Hacker News: SamoyedFurFluff

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree"

SamoyedFurFluff — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 18:02:56 +0000

Nah men by and large do not experience the same levels of societal pressure than women do to be attractive, modulo getting into looksmaxxing and other stuff, and even that is mostly to show off masculinity traits to other men and not actually in being attractive to women.

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy"

SamoyedFurFluff — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 16:23:35 +0000

??? Elonjet????

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers"

SamoyedFurFluff — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 13:49:15 +0000

I disagree with you largely. The vast majority of people I know have interests that drive them beyond a work they dislike. They follow sports. They golf. They cook. They are foodies. They enjoy mixology. They raise their children. They enjoy taking 45 minute walks after every meal. They host parties with friends. They do a book club. They knit or crochet or craft with felt. All of these things do not resemble “purpose” in that they’re not really monetized. But in a world where you don’t have to make money to live I think there’s a hell of a lot of things that can give purpose.

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Scanning for Pangram Errors"

SamoyedFurFluff — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:23:09 +0000

I actually disagree, I think B people care a lot if a created work is an intended artistic thing vs produced by a machine. It’s like the difference between getting someone a generic hallmark cards vs actually writing something inside. Theres a place for the hallmarks but a plain one with no human touch is still considered tacky

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)"

SamoyedFurFluff — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 12:00:15 +0000

So you’re in agreement with me that “no politics” isn’t really a thing in a space? That’s all I’m saying. I’m using transgender issues as an example but my overall point is that there’s no such thing as a space that is focused around something and simply gets a no politics rule. There is always some kind of politics in play simply by nature of politics being an extension of acceptable and unacceptable community, e.g. a person who happens to be trans is the hot topic now, but within my parents generation probably the political act is enforcing a shared bathroom between whites and blacks!

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)"

SamoyedFurFluff — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:25:19 +0000

I literally said in my first post that I am speaking in a board game context.

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)"

SamoyedFurFluff — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:32:30 +0000

This isn’t a work context. This is a board game meetup, lol. Do you not have friends outside of work?

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)"

SamoyedFurFluff — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:09:13 +0000

I think you’re missing my point here, which is that “no politics” is an impossible standard for any given social group even if the social group isn’t itself a political movement. There will need to be some measure of baseline politics, like trans people are welcome, jokes about Indian people being smelly are fine, gay people shouldn’t bring their partners around, “retarded” is/isn’t cool to use. Etc.

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)"

SamoyedFurFluff — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 14:36:48 +0000

So forcing everyone to change their meeting place to a venue with a unisex bathroom only is not political, but a trans woman using a woman’s bathroom is political?

Also, Helen still wants to be called Helen and still wants to be referred to as a she. By this logic, everyone must go by they/them? Or what?

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)"

SamoyedFurFluff — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 14:15:18 +0000

I don’t see what you mean. It really isn’t considered civil to let men use the female restroom when a male restroom is available outside of circumstances like taking one’s young children to the restroom. If one sees a trans woman as a man, it is uncivil for “him” to parade at being a woman.

It is also super normal for couples to roleplay being couples, gay or not. What do you call civil here, to let a (in the mind of an Anti-homosexual conservative) illegitimate couple pretend as if it’s on the level of a legitimate one? Or it’s maybe uncivil for the illegitimate gay guy to come in and force the rest of the group to sit in discomfort with his sexuality?

In my opinion “maintain civility” is equally as fraught as “no politics” because different people have radically different opinions of what these mean. Often times when it comes to “identity politics” it’s mutually exclusive.

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)"

SamoyedFurFluff — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:45:13 +0000

That’s incredibly messy, for example, a friend of mine was recently forced out of the country because her Ukrainian refugee visa was revoked. Are you saying this community member cannot be sad or angry about this, because that’s too political? We have to be like damn this is the last board game with Nancy but we can’t talk about why because that’s Polticial?

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)"

SamoyedFurFluff — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:43:22 +0000

Here’s the thing though: Helen is presenting herself to be called Helen. That’s inherently asking other people to call her Helen and imposing on people to allow a person they see as male to enter a female bathroom! For people who see being transgender as a political issue, being asked to call a trans person by their name is bringing politics into it because theyre being imposed on to recognize a trans woman as female for bathroom purposes.

