My time spent sitting in Discord calls or scrolling for hours is significantly lower recently because somewhat ironically, the quality of posts here (outside of bad posting, DOWN with beanis) is higher so it takes less for me to be satisfied and for a while. If not higher quality, less mentally draining or bad vibe generating. Has been good for my mental because I've spent more time doing things I actually enjoy.

The Greens haven't gotten a president but they absolutely do campaign and win at the local level. And PSL isn't on the ballot everywhere so they're the next best option. https://www.gpelections.org/greens-in-office/

People were shit talking Bushnell in the original thread when it happened. But I think it can arguably be more effective than fragging folks in the building or something. Obviously, encouraging suicide isn't good as a standard. The people in charge won't care either way. But if voters work mostly on vibes, which they often do, this paints a picture of "peaceful person harmed only themselves to protest the government's evil actions" instead of letting people handwave them away by focusing on them hurting other people instead.

People don't generally know what Thích Quảng Đức was protesting, but given images of a burning monk, they assume the people who let that happen and that prompted the action are the villains. Of course, there's tons of people who handwave away people like in the OP as just those with mental illness already prone to suicide. So it could really go either way.

If OP is another Bushnell, I wish they hadn't died and had lived to continue fighting alongside other comrades, but I respect they care enough about something to go to these lengths because it often feels like nobody cares at all.

I was looking for a specific ebook the other day. Not on private sites, not on public sites, can't get it through my libraries. Finally checked out book piracy IRC for the first time. Still not there.

I haven't seen anyone post any evidence that she's a 'Putin lover' other than the one time she sat down at the same table as Putin like 10 years ago for an event. Which is easily countered by pictures of Obama doing that same thing like the last time someone wandered into Hexbear like a week ago. But literally nothing else. She must be the best spy in the world for there to be such a lack of evidence.

Oh, Graphene is great. It's just that you can only install it in Pixels. There was a recent info leak showing that Graphene was one of the only operating systems aside from newer iPhones that couldn't be cracked by the fancy new Israeli hacker software that the US government uses. But they're focused on security, not privacy. So if you're not concerned about the govt getting your phone, most of the benefits can be replicated by using open source software, a private DNS, etc. Graphene sand boxing apps by default is sometbing that should definitely be a standard though.

As for Pixels, if you look at benchmarks, they are always significantly behind comparably priced and even cheaper phones in every category. You might say 'oh well thats just benchmarks and doesn't carry over to every day use' but they're still selling people objectively worse hardware for flagship prices. They also have overheating issues and poor cell signal in addition to the overall subpar performance. They're better than like prepaid phones, but that's why I said they're junk.

Yesss, I was searching the thread to see if anyone posted it first. I threw it in the mega last year. It's my own tradition with my friend group.

He's unfortunately the public face of Buddhism to the common person in the West, but I always have to go out of my way to emphasize how he's really just a drop in the ocean. He's not even the spiritual head of his own school, just the political figurehead for the exile government.

I studied at a Kagyu-Nyingma monastery and he never gets mentioned at all. His relevance to the average Buddhist who isn't Tibetan is really quite low, and even many Tibetan practitioners don't think of him as an authority, but just another teacher they may or may not be familiar with.

Someone practicing Zen or Chan or Pure Land, or anything else outside of that sphere doesn't regard him at all except on an individual level.

Edit: I know he tries to sell Buddhism to the average Westerner who is influenced by Facebook posts, so pithy quotes like this are his style. But the Gelug school is literally the debate school that practices reductio ad absurdum in the courtyards to suss out what is true. So it's always a little sad to see that and the rest of the philosophy de-emphasized.

You are clearly emotional over the thousands of deaths I've caused. Please come back when you can have a rational debate about the merits of genocide.

Need to invent a reason to enlist since everyone rightfully tells recruiters to fuck off now.

This reminds me that I went to the theaters a few months ago and they were playing a car commercial clearly referencing Game of Thrones and I kept thinking this is some shit because even though House of Dragons is still airing, the show has been out of the cultural zeitgeist for years now.