I like YunoHost. That’s an all-in-one solution to do the selfhosting for you. So you won’t learn a lot about the intricate details of the tech, but you can install things with a few clicks. That’s nice if you just want to use stuff. And that project has some track-record. I’m using it for years to self-host Peertube, Immich a Nextcloud and a few other things.

Correct. We currently have some sentiment against liberal spaces and DEI programs and so on. And some people think it’s the war against straight white men. But having a men’s groups or women’s groups or safe-spaces to talk freely about whatever topics isn’t authoritarian. The opposite of it is equally true. You can’t discuss certain topics without the correct space for it, and not allowing them to discuss how they like is authoritatian as well!

Oh man, I’m a bit late to the party here.

He really believes the far-right Trump propaganda, and doesn’t understand what diversity programs do. It’s not a war between white men an all the other groups of people… It’s just that is has proven to be difficult to for example write a menstrual tracker with a 99.9% male developer base. It’s just super difficult to them to judge how that’s going to be used in real-world scenarios and what some specific challenges and nice features are. That’s why you listen to minority opinions, to deliver a product that caters to all people. And these minority opinions are notoriously difficult to attract. That’s why we do programs for that. They are task-forces to address things aside from what’s mainstream and popular. It’ll also benefit straight white men. Liteally everyone because it makes Linux into a product that does more than just whatever is popular as of today. Same thing applies to putting effort into screen readers and disabled people and whatever other minorities need.

If he just wants what is majority, I’d recommend installing Windows to him. Because that’s where we’re headed with this. That’s the popular choice, at least on the desktop. That’s what you’re supposed to use if you dislike niche.

Also his hubris… Says Debian should be free from politics. And the very next sentence he talks his politics and wants to shove his Trump anti-DEI politics into Debian… Yeah, sure dude.

Hmm… Would be interesting to find out what kind of effect that has on the average marriage or relationship 😅

Likely everyday stuff… Meeting minutes, phone or video conferences and such…

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9j68t0a39Jk

Sure. I mean we seem to be a bit different and have different visions. So I’m not sure if I’m the correct person to take your idea to pieces and add my spin on it… That could take away from a clear vision and turn it into a mess. Maybe it’s better if I do my thing and you do yours… But I’m not sure about that. My DMs are open, so feel free to DM me. I’m just not sure whether I’m able to contribute.

I meant both sex and gender. They regularly fail to tell me a lot for my own real life. I like some people and dislike others and it’s easier for me to talk to / work with / collaborate or empathize depending on various circumstances. Personality traits, shared goals… Maybe sharing something or it’s the opposite of that. I believe gender or sex or identity is a bit overrated and so is stereotyped thinking for a lot of applications. Or the need to conform to a stereotype. Dress and identify however you like, make sure to give your children an electronics kit, a plastic excavator and a princess dress… And unless that’s really important for some niche application, don’t feel the urge to look into people’s pants and check what’s in there.

You’re welcome. I mean it’s kind of a factual question. Is gender an indicator on its own? If yes, then the rest is just how statistics and probability work… And that’s not really a controversy. Maths in itself works 🥹

I’d also welcome if we were to cut down on unrelated stuff, stereotypes and biases. Just pick what you like to optimize for and then do that. At least if you believe in the free market in that way. Of course it also has an impact on society, people etc and all of that is just complex. And then women and men aren’t really different, but at the same time they are. And statistics is more or less a tool. Highly depends on what you do with it and how you apply it. It’s like that with most tools. (And LLMs in the current form are kind of a shit tool for this if you ask me.)

Right. If it’s true that women statistically outperform men (with same application documents), it’d be logical to prefer them just on gender alone. Because they likely turn out to be better.

Issue is they probably want to pattern-recognize something like merit / ability / competence here. And ignore other factors. Which is just hard to do.

LLMs reproducing stereotypes is a well researched topic. They do that due to what they are. Stereotypes and bias in (in the training data), bias and stereotypes out. That’s what they’re meant to do. And all AI companies have entire departments to tune that, measure the biases and then fine-tune it to whatever they deem fit.

