This is two dots away from being naughty as well as accurate.

I vaguely remember that they were being held captive and the devices would punish them for misbehaving. Like, some guy lived with a bunch of female robot slaves or something and the episode ended with him having to live with a robot version of his deceased henpecking wife? Shit I don’t know, it’s been like 30 years since I watched the original series…

Yeah, it seems like all the answers I get boil down to: people don’t like them because they just don’t like them. Which is perfectly fair, I’m not sure why I was expecting a more nuanced response from anyone. It’s sort of like how some people like chocolate and others don’t. Who can say why really? It is interesting though that Lemmy seems to have a disproportionate share of vocal meme detractors.

Insurance is for something that might happen. Everyone will experience health problems. It’s a contradictory situation at its very core.

That’s certainly one answer, I agree.

Well, would you be willing to do what they’re doing in the name of “winning”? That’s the real dilemma. How exactly do you maintain your own morality against an amoral adversary? Is it possible? It’s the old trope of “becoming as evil as the evil you’re fighting”. I certainly admire pacifists for being able to hold to their ideals, but for me there’s no easy answer.

A short sentence.

I don’t think they’re entirely negative. Memes can be very creative. Nor are they all political. That’s a weird argument to me. As far as humor, I think we’re just demonstrating how subjective it is. I find plenty of memes very funny. Yeah, can’t say I agree with really anything you said there, at least not as a blanket statement.

Okay, I appreciate such a considered response. I do agree it gets old seeing the same exact post over and over. Reddit was getting really bad with that. Of course there’s always the question of why some people find something funny and others don’t too.

For me though, setting that aside, I just find the variations on a meme can be really fascinating. Then you have memes referring to other memes or imitating them, sort of like you described. Memes that descend into abstraction so as to become practically incomprehensible… I’ve had to research a few just to understand whay they were even talking about. I think at its best memeing is like some kind of collective conceptual art collaboration. Or like graffiti or music sampling. So interesting.

Oh, the wealthy in the US have it figured out perfectly.

So, I’m not trying to be snarky at all, just genuinely curious, as I’ve seen several people on Lemmy brag about how much they hate memes… Like, why? Do you not enjoy humor, or just not find them funny or something? It’s a bit like someone saying they hate dogs to me. I honestly don’t get it.

It’s the one problem with denying reality. Reality doesn’t care. I just didn’t expect the US legal system to be the place where the rubber met the road. Honestly I thought it would take physical violence, unfortunately. Although our legal system ain’t perfect, it’s a pleasant surprise.

Fair enough. Climate change was a bad example. Maybe I could have said something like aliens. I’m far from an expert on anything to do with anything related to aliens, but I’m willing to recognize that it’s an open question. Similarly, I’m not really saying we should imagine we have the answer with Covid, I just don’t think there’s anything wrong with recognizing that it’s an open question. In one of my first comments in this thread in fact (I have apparently been talking to multiple people and not always realizing they’re different…), I stated up front that I doubt we’ll ever have an answer. I suppose the point has been belabored quite a bit at this point. I appreciate your insights and that you took the time to share them without getting too… um… Reddity?

Only works if you’re rich, sorry.

But can we talk about climate change? Because we sure do. We talk about complicated economics topics, social issues, human biology… I just don’t see why the line is drawn at where Covid might have originated.

Of course. Again, I just don’t understand the weird polarizing effect even bringing it up causes. By your own reasoning there would be almost nothing most of us average people should even talk about. I find that highly questionable as a blanket statement. We can certainly talk about what we think the experts should be considering without making our own conclusions about it.

Edit: Just to clarify, you mentioned bioweapons. I haven’t heard anything to support that. I just wanted to be clear. I’m not promoting any extreme theories or indeed any theory.

Could anything be more symbolic of America’s political situation right now?

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Yeah, I just think the resistance to even discussing it is very strange. Not suggesting conspiracy, just good old fashioned human irrationally.

You don’t think that a lab leak might suggest a need for more robust standards at such labs? It’s flawed to suggest that there aren’t differing future mitigation implications depending on how Covid started.

As far as racists clinging to certain theories, that doesn’t preclude rational people from talking about them as well. It’s the same kind of reasoning that produces arguments like, “Well, we can’t criticize Israel, because… Nazis!”

And, frankly, I have always found the idea that Covid started in a wet market much more racially charged than the idea of a lab leak.

The reasoning doesn’t make sense to me on multiple levels.