I think the format promotes conflict. Lemmy ultimately is made to be Reddit-like, so we shouldn’t be surprised when it produces Reddit user culture. Ultimately we need an entirely new format that promotes cooperation over conflict.

As for moderators, I also think the volunteer model is bad. They do important work and should be compensated for their labor.

And I will never be able to convince you otherwise! I could say that I think there are other factors which made you change your mind, give examples from my own evolution from anarchism to Marxism, we can trade replies back and forth for hours or days, ect etc

It would all accomplish nothing.

One thing I firmly believe is that arguing on the internet is 100% pointless and never accomplishes anything. We are too alienated and isolated and atomized on the internet to ever truly reach someone else across the gap of ideology and prejudice, everything bounces off because we’re all just strings of text on a screen. Every debate is another random encounter in the posting RPG. Rather than a public square, it’s a mob farm for exp.

I think online spaces can still be useful, but conflict is entirely useless. It’s just for fun.

They are planning to round people up by the millions and are doing it based on skin color and language. They’re putting them in concentration camps, with plans to build many many more camps to house all the detainees.

It’s an ethnic cleansing campaign.

It is, in fact, illegal for undocumented immigrants to own guns.

ICE is ethnically cleansing the country literally right now.

When I was younger it seemed politics were more rational and cruelty never seemed to be the point of doing nothing.

The cruelty was outside our borders. The rational, reasonable debate was for domestic issues. Foreigners got the bullet.

As the empire collapses the cruelty turns inwards i.e. fascism.

The secret to increasing profit is to cut costs, always, no matter what. Research? Workforce development? Safety? Just keep cutting costs, shareholders love it!

What do you mean we’re falling behind? We’ve cut so many costs, growth is infinite!

The math is 62% accurate? Is that what that’s saying?

The US has had three different distinct Red Scares, and before those it had a wave of white terror that defeated Reconstruction.

So, yes, this keeps happening. We’re just living during one acute part of a longer cycle.

I don’t think they’re trying to get in on the ground floor of the new paradigm, I think they have to make AI work or the whole economy blows up and so they’re going all in.

I’m a moderate and believe in supporting the lesser of two evils, which means critical support for enemies of US imperialism. I’m also something of a centrist because I believe anarchists and Marxist-Leninists and other left tendencies all have good ideas.

So yeah, I’m a moderate centrist.

They’re testing how hard they can squeeze their customer base and still profit. Prices will continue to increase as long as people pay.

There was actually plenty of toilet paper, it’s just that panic buying causes pointless shortages. If we had a functioning government they’d have rationed toilet paper to make sure everyone could get enough.

States without currency sovereignity or trade sovereignity probably can’t respond to pandemics without indebting themselves. If they can’t print money and can’t marshal the forces of production they’re basically reliant on market forces, and capital is happy to punish them for daring to get in the way of profits.

Related, COVID also proved to me that the EU is not a progressive historical force. It similarly turns sovereign nations into dependent states without currency sovereignity or trade sovereignity.

I think the fact that the US had a 9/11 every day for so long is actually a lot more horrifying than people being forced into screening to leave apartment complexes (which is what you’re referring to when you sensationally accuse them of “nailing doors shut”).

Being marched to my death was horrifying.

Stopping a pandemic means sacrificing some freedom of movement. The fact that China was willing to sacrifice productivity to save lives convinced me that politics are in command and, despite their market reforms, they remain committed to Marxism.

Well germ theory is woke! Didn’t you know?

I saw China take COVID seriously while I was marched off to work to die because my job was “essential” - the US, EU, Canada, it was basically every Western country except New Zealand (which is an island and basically became a bunker nation for billionaires and shouldn’t really count)

I became pro-China after that.

Beijing is right to see exporting AI hardware and models as leverage. Each Nvidia chip sent abroad is a new point on the board for American software and values. Every U.S.-branded LLM shapes AI norms globally.

Who was it that said you need read business press if you want to know what’s really going on in the world?

This just gives the game away. Imperialism is invisible in the rest of the media, but wsj just come out and say it.

Fake your death

Grow a beard

Change your name

Move to Brazil

Etc