You tear yourself apart!

As one who was raised Evangelical Christian for the majority of my childhood by a devout and Republican parent, I’m pretty sure it’s just a death cult.

They live their whole lives only preparing to die.

They forsake and forego a lot of random stuff in favor of rewards after death.

And if they think it’ll get them any bonus, they don’t care if they take everyone else with them, hence the Republican Evangelical politicians generally trying to supply the ingredients for the battle of Armageddon to happen.

Tldr; I think it’s greed typical of those who would fully knowledgeably choose to be a Republican combined with the beliefs of an Evangelical trying to cash in on rewards asap, in the way a Republican typically does.

Yeah, it works really well for me, but I also have taken it since I was young whenever I needed/wanted it, so it might just work well for me. I’d recommend starting with like a 5mg, give it an hour to work, then if you still don’t feel tired, I’d take another one.

Worst case you’ll still have to deal with the shitty situation with a slight melatonin hangover (I warn you in advance that it can happen, but it usually only happens if you take too much and it can’t metabolize before you wake up. You’re just very sleepy until it’s done)

Best case, you end up going to bed earlier than normal and you feel fine in the morning.

Good luck!

I both accept my inevitable fate of exhaustion for tomorrow as well as I take a bunch of melatonin before I go to sleep that night

Is this hypothetical or did you goof?

I don’t think you’re wrong.

I like to look at this through the cult lens though, (because that’s the process outlined in your 4 bullet points, that’s how you get sucked into a cult.) With that, it’s not a matter of empathizing with the people in the cult so much as I don’t want the cult to exist in the first place to suck people in.

I think I personally call people stupid as a frustration outlet, usually after surrendering them to their own hopelessly staunch position. I try not to do this to their face though, because for all I know that’ll just make them double down again. Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug, and insults tend to only make it stronger.

I think the majority of people are at least ignorant, but it’s mostly ignorance of the consequences of whatever action or topic is at hand. Most people don’t know most things, so logically, most people must be ignorant of most things. The trick is realizing that I am also no exception: I also don’t know most things. From that, I can extrapolate how a cult leader or cultish ideology may feed on my paranoias to create cognitive dissonance within me. (One thing I can’t figure out how to mention is that loneliness as well as feeling lost plays a major part in this process)

I guess the point of my rambling is that while empathy is good as a starting position, I think those under the hypnotization of cognitive dissonance need to be shown the dissonance so that they can snap out of it when they choose to (gently, though, certainly don’t call them stupid). This is overly simplistic and doesn’t cover anything like the issue of leaving false beliefs involving getting rid of entire social circles formed around and maintained by the false beliefs though.

Tldr; I don’t think you’re wrong, but I think this is only 1 side of the entire issue. I think the entire issue spans cult like recruitment and maintenance tactics, at the very least, if not more that I haven’t covered here.

Hehe I used to mindlessly grind technique in the training room of World so keeping my shield and sword charged became second nature for a while. I saw some memes about it being hard and my stubbornness came out lol. Hammer is just like learning how to be patient and not always run at the monster (and learning to put your weapon away to move faster lol)

As for going backwards, it’s not super bad. I was surprised that the switchblade controls were about the same, just fewer moves. I hated the loading screens at first but now I’m just used to them. I do prefer that World has a few monsters that can interact with each other in every map instance, but I like how MHGU has more areas to visit. I also absolutely love the Palico system in MHGU that is completely missing from World (though it sounds like they may have added it to Rise? I’m not sure about that). All in all, I think I was expecting a major step down to a DS game and ended up actually getting a very nice Switch port, so while I was expecting it to sort of be not easily playable, I’m very much pleasantly surprised by what it turned out to actually be.

Ahh the good old “you don’t have enough damage to capture me” dilemma. I’m a freak about upgrading to specific monsters in World (not at that stage yet in MHGU) so when I go after a 3 monster hunt, I usually have to visit camp to switch out my armor (biggest complaint I have about MHGU is that this feature is missing but it DOES add challenge to how I approach hunts. Unfortunately, right now, my best idea is to max attack for every hunt though lol)

are you also a “capture all the monsters” kinda hunter? My biggest pride is when I can 0/x a monster type lol (sometimes very hard, especially up against like a bulldrome that just never shows when its limping because it’s almost always in rage mode)

Honestly I’m surprised you can survive with just bone armor against a pink rathian. Your dodge game must be godly! I wish you the best luck possible!

Ahh I didn’t know about the limited release, good on you for voting with your wallet regardless! If you ever get into emulators and end up being able to try it out, it was just exactly what I wanted after an entire childhood filled with Super Mario Sunshine (an even better game, imo). There’s really no reason I should dislike Odyssey though, it’s cute and it’s got everything it should.

