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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 25th, 2023

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  • it’s worth donating even if you disagree with the devs personally. My impression is they’re decent about making Lemmy a tech project not a personal political platform, and treating the Internet respectfully

    I want to underline this. And ask the reader to put themselves in the devs’ shoes for a moment.

    Usually, when people have strong opinions, like extreme political views, they try to further their goal wherever they can. To abstain from that desire, and create tools which can be freely used, even by their political enemies, requires a considerable amount of decency and deserves our respect.

    Either this, or they value FOSS so much (more), that they still keep Lemmy open for everyone.

    In a way, they support people from the opposite side of the political spectrum, by providing them their platform freely. Isn’t that exemplary in putting the fedi spirit above political differences?




  • I believe we (as in, people) all have a responsibility to hold each other accountable. But we can also only do so much, and inserting yourself into a toxic community …

    Me too, both. That we have responsibility for others and that we are not obliged to put ourselves at harms risk.

    But this is a particularly shitty, maybe wicked problem. There are three groups: A bullies B, and C could stop A, but isn’t bothered by anyone. Now, is C obliged to pick a fight with A, or is B just in bad luck to be born as a B?

    I think here, it is very easy to have strong opinions, while very hard to formulate a concise moral argument. Things get muddier/harder the more we factor reality in.



  • A debate between people who read the source and others who project preconceived narratives onto facts. Before this sadly popular meme, I thought the latter was a misdeed of climate “skeptics”. It’s quite painful to see how long-lived this meme is. It makes us look as bad and post-factual as the opposition. What do we do about this? Accept it as human nature? In consequence, stop blaming “skeptics”, and people who rather believe what they want and don’t look up, because we do exactly the same? I think we can and should do better, hence my effort here.

    The core point people make and take away from this meme is “It’s not us, it’s them!”. Meaning, consumer emissions don’t matter, because corporate emissions are so much bigger.

    And in exactly this core point, this meme is misleading. Because “our” emissions are included in “their” emissions (that’s what phase scope 3 is about). It’s like a child blaming their parents that they spend so much on food, while living off their purchases.



  • Probably, yes. Which means, this post is quite misleading.

    Carbon majors is about fossil fuel producers. Drilling oil, mining coal. This is the first misleadioning: Big and popular companies like Apple are not covered. They also count whole national sectors as one producer, like “China (coal)”. Not what the average reader might think when reading “company”. Misleading.

    Further, the report includes IIRC 3rd phase emissions. Meaning emissions caused by end consumers using the product. Meaning you burning coal to use electricity, or fuel to run your car.

    That doesn’t mean these companies (producers, sectors) are guilt-free. But we should hate them for the right reasons, of which there are plenty.







  • Offering a slight damper / correction:

    This is about two things (design and ownership), which are correlated, but not identical.

    Malicious design can be things like:

    • Algorithms to keep people engaged
    • UIs to confuse users (luring them to purchases, or making ‘cancel’ hard to access)
    • Using intermediate currencies to make it harder to assert value

    Obviously, these patterns and practices can also be applied to a FOSS instance you own. There is less incentive to do so if the profit motive is removed - which makes a huge difference.

    These design patterns are fundamentally about making user numbers go up. Attract more users, keep them on your platform longer, make them leave less. And a portion of user guidance mixed in. None of that is inherently evil, to some degree even desireable, and to some extent unavoidable to offer a functional service.

    Some users may expect a feed like lemmy to browse indefinitely, since they find it inconvenient to have to click to go to the ‘next page’. And because they got used to this feature elsewhere. Others already see this as a dark pattern.

    I just wanted to highlight how some of the malicious stuff may still be present in the fediverse, without any company involved. Here, we’re kind of in charge on both sides: Each is responsible for their own user agency (like controlling your online hours, or what sites you visit), and collectively to decide what user experience we want to shape (which might include controverse patterns).

    I spent way too many words on this. Mostly I agree with you! And overall, users will encounter far less malicious patterns on FOSS.

    [Edit: Formatting]



  • Wouldn’t it be reasonable if another administration get in power and then need to purge all these positions of pro trump people?

    Oh no! You have a great point for horror fans there.

    I’d even say, it probably is somewhat necessary in order to resume administration. What a beautiful, postfactual dilemma:

    The Reps fear an ideological, systemic witch hunt, which they use as an excuse to replace government workers. The new workers are ideologically aligned with the Reps, encouraged to assist the dismantling of non-Rep institutions and carry out the King’s will above and beyond the law.

    Now when votes swing the other way, the new administration kind of has to revert some of this damage to assume functioning.

    Which is where the circle closes; the prophecy fulfills itself. Now the Reps have evidence for their previously baseless claims. The whole system is locked in a back-and-forth mud wrestling of replacing workers based on ideology.



  • So is social media, and the openness of free societies to internal (the rich owning the media) and external (foreign adversaries) tampering. Spreading misinformation, eroding trust in institutions and truth itself, poisons like that.

    Many democracies are crumbling this way. We yet have to find an effective antidote.

    Regardless of the voting system, there still is a worryingly large portion of voters who were corrupted to serve other’s interests. And that is true to all (?) countries. That not just any two democracies fall first, but GB and US, kind of shows us that it could be anyone.

    So while it is easy to look down on the fallen, or feel ashamed to be that - we’re helpless in this together. Hate to end like that.