#mythbusting

[blumineck]

If you can support the Arrows vs Armour 3 kickstarter, please do! These are some of the best tests we have of this sort of thing!

[mlembug]

Fact checking the discord ai training chain letter

it does not make sense to have "invisible magic discord bots which are hidden in your server" as a result of a supposed partnership between discord and some ai company, because if discord wanted to secretly give some ai company your messages or uploaded images, then

they don't need a fucking bot to do this, they already have the data

what makes you think you would able to counteract this by using discord's features

furthermore, "partnerships" are mutual: if a company claims that a partnership exists when no such partnership exists, discord can tell them to knock it off or announce that no such partnership exists, and guess what, the article does not mention any such partnership, it says "we launched an app", which is like, whatever, it's inside all the other shovelware hidden in the menus no one clicks.

the evidence for "invisible magic bots" is super flimsy and results in misunderstanding about how banning works (banning a user by id and then seeing the entry in audit logs). in reality, you can ban users that are not present in your server, which I've been doing as a preventive measure for years at this point when I see someone on another server doing stuff I would be banning for if they were present on my server.

you also can't add apps or bots to your server without having "manage server" permission.

furthermore, as a bot, you can't read messages on the server without opting in with enabling message content intent, and needing explicit approval from discord for this.

(this is what you see in discord developer portal in the bots settings. "Read more here" leads to this website)

in fact, "application commands" discord feature that the bot uses was introduced specifically so bots don't have to read every message on the server to see if it starts with an exclamation mark or whatever in order to know if to react to it, and how.

there are also "external apps" which are per-user, rather than per-app, but these are basically equivalent of a user DMing a bot, and they don't have access to anything aside from whatever user sends them, and, if the role has has "use external apps" permission enabled in the channel, they can send a message as a result of a user action.

and yes, potentially a member of your server could send some image in it to an AI company by using the application command, but then again they can also right click -> save and upload it to chatgpt. your threat model is fucking bonkers.

conclusion: the original message is fearmongering based on misunderstanding on how discord, or computers in general, work.

[marzipanandminutiae]

surprise, friend, you're one of today's lucky 10,000

guest at the museum: oh look, a fainting couch!

me, preparing to talk to him: :D

him: it's not surprising- I mean, if you look at some of those corsets-

me, now actively vibrating, about to jump in and blow his entire mind: :D :D :D

[umbralmarquis]

NLP, Erickson, and the Intelligence Myth

✦ On Shiny Things & Structure ✦ A skeptical reflection on hypnosis trends. It dismantles the allure of NLP and redefines the true requirements for profound trance. Consider this a philosophical fragment for practitioners.

✦ ᚺ ᚢ ᚲ ᚺ ✦

Then comes NLP. Something modern. Something shiny.

Yes—thought and language matter. Yes—meaning shapes experience.

But if Neuro-Linguistic Programming were the holy grail, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, wouldn’t it be far more consistent and effective?

Perhaps someone read the word programming and thought: brain = computer.

Sure. A pre–Windows 95 computer, complete with blue screens.

You use what works. Not what promises miracles.

And finally, the part that actually annoyed me:

The idea that Ericksonian hypnosis is only for intelligent minds.

Milton Erickson was a genius. Many of us study him for years and still fall short.

What he worked with was not intelligence. It was:

metaphor

ambiguity

flexible language

Ericksonian work is for creative minds, for rich inner worlds, for symbolic thinkers.

People like those who read and write on Tumblr.

The world is full of idiots who are highly hypnotizable. And full of creative people who make excellent subjects.

Intelligence is not the requirement.

Structure is.

✦ᛉJuliusᛇ✦

[defilerwyrm]

So is the whole "phallo is EXTREMELY dangerous and riskier than heart surgery" shit untrue too..I really hope it is...

Oh yeah, it’s absolutely a crock of shit.

Listen, any time you go under general anesthesia is risky, and the longer you’re under, the more risks there are. So a surgery that takes 6-8 hours, no matter what it is, is going to be potentially dangerous.

But it’s important to know that a risk being present doesn’t make it LIKELY. You take at least as much risk driving to the grocery store as you would having phalloplasty—and if lightning strikes and something life-threatening DOES happen to you on the road, you’re not going to have an entire team of highly-trained, well-equipped medical personnel literally standing over you seeing to your wellbeing when it happens.

