ZombiFrancis
@ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on YSK that Joseph Stalin created the Great Terror. He started killing people randomly including artists, generals, doctors, scientists, government officials. Everyone was terrified. 1 day ago:
I wouldn’t really be able to know what they’re on about without interacting with them, quite frankly. But I can’t say I really approve of the worship of political figures, historical or not.
I try to approach historical figures as a part of the context in which they existed. It does sound like this person was into theory, so I’d wager their interest in Stalin was more academic than a celebration of the ills that occurred in 20th century Eurasia. But if this person was advocating for Lysenkoism or someshit then you’ve got a grade A idiot.
Like, I find Stalin to be fascinating and the balance of power that he operated both inside and outside the USSR to be remarkable. He can be a very symbolic figure for a kind of struggle against overwhelming odds, which resonates at least on some level with a lot of people, Marxist or not. People get really into things like mob bosses and Scarface so I would try to slate someone’s fandom of Stalin against that, too.
Also, if American, we go over eight decades of rabid anti-communism so sometimes people throw up things like hammers and sickles just as a fuck-you to (Neo)McCarthyism.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 days ago:
American English with a specialty in the dialect of American Regulatory Legalese.
Spanish, Arabic, and Irish I used to be able to read and write, but was always terrible at understanding any of them spoken.
I learned bits of German by proxy from having friends stationed at Heidelberg.
- Comment on YSK that Joseph Stalin created the Great Terror. He started killing people randomly including artists, generals, doctors, scientists, government officials. Everyone was terrified. 2 days ago:
It’s more that some people don’t actively condemn him to the satisfaction of others.
The USSR under Stalin defeated Nazi Germany. Idle denunciation of Stalin in 2026 is the classic and most trusted pivot for (crypto)fascists to focus on when cornered or feeling insecure.
That’s the primary scenario that people are accused of ‘defending Stalin’. There’s always a nazi all too willing to spearhead this conversation, 70 years on after his death. Usually can’t even bring up Khrushchev and De-Stalinization usually since it’s not focusing on Stalin enough.
- Comment on Final Fantasy IX animated series officially in production at EuroVisual, titled Black Mages Legacy 2 days ago:
Hey they got movie theatre money out of me for that. It is everyone else who didn’t see it that is clearly at fault for that blunder.
- Comment on Keep it off please! 2 days ago:
The problem stems from the term ‘GenAI’. These systems use math to predict things. There are a lot of valid mathmatical calculations to predict out there. Rendering lighting is one of them.
Human language and imagery isn’t one of them, which is what idiots have been trying to funnel through these models.
- Comment on A communist and an anarchist walk into a bar.. 4 days ago:
There were betrayals and brutal slayings to go around between and through the World Wars.
When I see these sorts of portrayals of communists and anarchists I always wonder why the contemporary actions of the Whites or the Fascists get to enjoy omission.
Like: Mahkno is a popular example and figure, but he and his army were a component of a larger class system. Hryhoriv, a contemporary, was a large reason for the eventual downfall of all the atamans, including Mahkno, even though Mahkno was the one who killed him.
Another example is Durruti in the Spanish Civil War, whom I admittedly don’t know a great deal about. But he died for reasons that are not clear except: war. It’s a topic of literature at any rate.
After the Republican forces lost the war it was Francoist forces that exterminated anarchists in one of many White Terrors of the 20th cebtury.
- Comment on 4 days ago:
We put a lot of meaning on ‘Boots on the ground.’
- Comment on This Fall, Florida Students Will Be Forced to Take “Anti-Communist” Classes 1 week ago:
My DARE program had the cop dads but none of the safety and safe place stuff. I would attribute it to the mixed racial makeup of my district, if the comparison stands up to yours. The DARE cops talked about gangs more than anything.
- Comment on Glorious cracked out wall kitten returns with more wisdom for the masses. 1 week ago:
Unfortunately this covenant is a deep bond. To sever ties with one is to sever with all.
- Comment on As US Slaughters Iranian Kids, Iran Says It Does Not Want to Hurt Americans 1 week ago:
‘Marg’ also means ‘demise’ and ‘damage’ as it isn’t an english word. Point being we have a word that doesn’t directly translate.
- Comment on As US Slaughters Iranian Kids, Iran Says It Does Not Want to Hurt Americans 1 week ago:
A translation would still remain ‘Down with Israel’ in that phrase.
- Comment on As US Slaughters Iranian Kids, Iran Says It Does Not Want to Hurt Americans 1 week ago:
Which conveniently demonstrates, right out the gate, that the official translation is 'Down With America".
- Comment on As US Slaughters Iranian Kids, Iran Says It Does Not Want to Hurt Americans 1 week ago:
The direct translation also means something like ‘Down with America’. Word choice matters when translating for a target audience.
- Comment on Causes of death, or track list for latest black metal album? 1 week ago:
Tuberculosis (consumption) was another constant killer, coming in at second.
