The Picard Maneuver

It has to be either Elden Ring or Baldur’s Gate 3.

I prefer how information dense and responsive steam is.

Epic is laggy, logs me out constantly, and is inefficiently organized (at least by default). I don’t want to scroll through cards or change my sorting filters/layout each time I want to find something. When I open steam, it has a permanent tab that says LIBRARY at the top, and when I click on that, it gives me a massive scrollable list of my games, defaulting to A-Z. Simple is better.

Plus, user reviews are really nice to have when considering dropping $ on something.

This is current problem in society that we don’t tolerate different opinion.

Exactly this. When online platforms become too homogeneous, any deviation from the typical opinions that are shared seems like a terrible, inexcusable offense that someone must do something about - thus, reinforcing the bubble.

We need to be able to disagree with each other and still get along.

Since most people are talking about the sign-up barriers, I’ll mention culture and reputation.

I love Lemmy and Mastodon, but whenever I’ve seen the fediverse brought up elsewhere, someone inevitably shuts down any curiosity by suggesting that it’s a political echo-chamber. I don’t think that’s accurate for all of it, but if that reputation is out there, we probably need to make an effort to show that there’s a broader appeal. If the average person is expecting the fediverse to be the left-wing equivalent of something like “Truth Social”, I could understand the reluctance to adopt it.

I try to watch what I read online, and it truly helps.

Do:

• Keep yourself informed by reading bland articles about climate studies with direct interviews from the scientists conducting them.

• Stay knowledgeable about who to vote for to support reasonable climate policies.

Do NOT:

• Read articles that inject opinions from the web journalist, terrifyingly worded headlines designed to get you to click, or anything written for a secondary purpose (e.g. voter mobilization).

• Get your info 2nd, 3rd, or 4th hand from social media personalities on tiktok, youtube, twitter, or any website with an algorithm than rewards the most extreme takes with more engagement.

• Let fear prevent you from living the life you want to live or making long term plans.

Yes it is.

It’s morally wrong, but people who lie on the internet are not criminals.

The fault I find with this reasoning is that it only works retroactively. The determination of whether or not this random woman committed a crime when she tweeted a rumor relies on the actions that other people decided to take.

If her tweet hadn’t gone viral, would it have still been a crime? That’s an unsettling way to determine whether someone is a criminal who needs to be locked up or not.

Allowing others’ speech is the default. The ethical question is where we draw the line in silencing or punishing someone’s speech.

In the US, the line would generally be specific threats or calls for violence. Someone being hateful or spreading awful rumors online could be a lawsuit by the wronged party, but you aren’t going to have cops show up at your door with handcuffs.

I appreciate the discussion. I knew this wouldn’t be a popular take and almost deleted it before commenting.

Again, I think spreading lies on the internet is an appalling thing to do, but I just wanted to share my disbelief that someone could be arrested for it. Like, imagine if the cops showed up with handcuffs for everyone’s grandparents for every racist email forward (or Facebook post) they shared.

I know it’s tempting to want bad things to happen to people we don’t like, but I think situations like this are a test of our ethics and values.

Spofforth, 55, posted the false claim at 4.49pm on Monday, July 29, the day of the attack, saying: ‘Ali Al-Shakati was the suspect, he was an asylum seeker who came to the UK by boat last year and was on an MI6 watch list. If this is true, then all hell is about to break loose.’

Not defending this woman, but as an American, the thought of being arrested for lying on the internet (or repeating a rumor, as she claims) seems insane.

I think it’s much less intimidating to new users now compared to when I joined last year. The barrier to entry has been reduced significantly.

There are tons of active communities now, mobile apps that work great (this is a big one), and many more tools to block content that you don’t want to see.

Public opinion seems to be souring on all the big corporate social media sites, and I truly think if we’re able to get the word out about federated social media platforms, people will jump ship.

Also, it’s hard to dislike a platform that isn’t showing ads, selling user data, or generally making decisions for the enrichment of shareholders.

Well that’s no surprise. Raising animals for meat is horribly inefficient compared to plants.