I mean the issue aren’t women or anything, it’s using AI for hiring in the first place. You do that if you want whatever stereotypes Anthropic and OpenAI gave to you.

I think after initial installation, you open a browser with the post-installation step and configure a username and password there. I’m not entirely sure, it’s been some time since I did it. But depending on installation method, I don’t think it has a provided password.

General password advice: Check caps lock, and if you use like a German keyboard if ‘z’ and ‘y’ are swapped.

I’ve briefly tried both Garage and MinIO and they both work as advertised. Though I did it for experimentation on self-hosted services, so I don’t have any experience with large-scale or real-world use.

I think you misunderstand the problem. You can do that, yes. But have you ever moderated a diverse group of people? They’re all very different. Some are bold and loud. Some aren’t. Some are introverted or quiet. Or you somehow need to make them feel comfortable and safe before they speak up at all. Some say the first thing that comes to mind and they talk a lot, and some aren’t even part of the conversation and as a moderator you need to make them speak up at the right moment, effectively silencing the other people, because then you’ll get their nuanced opinion and they used the time to really think it through.

I’ve managed some people in smaller groups over the time and I can tell you your approach just silences the interesting people. You won’t end up with all opinions that way. You get the opinion from the dominant people, mostly the perspective of the confident men amongst them and relatively simplistic ideas. And the result of the entire conversation just won’t be great that way.

Edit: That’s due to the nature of the conversation and the dynamics with people. Additionally you can’t even talk about some topics this way. If something is dear to me and complicated, I can’t let that become subject of ridicule and let people pick on it. That’d really hurt. So I won’t even bring it up.

Thanks for the explanation. Yes, looks like the combination you have in mind might not have been tried before. We had free speech forums. Which mainly failed to achieve their goal of becoming a marketplace of ideas. And we have several platforms for public participation. To collectively collect ideas and vote on them in a democratic process. (citizenos.com adhocracy.plus consuldemocracy.org and likely several others) I think those address NGOs, municipalities, government… and of course the people on the other end.

They might not exactly have the same scope you seem to have, though.

I think the main aspect will be the social part, not technology. People regularly come with preconceived opinions. Echo chambers are really strong these days and most people decline a meaningful conversation, to learn things and change their opinion. They come for affirmation and to blast their opinion at other people. And you’ll find a study and scripture to support pretty much anything. At least that’s what regularly happens to me. And people more to the sides of the political spectrum aren’t even open to reason and facts. But you’re likely aware of that. I think it’s the main issue. To first gather people around one table, and then make then listen to each other. Which is just very hard to pull off. They regularly don’t volunteer to do it.

I think the main issue is that the Bible isn’t concise enough for a supposed divine book. It rarely tells me useful things and what to do in my modern life in the big city. Instead it has a lot of passages about camels, living in the bronze age and so on. And I think that’s because of what it is. Written by humans, a long time ago, shaped by their perspective. If God had wanted it to contain absolute truth, he shouldn’t just have appointed them to write it, but handed out some absolute truth.

And I can see how we can interpret all kinds of things into it. We definitely have the “Christians” who focus on hate. Who run around with these “God hates fags” signs and they find all kinda of things to make other people’s life miserable. We have several variants of Christianity and they disagree on many details. We had things from the Spanish Inquisition to today’s more liberal times. All based on pretty much the same text. And why is that? Are 99% of people throughout history, and the other variants of current Christians all just wrong and on the wrong path and I’m the only one understanding it correctly? Or who is? Because I really need to know if I’m expected to follow it.

I think it’s because Christians do in fact base their morals not just on straightforward literal bible verses. That’s why they genuinely and wholeheartedly held different beliefs in the middle ages. That’s why they’re able to adopt to societal progress. We don’t just make women’s life miserable any more. They got the right to vote and they’re supposed to have equal opportunities now. We even allow them to become teachers. And that’s pretty much in direct violation of the bible. Yet I have some friends who are teachers, some even for religion. And the protestant church here even has a male and a female priest and she doesn’t view her role as to stay quiet and bear childs. The catholic church which I’ve grown up in thinks that’s not how it’s done and they don’t appoint females. (Plus she has some formal education on scripture and the inner workings of the Church, so I trust she knows more about it than I do.)