Now if only I could get my joycon to connect to the switch farther than half a foot away so I can go back to using the dock x.x

And thank you! I’ve heard there are some nasty fights to look forward to (I’m excited about the Rajang fight, personally, but I also anticipate some rage haha) so I will take all the luck I can get!

Oh man I absolutely loved World. I mained switchblade on that one. I decided to go with hammer to switch it up in MHGU (biggest difference is having to have patience instead of hack and slash). I haven’t done any of the academy quests, so my hunter rank is still 1 in MHGU, but on World I have HR 61 (Im pretty sure that’s pretty low but I’ve been going at my own pace) and MR 10

I absolutely love rathian fights. If you have poison resistance, it’s basically just a big old doge and slash fest with the occasional flash bang to drop em out of the sky. I feel like long sword might be more skill heavy than switchblade, but keep on with it and you’ll get there!

Im currently still technically on iceborn so it might be a few hobby cycles before I get to Rise, but I do plan on playing it eventually.

As for Odyssey, it currently feels like a less good Galaxy, but Galaxy came out right when I was in the throws of teenage video game euphoria, so I’ve been forcing myself to give it a fair shot. I heard a saying that people get stuck in the entertainment they had when they were teenagers, and that seems to be true enough. I don’t want to miss out just because I have too much nostalgia for Galaxy though.

I saw some videos about how Odyssey changes the music based on different actions you take in game, and I’m excited to see that effect in action, so I do have reason to play, it’s just that MHGU is perfect to listen to a podcast to while hunting lol I’ll get there though, it might just be a while

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate is my current obsession. Hunting monsters, swinging hammer, etc. It’s a good time. Once I’m done or bored of it, my next games are super Mario Odyssey (just got it recently for super cheap) and then Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword (same deal). I’m set for a good long time though based on how much of an amazing time sink MHGU is. I already have 50+ in game hours and my Hunter Rank is laughably low still.

Well I mean, that does make sense. I still believe tiktok [https://youtu.be/Ti8v4eL8oIE](really is a bit of spyware) (sorry for the longish YouTube video) but that could definitely be a contributing factor to this case

Ah I can’t really argue with that.

Republicans “trust me, bro”'d the US into shitty situations time and time again, and I’m slightly worried if we give them the ability to ban apps, they will not stop until the only shit left is Truth Social. They love their fucking echo chambers, as much as they used to rail against them.

I think that’s why my kneejerk reaction is to distrust their reasoning, but I did get what I was looking for in another part of this thread:

If the CCP can monitor you indefinitely, and have enough man/ai power to pull it off, they could theoretically social engineer infrastructure attacks without actually putting themselves at almost any legal risk (blackmailing is always illegal, but the methods used to get the blackmail would be hidden in the tandc’s)

Unfortunately, all I hear from republicans is tiktok=China, China=bad without any of these sorts of details, which is why I approached this with such skepticism initially

I literally can not imagine what life in China must be like. Especially for someone of about my socioeconomic class. I may have seen American Factory a while ago, but in case I’m thinking of the wrong thing, I’ll check it out again. Thanks for the rec!

(Also, in case it’s not clear, I wasn’t saying the US was anywhere near as bad as or better than China in regards to anything, just that I couldn’t tell if this specific rattling was just republican red scare bs or if it actually had substance to it. Turns out, there’s some substance to it, they’re just not articulating a position well on it, imo)

I would say malicious malware shouldn’t be sold on the app store and that anyone who hosts it should suffer whatever fallout it comes with (not the end users, the apk providers). However, due to the US being The Way That It Is™, we don’t actually have any recourse like that for providers of malware. As for spyware… I guess it probably should be handled like malware too. Eh you got me lol

I’ve said a couple different places in this thread I support a ban of tiktok on government phones and in at least one other place I support a ban of it on military bases, but my main issue was that I couldn’t figure out how it could be used for nefarious purposes outside of government phones or areas.

As for “you have the right to work with the data models, but not remove the data from US soil”, that’s a new one, I’ll have to think about that some more. Good point though, I think.

Beautiful, this is what I was looking for.

I think, still, that the best defense against this type of thing is education. Education on what nefarious actors can do with data types xy and z, and education on how to not get owned by a foreign actor.

I still think an app ban is principally un-American, but this is the imagination part that I couldn’t come up with that at least gives what I’m still calling republican hysteria a veneer of legitimacy.

Thank you for that!

I think the paranoia is what I was looking for, so thank you for delivering!