The single most important thing that gets considered when deciding if a patient needs surgery is whether the potential risks are outweighed by the benefits. I think the fact a 2020 study found that 59% of trans men were under the impression that bottom surgery is “too risky” but 97% of those who’ve had radial arm flap phalloplasty report full satisfaction with the results says a lot, don’t you? (Source)

[whichgreathousewouldtheybepartof]

If the Mythbusters were cast in Game of Thrones / House of the Dragon / an ASOIAF spin-off, where should their characters hail from? Imagine you are the casting director for HBO.

The Wall & Beyond the Wall

The North

The Riverlands

The Vale

The Crownlands (King’s Landing) & The Westerlands

The Stormlands & Dragonstone

The Reach & Oldtown

Dorne

The Iron Islands

Essos: The Free Cities

Essos: Slaver’s Bay & the Outer East (Asshai, Yi Ti, Qarth, etc)

I have a unique answer to this

Voting ended onMay 30

If you need a guide for making a choice (read below):

1. The Wall & Beyond the Wall – A massive wall of ice stretches across the northern border of the continent. It is defended by the Night’s Watch, a sworn brotherhood made up of volunteers and criminals who give up their former lives to serve for life. Their jobs include guarding the Wall, scouting in the wilderness, and maintaining the fortresses along it. Beyond the Wall lies frozen wilderness of forests, tundra, and mountains. There, the Free Folk (often called wildlings) live in clans without lords or kings, surviving through hunting, raiding, or trading. Giants and other strange creatures also live in the far north.

Key Characters: Jon Snow, Samwell Tarly, Mance Rayder, Tormund Giantsbane.

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2. The North – The largest and coldest region of Westeros, ruled from Winterfell, a great stone castle in the center of the North. This is the land of the Stark family, one of the most important noble houses. The North is full of forests, tundra, and long stretches of snowy wilderness. It is sparsely populated, with mountain clans, coastal fishing villages, and marsh-dwelling families. People here are known for being serious, loyal, and bound by old traditions.

Key Characters: Eddard (Ned) Stark, Catelyn Stark, Robb Stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Rickon Stark.

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3. The Riverlands – A fertile region of rivers, farmland, and castles located at the center of Westeros, ruled from Riverrun by House Tully. Because of its central location, invading armies almost always march through here, leaving the countryside exposed to destruction. The Riverlands are dotted with smaller castles, villages, and farms, as well as inns and mills that rely on the rivers.

Key Characters: Catelyn Stark (born Tully), Brynden “Blackfish” Tully, Walder Frey, Edmure Tully.

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4. The Vale – A mountainous, wealthy land ruled from the Eyrie, a castle perched high in the mountains and considered almost impossible to capture. The Vale has fertile valleys, but its people are largely cut off from the rest of the continent by its steep mountain passes. Many of its nobles are proud of their ancient bloodlines. The Vale is also home to mountain clans, small groups of raiders who live outside noble control in the high passes.

Key Characters: Lysa Arryn, Robin Arryn, Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish.

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5. The Crownlands (King’s Landing) & The Westerlands – King’s Landing is the capital of Westeros, the largest city in the realm, and the seat of the Iron Throne, where the king rules. It is crowded with nobles, merchants, guards, commoners, and beggars. The city is known for its mix of wealth and poverty, political intrigue, and frequent unrest. To the west lie the Westerlands, ruled from the fortress of Casterly Rock by House Lannister, the richest family in the realm. Their wealth comes from gold mines, and they use it to fund armies and influence politics in King’s Landing.

Key Characters: Tyrion Lannister, Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister, Tywin Lannister, Joffrey Baratheon.

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6. The Stormlands & Dragonstone – The Stormlands are coastal lands constantly battered by violent storms, ruled from Storm’s End, a huge fortress famous for its strong walls. The people here are tough and battle-hardened. Just offshore lies Dragonstone, a volcanic island with a black-stone castle carved into the shapes of dragons. Dragonstone was once the seat of House Targaryen, the former royal family who conquered Westeros with dragons centuries ago.