- Comment on i did tho 1 week ago:
- Comment on SBA #51 1 week ago:
Spongebob’s eyebrows are symbolically, if not literally, Amazon. What did the artist mean by this?
- Comment on They're calling it the Trump Laptop. Highest quality. So affordable. We're making technology great again, folks. 1 week ago:
Especially the pizza box.
- Comment on Slay the Spire 2 Launches, Immediately Shatters a Concurrent Player Record on Steam 2 weeks ago:
It’s the Street Fighter 2 to Street Fighter 1.
There are about a half dozen new mechanics woven into the game.
They learned a little from Balatro, added some questlines like FTL, and added a whole multiplayer component.
- Comment on The same people who rage against authority love moderating communities where their ideology is the only one allowed 2 weeks ago:
People keep setting up these Punching bars and then get mad when their patrons get Punched.
- Comment on Current events dictate that I post this. 2 weeks ago:
Oops, all bad bombs.
- Comment on Current events dictate that I post this. 2 weeks ago:
Say what you want about Bush, even that war criminal didn’t go as far.
Any point you might’ve had about land acquisition, separatism, or imperialism, is pretty hard invalidated by this comparison. Like, why add Bush as a qualifier?
- Comment on Administrative task management 3 weeks ago:
Derp I’d checked 1998 and then didnt check 1999 after I saw the shadow.
- Comment on Administrative task management 3 weeks ago:
Not how March was in 1998 or 1999. Also the shadow leading from the firearm along the arm is also bogus.
- Comment on Amazon BUSTED for Widespread Scheme to Inflate Prices Across the Economy— Amazon, its vendors, and competing retailers are price fixing, hiking up prices for consumer products 3 weeks ago:
I think you’re supposed to switch accounts between comments.
- Comment on Which game have you been most patient for? 3 weeks ago:
I played that game so much in Early Access and then they redesigned the gameplay a fair bit towards the end and I didn’t enjoy the release as much. I wish they had some rolled back versions to revert to.
- Comment on How should Lemmy & Piefed handle voting activity from banned/deleted accounts? 3 weeks ago:
Not necessarily puppet accounts, just brigading in general.
It’s the rationale many instances used to defederate hexbear. (Even though iirc hexbear disables downvotes, so they’re defederated for users mass posting, usually that hogshit image, instead of mass voting.) It wasn’t puppets or bot accounts at any rate.
But then there’s repost communities where users share comments (especially in places they or their audience is banned from) or DMs for a group response.
Not to mention the whole ‘block and downvote all .ml on sight’ mentality. But hopefully that might be something this tool could catch.
- Comment on How should Lemmy & Piefed handle voting activity from banned/deleted accounts? 3 weeks ago:
I guess I approach it inversely. I encounter what looks like a troll post and I’ll only check profiles when either I am interacting with them, or there’s such deep downvoting already I’m just doing a morbid dive into someone’s history.
Most of the time though the user just has a deeply downvoted argument but otherwise normal and/or low engagement posts, so they wouldn’t be flagged by this.
So I understand that it can save some time with some niche cases.
But I can’t help but note that the system seems intentionally blind to targeted harassment, which can be a source, if not cause, of bad faith accounts. (And likely those need different approaches since those are also niche cases themselves.)
And maybe it’s all just because of my instance’s Local feed, so that’s what I see as a prominent problem on Lemmy.
- Comment on How should Lemmy & Piefed handle voting activity from banned/deleted accounts? 3 weeks ago:
That’s an interesting example of a user this is designed for/around.
The general system of up/downvotes seems to be doing its job quite as intended: their views appear routinely unpopular and there’s a seemingly pretty strong community consensus around that.
It looks like their threads have comments that solidly and clearly refute the garbage manosphere stuff. For some people it’s the opportunity to express a refutation of it publicly and directly. The public viewer gets to read those responses too.
So with that example: what do the flags do that the content of their posts don’t already communicate?
- Comment on How should Lemmy & Piefed handle voting activity from banned/deleted accounts? 3 weeks ago:
Are you saying that because they would get more upvotes, they could offset the downvotes they receive? Potentially, but this is where the second metric comes in (giving a lot of downvotes), and as we said, the two are almost always present at the same time.
Right, though it’s a mitigating factor. I guess there’s something I don’t know about piefed: Lemmy comments all have a default upvote from the user that makes it. But it can be revoked by the user. Does Piefed work the same way? My thought only applies if that’s the case.
- Comment on How should Lemmy & Piefed handle voting activity from banned/deleted accounts? 3 weeks ago:
giving a lot of downvotes is usually a sign of toxicity
Emphasis mine. When is it not a sign of toxicity? Rules are defined by their exceptions, so I am curious as to how this exception is navigated, if at all?
Essentially someone who posts with high frequency has a capacity to issue more downvotes without compromising this admittedly imperfect tool.
Now I was never really a reddit user, but the problematic karma farming of accounts associated with that place was directly linked to these kinds of tools and metrics, no?
