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14specks

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14specks ,
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It’s not that you’re an idiot, but it’s wise to avoid using a chromium/blink based browser since they are building a dangerous monopoly. Firefox is the best known alternative, but there are a couple other options.

14specks ,
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Be careful about “unsubscribing” to various services.

They will unsubscribe you, but then they also have all of your information (name, address, anything else) on record and confirmed. They can profit when the sell that data to another mailer “service”. It’s like a Hydra.

14specks ,
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Right, many Europeans have basic consumer protections lol

14specks ,
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Yeah that tracks, do Google next haha

Why was a post about "What's the worst Lemmy community you've run across?" removed due to rule 2 when it seemed kinda weaksause compared to what is normally here?

Just wondering what the limit is on rule 2 as I see things like covid vaccine effect questions, what scams are still around and other spicy topics. Don’t want to make anyone upset but it seemed odd.

14specks ,
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Co-signed

14specks ,
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Key difference is that Bitcoin people want/need their numbers to go up,up,up as a measure of success.

Here, we are hoping to cultivate a healthy community (at either/both the instance and fediverse level). From my experience on various subreddits, focusing on growth is not a good way to do this.

Communities are defined more by who is not allowed in than by who is in the community. Lemmy phase 2 kicked off back in June, and it still needs some time to find its footing at a sustainable rate of growth.

14specks ,
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If I’m making a mistake, I don’t think that would be it. I’ve been observing Bitcoin and its community since 2011.

14specks ,
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Please don’t feed obvious trolls

14specks ,
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The thing is that on leftist forums, the stakes for a veganism debate are pretty high cause it easily causes a 50-50ish flameout.

Mods would appreciate if people like OP didn’t intentionally troll to stir that sort of thing up (if the discussion takes place organically and respectfully, then whatever).

Mods would also appreciate if people didn’t feed obvious trolls who are just starting things up, like you pointed out, there are specific places to post about that sort of topic.

14specks ,
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Leave the personal attack off in the future please

14specks ,
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Can you provide a source for this? Makes it easier to moderate if you can back up what you’re saying.

14specks ,
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Don’t do whatever this is.

14specks ,
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They should clarify for themselves I guess, but by my reading they were commenting on the general topic of “unemployment metrics” rather than the specific situation in the article. If that’s the case it’d be a different discussion entirely.

I’d hope that people understand that the PRC doesn’t have a robust social safety net as it stands currently.

14specks ,
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Before that can happen, we (as the non-ownership class) need to shift away from the capitalist mode of production, into a more advanced economy. On a global scale this is incredibly difficult, since the United States has a hegemonic influence over global economic affairs, and has been hostile to any states that attempt to subvert the capitalist mode. This is kinda sorta beginning to wane, but it’ll be a couple decades still until we see some real progress IMO.

14specks ,
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Literally this, nobody really cares about your “online persona”. If i haven’t added you on discord or something you’re just a star her to me IDC what your Lemmy account is

14specks ,
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UNESCO doesn’t bear any authority, so the answer would be “none at all” or something like that, I guess…

14specks ,
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I’m not going to take a hard stance here cause I don’t think a side by side comparison with Putin is a useful conversation to have, but I want to point out a couple things that may add some nuance to what you’ve heard before.

  • Since 1991, Ukraine has been in an increasingly precarious geopolitical position, with many differences among it’s population and political leadership about how to proceed. One could argue that Zelensky ended up stuck between a rock and a hard place, but at the end of the day his fumbling around and repeated motions towards joining NATO were bad political moves that nearly forced (kinda, maybe not forced idk) Russia’s hand into a military action. Even if going to NATO was definitively the correct choice (weird thing to think, tbh), he managed doing so incredibly poorly.
  • Be aware that Ukraine has had a lot of division among the populaton about whether the country should be Western/EU aligned or Russian aligned. There are many historical and cultural reasons for different regions, communities and individuals to have their particular views (like any political stance). Consider that if you spoke with a Ukrainian person somewhere outside of Eastern Europe, and used the English language, they are probably going to have a pro-western, pro-zelensky viewpoint. You probably won’t hear much from Russian speaking Ukrainians who wouldn’t prefer to emigrate to “the West”, and support Ukrainian alignment with Russia.
14specks ,
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Like I mentioned in my other comment, I think that both leaders can and should be criticized independently, a comparison between the two is not useful.