Point being: Women’s rights are not an achievement of the church. They didn’t sit down, have a covenant or concile and then changed the world to be more open towards women… It’s the other way around. Society made progress, and it was a long hard fight. And people adopted.

I think it’s basically the same thing with the stands towards LGBTQ+ people.

And we have a few other issues in the catholic church, like Maria 2.0. And the vatican’s long held ideas towards contraceptives which are highly problematic because it contributes to spreading HIV.

I have little issues with you and your personal belief system. The issue is that we’re all part of the same world and it has quite some impact. And the church still has a big influence. They employ some of my friends, they run entire hospitals and more, several big charities… They shape society. And I’m everything but indifferent towards that. And I don’t view myself as an outsider, because I’m living amongst Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics and all sorts of people. We’re really one because we share the place we live in. And it matters what we do, both individually and collectively.

I have a problem with people who say scripture has to be taken literally. None of the people I talked with, even with ranks in the Church or a formal education in scripture, has ever told me that, and that’s all there is to it. I know such people exist, though. It’s not the way I learned it. They gave me the text, but also added context, historical context and told me how we’re fitted with a brain with the capability to reason, to understand meaning, and I need to use it. And that got me to where I am.

Luckily the community around me mostly shares what I recognize in your comments as well. How “The gospel” means “good news” and that’s the central point of how you’re supposed to practice it.

Edit: And to add some conclusion: I sincerely think all the laws governing sexuality, like outlawing anal sex, or teaching how the death sentence is appropriate for coitus interruptus (contraception) are the way of the Old Testament. It’s in the spirit that humans are meant to suffer for sins, not enjoy life. And that has been replaced by the “good news” part and the new covenant.

I mean what do you think? Do you think intimacy being enjoyable is God’s crude way to punish us, or is there more to it after Jesus? Do I deep-clean the couch and break all the pottery and not sit down in my own home for half a month each month or do you think the invention of the washing machine and sanitary products changed how we deal with female biology? And what’s with the female priest in the protestant church here? I’ve listened to her speak in the church and she views that as her job. I don’t even have to revert to the Old Testament to judge. Paul has a very clear stance on that. What’s correct in your eyes? Because I think this is very similar to what we’re talking about. And answers to these questions could help me understand how archaic cleanliness rules apply to modern times, and how more liberal approaches in society translate to scripture.

No, I’m not a Christian. I’m sorry, now I think I should have lead with that, or not failed to recognize you were under the assumption I was… I have such an upbringing, I’ve been part of the church. But I myself don’t have the belief in me, that what’s in the Bible are factual truths. Still, that doesn’t stop me from being interested in Jesus, his life and teachings. And to some degree the scripture itself.

And thanks for the good conversation and your perspective. I learned a lot of things. And I looked some up. My intention was basically that, not proclaim you were wrong. That’d be very hypocritical if I were to try to prove you wrong on the basis of scripture, which I don’t even have as the basis for my own morals. I still think these things matter, though. And I follow how the catholic (and protestant) church around me has started blessing same sex couples, they have campaigns now for plurality and welcome such people amongst themselves. And the attached youth organizations sometimes take part in rainbow events like pride month. At least where I live. And from what I get from our conversation, we’re likely on the same page here, when I say I welcome that and I think it’s a “good” advancement the church made. (It wasn’t always like this.)

I think with “the act” itself, we can’t settle our differences. I think the entire limitation of sex to procreation isn’t right, and I don’t base that on scripture. You gave me quite some insight about your perspective, and I still struggle with the translation and the context it is in and its interpretation, but I think I have at least some understanding now.

God cannot be evil.

Yes, I’m wrong here. I think it’s a bit of a technicality. He created evil (Isiah 45:7) and no matter if he commits the same thing as evil, per definition that never makes him be evil.

What about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, or the many miracles He performed?

I think it’s a metaphor. And not even the most important one (to me). I think the important part is that he died for us. And then they added some more fluff to the story. It really brings it home and sets him apart as the messiah if there’s an added resurrection. And well, I think performing miracles was quite common for prophets back then and paranormal things happened often. Muhammad also performed many miracles including similar ones like providing supernatural food. Various other people did supernatural acts. And people split the sea and did all kinds of things in the Old Testament.

