what kinds of things do you like to make, grow, and learn?

i write, short stories mostly existential horror, and “essays” about anything i find interesting (that really just means i ramble about things i find interesting for several hundred-1000+ words on tumblr); also i made and maintain a personal website, i make mods and themes for things other people make cuz i don’t code enough to make anything of my own; sometimes i make videos but i’m generally too shy to do that regularly; i play video games; i collect plushies; and i recentlyish picked up making pixel art

i also want to get into crochet, cooking, and gardening but my time with those has so far mostly just been using social media to see what other people do. i mean i cook but wouldn’t classify how i do cooking as a hobby lol

i have adhd too, also i’m agoraphobic, and in addition to ideally being able to orbit around several hobbies i also just need things to fill in my time since i don’t get outside very often

i agree; communication is very complicated and for example even understandings of common phrases varies sometimes not just regionally but from person to person, so it makes sense to me that people in general often struggle to pick up on hints, especially the more subtle the hints are, and that’s no one’s fault. for hints in terms of sexual/romantic i think i would also probably factor in self esteem as depression and anxiety are epidemics in our society that are only getting worse as it becomes harder to maintain social lives as third places disappear. low self-esteem often comes with depression and anxiety and people who struggle with it may assume that no one would/could be interested in them or be flirting with them. idk, that at least described me for a long time when i was younger. in the case of my bf he’s also autistic and struggles to pick up on social cues in general, much less flirting

when we met, my bf never picked up any of my hints, and i gave him many. i mean we met online, had a lot in common, and got along really well right away. i mean he was exactly my type and i was very clear about that as we got to know each other lol. but i only hint at interest until i’m sure, and then i get direct, so i eventually asked him out. he seemed pretty embarrassed for not picking up on the hints afterward, especially the more direct ones, but i just thought he was pretty adorable for it. i’ve never really thought all men are necessarily bad at taking hints in particular i mean i have never put much thought into whether a particular gender is worse at picking up on hints but i’m a woman and i’ve dated and had situationships with men, women, enbies and more and and in hindsight i’d say i’ve been bad at picking up on hints and everyone’s been bad at picking up on my hints so probably everyone’s bad at it lol

i heard this too lol

specifically i heard that they see us as incompetent cats and want to take care of us x3

it was me using simpler phrasing in part because i couldn’t remember the details very well

but i was referencing an experiment where researchers wearing “threatening” and “non-threatening” masks interacted with and marked crows, and other crows in that area who they had not interacted with recognized them later. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347209005806 (however that crows tell stories is, as far as i know, only a popular interpretation, their official conclusion, at least of this experiment, is that crows are capable of long term memory retention and fine-feature discrimination)

and simple observations suggesting prairie dogs may have a very advanced language - which went viral in my online circles with people joking that they gossip about us, which probably just stuck with me because i think it would be very cute

i personally believe that animals most likely do communicate among each other and the complexities of their languages just varies, even if most are not obviously very complex. my personal beliefs are that communication is complicated and can happen through more than verbal/vocal language, animals are clearly capable of feeling complex emotions and pain which is enough for me personally to consider them sentient, and (again this is just my personal belief) i believe it’s probably better to treat them as if they are sentient until proven otherwise than the opposite. and just to be upfront and honest with others and myself about my possible biases, i believe in the Buddhist concept of Saṃsāra, and believe that that we’re all a part of the same cycle of death and rebirth

edit found some more info:

prairie dogs: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/prairie-dogs-language-decoded-by-scientists-1.1322230

Researchers noticed that the animals made slightly different calls when different individuals of the same species went by. … so they conducted experiments where they paraded dogs of different colours and sizes and various humans wearing different clothes past the colony. They recorded the prairie dogs’ calls, analyzed them with a computer, and were astonished by the results.

“They’re (prairie dogs) able to describe the colour of clothes the humans are wearing, they’re able to describe the size and shape of humans, even, amazingly, whether a human once appeared with a gun,” Slobodchikoff said. The animals can even describe abstract shapes such as circles and triangles.

Also remarkable was the amount of information crammed into a single chirp lasting a 10th of a second. “In one 10th of a second, they say ‘Tall thin human wearing blue shirt walking slowly across the colony.’”

crows: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-interesting-thing-that-crows-do-when-they-see-one-of-their-own-dead/2016/03/18/78d97a9e-ec48-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html

“They know your body type. The way you walk,” Dyer said. “They’ll take their young down and say: ‘You want to get to know this guy. He’s got the food.’ ”

Scientists have known for years that crows have great memories, that they can recognize a human face and behavior, that they can pass that information on to their offspring.

that article also mentions that crows have been observed to make and use tools, which is something i knew but forgot to mention and is interesting and feels relevant to this conversation

Sorry for the confusion then! I suppose I place some value on life itself (or maybe more fitting in this discussion, on awareness itself)

