying 'Ann-al-Haq'

A religious person being executed on religious grounds for challenging the religious state isn't exactly an indictment of religion -- both sides were religious. It is an indictment of religious ideology being enforced by the state.

I don't believe that religion is unique in this regard -- states also use capitalism, liberalism, and other ideologies to repress proponents of competing economic + political systems. This doesn't make economics + politics bad, and it doesn't make religion bad either.

That rational thought survived when people were religious is hardly to the credit of religion

This is not true. In a Buddhist context, rational thought was taught by Buddhists like Dignaga and Dharmakirti. They studied and promoted logic + reasoning specifically for religious reasons.

such things happened anyway and under the sanction of religion

Yes, as I've said, religion includes both sides. You cannot erase the religiosity of the people that the state was trying to repress.

As long as religion is under an institution, it is the nature of institutions to cling to power and hence, suppress dissent.

I agree, with the exception of more decentralized and countercultural religious groups. When religious groups accrue great power, it's a dark day for everyone. But I don't think this problem is unique to religion. I think it's a problem with having power over others.

[Buddhism] is intended to justify existing, generational, disparities in wealth, power, and property.

Uh, no, this simply isn't true. In South Asia, these disparities are instantiated in the hereditary varna system (usually translated as "caste", though conservative Hindus will object to this), in which the highest social class is the Vedic clergy called the "brahmins". Brahmin supremacy has been a constant feature of South Asian society going back millennia, and it is still widespread today.

As the Buddha said in the Vasala Sutta, "Not by birth is one an outcast; not by birth is one a brahman. By deed one becomes an outcast, by deed one becomes a brahman."

This runs counter to the idea of generational class, which was the general attitude of brahminical society and was how brahmins maintained their power over others.

The Buddha elaborates on this idea in the Vasettha Sutta:

While the differences between these species

are defined by birth,

the differences between humans

are not defined by birth.

Not by hair nor by head,

not by ear nor by eye,

not by mouth nor by nose,

not by lips nor by eyebrow,

not by shoulder nor by neck,

not by belly nor by back,

not by buttocks nor by breast,

not by groin nor by genitals,

not by hands nor by feet,

not by fingers nor by nails,

not by knees nor by thighs,

not by color nor by voice:

none of these are defined by birth

as it is for other species.

In individual human bodies

you can’t find such distinctions.

The distinctions among humans

are spoken of by convention.

This is essentially an early version of social constructionism.

The Buddha goes on to criticize the various things that brahmins do, saying that e.g. doing sacrifices makes you a sacrificer, not a brahmin. He ultimately says that only people who are virtuous, detached from pleasures and free from disturbing emotions are really "brahmins". So, the Buddha actually taught a countercultural criticism of hereditary class.

Plenty of educated religious people are converts. I was raised atheist and converted to Buddhism in my late teens. The same was true of many of the other students in my university's religious studies department.

The fact is, being religious doesn't depend on lack of education or childhood indoctrination. People will still be religious in the absence of those things.

Religion is "built" by the actions of countless religious people. There is not a single cohesive force shaping its development. Religion has also been used for education, political liberation, charity, and emotional healing. Reality is complex.