M1ch431
@M1ch431@slrpnk.net
- Comment on do you remember a time when societies were so polarized and shifted so much to the right like today? How long did it last? 17 hours ago:
the way things are now is still better than they’ve ever been.
Untrue, and again, it’s whitewashing. You make a lot of big claims, but they don’t hold true in reality. The advancements you tout are as weighty as a corporate slogan for real people.
- Comment on do you remember a time when societies were so polarized and shifted so much to the right like today? How long did it last? 17 hours ago:
For every pretend step taken, the actual reality is hidden and moved out of sight for those in the first-world.
People live in better conditions today
I see way too many poor, chronically ill, and visibly distressed people. This isn’t normal, not even a little bit.
even just considering social acceptance
Social acceptance has been nonexistent for me as a gay, autistic male - people frequently tell me about their similarly horrible experiences.
and not technology
Technology has advanced, sure, but it just serves to enslave, manipulate, and spy on us in increasingly dystopian ways as the years go by. Mass surveillance, centralized databases, and unregulated AI have been normalized.
or medicine
As a chronically ill person, medicine has significantly caused me more harm than good because doctors are too overworked to identify side effects and complications - and I have nearly died several times due to medical negligence/iatrogenic illness. No, I’m not exaggerating. There have been many key advancements in medicine, but our healthcare industry is very sick - even in countries with socialized healthcare. There are people experiencing relief that previously wasn’t possible - I’m not denying that.
Most societies are at least in theory democratic, where people get some input towards the ruler.
Democracy is largely illusory, especially here in the states. Consent of the ruled is not present in many “democratic” societies if you’ve been paying attention.
There are legal protections against slavery
Slavery has exploded overseas to support first-world needs (even child slavery), prison/slave labor is incredibly pervasive in the states, and before Trump became Führer an estimated 40%~ of US agricultural workers were undocumented immigrants - modern slaves.
misogyny, homophobia, racism, transphobia
The legal protections are effectively nonexistent to prevent discrimination in practice. Two-party consent laws for recording are really terrible for those subject to abuse.
Trade unions have successfully campaigned so that now people work less than they have since the start of the industrial revolution
Unions are largely nonexistent, people still work significantly more than they need to, productivity has risen but wages have largely stagnated, people are largely in significant debt and they cannot afford a house or a car, they cannot afford to reliably access healthcare (and even if they can “afford” it, it isn’t timely), higher education is inaccessible and college debt is unreal, etc.
in unprecedentedly better conditions.
Yes, and no. There are many careers that harm you in ways that only modern society can. Like plastics workers being exposed to a greater risk of cancer. I have known many people in various careers that have been denied access to necessary PPE in multiple fields.
Have we taken some steps? Sure. But we’ve taken many, many, many more backwards while people are oblivious in their bubbles. Pop your bubble, please. More people than ever before in history are suffering silently in ways that only can happen in modern times.
- Comment on do you remember a time when societies were so polarized and shifted so much to the right like today? How long did it last? 19 hours ago:
In my opinion, it’s always been a pretend step forward while slowly walking backwards unbeknownst to everyone.
- Comment on A fediverse platform that lets you block whole topics, not just communities? 2 days ago:
Here’s hoping keyword blocking hits Lemmy/my instance is able to facilitate its planned switch to PieFed without a hitch in the future. I used to use that feature extensively on Reddit (with RES) to great success and minimal effort.
However, I’m not a fan of centralized crowdsourced tagging. Topic tagging is significantly more subjective than e.g. the functionality provided by crowdsourced extensions like SponsorBlock and will likely significantly reduce/fragment engagement if shared blocklists become widely adopted. Imagine somebody tagging something inappropriately to soft-censor certain posts to groups of users… there are many scenarios that this could be misused if improperly designed or implemented.
There is an argument to made towards making flairs a thing on a post/community-level and allow blocking from that. It’d be neat to filter memes, for example.
- Comment on America could have avoided all of this with a functional justice system 3 days ago:
Capitalism is the best economic system we’ve ever invented.
If you limit yourself to only seeing the first-world and not the exploited third-world countries that produce the majority of our goods and provide us with resources, sure if you ignore first-world class-based inequality.
Guess we also ignore that e.g. your cell phone was made in part with child slavery (unless you bought a product like the Fairphone). Out of sight, out of mind - am I right?
Democracy is the best political system we’ve ever invented.
Even in the best case scenarios, we’re still exploring how to implement democracy and have it actually reflect the spirit of the concept. Representative democracy in its current iterations is truly a farce and is far too corruptible. Increasing levels of direct democracy or decentralized governance would likely be desirable. Having the most-qualified experts empowered to solve our problems would be desirable, as well.
Problem being, both need serious guard rails.
Democracy needs less guard rails and capitalism needs more - if we can continue to justify its existence as the dominant economic system.