Neither leader is socialist, so in my opinion, neither truly has the best interest of their country’s working class at heart. There could be some observation and speculation about how the possible outcomes of the conflict could promote socialist aims, but that is still independent of both guy themselves.

14specks ,
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I’d encourage you to expound on this in your original comment, rather than start off with something inflammatory. It doesn’t promote an interesting discussion.

14specks ,
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Sure, like I said I don’t think it’s really important who is “worse”, it’s not a useful topic of discussion.

I did want to make a couple of counterpoints though

  • just cause Zelensky is popular, doesn’t necessarily make him a better leader. If we were to do a comparison (which we shouldn’t!) Putin is also widely popular along Russians. In both cases support for a wartime leader is going to rally, especially in Ukraine.
  • you certainly have infinitely more experience in the country than I do (dividing by zero ofc haha), but wouldn’t you have run into some of the same biases coming in as a foreigner (or foreign-born)? I don’t know your itinerary, and I’m not asking you to share, but the who, when and where is gonna make a difference.
  • as an example, I was interested in the interviews of the first two people in this video that I saw recently [watch starting at 3:15 till about 20 mins in]: youtu.be/drhgjxSJG6M located in the warzone in eastern Ukraine. Both are supportive of the Russian forces and appear to claim that such support in their local area is widespread.
14specks ,
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Can you substantiate that? I’m only tangentially familiar with his work. He’s certainly softer on Russia than other sources, but is he doing more than bringing “balance” to the conversation?

Watching the clip I showed, I could suspect that he may be leaving out other interviews he did where people were more pro-ukrainian, but at the same time, the woman in the video claims that about 80% of the town supports Russia, which would line up with what I previously understood about the politics of their region.

I don’t particularly care that much about the guys personal politics, and I haven’t had that much exposure to them, since my only interest so far has been these two interviews which I personally interpret as primary sources. I would in now way claim that these two people speak for anyone besides themselves, but what they both say is loosely backed up by the data I’ve seen.

14specks ,
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Fair, I’d be interested in examples, since I mostly know of him from seeing people talk about him on Lemmygrad or wherever (who have their own issues, of course). I can go find them myself though, I appreciate you giving me a general idea about what’s up wtih the guy.

I do appreciate him bringing these interviews on the ground, but I always want to do my best to account for bias and spin, even for things like that that appear straightforward. I haven’t even watched the second half of the video cause I figured it would feature him more (maybe that assumption was incorrect idk).

Definitely sounds like a crackpot who shouldn’t be taken too seriously from Wikipedia though. I just think calling something “propaganda” is a shallow criticism on its own.

14specks ,
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always_have_been_astronaut.jpg

14specks ,
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I’m not exactly with the other guy, but it’s extremely important to realize that ALL sources are biased. The Washington post and the New York Times both function as propaganda. They often serve as the mouthpiece of the United States Department of State or Defense, and are happy to cultivate public support for military conflicts that are in the interest of the American ruling class.

This is well documented in the book Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. You can also listen to the podcast Citations Needed to gain a better understanding about how this works in the modern day.

An example you may be readily familiar with is the Iraq War, in which US government officials repeatedly lied to the public and started a meaningless war, without any real journalistic pushback. This lead to an atrocity affecting millions.

14specks ,
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I’d thought that even the most liberal people on nü-Lemmy had at least read some Chomsky (or even watched the documentaries based on his work), but I guess we aren’t even there yet.

