infuziSporg [e/em/eir]

I installed Lemmy, hoping it’ll be a good alternative

So what made you install Lemmy

If you interact with a website through an app, you are ceding both functionality and power. Angry Birds is an app, Signal is an app, Reddit and Lemmy are websites with URLs and you are duplicating the function of a browser if you use anything else.

I’d heard of Lemmy (and Raddle) since the late 2010s, and put them in the “things I’d like to pivot to at some point” category. The main subreddit that I posted on (a transgressive mix of edgy, caring, partisan, and weird) was quarantined and then finally banned in 2020. As a result I quit using reddit altogether, but after a few months I poked around and realized people from that sub had started a forked instance of Lemmy as a refuge.

The one thing that’s lackluster is the search function. Everything else is superior.

The lint filter that they recommend cleaning after each use, or a different filter?

Good question.

If the one party is founded and sustained by people who are sworn enemies of said corporate interests, there ensues an existential power struggle between the party and the corporations (foreign, domestic, or most often both), that typically ends up reaching beyond the borders of the country in question.

If the one party quickly becomes captured by foreign interests, chances are the party was founded with that intention.

Apply this lens to the last 107-119 years of history, and most of it will become much clearer.

So who watches the watchers? In a way we all do. But instead of this being a mere idealistic aphorism, there are mechanisms in place to ensure it. We enculturate people to value equality and not valorize themselves above others, we minimize the potential benefits of corruption and keep the punishments consistent, we ensure that the watcher is not a lifelong position, we ensure that watchers do not become a separate class, we subject the watchers to oversight and approval of those who are watched, and we set up the processes so that they only function when people are working together.

This is so much more extensive than the asymmetric and byzantine setup that passes for “checks and balances” in liberal democracies. Is it still possible for things to go awry as a few bad actors try to bend the framework to favor themselves? Yes, absolutely. And that is a challenge to the people setting up the framework, to keep the wrong people out initially and to make it strong enough that it can keep its integrity once the founders are gone.

This is only a few paragraphs in; on a larger screen you don’t even have to scroll.

This industrial revolution was precipitated by the discovery of the steam engine, various spinning machines, the mechanical loom, and a whole series of other mechanical devices.

What is so objectionable about that, or so hard about copying it?

Being required to read something for less than 60 seconds isn’t a violation of your rights- in fact, this is less than 1% of the time a EULA or ToS takes. It also takes less time and bandwidth than many of the AI-training Captchas nowadays.

If you have a problem with reading 30 seconds of something you have a feeling you might disagree with, the real problem is you not being willing to peek outside your bubble.

I’m not sure that fitting Earthlike habitats in giant spaceships would make sense without limitless exponential growth. Wouldn’t it be more feasible to put something on the surface of a planet?

No matter how advanced our technology gets, we are not going to get around the basic constraints on energy.

you really can’t make this sort of assumption

That was the original point about gendered language but you seem to have flipped it on its head.

As soon as I realized that it was similar to the Costa Rican flag but with 1 inversion, and switching the vowels of the latter out yielded “Cis”, I had to make the pun.

If it’s an ambiguous name you might have to check. Fortunately, Edie is an unambiguously female name, and the clear majority of binary trans people pick clearly gender-coded names.

What did you think it was… the flag of Cista Roca?

I am tickled by this and fully support your TIL process.

Never had that problem, maybe because I have the thigh-gap body type.

If you like doing your job and going home

You enjoy your employment and you even enjoy your commute. Then what’s the problem? Are your coworkers having an even better time at work than you are? I don’t understand.

People say they hate cabbage all the time, but cabbage is really great. You can make slaw with it, you can ferment it into sauerkraut or kimchi, you can steam it for a side or to put in a sandwich, you can add it to any kind of filling or stuffing, or you can roll other stuff inside it, you can boil it in a soup, it gives a great flavor to vegetable broth, it’s really nutritious and it keeps for much longer than other leafy greens.

You had a journey, a struggle, to get where you are. You don’t need to impress everyone or check all the conventional boxes in order to have a compelling life story.

One of the long lingering effects of mental and socioeconomic afflictions is that we don’t ever believe we are worthy.

They are absolutely huge hairy brawny angular posting units.

I just realized that “racer” with an Australian accent is “ricer” with an American accent. That makes it sound less mean.

60-65% of households in the USA are homeowners, either outright or through a mortgage. 80-90% of households in Eastern Europe are homeowners. It’s pretty clear that people who are perennial renters are mostly people who cannot clear the financial hurdle of a down payment. I don’t think the “some people don’t want to” line is a solid argument. It’s the exception thata proves the rule.

The repairs and property taxes and mortgage all add up to a total that is less than the rent, on average. Otherwise, landlords would have a disincentive, and every landlord would be operating at a loss.

The points you made are points that landlords use as justification for their occupation/position. Are you a landlord?

The Ur-Scam.

some high school composition notebook doodle shit

Kindergarten shit. “I want everything to be X.”

He would have named the car company teXla if he could.

What if we based our concerns off statistically significant realities? 🤔

• The prevailing morality is to follow an arbitrary set of rules, mostly made by and for a class of people who have dominated the political sphere for most of human history. E.g. “If this will violate Ownership™ of a thing as defined by law, you shouldn’t do it.”

• Another kind of morality is to consider the effects of an action. E.g. “If this makes someone’s life noticeably harder or more miserable, you shouldn’t do it.”

• Another kind is to look at the social relations. E.g. “If this enriches yourself at the cost of someone who is already worse off than you, you shouldn’t do it.”

What source of moral code do you subscribe to?