I’m still very unconvinced about the entire homosexuality thing. I mean the Romans text is kind of the God of the Old Testament, needy for valudation and full of wrath. And then he was pissed and gave humans sexual desires contrary to nature. And that and the “shameless acts” are a bit unclear. Whatever that is supposed to mean if I’m not allowed to interpret it. I’d say men loving each other in a genuine way surely can’t be that, there’s no shame or harm in that.
The Corinthian thing is more it. Still needs context though, since it requires knowledge about sex practices back then and what has been considered immoral by society back then, because it mostly refers to that. And then we have the translation in the way.

My big issue, if that’s not concerned with pederasty… What part of the New Testament is? Or is age just not the problematic part of it, …that’d be completely fine to do for Christians…, just the same gender needs clarification?

You aren’t in any position to condemn the inspired word of God.

If it promotes adult men sleeping with underage boys, or is indecisive about it, I’ll just refuse that kind of “inspiration”. I think it’s immoral. God can strike me down for that if he likes, and if he’s in a position to do that, still doesn’t change my mind about the subject.

The “although” I placed there was because […]

Yes, you were talking about something else. People just tend to lose me when talking about God’s unconditional love and then following the sentence up with a “but” or “although”. I think we agree here. I have reason to believe the New Testament is about unconditional love. And that’s reflected at many places in it. Most people add a “but”, or “although”, an we’re immediately in dangerous territory. And the people calling themselves Christians and waving signs with “God hates fags” didn’t understand the core of that the New Testament stands for. They’re simply wrong. But that’s not what you said.

In the old times God was kind of evil. He send plagues, told people to kill each other including all women and children, just the young girls are okay to keep. Nonchalantly drowned pretty much all animals which were pretty much innocent in mankinds wrongdoings. Or he casually dropped them on their heads. It’s not like that any more for Christians. That’s replaced by Gods unconditional love for his children. And the way of Jesus isn’t to blame them and lecture them on how they’re wrong all the time. But specifically omit that and show them just(!) the love, and that gets them where they need to be. So that’s why I think we should never follow up such sentences with a “but”. (And you lost me, which was due to me.)

Are you talking about the plagues of Moses? If that’s the case, then what do you propose happened?

I propose it’s part of the supposed origin story of a tribe. And the hardships they had to endure. I have no reason to believe superstitious things happen and physics can be contradicted. Plague of locusts exist and all kind of other things. But not random frog droppings in the way portrayed there.

Btw that’s also the source for the (6000 years) young earth theory, because as part of the origin story, it includes a family tree and you can add the numbers up.

You are drawing a huge and dangerous brush over here. […] It is obvious then that stuff like that is up for interpretation. But then when you get to Paul’s epistles […]

I think my main issue is that I completely fail to understand how I’m supposed to know which is open up to interpretation and what’s meant to be taken literally. Am I supposed to use reason and my deductive skills here? But that’s kind of interpretation again. So I can’t do that. And to my knowledge the Bible doesn’t really come with an instruction manual what’s true and what’s over exaggerated or just a nice (but false) story. Or do I just take what some other human said as word for it?

why do you grant homosexuality an exception?

I tried to explain that before. Because it’s not there. The text doesn’t use the word homosexuality, but “Arsenokoitai”. And the passages regularly add constraining adjectives. Which just isn’t the case for adultery. The translation is way more forward for that one. And we have more occurrences in the Bible which make it very clear that that one isn’t just meant within a certain context, or comes with exceptions. Also Jesus talks about other important issues himself, but for homosexuality that’s all in parts added by other people. So that’s why I treat that differently.

I mean we have a bit more of an issue here. I started with “depends on whether you ask the church or Jesus”. So I’m not really bothered by what Paul thought or wrote down, or covenant theology tells me. If homosexuality were to be important to Jesus, I’d expect it to show up in the Sermon of the Mount or something, and him clearly addressing that big issue. Or I’d like to read some nice parable on how he went to the gay club. But curiously enough, these passages don’t exist.