Which is to say that for me, ending the life of a being who is aware is at least one of the worst things you can do. Like, if I were forced to choose between millions of years of suffering or immediate death, I’d probably pick the millions of years of suffering because at least I’d still be aware. Of course I might regret that decision later on but that’s where I’m at right now. But also I couldn’t imagine being tortured for millions of years and the toll that must have on someone. So torturing someone for millions of years has, for me, very similar moral weight to genocide. Again I don’t feel able to quantify them personally, and for me deciding which is ultimately worse is probably not possible. I’d guess the answer would vary from person to person based on how they weigh life itself vs experiences in life, and whether the conscious experience of being tortured is worse in their opinion than not existing anymore. I consider life valuable because I consider my life valuable (valuable to me, not necessarily to anyone else), and I consider my life valuable because I really enjoy the ability to think about and experience things. One of my favorite thing about us is that we look up into the sky and wonder, look down into the ocean and wonder, look forward in our future and wonder, look back on our past and wonder, that we can look at other people and wonder. That we can look at any of the above and love and write and sing. sentience might as well be magic lol. Having that taken away from me is the worst thing I can imagine happening to me, which might skew my perspective in conversations like this one. And idk if most people would agree with my reasons for valuing life.

i edited my comment a few times because i didn’t feel like i was making sense and being too rambly, it’s 6am (well 6:30am) and i haven’t slept (and cuz after i initially posted i read other comments and realized other people had said what i had said but better x3)

i didn’t mean to imply i thought you were saying genocide is worse than bullying a robot, it’s just that i was thinking about things that could be comparable or worse to me than torturing someone for millions of years and came up with genocide

i took crime to mean something morally bad

i mean i think this is a fun conversation, it’s something i think about a lot, i’m glad to talk about it with other people, sorry if i came across obtuse or pedantic or negative/hostile or anything

yeah! prairie dogs gossip; crows tell stories, have communities, and some of them even seem to understand money; whales mourn the deaths of other whales

sentience is trippy, and it’s always been questionable to me that we decided we’re the only sentient life on the planet

i already get emotionally attached to, like, roombas and those suitcases that connect to your phone and follow you around, i can’t wait to have a robo buddy

“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.” - Optimus Prime

I don’t know if I’d consider it the worst crime ever committed in the history of the universe, but I would consider it very bad personally. I would personally value the life of that AI the same as I would value the life of a human, the same way I would value the life of anything sentient, so I would be against anyone treating an AI that way. Is it worse than genocides? idk maybe i don’t feel qualified to quantify the moral weight of things so big, but ya i’d definitely care x3

relatable :3

i’m similar but for me i prefer physical books because if i’m reading a physical book i’m probably not sitting near any of my devices so there’s less chance i’ll get distracted lol

but audio book is a strong second because ya i can do other stuff while listening to it, the same way i listen to podcasts and stuff

why does it make me uncomfortable

it’s like an uncanny valley fork

lol i just rewatched the blade runner episode of Bob’s Burgers last night. i never saw the movie!

omg that’s adorable

I don’t remember where I found it though x3, probably Reddit. If I remember right it’s a screenshot from a game I’ve never played lol, but I liked the colors and I like space and I like the sort of surreal spaceman aesthetics

i never knew that lol, that’s cute

i am the opposite of a tiger

I see what you mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the context of the question that prompted the statement, and yes when you put it like that I can see how the context can be important. So I did a bit of Googling to see what I could find after I read your reply, and here’s what I found:

From what I can tell this is the first article that broke the news, and it’s a conversation with Philippe Tremblay, the director of subscriptions at Ubisoft. Here’s a long excerpt of the relevant portion:

The question remains around the potential of the subscription model in games. Tremblay says that there is “tremendous opportunity for growth”, but what is it going to take for subscription to step up and become a more significant proportion of the industry?

“I don’t have a crystal ball, but when you look at the different subscription services that are out there, we’ve had a rapid expansion over the last couple of years, but it’s still relatively small compared to the other models,” he begins. "We’re seeing expansion on console as the likes of PlayStation and Xbox bring new people in. On PC, from a Ubisoft standpoint, it’s already been great, but we are looking to reach out more on PC, so we see opportunity there.

"One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games. That’s the consumer shift that needs to happen. They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That’s a transformation that’s been a bit slower to happen [in games]. As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect… you don’t lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That’s not been deleted. You don’t lose what you’ve built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it’s about feeling comfortable with not owning your game.

"I still have two boxes of DVDs. I definitely understand the gamers perspective with that. But as people embrace that model, they will see that these games will exist, the service will continue, and you’ll be able to access them when you feel like. That’s reassuring.

“Streaming is also a thing that works really well with subscription. So you pay when you need it, as opposed to paying all the time.”

Streaming is a distribution method that appears to lend itself to the subscription model, although currently it remains a very niche corner of the business. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told GI in June that Ubisoft believes in streaming, but that it needs time. “It’s getting there,” he told us. “Just not as fast as we thought. When you are in a good city with good internet, it’s fantastic. But it’s not the case for everyone. The Nvidia experience, for example, is fantastic, but we thought it would go faster. We’ve learned a lot by working with these services, and we’re using that experience to enhance what we’re doing,”

So yeah it sounds to me like the journalist directly asked how subscription models could become more accepted and normal. It sounds like Philippe Tremblay wants, in particular, for Ubisoft to get in the streaming market, like if you don’t have a powerful enough computer to run a game, pay to stream it from a computer that is.

I’m on your side now I think, but I would maintain that Ubisoft would probably love a future where all games are subscription based, but that would just be speculation on my part only based on my bias against corporations ;3

So yeah I get you now, sorry for pressing you, thanks for bearing with me

only when I inevitably drop it in water and it won’t boot anymore, except for when rice magically makes it boot again

Thanks, I think I’m over the worst of it, but still not feeling 100%

Having a lazy day curled up under blankets, cozy in bed, and having some pizza is the best lol