14specks ,
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Because most Christians don’t feel so entitled to expect others to live by their rules, and threaten them with death when they don’t.

Ok come on, my friend. I know a bible burning won’t get you the death penalty, but many many many people have been killed and imprisoned for not living to Christian values, especially in the United States. It’s “just a few crazies” or whatever, but it really isn’t since these actions happen in an environment of indirect public support.

14specks ,
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I see, I’m gonna make a low-ish effort post, but I’m happy to discuss further if you’d like:

  • Colonization still happens, but I think it matters that it happened in the past too. I would say that one of the most prominent recent examples would be the American invasion of Iraq. There are many political and economic aspects to the invasion, but one cultural angle is that it was widely supported by religious conservatives due to their opposition to Islam. American leadership was ghoulish in their own way, and to incompetent to actually colonize the country, but many of the literal footsoldiers joined the military to “get back at them for what they did to us”, although as we know, none of the 9-11 terrorists were Iraqi.
  • Another example that springs to mind is the ongoing homophobic and transphobic hate crimes. One specific example would be the Pulse nightclub mass shooting. I would suggest that most American Christians don’t support death for being gay, just the same as most American/Western Muslims don’t support death for burning the Quran, but in other countries where religion overlaps more with politics, both of these can be considered serious criminial offenses.

I only mean to suggest that both religions have a bit of bloodthirst in them, which doesn’t apply to everyone, but is certainly comparable. We can go deeper into the details, I just felt like you were giving Christians a bit of a pass that they don’t deserve.

14specks ,
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I mean, it’s an article from a Japanese source, but yeah sure the OP is biased or whatever, but so is everyone else who regurgitates the top headline from the NYT or BBC. Since the others are part of the dominant ideology, it appears to be more transparent.

14specks ,
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That sounds overly reductive to me

14specks ,
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You’re right, but there’s nothing humanitarian about a military conflict.

14specks ,
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I mean, that’s not strictly necessary either. Chinal allows a good many billionaires to exist, but they are hitting their emissions targets ahead of schedule, cause they don’t let the billionaires run the entire show like they do in the USA.

14specks ,
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Not in the US there isn’t

14specks ,
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libtards

I’m onboard with the spirit of the post, but I encourage you to find another insult

14specks ,
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Without a socialist party (as in, completely purged and free of all bourgeois influence), there’s isn’t a whole lot worth voting for at the federal level. Democrats repeatedly show that they are incapable of resisting the Republicans and take L’s constantly (see here).

I encourage everyone to instead organize with local political orgs that can eventually build this power. The DSA being the largest currently available (and just as flawed as the other options one may have, ofc)

14specks ,
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I agree with your assesment of the DSA, but our audience here isn’t ready for that. I want them to get into the DSA where we can continue trashing on them until they do something more useful.

They aren’t going to go from defending Democratic Party failures to Maoist Third-Worldist guerilla fighters (the correct sect of socialists, of course) overnight.

14specks ,
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Fuck Google

14specks ,
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As long as it’s in the form of a question

14specks ,
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So some people really not grasp that?

Actually, yes, the original FOSS movement had more right-libertarian roots than anything to the left, although nowadays some might see it as “common ground”.

14specks ,
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I think what sites have been running into is that it’s difficult to tell what is and is not AI-generated, so enforcement of a ban is difficult. Some would say that it’s better to have an AI-generated response out there in the open, which can then be verified and prioritized appropriately from user feedback. If there’s a human generated response that’s higher.quality, then that should win anyway, right? (Idk tbh)

14specks ,
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This then also makes me wonder how these models are going to be trained in the future. What happens when for example half of the training data is the output from previous models? How do you possibly steer/align future models and prevent compounding errors and bias? Strange times ahead.

Between this and the “deep fake” tech I’m kinda hoping for a light Butlerian jihad that gets everyone to log tf off and exist in the real world, but that’s kind of a hot take

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