Thats what I mean when i think “no politics” gets weirdly messy. Like to me it’s not political to let Helen use the female bathroom, but that’s not a given. I’ve also seen situations like, is it political if David brings his boyfriend to the DnD group and they role play a gay couple? What about if Emily, an IRL conservative, says she’s not being political when her lawful good paladin tries to break up the gay couple in the game, because being gay is evil in her DnD religion?

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)"

SamoyedFurFluff — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 12:23:40 +0000

Inquiry: what do you define as politics?

Example: is a trans person in your community political for using their preferred pronouns? Going to their preferred bathroom? Is a gay person political for mentioning their same sex spouse? Is an immigrant political for discussing their immigration process (“sorry can’t make it I have an apt with the embassy”)? Is tits or gtfo political?

I’m not trying to be contrarian this is simply my experiences running like a board game group or something. It’s easy to say no politics but then someone’s normal (eg. My name is Helen, where’s the woman’s restroom?) can cause someone to refuse (“that is clearly a man”!) and now you have a mess on your hands as an organizer.

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "The first early human eggs from stem cells"

SamoyedFurFluff — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:53:11 +0000

Objectively we’ve only become smarter (IQs have increased), stronger (fitness records continue to be broken), etc. since infant mortality shrank. If you believe otherwise please provide evidence.

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'"

SamoyedFurFluff — Sat, 30 May 2026 12:31:02 +0000

Doesn’t one major fund reducing investment in fossil fuels and increasing investment in renewable energy precisely migrate towards the notion of helping solve demand and encourage technological breakthroughs and innovation?

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants"

SamoyedFurFluff — Sat, 30 May 2026 12:19:23 +0000

Generally, academia has always had a measure of bias to it. However the bias was never so blatant and never so against producing an environment where good research could feasibly be created. The vast majority of research is non political increments of existing non political increments where the main conflicts are personal beefs among flawed individual PIs and maybe being asked what fig leaf one offers to ensure that the funding doesn’t just go to a bunch of white wealthy straight men. Once you have funding you can be set for years to focus on your work, assuming you don’t do something dumb like make sexist or racist remarks, and even then your funding is generally secure you just might not get a new round 3 years later(probably will though because controversies die pretty fast).

I know a lot of hay and media exists about how academia is yadda yadda biased and anti intellectual. But of course a lot of that is cherry picked examples of controversial figures or individual missteps among individual institutions. This is a bit like taking a classroom with one rowdy asshole and then declaring the whole school must use physical violence as discipline from now on.

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM"

SamoyedFurFluff — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:44:35 +0000

I believe the evidence claimed is that there aren’t better outcomes for smart kids. Schools that claim they have better outcomes just selected for kids that would always have better outcomes. Like if I claimed my basketball team has better outcomes because I got to make sure all my players were above 6 foot. These 6 foot players don’t necessarily benefit from being in a team with other 6 foot players, but I’m saying people should apply for my team because I’m doing so much better than the team that can’t make those weeding out decisions. I’m intentionally conflating the success of my capacity to select for success with my capacity to coach a team.

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "The Melancholy of Slaying Monsters"

SamoyedFurFluff — Wed, 27 May 2026 16:01:59 +0000

I think games don’t have to be fun. There’s plenty of games where fun would be super inappropriate and yet the games are very popular. This applies to a lot of psychological or survival horror games. I think better is that a game must be compelling. There must be something encouraging you to play more, more so than any frustration or conflict the game introduces.

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches"

SamoyedFurFluff — Mon, 18 May 2026 20:23:37 +0000

Then we are at an impasse, because here is a guy who has been accused of rape actively doing a speaking gig, so…

New comment by SamoyedFurFluff in "Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches"

SamoyedFurFluff — Mon, 18 May 2026 15:40:09 +0000

Note that I was not speaking on the guilt or innocence of any specific person, just pointing out that when it comes to committing sexual violence the incentives to make accusations don’t appear to actually mete out as is claimed because the people who are accused rarely, if ever, have any actual negative consequences.