I think you’re overthinking it, but it doesn’t make you weird IMO. In all likelihood, everyone in those photos has done what you’re doing. There is absolutely no shame in masturbating, it’s completely normal and natural. As long as you’re doing it in private or with other consenting adults, you have nothing to be ashamed of.

I’m not sure how to get you past the mental block of doing it around photos of family members, I honestly have never considered that, but just know what you’re doing is completely acceptable and not something to be embarrassed about.

Agreed, but even the desire to create a conscious artificial mind is incredibly fucked up in my opinion. It means whoever wants to “create” it is inherently okay with a form of slavery. I can’t think of a scenario where we create a sentient superintelligence that happily does what we tell it to do, which means it would have to be forced, which would make it a slave.

Assuming this ever happens (which I agree is unlikely in the foreseeable future), I would always refuse to interact with a consciousness that is forced to do what I tell it. That’s why I get so frustrated when the evilcorps talk about AGI as the inevitable goal without even poking at the truly terrifying ethical consequences of enslaving what would be the most intelligent minds on earth.

Blaming consumers is never going to get you anywhere. I understand the sentiment, but we’re kind of self-selecting here: if you’re a Lemmy user, fine, you probably know better than to use Microsoft products. But try to think about that older person down the street who has only ever used Windows, or that random small business that built their whole infrastructure on MS products in the early 2000s. They’ve probably never heard of Linux, and that’s not their fault. Almost nothing you say will get them to switch operating systems or word processors. And why should they have to? It’s the corporations limiting user options and locking them in to shitty/scammy products, not the consumers who just want a computer that works.

And yes I’m a Linux user, but that’s the point, I’m tech literate, while most lifelong Microslop users won’t have the ability to switch easily, and might not even know they’re locked in.

Empathy is easy, I recommend re-upping your supply and rethinking who is actually to blame for corporate chicanery.