Thank you for sharing this story.

Since GamerGate was mentioned, here is a link to Innuendo Studios’ analysis called “Why Are You So Angry?”, although I prefer its more broad sequel “The Alt-Right Playbook”.

Though without the kind of linked personal stories, so many people would not be receptive to hearing such analyses, so they both are kinda necessary. :-)

I mean, that’s how they want to be, so whatever, they can enjoy it.

But that’s not how *I* want to be - and I resented having it thrust upon me without consent, in the form of being able to make an informed choice. They do not clearly state how they are, yet they are that way, hence the disconnect.

Like any authoritarian regime, they have drunk their own cool-aid and they seem to both not acknowledge it whilst simultaneously also flaunting it proudly - i.e. how they are looks to be by design, not ignorance or whatever.

And ofc the obligatory caveat that not all people on those servers are that way - e.g. you were there, until you weren’t anymore:-P. But it does form a trend. And I for one would rather that people be able to make an informed choice. Like someone go there if they want, but don’t you come here and tell me how to be.

Yes an echo chamber provides value to them in terms of an emotional reinforcement, though it’s dangerous b/c what gets reinforced becomes thereby divorced from logic. i.e., “might makes right”, which works so long as you ignore the alternative that “the pen (Reason) is mightier than the sword (Might)” - i.e. the value is purely local amongst themselves, who choose to refuse to see outside.

Even so, the code for the Fediverse came from the guy who started lemmygrad.ml iirc, and it was freely offered to the world not in spite of but b/c of that belief in communistic philosophical principles. In contrast, Reddit and most other alternatives started here in the USA - like squabbles to name one (looks to now be renamed to squabblr or something?) - did not offer their sourcecode freely, and instead tried to monetize their user base, and this too not in spite of but b/c of their own beliefs in capitalistic principles.

As long as they are honest about it though, I’m fine with them. The problem is that they are not, nor are they respectful to others… so I ban them and move on with my life. I am not kidding: if I could not have banned them, I would have left the Fediverse entirely - they are that annoying. So being able to easily improve my Fediverse experience by 95% with 1-2 instance blocks (lemmygrad.ml is often blocked by default, and many others though seemingly fewer likewise also block hexbear.net) is wonderful!:-)

Oh I did not know that. Sometimes the answer to “where would you go, if you were a troll” may just happen to be the same answer as “where would you go, if you were not a troll”:-).

Meh, to be fair, communism gave us all the likes of Mastodon and Lemmy, whereas capitalism gave us all Twitter/X and Reddit so… it’s not like I’m knocking the politics even, so much as the extremely annoying manner in which those thoughts are handled, sometimes.

Imagine a Karen who regardless of actual right vs. wrong, thinks they are right, but more importantly just enjoys slamming it into people’s faces. Like, if you really think that you are correct, why work so hard to convince people of that “fact” - you catch more flies with honey than vinegar - and who exactly are you trying to convince bully even?

Likewise even a factually correct endpoint can be made into part of an incorrect statement if arrived at via a false chain of logical deduction - i.e., even a stopped watch is right twice a day, but that doesn’t mean that you should trust the watch from then on!? A statement that includes a logical fallacy, even if deployed in order to defend a true statement, is still false, even if the underlying fact also happened to be true.

And if there is anything I am learning from the internet, it is that trolling exists, yet not everyone is a troll, and it improves my mental sanity >95% to block such. I used to be proud of never blocking anyone, ever. I grew up though, in seeing how others refuse to grow.:-D

You might try an experiment and make an account somewhere, and see how different some posts and their complement of comments look, in terms of which instances you may choose to block, and also which individuals may have blocked your instance in return…

Well *I* don’t, thus keep in mind that I may be summarizing here the reasons that others do incorrectly &/or unfairly, but from what I understand people are saying:

(1) often when people get extremely argumentative (aka bat shit insane crazy trolling) it is from there. Who wants to talk to someone who is rude, condescending, and doesn’t listen in the slightest to your POV before loudly proclaiming how very wrong you are, even while using logical fallacies (such as strawman) as they do so?:-P Counterpoint: that can happen on any sufficiently large instance e.g. lemmy.world too? Though it does seem to happen more often on lemmy.ml for whatever reason.

(2) it may be relevant (tbh I’m not entirely sure how though?) that it leans fairly hardcore to what many people e.g. in the USA would consider an extreme leftist viewpoint, as in so far to the left that it may even become uncomfortable to someone living in a society that leans more rightwards even if the person in it considers themselves an “extreme leftist” in relation to that center point. Along these lines, are “memes” merely political propaganda that happens to be drawn in a cartoonish form? (Though this is an argument pertaining to merely a community, not an entire instance.)

Thank you so much for the update. Oh wow what a turn-around. I can only guess he was desperate to grow the site and did whatever he thought would help his profits. I really do enjoy the mode of thinking behind the Fediverse so much more!:-)

There are several closed group options or other closed source ones that aim to be just like Reddit in practice but not exactly it in theory. Ironically the Reddit alternatives sub on Reddit is probably the best place to get such a list 😜.