For the most obvious: idk, I think people should generally have a healthy distrust of those in government positions. Maybe ideally not, but in reality, it’s necessary to not be taken advantage of by any manner of power hungry people. If tiktok half truths inspire someone to start actually looking at what xyz government has done, then that’s a win in my book. If they just eat the half truths as is straight from tiktok, that’s when there’s a problem, but that’s what my “why don’t they educate people on how to spot propaganda” is to address.

Less reasonable: I think people should be allowed to do what they want to do long as it doesn’t infringe on the health and safety of another. I guess you can split hairs about it decreasing health due to people working out less or something like that, but I don’t think that’s a good enough reason for government action.

Unreasonable: this actually seems the most reasonable to me, believe it or not. Military people posting the wrong thing at the wrong time from even a personal account can and has had bad effects on security before. That’s why I would support a ban of any spyware-like app on government devices and on military bases (this was originally only support for a ban on gov devices, but I think if we’re thinking about security, banning it in places where leaks may cost lives makes sense)

As for the endless possibilities of leveraging mental illness knowledge of a user, I’m afraid I can’t imagine what one could do. The only time I can imagine that would really matter is if China takes over the US and goes full genocide on the population. I think the world would go down in nuclear flames before that would happen though…

Unfortunately I literally can’t imagine anything convincing coming out of the US’s mouth given that case. It’s not like we can Manchurian candidate sleeper cells in Russia using our influence, and I’d argue China also has similar limitations.

The worst I can imagine is “us bad” with a lot of easily disprovable half truths that only stand for idiots who believe whatever tiktok gives them. And if the politicians who support this ban are arguing that most Americans are like that, then they’d better be pushing for better education or else they are also nefarious (because why else would they want people to be susceptible to propaganda, but not XYZ’s propaganda?)

I guess maybe my issue now is that it almost seems that republicans are trying to do their own propaganda machine, but are incensed that China might be stealing morons who are, as another commenter put it, ripe for radicalization. But that doesn’t seem right because I’d be surprised if they didn’t also have a bunch of outreach shit through tiktok… Idk, this is already delving into conspiracy theory territory so I’m gonna just stop myself here.

But all in all, I totally agree with your last paragraph, especially “if you don’t like it, then don’t use it”.

I argue the government is nefarious for using propaganda instead of the facts of the matter to sway public opinion. (This opinion extends to any government, which likely means every government because, in my general assumption, power holders seem to be unable to not lie to hold on to and amass more power.)

At this point, I can’t really argue with your point, you’re right, but I sure hate it regardless.

As for your edit, I don’t think that really applies. It’d make sense if the issue was voting for someone from China vs someone from the US, but this is more like “who’s allowed to spy on you? Our creepy guy who has a higher chance of doing something with the info they spied from you or this other creepy offshores guy who is less likely to do anything with that info (but the offshore guys are creepier! And worse!!! Trust me, bro!!!)”

In your example, obviously I’d rather the guy who is invested in the neighborhood to some degree so if it turns to shit, he’s going down with it. In my example, I’d much rather the guy who’s not.

Hmm… I hadn’t thought about it like that, that actually makes it make sense in a roundabout way. I’ll keep that one in the back of my head for now…

I can’t disagree with an opinion like that coupled with an anecdote like that.

I disagree that it’s the federal government who should be stepping in to limit screen time though.

In fact, tiktok is the only app I’ve seen that has a “why don’t you go touch grass” timer, so in that regard, it’s got less nefarious design patterns than, say, Facebook.

I don’t think I understand what you mean by dangerous in this context, honestly. When I think danger, I think of bodily harm. What does your definition of dangerous entail when it comes to social media apps that physically can’t cause harm? Is my understanding of danger too simplistic?

What are these interesting and terrifying possibilities inside information warfare and kinetic warfare?

That’s specifically what I’m after. It sounds like boogyman fear right now, but it sounds like you have something more concrete. What is it that you have in mind, exactly?

I don’t disagree with that which is why I’m currently in the “this is red-scare” camp. If Washington (more specifically, the NSA and friends) hadn’t been buying our data to peruse via the lax privacy laws we currently have, maybe they’d have a leg to stand on with any of this…

…then they aught to ban every app with user generated content. YouTube might be the biggest propaganda vector we have right now, and the powers that be would not be able to tell which nation is pumping out anti-us videos due to it being so easy to lie about stuff like that.

That’s quite a bad response if that’s really the reason. If they’re worried about propaganda, the best defense against it is education on what is propaganda, and how to spot it, not banning a single vector of it when so many others exist already.

This only supports my theory that this is red-scare nonsense (though please let me know if I misunderstood, I really do want to understand)