I don’t agree with their approach, but I’ll admit that their argument is sound.
Particularly the part about rejecting the opinions of an outsider.
I don’t want to live in Singapore, bit if this is genuinely how Singaporeans wish to run their society I do not consider it my place to meddle. Especially because, as they note in the response, all of us should focus on getting our own houses in order before prescribing to others.
Personally, I do want a common communication platform for people I despise because I want to be able to keep tabs on their public announcements. Also, I don’t want any tech platform to have sole authority over who can communicate, as in the present, that will invariably work against the left more than the right.
I do not want to share close proximity to them on a network graph, or regularly engage with their supporters, though. So I agree that federation is crucial. But to be clear, it’s not because I want to ban them from a platform, it’s because I want managed distance and better moderation.
I don’t mind Bluesky verifying them, but I’m glad that on Mastodon I don’t have to share the same giant server as them.
Yeah, it’s wild how clearly we can see that Palestine is the world’s laboratory for surveillance and state violence tech and tactics.
My aggravation at the people who run big tech companies makes me more interested in hacking than ceding tech to them.
I think stepping back from a lot of specific tools is appropriate. I’m trying to de-Google, and I’ve left a lot of platforms. I also appreciate unnetworked things like physical media, and music and e-books on non-networked devices.
But leaving tech overall isn’t appealing to me. I just recently started getting into mesh radio, for instance. It’s dope stuff.
This article doesn’t really seem to validate it’s headline. I was eager to learn more about the methodology and how to better detect corporate content, but I was disappointed that they apparently just made the leap from the claim that 15% of popular subs host a non zero amount of corporate manipulation to the claim that this represents the fraction of total content.
I’m not saying this to dispute how much of the total content is corporate bots. I’m just pointing this out because I actually care about the quality of statistical claims and data science, and I hate to see my ideological allies either misusing data because they’re dumb or because they don’t have a commitment to truth.
I read op’s question about whether money was the primary bottleneck facing scientists.
And that’s actually a reasonable question.
There is, unfortunately, a real efficiency problem in science.
The money spent is generally a great investment: you’re not just funding discovery: you’re also financially supporting millions of jobs that support discovery that include the businesses that sell to scientists and the restaurant staff in small college towns.
However if we look at where the money goes, it’s long been an open secret that a lot of the support costs are taking unjustifiable slices of the pie. Examples include what’s called “overhead expenses”, which are essentially astronomical rents universities charge their science departments. Also, equipment and repair costs are wildly inflated.
I would like more funding of research, but I would also like reforms to limit this kind of exploitative price gouging in science. But to answer the question: yes, science would still produce more social impact faster if given more money.
Gotta pay the gravity tax
Yes, 100%. That’s more than a red flag. A red flag is a warning sign of a problem. That’s just a problem.
Thank fucking God that they’re finally waking up. This is long overdue.
I think that if we want new folks, it would make a big difference is we organized the equivalent of a new member drive.
Currently, look at a default front page for your home instance and ask how enticing it is to a total newbie. There might be some good stuff, but it’s foreign and overwhelming. You feel out of place.
Now imagine if the first Friday of January had been “new subscriber day”. People on Reddit and Bluesky are taking about the fediverse and if it’s any good. And on Lemmy there’s a bunch of posts about finding the best instances and memes about being new on Lemmy. That’s a much more inviting beginner experience, and it makes it more likely for folks to come back the next day.
I really think planning for bursts of new folks is the way to welcome people.
I appreciate the distinction, but open source is always a spectrum, so I think the description is a reasonable application here.
First, the most honest answer is that it’s a shitty question. This ‘Sophie’s Choice’ promise is inherently designed to disrespect someone. In real life, you just react and try to save both, most likely based on who is a better swimmer, is closer, etc.
But the question between who you prioritize is valid. The answer is subjective, of course, but my advice would be that you prioritize your mother over a casual girlfriend/bf, but you prioritize a finance or spouse over your mother. And this isn’t hard to explain to Mom. I did. I said, “Hey Mom: remember how Dad always put Grandma in front of you because he was such a wimp, and it made you feel absolutely terrible? Well good news: you raised a better man than she did.”
She didn’t love it, but she got it. And she respected it.
I think this is a non event.
Mamdani has been publicly stating his opposition to the Israeli occupation for years. Israel’s government has been accusing him falsely of antisemitism since he became known. And the NY press has tried to rattle him over it since Israel began attempting to smear him, with no effect.
This is like holding a press conference to announce that the Berlin Wall has fallen. Yes. That was the state of affairs yesterday and the day before, and presumably will remain so tomorrow.
This isn’t something anyone needs to or will react to.
It’s pretty wild, because this is genuinely great politics and great policy. It’s weird that folks haven’t realized this and acted on it yet. Fingers crossed.
That’s what I said! Fifteen minutes isn’t far. But it’s no longer close.
About twelve.
You can hate US imperialism AND hate Chinese imperialism.
It’s actually quite easy if you just fucking hate imperialism.
I feel like the biggest problem in getting people to react to torture is that it’s so unrelatable.
I think a lot of people hear “stress positions”, “24 hour lights”, “pitch blackness”, and they think, ‘Well I’ve been tired before. I’ve been stuck in a hot airplane with the lights too bright. I’ve been in the dark before, these are minor discomforts.’
And I don’t think they understand that the point of all torture is to induce suffering. If the people doing this aren’t slicing someone’s body parts off with hot knives, it’s because you can get the same effect by telling someone to kneel on the ground and not letting them up for a full day, but there’s less mess.
It makes me really sad that I think people are often able to get away with torture because a key part of modern torture has been finding techniques that minimize visual signs of damage and have no similarity to things most people have experienced, and thus sound benign.
Not mentioned in all of this is that torture is – to many people’s surprise – actually very damaging for torturers too. The prison guards at this place are probably at an extremely elevated risk of intimate partner violence and suicide.
Fuck all it, especially weak-ass complicity in this fascist bullshit.
This is really deep.
I also gotta say: I reserve more respect for anyone who changed their attitudes to something I admire than someone who always held them. Me? I’m pretty progressive. But it’s not like I can take credit. I share similar views to most people with my upbringing. Holding these beliefs is about impressive as a ball rolling down a hill.
Questioning your beliefs and going somewhere else? That’s an achievement.
You make a point that I don’t see often addressed:
If Denmark, Germany, and Co are serious, they’d be hitting way harder.
I honestly wouldn’t be at all surprised if this works, and European leaders just say, ‘Sorry folks! We really tried to stop him, but we just got outplayed again! He’s too good!’