Key Characters: Stannis Baratheon, Renly Baratheon, Davos Seaworth, Melisandre.

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7. The Reach and Oldtown – A rich and heavily populated region ruled from Highgarden by House Tyrell. It is known as the “breadbasket” of Westeros because its fertile lands and vineyards produce much of the realm’s food and wine. The Reach is also famous for its knights, who value pageantry and tournaments. Oldtown, one of the oldest and largest cities in Westeros, is a major port and home to the Citadel. The Citadel is a school and headquarters where maesters—educated men who serve as healers, teachers, and advisors to noble families—are trained.

Key Characters: Margaery Tyrell, Olenna Tyrell, Loras Tyrell, Samwell Tarly (at the Citadel).

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8. Dorne – The southernmost region of Westeros, ruled from Sunspear by House Martell. It is a hot, arid land of deserts, mountains, and coasts along the Summer Sea. Its culture and laws are different from the rest of the realm, partly due to its Rhoynish ancestry (a people who migrated from a distant river kingdom). In Dorne, women can inherit titles the same as men, and attitudes about sexuality and marriage are more relaxed compared to the rest of Westeros.

Key Characters: Oberyn Martell, Doran Martell, Ellaria Sand, the Sand Snakes (Obara, Nymeria, Tyene).

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9. The Iron Islands – A group of rocky islands off the western coast, ruled from Pyke by House Greyjoy. Farming is poor here, so the islanders survive mostly through fishing and raiding the mainland. Their society is built around seafaring and a religion dedicated to the Drowned God, which teaches that “what is dead may never die.” This faith emphasizes drowning as a ritual and glorifies taking wealth by force rather than working the land.

Key Characters: Balon Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy, Asha/Yara Greyjoy, Euron Greyjoy.

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10. Essos: The Free Cities – Across the Narrow Sea lies Essos, a vast continent of independent city-states. Each city has its own culture: Braavos is known for trade, banking, and a secret guild of assassins called the Faceless Men; Pentos is ruled by wealthy merchant princes; Volantis is an ancient port with large temples and a reliance on slavery. The Free Cities are filled with mercenaries, sailors, traders, and exiles from Westeros.

Key Characters: Arya Stark (in Braavos), Tyrion Lannister (in exile), Jorah Mormont, Illyrio Mopatis.

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11. Essos: Slaver’s Bay & the Outer East – Farther east along Essos lies Slaver’s Bay, home to the cities of Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen. These cities are built on slavery, with ruling families owning large numbers of slaves. Astapor is also known for training the Unsullied, soldiers who are taken as boys and brutally trained into an elite army. Beyond Slaver’s Bay are the grassy plains of the Dothraki Sea, where the nomadic Dothraki horse-lords live in mobile camps, raiding and trading across the land. Even farther east lies Qarth, a wealthy trading city, and Asshai, a mysterious port associated with dark magic and shadowy practices.

Key Characters: Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont, Daario Naharis, Khal Drogo, Missandei, Grey Worm.

[afwaahbusters]

A Screenshot Is Not Always Proof

The Digital Media Myth We Need to Stop Believing

Digital media culture today relies on screenshots as the definitive currency of truth. People treat these images like absolute evidence during celebrity scandals, political squabbles, and viral gossip sessions. Someone posts a clipped image of a chat log or a deleted tweet, and the internet essentially declares the mystery solved instantly. Investigation fades away. Questions become obsolete. Everything reduces down to collective vibes and performative outrage. Truth be told, this constant reflex to treat pixels as judicial authority remains a massive oversight in our modern habits. That is the reality. Accepting screenshots as objective proof is practically reaching for a mirage while dying of thirst. Users habitually forget to interrogate the actual origins of what they are viewing. What if the image is fake, meticulously cropped, or missing the critical context required to understand the exchange? Navigating the chaotic environment of digital misinformation requires recognizing that these files change hands faster than anyone can verify the underlying reality. They represent a dangerous shortcut in an age that demands patience. Digital platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, or X operate on specific visual dialects that our brains recognize instantly. When we see a familiar bubble design, a verified checkmark, or a standard timestamp, our cognitive biases latch onto that as an objective truth. It feels genuine because it mimics our daily digital lives.

