~70% of people are completely worthless in the information age

[Cavernio]

Originally Posted by aperson

But then again, we're posting in a video game forum where everyone's quality of life is probably in the top global 10%.

"quality"

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...scientists-say

[aperson]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

"quality"

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...scientists-say

What are you actually trying to say here?

[Cavernio]

Because we have lots of stuff people think that that means, individually, we are better off somehow than other people. But mentally having lots of stuff kinda means dick all. Being on the internet doesn't mean you have a better quality of life than most people.

[Cavernio]

Like, to say what you said then makes the idea that people who are technically savy as somehow more worthwhile relevent. Neither the idea that you are better off than most people is true nor is the idea that people who aren't advancing with technology worthless, true.

[aperson]

Being on the internet and posting on FFR means you're a lot more likely to be in a place that doesn't have issues with food insecurity, water insecurity, or a dearth of medical treatment for treatable diseases. If you think that a higher incidence rate of PTSD is in any way comparable to not having basic necessities to survive, I don't even know where to begin.

[Cavernio]

You're going to die one day too.

[Cavernio]

But you're not going to necessarily have PTSD.

[Cavernio]

Because there's no good reason to tell yourself "I am luckier than 90% of other people" mainly. Either you tell yourself that and you feel good, in which case you are taking joy in the comparison to someone else's misfortune. Or, in most cases, you tell yourself that when you feel bad about something else, but for most people, this does nothing to alleviate their current mental suffering but causes MORE distress, because now they are in distress about their original distress still, and also now guilting themselves for it.

[aperson]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

Because there's no good reason to tell yourself "I am luckier than 90% of other people"

Yeah there is, it's a reminder of your responsibility in the world. I'm free to consume whatever I want because my income is in the top global 1%. But if I forget to remind myself that I'm luckier than the other 90% of people, I'll forget about the externalities I'm creating. The waste, the emissions, the externalities that conveniently don't affect me but instead affect the global south through aridization.

I'm free to leave the dishes by the sink and have my girlfriend do them for me because this is the patriarchal normalization that's been created in our society. But unless I stop to think of my fortune in the patriarchal dynamic I'll never sit there and actually do my fair share of the housework. Similarly, I'm free to wake up and walk outside without primping first without having everyone tell me, "Wow you look tired today", so I should be very mindful not to do the same thing to the woman that didn't give enough of a fuck to put on makeup that day.

In fact, I think being aware that we're in the luckiest 10% is something that's become so important to do it's become crystallized into the very relevant phrase, "Check your privilege."

So if you're going to keep railing on this stuff, all I have to say to you is to check your privilege. After all, you were the one posting in the Tracer thread that if we magically started acting like race didn't exist then all of our problems with racism would go away.

[choof]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

Or, in most cases, you tell yourself that when you feel bad about something else, but for most people, this does nothing to alleviate their current mental suffering but causes MORE distress, because now they are in distress about their original distress still, and also now guilting themselves for it.

I'm reading this as "people feel really bad that they have a comparatively good life when taking 3rd world countries into account"
the idea that someone can get triggered enough to have PTSD by having more than the basic human needs is hilariously mind-blogging

Originally Posted by Cavernio

You're going to die one day too.

this post brought to you by an edgy kid literally half your age

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by aperson

This forum seems to way overrate the amount of technological literacy that's required to survive and be productive on society. But then again, we're posting in a video game forum where everyone's quality of life is probably in the top global 10%.

I don't overrate it at all. My mom figured out text messages just a year ago. I blew her mind when she realized I could text her a picture of where I was standing to help her find me in a parking lot. This happened just last summer. She did not know this was possible or a thing people could do.

She's also about 120 IQ -- I tested her. And she's probably severely ADHD, worse than me, which I have no doubt is where mine comes from. Other interesting IQ things: after ADHD treatment my measured IQ went from 125 to 150+, on the kind of tests Reach used to give out. It was fucking bizarre thinking of myself as "kinda smart but not as smart as Reach/Rubix/you" to "could be PhD in some hard science at an Ivy if I wanted." ADHD is also why I was such a shithead on FFR -- starting conflicts with people was the only thing that could get me to focus that I had access to at the time. (I eventually subbed this with binge drinking and extremely dangerous top-speed shit at 3AM which I am glad I no longer do. I have driven 60+MPH laps drunk in a suburb that the HoA wanted to be 20MPH and crashed into a speed limit sign. I sped off and parked at my house and leg pressed the sign back into place; no one has any evidence of the damage or even knows I did it. ADHD medication has -- I'm confident -- kept me from being a convicted felon.)