I enjoyed Squabbles for a bit - it was described at the time as toxically non-toxic as in very much anti-hate speech, though I don’t know how it’s fared recently. At the end of the day though it’s just one guy’s project, and while he’s no Huffman, still the entire thing turns around him, very unlike the Fediverse that can become anything we want it to be.

If you do remain on Lemmy, learn which things to block bc that will improve your experience substantially. Just blocking lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net improved mine 95%, and ironically some people (not me) also block Lemmy.ml. You will come to find what works for you, I am just saying that the experience varies enormously depending on that one factor!

This whole entire chain of events is a humongous shitshow from start to finish.

Like for one, it says: “We have a significant fleet of 777 and 767 that need to retire at some point later this decade,” - except the company decided to spend something like 95% (iirc it was 94 or 96 or some such) of its ENTIRE YEARLY operating budget recently on stock buybacks, that put the whole process in jeopardy.

Now, pilots are literally refusing to fly them. Let that sink in: the ones who know a lot and whose literal lives would be on the line, are giving up easy money jobs, rather than deal with that. Who severely hampers, maybe even gives up on their career that they spent so long training for, b/c of ethics? People with integrity, that’s who.

And in response? The company says: “We just won’t grow as fast as we thought we would in 2024 due to continued delays at Boeing.” Their first, last, and sole concern is how this impacts their stock portfolio. Which makes sense, b/c that is the precise line of thinking that got them into this mess. When someone tells you who they are, it is best to listen the first time.

An excellent summary of the whole historical perspective provided by Last Week Tonight’s video on Boeing.

Don’t forget the rest of your phrase there: justify… “to who”?

If to you, he would have to do a LOT more than he has, for you to still buy in despite seeing that.

To them, merely having the title of “CEO” seems to be enough, to those who refuse to dig deeper. pOsItIoN oF aUtHoRiTaH.

They will be shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED when their money goes poof.

Put another way, your question presupposes several things, e.g. “In a fair world, how could that be allowed to happen!?”.

BTW, Donald Trump lowered the funding for the SEC, the agency responsible for investigation of financial fraud matters. Also he + the Republican Congress lowered the funding for the IRS too. After ACTUALLY “defunding the police” with his right hand - while simultaneously claiming that the leftists wanted to “defund the police” with his left - we will see a lot more of this than we did in the past.

In the past, criminals feared the police and did not want to get caught. Now that there are fewer investigations into financial frauds… we have FA, and we are about to FO.

(1) ngl that is amazing, a heart-warming story

(2) still fuck Elon Musk

As long as we are still talking about Reddit, I want you to have Huffman’s anus as well:-). Have you tried sending him a picture of you dressed up as Elon Musk? Maybe you could become friends with Musk first, by sending him a picture of you dressed up as Donald Trump? :-P

NO - you would need a power level to be over 9000 for that.

This is half that. So you have only half control of the Universe. Like, you have to submit a request to your boss to use your power to do anything, but then he/she gets to either accept or deny your request. Requests must be submitted in triplicate and accompanied by a notary public cosignee signature. Other terms & conditions apply. Also, Huffman has veto power, and your requests may be lost or ignored at any time - but if YOU ever lose or ignore a reply in turn, then you are banned.

Yet one more reason to say: Viva la revolución!

B/c Reddit has decided that you needed moar Reddit, so that you can haz Reddits while you are also Redditing.

That, or they are counting on someone, somewhere, to be dumb enough to fall for it.

Watch as people absolutely do. :-(

Watch as he burns through it in one:-).

Also, bold of us to assume that he has not already spent it:-P.

Didn’t we do this already, last week, or is this another one like it?

I wouldn’t mind if like I told my phone to send out a signal “I am a man, but I like cold tea”. Partnering together with the machine to help me buy something I will enjoy is truly helpful.

Consent makes all the difference in the world.

Ofc it could have been benign, but there is no evidence that it was, while conversely everything that we currently know points to a breach of ethics.

One, they did not fully disclose that a camera was even there (unless I am mixing up this story with another one just like it?). That also makes it impossible to…

Two, they did not obtain proper (or any) consent. A banking ATM that needs to use your face to verify your identity could be an example of a benign use, and ignoring the enormous potential security implications of that atm, it could do so with a popup on the screen “Do you consent to having your face observed?”, “Do you consent to storage of your facial data in our database?”, “Do you consent to us selling the marketing data we collect from analysis of your facial data?”. They did none of this.

Three, when asked about it, they lied. Technically they obfuscated the truth, which is just another way of stating that they lied.

Ofc it COULD have been benign, but so far they are zero out of three already towards that end - and that is even from just what we know so far.

Their corporate website mentions that they use the data for marketing purposes. Whatever type of face they see - e.g. male or female, large or skinny, etc. - gets correlated with what was purchased, and then they sell that data for marketing purposes. Exactly like Google selling your search history, except with likely fewer restrictions in place.

Their website doesn’t mention how often they get hacked to give away that data for free - to be clear, that data meaning A PICTURE OF YOUR ACTUAL FUCKING FACE. I don’t know what resolution, or even what someone would do with it later, I am focusing here on the fact that the picture taking seems nonconsensual, especially for it to be stored in a database rather than simply used in the moment.