Fakery succeeds because of this psychological familiarity. Reactivity dominates the online landscape. Most users consume information in a blur and react with raw emotion before stopping to analyze the data. Content that triggers anger, shock, or empathy travels at light speed across social feeds compared to dry, nuanced explanations. Algorithmic rewards for engagement prioritize these high-tension clips, turning dramatic, misleading screenshots into the primary drivers of internet traffic. It just works. Adding modern AI tools to this mix creates a landscape where fabrication becomes effortless. Sophisticated software is no longer a requirement; simple web generators turn anyone into a visual forger within moments. Changing a username, altering a timestamp, or inventing an entire conversation occurs in under sixty seconds. Beyond outright fabrication, cropping remains a pervasive weapon against the truth. A screenshot captures a single, frozen second while intentionally omitting the broader, messy picture. Imagine seeing a person yelling back at someone in a text thread. Without visibility into the preceding insults, that person appears unhinged and aggressive. Proper context dictates the true nature of communication, yet these images thrive on what experts call context collapse.

Reputations crumble daily because of these singular, static images used to fuel hate campaigns. By the time a full record emerges to tell the accurate story, the internet has already moved to the next controversy, leaving the original victim labelled by a falsehood. People latch onto the initial scandalous claim far longer than they attend to any subsequent, boring correction. Recurring issues like sharing five-year-old tweets as if they happened ten minutes ago further muddle our collective history. Parody accounts frequently trick gullible users who never bother to click the actual profile. Journalism suffers as well, with media outlets often reprinting screenshots as content instead of chasing down real sources and verified documentation. This creates a feedback loop where misinformation gains a veneer of legitimacy through repeated exposure. Artificial intelligence only deepens the divide by making images easy to fabricate, meaning our old intuition about visual evidence essentially holds no weight anymore. Deepfakes and synthetic conversations now blur reality to the point of exhaustion. Many individuals choose to trust a redacted, grainy screenshot from some random troll account over a multi-sourced, professional report. It turns out that velocity and sensationalism now dictate our standards for belief more than anything else.

Scrutinizing evidence is a dying art. Not every screenshot is a lie, but not every one is a holy document, either. Activists and researchers often save these files as necessary records before companies delete active data. They provide windows into genuine harassment or evidence of institutional corruption. The flaw is not the feature, but the blind trust individuals place in a single screen capture. Treating a file as a starting point for inquiry is mandatory, but treating it as a closing statement is reckless. Becoming a smarter consumer requires specific habits. Check the source first. If a faceless account with zero credibility pushes the image, skepticism remains the only logical path. Verify the account. Check the formatting. Scan for inconsistencies in the fonts or the spacing that might suggest a digital edit. Does the information appear on established news wires or other independent platforms that avoid the trap of unverified viral drama? If not, remain cautious. Slowing down represents the most critical act a user can perform. Emotional contagion on social media is a design feature, not an accident, and resisting that pull requires discipline.

Modern digital habits train the mind toward rapid consumption and away from deeper reflection. Scrolling through endless feeds encourages a state of agitation where critical thinking seems too time-consuming to execute properly. We are wired to react. We are not wired to verify. However, as AI tools improve, manipulated media will grow far more realistic than anything we have seen thus far. Detection will only get more difficult. Maintaining functional literacy in this environment is, therefore, a survival skill for the social landscape. Next time a claim arrives with the boastful declaration that the person has screenshots, take a breath. Do not let the visual format do the thinking for you. Investigate the origins. Search for the larger conversation. Examine the wider, messy context of the situation before deciding on a conclusion. Believing every flashy, viral, or emotive image posted to a public forum without performing even a basic level of investigation is quite possibly the single biggest mistake a person can make in the digital age. It is what it is. Dig deeper or accept that you are part of the problem. Logic demands that we look beyond the image to find the reality hidden just beneath the surface of the screen. Keep searching for the truth. It is rarely found in the first image you see.

[jeannereames]

I've seen this (somewhat) old book from the 1990s enjoying a comeback of sorts recently. It's shoddy history, folks, and in this video I explain why. I use Classical Greece to demonstrate why their cookie-cutter patterns don't work.