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.

DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, has described the protesters as a “a mob”, accusing them of throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at federal officers.

It’s disturbing but unsurprising to see authorities using the same excuses used to justify violence against unarmed Palestinians to describe brutality against unarmed Americans.

Also, it’s fascinating how the editorial standards require the writer to frame the increasing practice of immigration authorities confronting protesters (despite it not being part of their job or training) as perplexing rather than obviously just something they want to do for the thrill of brutalizing their adversaries.

Yes. It’s free and open-license. It’s free as in speech AND as in beer.

I’m a big fan of tabletop RPGs, and I like sci-fi, so a few years ago I moved from playing standard-issue cyberpunk to a homebrew solarpunk game instead.

It was such a radicalizing experience that my friends and I eventually released it as a totally free game, along with a ready to run starter campaign. It’s called Fully Automated! Solarpunk RPG.

If you’re a fan of TTRPGs and looking for a fun, social way to get better at believing in a better world, go download it. It’s a blast, and really makes you want to go out and overthrow fascism.

Respectfully, I think this is a naive myth.

Ask yourself this: if Bernie won and began executing his agenda with the brash disregard for criticism of Trump, do you think he could do it and people would say the same things we say about Trump? Or do you think we would see the collective power of congress the supreme Court the state governments and the corporate world come down on him in 100 different ways?

I think the more honest truth is that there are people with power who like what Trump is doing, and the people who don’t like what he’s doing don’t have power.

Yeah, it’s wild how clearly we can see that Palestine is the world’s laboratory for surveillance and state violence tech and tactics.

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.

The federal government is sending masked agents to brutalize and terrorize people is cities that are adversarial to their agenda.

It’s bad.

I wrote a long answer and then accidentally hit the back button and don’t have the patience to retype it.

The short version is that Vladimir Putin is responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. I don’t want any confusion about that.

NATO’s influence was that the US has been advancing against Russia for decades even after their country collapsed, and it was obviously nakedly escalatory. Combined with the US is overall foreign policy, which has always been imperial, we’ve acted as though putting a gun to someone’s head and telling them to stay cool was an actual way of calming things rather than the exact opposite.

I’m not saying that a version of NATO couldn’t have done what it claims to do. But that’s never been the version that has existed.

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.

GoddlessCommie’s take is valid.

Nato is the core organizing instrument of western imperialism. Nato is like Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense shield. It’s easy to look at it and say, 'Well how could anyone object to a tool of defense??’ But if you know anything about war then you know that establishing an unbreakable defensive capability is what allows an imperial army to slaughter their weaker targets with impunity.

I’m not co-signing GodlessCommie’s point. But we gotta ask: did you like Vietnam? Iraq? Afghanistan? Korea? Venezuela? Nicaragua? Georgia? Libya? Ukraine? Gaza? Because arguably, all of this shit rests upon the conditions established by NATO and US imperialism. So… It’s not unreasonable to ask whether NATO has actually fostered peace or just fostered peace for the people who wage wars.

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.

This. Put another way: mammals use our mouths for sensing and manipulating. Note that people naturally use their mouths and noses to kiss and smell babies and pets on places other than their mouths.

If we instinctively use our mouths to kiss things, it’s natural that when two people want to do this at the same time they’re going to both do it to the other person’s mouth.

For what it’s worth, I just asked my sommelier husband, and he independently answered Billiecart-Salmon, Runart, and Krug.

I appreciate the distinction, but open source is always a spectrum, so I think the description is a reasonable application here.

This, 100%.

If I apologize to you, the apology is but the words themselves: it’s the contract I make with you. It’s a memorandum of understanding of how I fucked up and a promise not to do so again.

LLMs can write words, but they cannot understand their actions or make honest promises to modify their behavior. They cannot be accountable in any way. Blaming them is like an actual scapegoat: a blameless things meant to have a debt if sin transferred to it before it’s sacrificed. Expect we’re not even getting the sacrifice.

That’s true. I don’t think it’s generally a problem, but I do find it funny when you see someone politely correct someone else deep in a chain where no one else is reading, and the correction says “0”.

To anyone who downvotes like that: you look like an insecure clown.

Corey Doctorow had a presentation this past week at the C3 hacker conference arguing that all our allies only agreed to be ruled by US tech hegemony in exchange for free trade agreements, and if they want a win-win solution to getting f’d, they should repeal their laws against jailbreaking US tech.

Tech sovereignty is already (finally) an issue the rest of the world is waking up to. I hope they go much farther and faster.

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.