But yes, circling back to what you said, FFR is not just "a video game forum where everyone's quality of life is probably in the top global 10%" it's a video game forum for a HIGHLY SPECIFIC variant of a video game simulator that requires the user to have fluent knowledge of file/folder trees and what parts go where, plus incredibly game-specific knowledge if the player is to create charts, and on top of that understanding of musical rhythm plus graphic design if the player desires to release a whole file.

In terms of nerdery we're up there with Dwarf Fortress and probably above mainstream Minecraft modders. We're probably one of the most tech-competent gaming forums to ever exist and it's important to keep that in perspective before we forget our place on Mt. Olympus or whatever.

[aperson]

Lmao yep. Never underestimate the amount of technical literacy required to use a god dang vbulletin monstrosity without wanting to neck yourself.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

Or, in most cases, you tell yourself that when you feel bad about something else, but for most people, this does nothing to alleviate their current mental suffering but causes MORE distress, because now they are in distress about their original distress still, and also now guilting themselves for it.

Oh my god shut up. Guilt is nothing. What the fuck is distress even?

I've lived with a marine who has legit PTSD. You have not killed people. You have not seen your friends die in front of you. What you're describing is like White Chick PTSD. It's first-world problems upgraded to a medical condition because psychiatrists like money, and white people have a lot of money to spend on expensive drugs, and as such the condition you describe exists as affirmative action for mostly white women.

[aperson]

Me WaReZing Adobe Photoshop CS to make sick signatures for a video game forum in 2005: "I'm NOT the 1%!! I'm NOT the 1%!!!!!!"

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by aperson

Me WaReZing Adobe Photoshop CS to make sick signatures for a video game forum in 2005: "I'm NOT the 1%!! I'm NOT the 1%!!!!!!"

Yeah didn't your parents pay for you to go to Rice? lol.

I went to Trinity for 1.5 years and had to stop because they had a scholarship for poor kids that only lasted for three semesters or so and I didn't know it was temporary. (I was heavily involved in the community for all of my college though; I ran the Overheard At Trinity facebook group and the administration hated me because they couldn't expel me. There were newspaper articles about me.) I'd have gone to Rice but I effectively *started* high school in the 11th grade and had to do all of high school in two years -- long story. Trinity was my first exposure to real wealth and it was... wow. It was my first time meeting kids who like, studied but didn't pretend they didn't, or kids who had good relationships with their parents and actually *liked* their parents and weren't embarrassed to have their parents around other people.

I've lived in poverty for most of my life, but raw intelligence + internet connection + being an only child allowed me to brute-force out of it. This sounds like bragging but it's not. I'm honestly amazed at how I've been able to just figure so much shit out on my own that normal people can't, and Smart Privilege is the one privilege no one ever asks you to "check" because their whole fuckin worldview is against the idea of innate IQ differences.

Some black woman (maybe mid-30s) at UTSA working the cash register of one of the campus stores had her software crash and the line bulged and I could see her get nervous. I'd never used it before in my life. I skipped the line and asked to see what was going on with her monitor, then I pressed buttons until I found the point-of-sale software she was using and reloaded it. She was able to process everyone's orders again. The whole line of people acted like I was a fucking magician and I was like "I just looked at shit and pressed buttons man."

Nowadays, if I'm poor, it's by choice since I'm very comfortable living at 15k/year and know how to. (most people here wouldn't.) I've been offered 70k/yr jobs and turned them down. I place an immense amount of importance on being able to say anything I want, and you can't exactly do that in 2016.

The only person on this forum who I know for a fact can say they've had a rough life that would be rough by the standards of anywhere on the globe is korny.

[choof]

are my stepmania charts fun lol

[aperson]

Can you post a screenshot I'll look at the overall aesthetic of the notes and tell u.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by choof

are my stepmania charts fun lol

if you are a well-known chart author this has to be true for a certain % of people or else you would not be well-known beyond novelty value, so yes

this is also true for all popular chart authors on this site, we just all hate each other's methodologies and think ours is the best

[choof]

https://choof.s-ul.eu/EbVfb0q3

[aperson]

ok bud that pretty good wish it was a bit more index friendly