I think both are rational (consistent with or based on reason) it is just that one of them is using the right premises.

Man, I had a whole thing typed out when I re-read what you wrote.
I’m assuming you mean “aliens are real” is the false premise here…
Because I’m glad I re-read. I had massively mis-interpreted your comment!

2… [Snip]

The way to teach this is critical thinking of “follow the money, follow the power”.
And it’s pretty murky.
I’m fairly certain “ban plastic straws” got so much traction because it diverted from actual issues.
Fishing nets cause more issues and pollution. People now hate pasta straws, and blame it on environmentalists.
Oil companies divert attention for another 5-10 years.

Maybe I’m just cynical.

The 3 things to fix:

1. Our collective feeling that things aren’t going well
2. Our general distrust in current authorities
3. Our collective belief that an authority is good/necessary

…

Also if we want society to be less susceptible to this we need to fix one or all of the three things

Ok, so:

1. Fix things that aren’t going well (or make people feel things are going well).
2. Have authorities we can trust (or make people trust our current authorities).
3. Reject authority (or make people believe that needing authority is a good thing).

I have no idea what you are trying to say.
It all seems really wishy-washy.

But I agree that people aren’t stupid.
I mean, on average, at least half the people are stupid. By whatever metric that is.
Chances are - however - they are irrational.
Despite all the evidence, they still want something to be true.

Irrational:

If you describe someone’s feelings and behavior as irrational, you mean they are not based on logical reasons or clear thinking

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/irrational

99% of conspiracy theorys are irrational.
By the time you know about a conspiracy theory, it is probably being tested and will likely be disproven. Or it has already been tested and proven to be wrong. Otherwise the conspiracy/theory would be a working scientific theory.
Believing otherwise makes you irrational.

Look at LK99. Huge deal, claimed proof, seemed legit. Within 2 months it was disproven to the satisfaction of the scientific community.

Now there will be stories about LK99 being legit, and the “scientific community” (read government) rejecting it because UFOs are going through US court whatevers. And LK99 came from extraterrestrial origins, or whatever.
This is irrational (edit: as pointed out in a comment, this is actually rational. It follows logic. But it is based on an irrational premise: that aliens exist).

Or … scientists made a mistake.
This is rational.

( Never mind the extremely infinitesimally small chance that extraterrestrial sentient life exists and coincides with our time, travelled across the universe and failed to survive an encounter with our planet (or that they successfully contacted only the government via means they were able to keep quiet, who then successfully kept that a secret). )

Rationality is different from stupid.
You can be stupid and rational.
You can be intelligent and irrational.

Might be a little old? Not sure, you would have to research it.
I’m not well versed in what pfSense/opnSense needs, which is why I threw r630s at a project that mattered.
Some cheapo refubed i3 with an Intel NIC card would do. I just suggested the SFF refurb because a lot of people like low power (and SFFs are generally low power)

Which is awesome.
I actually have no idea where Blockchain tech could exist.
A reputation could be an excellent example. But if it can be manipulated or gamed, it kinda makes it pointless.
At which point a centralised registry makes sense.
As long as the central registrar can be trusted.
But I don’t think Blockchain solves that point of trust.

So, once again, turns out Blockchain tech is pretty useless.

Is this finally an application for a Blockchain?
Some sort of decentralised registry of instance reputation?

Theres some that aren’t just money.
There are bots that mirror content from Reddit, just linking to them.
I’ve seen posts that are 3 or 4 crossposts (between community/instances) deep.

I want content.
I don’t want bot content

My home box ran for a few years with no issues, until I started having DNS issues. I’m fairly certain that was unbound and the blocklists I had selected, tho.
I set up a Cron job to update the block lists every night, and give unbound service a restart.
It’s been solid since then, and my DNS issues have disappeared.

Now, I am checking for updates and installing those every few months. So it gets a restart when that happens.

You could get a refurbished SFF computer that has a low profile PCIe slot, and put an Intel 4 port network card in it.
Would probably cost $150 tops. And its a solid entry! Certainly, that’s what I used before I bought one of the fanless network appliance type things.

My home network has one of those fanless 4 port doodaas from Amazon/eBay if you search for pfSense.
Never had an issue with it, I’m on 300/100mbit broadband tho.

For another project for 10gbps networking, I used a refubed single-socketed dell r630. Probably massively overkill. Also, never saw traffic anywhere near 10gbps… So can’t really comment on that.

I used to use pfSense. It’s great.
I recently moved to opnSense… And I think it’s better.
Both are good, both are BSD, both have similar settings (tutorials are mostly interchangeable)… But opnSense just does it better, updates more frequently, nicer UI etc.

If you are talking to yours ISP, it’s worth getting a bridge modem, and settings details for your own router.
This modem will turn “isp” into ethernet, then your opnSense/pfSense can make the actual connection. This means it gets the public IP directly.

On the “node programming isn’t programming”… I’ve made a lot of money using things like Node-Red and TouchDesigner (seriously, TouchDesigner is the love of my life)

Node-red is amazing.
I have done so many interesting things, strange integrations, quick and dirty glue-code with node-red…

Before I knew about node-red, I bought into some proprietary home automation system (mostly for my boiler and servicing of it). What a mistake.
I wish I could apply node-red to my home.

If I don’t know of a solution to a specific problem, chances are I’m going to use/recommend node-red

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_Wikipedia

So, Scots is an old language from Scotland (like pre-1700). It’s been recognised as an actual language, and is making a bit of a come back (although, maybe an “online comeback” because lots of people in Scotland speak Scots or are influenced by it. Scots never really died), and there are many ways to actually write it.

Anyway, this drama came to a point a few years ago on Reddit.
Basically, an American teenager created a bunch of translations of wiki articles. More than a bunch… Like A LOT.
To the point, that some of the translations became referenced in other sources as being factual, despite the fact that they were mostly “English with a Scottish language”.
Like, you know how AI generated data might be poisoning AI training? That kinda thing.
So, there is was a huge undertaking to review the Scots translation of Wikipedia, and ensure it is accurate.

Whilst I agree in principal to “healthy to see opinions you disagree with”, I don’t want to see things like “trans people are mutants” (which is disgusting rhetoric).

I don’t think this necessarily brings around “ignorance is bliss”. News articles of Trump blaming “mutants” are enough to remind me why I formed these opinions, without having to debate it with people of dissenting opinion.

I don’t think it helped that there were incredibly salty people (or even bots) in some of the smaller subs that would just downvote everything.
I frequented a few subs where honest questions or helpful answers would sit on 0 votes.

I find myself less guarded on beehaw in some ways, and more guarded in others.

Firstly, I feel I can be more authentic. Discussions always seem to be in good faith, and I often come away learning something, reconsidering something, or just being more aware of other viewpoints. Whether I participate in the discussion or just read it.
It’s just more enjoyable overall.

Which leads me onto how I am being more guarded. I am really trying to consider other viewpoints before even engaging with posts or discussions.
And I dislike that this is an effort for me.
But I like that I have realised it, and I now get to make an effort to be better.

If you have a spare machine lying around, install proxmox.
It’s a great way to learn VMs and networking.
Then you can create a VM, snapshot it (as a restore point), mess around with docker or podman, break stuff, then restore the VM to try again.
All this runs on your local network, so when it comes to setting up a Lemmy instance, you are going to want access to it from the internet. Things like Cloudflare and Tailscale can make this very easy.

It’s a wonderful rabbit hole of learning!
I would recommend /r/homelab or /r/selfhosted but I think those communities are still finding a home on the fediverse

Pretty sure it was EA’s “feeling of accomplishment” comment.
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/seriously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/dppum98/