I would still warn to be cautious, I feel that sites like Reddit fell a bit because it became compromised both at the admin and the moderator level by bad actors that slowly got promoted to positions of power.

Anyone with authoritarian sympathies should not be given the keys to moderate instances, imo. Users should condemn all forms of authoritarianism if they want to be more trusted.

History serves as a record for the decisions of those who came before us. I believe it matters so that we can learn something from both the mistakes and the pivotal moments of the past.

Personally, I was convinced about just how much history mattered when I took a class on it taught by a veteran. The way we avoid making poor decisions -decisions which bring about the premature deaths of countless young men and the innocent, through acts of war - is by learning from our past and looking for a better path.

Philosophy matters for the same reasons, imo. If we are not taught how to reason, how can we expect to live a life that has any meaning or purpose? Both for ourselves and for others. If we’re not taught how to see through the dangers and misdirection of logical fallacies, for instance, we can more easily be bought into a lie or blame a scapegoat for all of our problems.

What makes something useful to you? Does it need to be something done or learned purely for the sake of profits? Does it need to be cold and unfeeling data for it to matter?

I think the leadership is less socially conservative compared to the past, but they represent some very conservative bases so they more or less are having to crawl progress forward or they risk a schism.

The previous pope, Pope Francis, stacked the Vatican with more progressive leaning cardinals. I believe Pope Leo will be following in Pope Francis’ footsteps in terms of appointments.

Both likes and dislikes, imo. Bad actors and their bots can make it appear as though their stance is a widely held belief, they can dog pile dissidents, they often attack a straw-person for a point you never made to pull others against you and derail the conversation, etc.

With user level tools at your disposal, such as on BlueSky, you can at least coordinate a response to flag potential bad actors and even have the options to mute/block them by default. If your account were to be hacked and publishing disruptive content which was not something you would post, then your account could end up on these mute/block lists and you’d need to communicate the issue with the individuals that maintain these mute/block lists.

Hear me out, they could just offer a non-profit insurance option through the state; this would make private companies need to be offering better benefits to consumers to stay competitive. There is no need to remove baseline benefits for people at all.

I feel like the split between leftists and liberals really isn’t that big at all, assuming the people being talked about aren’t diehards behind people like Schumer or are scorched-earthers. There’s a vein of liberalism that builds towards the same exact goals that are leftist in nature.

I see progressive liberalism for instance being focused on working within what currently is built out to get to those goals of helping people reach self-actualization and living stable lives without having to be concerned about if you’ll be able to retire, have healthcare, have childcare, housing, food, disease, or other common concerns.

I think defederation only really makes sense if there is a concern of botting. Individual bad actors should be banned on a case by case basis, blanket banning seems shortsighted. However, I do believe there are bots on some instances now, compared to say a year ago where I believe they were more far and few between.

Part of my issue is also with bad actors “flooding the zone”. If enough noise is getting pushed constantly by bad actors/bots, it can sway public opinion just by virtue of people seeing those opinions more often. This was one of the things that killed Reddit for me, personally. Well that and a slew of other issues.

I feel it’s a bit tacky as a first question, but if I’m not asking it at some point I personally feel like I’m not making a real effort to know someone.

For a lot of people I think it’s just their go-to ice breaker since most people have a job or some kind of education they are involved in.

I personally really enjoy hearing about many people jobs since they really open my eyes to a different lifestyles and working environments out there, or I might get the scoop on workplace drama stories.

This isn’t an issue of Lemmy itself, but I realized after I made the switch that I personally am a bit burnt-out from the Reddit model in general at this exact moment.

I’m using other Fedi apps more at this moment in time. I’ll probably be more active later in the year, but it’s a nice little break being on the smaller Fediverse apps where things are a bit more personal with the people I’m interacting with, which has been fun for me.

I think Lemmy/Piefed will grow to get more Reddit sized with time. Personally, I get like 10x the engagement on comments and posts here than I ever did on Reddit, which to me makes it much more joyful to be around.

You can trust a name like Mantis Toboggon.

[+3]! I must have come across a few of your before.

It took me awhile to even realize how it worked, but it tracks the total number of comments or posts that I’ve liked from another person. You’re number for me shows as [+1]!

At first I thought it was an instance based like system lol. Incidentally I feel that would have been a cool serparate thing to track for how popular posts are based on the likes of other people from your shared instance.

I’m not sure if it’s an app specific thing, Lemmy specific, or what, but this is one of the built in features on the Voyager app for me at least.

>be Germany

>create a fake language called “Deutsch” just for laughs

>get everyone in Germany in on the joke so you’re all “sprechen sie Deutsch”

>continue pranking tourists for years now, everyone’s gotten pretty good at selling the bit as well

>one day some ‘geistesschwache’ accidentally leaks the script we’ve all been using

>oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck

>mfw people mistake it for a translation guide

[+2] next to you!

[+3]! Thank you for the laugh

It’d be kinda fun if the Fediverse made its own hybrid English dialect. At the very least it would create a unique niche that’s only on the Fediverse. That alone would draw in some people wanting to get in on the fun.

You really notice how tight knit Lemmy is if you have user specific scores enabled or if you leave yourself tags for specific users. [+1] was already next to your comment for instance. Whenever I see double digits profiles I know those are usually regular posters.

I wouldn’t say those three things are inherently logically incompatible, but there would be a lot of grey areas.

The power structure of the federal government doesn’t make it any easier to actually exercise the federal government to accomplish helpful objectives, but making things worse is a relatively easy exercise.

The focus on state level politics seems much more meaningful to actually accomplish any goals, since at least there is not as big of a hurdle where land and money have more power/representation than real people.

For the record, I said several authoritarians, I didn’t say every one was one. I would say your reading of my comment was uncharitable at best and rude at worst.