Ben Mann
@ben-mann.bsky.social
Left-libertarian. Roleplayer, computer programmer, anime and Doctor Who fan.
What sorts of things do they complain about? (Asked because I want to understand the world better, not out of scepticism.)
December 31, 2025 at 10:59 AM
What sorts of things do they complain about? (Asked because I want to understand the world better, not out of scepticism.)
The people who made it are lying through it when they program it to sound certain about things it's randomly generating.
December 29, 2025 at 9:15 AM
The people who made it are lying through it when they program it to sound certain about things it's randomly generating.
Considering that "villain" is derived from a word for "peasant", I think a "covertly the unsuccessful sort of hero" answer is appropriate:
December 21, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Considering that "villain" is derived from a word for "peasant", I think a "covertly the unsuccessful sort of hero" answer is appropriate:
"Biological sex" is evil liar speak for "first guess certified sex".
December 19, 2025 at 7:48 PM
"Biological sex" is evil liar speak for "first guess certified sex".
It's not "clarity", describing the first guess which got written on a piece of paper as "biological" is just a complete fucking lie. It's literally Orwellian doublespeak. A piece of paper being "biological", your actual mind and body being non-biological.
December 19, 2025 at 7:48 PM
It's not "clarity", describing the first guess which got written on a piece of paper as "biological" is just a complete fucking lie. It's literally Orwellian doublespeak. A piece of paper being "biological", your actual mind and body being non-biological.
That is certainly true.
December 14, 2025 at 9:30 PM
That is certainly true.
I've been thinking for a while that the one thing which could save us from modern fascism is it seems to be reliably incompetent. Possibly something to do with the Nazis being the monsters of popular culture forcing it to detach from reality more than in the 1930s.
December 14, 2025 at 7:33 PM
I've been thinking for a while that the one thing which could save us from modern fascism is it seems to be reliably incompetent. Possibly something to do with the Nazis being the monsters of popular culture forcing it to detach from reality more than in the 1930s.
Maybe a USB stick containing the full text of Wikipedia.
December 10, 2025 at 12:30 AM
Maybe a USB stick containing the full text of Wikipedia.
If they're thinking clearly, they should notice that "do nonconforming thing, get arrested" and "go shopping, get infected by careless person" are the same "freedom restricted by bad people" thing. But right-libertarians cannot think clearly or they'd realise capitalism is incompatible with liberty.
December 8, 2025 at 10:25 PM
If they're thinking clearly, they should notice that "do nonconforming thing, get arrested" and "go shopping, get infected by careless person" are the same "freedom restricted by bad people" thing. But right-libertarians cannot think clearly or they'd realise capitalism is incompatible with liberty.
That was a question, not an assertion. I think that "rights for rich people" types will have a visibility advantage because wealth gives you that kind of power in our society, but I don't have good information about the absolute proportions.
December 8, 2025 at 2:54 PM
That was a question, not an assertion. I think that "rights for rich people" types will have a visibility advantage because wealth gives you that kind of power in our society, but I don't have good information about the absolute proportions.
I see what anarchism is based on as not "everything will be fine without police" but "having police is not the solution i.e. will always create more problems than it solves". (A question I regard as too hard to evaluate.)
December 8, 2025 at 1:05 PM
I see what anarchism is based on as not "everything will be fine without police" but "having police is not the solution i.e. will always create more problems than it solves". (A question I regard as too hard to evaluate.)
Well, I certainly hope so, since good libertarianism should resemble a kind of softer anarchism.
December 8, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Well, I certainly hope so, since good libertarianism should resemble a kind of softer anarchism.
Is that libertarians in general, or is it a minority of them who monopolise all the visibility?
December 8, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Is that libertarians in general, or is it a minority of them who monopolise all the visibility?
The big thing libertarians need to realise is that capitalist property relations are a massive government restriction on basic human liberties like "eating enough food", and so the only sane libertarianism is the left version, and right libertarians are extremely confused (or evil).
December 8, 2025 at 10:07 AM
The big thing libertarians need to realise is that capitalist property relations are a massive government restriction on basic human liberties like "eating enough food", and so the only sane libertarianism is the left version, and right libertarians are extremely confused (or evil).
I suspect the most common rules there would be sin rules, like "you can only take the drugs which are popular and normalised in our society", which definitely should not be in place.
December 8, 2025 at 9:49 AM
I suspect the most common rules there would be sin rules, like "you can only take the drugs which are popular and normalised in our society", which definitely should not be in place.
It's not like it's hard to do masks in general libertarian terms. It's a conflict of two freedoms, like where you're allowed to shoot a gun, and the freedom to go shopping etc. without catching a disease is more important than the freedom to go shopping without wearing a mask.
December 8, 2025 at 9:33 AM
It's not like it's hard to do masks in general libertarian terms. It's a conflict of two freedoms, like where you're allowed to shoot a gun, and the freedom to go shopping etc. without catching a disease is more important than the freedom to go shopping without wearing a mask.
Can be reworded as "the less popular drugs"..."the more popular drugs".
December 7, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Can be reworded as "the less popular drugs"..."the more popular drugs".
"At this time" is hard to define at large distances. If somewhere else is a billion light years away, "this time" can be anywhere within a range of a billion years (I think, might be two billion) depending on your frame of reference.
November 26, 2025 at 9:21 AM
"At this time" is hard to define at large distances. If somewhere else is a billion light years away, "this time" can be anywhere within a range of a billion years (I think, might be two billion) depending on your frame of reference.
Anything in a Ghibli film is being portrayed by anime, and so is by definition "as portrayed in anime". Good thing there's a vast variety of different types of portrayal. (Far wider than you get with live-action, where anything that doesn't look at least sort of real will stand out massively.)
November 19, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Anything in a Ghibli film is being portrayed by anime, and so is by definition "as portrayed in anime". Good thing there's a vast variety of different types of portrayal. (Far wider than you get with live-action, where anything that doesn't look at least sort of real will stand out massively.)
Well, thinking "genre" is a bit of a mistake, that would be like calling "British live-action" a genre. Like I started out with philosophical political thrillers (Patlabor movie 1 and 2) and before long was also watching things like Child's Toy (a frenetic comedy/drama aimed at little girls).
November 19, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Well, thinking "genre" is a bit of a mistake, that would be like calling "British live-action" a genre. Like I started out with philosophical political thrillers (Patlabor movie 1 and 2) and before long was also watching things like Child's Toy (a frenetic comedy/drama aimed at little girls).
Must...say...something...nobody...else...will... okay, Potemayo.
November 19, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Must...say...something...nobody...else...will... okay, Potemayo.
If you use a command-line calendar like ncal you get to choose by specifying command-line options, and you don't have to scroll.
November 17, 2025 at 8:22 PM
If you use a command-line calendar like ncal you get to choose by specifying command-line options, and you don't have to scroll.
There's a continuum. Not trying to improve on your incompetence sits somewhere in between pure malice and pure incompetence. (Really it's a mixture of both.)
November 16, 2025 at 10:51 AM
There's a continuum. Not trying to improve on your incompetence sits somewhere in between pure malice and pure incompetence. (Really it's a mixture of both.)
Okay, won't waste my time talking to you any further then.
November 11, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Okay, won't waste my time talking to you any further then.