The electorate has to be educated as to systems and morals.
Indoctrinated would be a better way to put it. Indoctrinated that capitalism is the best system ever (so don’t hope for a system where people aren’t fundamentally exploited), indoctrinated to unquestionably accept fundamentally broken systems (and allow ourselves to be dominated by hierarchy), and identify with state-proscribed morals. Sounds like an amazingly free society that you are advocating for.
People are far less stupid than you let on - we need open and fair discourse, we need to ensure fair media, we need to cut out partisan tribalism, and we need to stop acting like anything we’re currently experiencing is desirable or even close to being “the best”.
- Comment on Reddit stock falls for second day as references to its content in ChatGPT responses plummet 4 days ago:
Meta/OpenAI openly pirating everything they can to train their LLMs is a good example of how data hungry these AI/etc. companies are.
Is it plausible for companies to request Reddit narrow down data e.g. by demographic or geographic location and request that data for purchase? Sure, but the LLMs seemingly require all data that exists that these companies can get their hands on - I highly doubt with the scale of data theft being committed do they care about Reddit data being tainted. If anything, it might even be desirable to them.
- Comment on Reddit stock falls for second day as references to its content in ChatGPT responses plummet 5 days ago:
Reddit is presumably the only party with the ability to determine which data/interaction is legitimate or isn’t.
I have a mostly neutral opinion on AI/LLMs, but I have a negative assessment of the companies driving it unsustainably. When these actors crash the economy with their hubris, write back to me.
- Comment on Reddit stock falls for second day as references to its content in ChatGPT responses plummet 5 days ago:
If you can land me a gig engaging with back end data from Reddit in a neutral capacity, it’d likely be pretty easy for a layman like me to confirm that it’s noise. The AI companies buying data are getting scammed and you are free to feign neutrality in the absence of concrete data.
No company is immune to bots, least of all Reddit.
- Comment on Reddit stock falls for second day as references to its content in ChatGPT responses plummet 5 days ago:
It’s noise, a very large part of it. Reddit is financially motivated to make the data appear as if is signal. It isn’t - they have taken extremely minimal steps to ensure actual human participation.
This doesn’t matter to AI companies, but it only warps that technology more and more. AI is a sinking ship with current methodologies. Reddit will die when the AI bubble bursts and those involved with Reddit already cashed out enough to be filthy rich (e.g. Steve Huffman sold 500,000 of his shares in the IPO, indicating he will make $17mn).
- Comment on Reddit stock falls for second day as references to its content in ChatGPT responses plummet 5 days ago:
Are you somebody invested in Reddit? Genuine question.
- Comment on Reddit stock falls for second day as references to its content in ChatGPT responses plummet 5 days ago:
Citation needed.
- Comment on Reddit stock falls for second day as references to its content in ChatGPT responses plummet 5 days ago:
There are absolutely bot vote manipulation campaigns happened.
See this: old.reddit.com/…/why_are_we_all_just_accepting_me…
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
I really appreciate that, I’ll consider taking you up on that after I get blood-work next.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
At this rate, everything in the last decade or last few years or even in the past few months has been nearly unpredictable. Thanks for chatting even if strong emotions flew around. I am not your enemy and we may have more common ground than I initially thought. Take care.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
I hope you are right.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
I think it’s the global wealthy, but same.
I concede, but I think some are more prepared than others.
I think our legal system as its bare bones isn’t bad.
Perhaps there are solid foundations present, but slow reform will not save us. We literally can’t afford to delay immediate action.
Yeah again my plans are not your business and not something I discuss online. Youre giving off Fed energy over there.
You were free to not engage, that was me being incredibly brave in light of recent developments. I don’t take great measures to hide my identity online and I don’t care to.
The documentary is direct evidence, primary sources, and specific excerpts. Literally there’s even pictures. It’s so solid as evidence and as a case, they didn’t even get sued by Trump over it (avoiding discovery).
Then why didn’t the US government under Biden take action? I’m serious. I immediately told you I’d check them out, I am aware of the allegations loosely being made by at least the book from other sources.
If you want to do this democratically - then go to the protests and town halls and talk to people. Go ahead. I’m not stopping you, there are many movements like that already.
We need country-scale action. I spend most of my days living with impaired health, bed-bound - I can do only so much by myself. I’m doing my best to improve my health when doctors aren’t trying to kill me. I have had extremely life-threatening encounters with the healthcare system.
I can tell you’ve never been homeless or did anything with the homeless network.
I have lived in a rural area, in poverty, without much dignity at all, and with chronic illness my entire life. I am gay, autistic, regularly discriminated against, I have experienced prolonged sexual abuse with absolutely no support, and I am effectively a dissident in the state I live in. And I have volunteered to directly help the homeless in the past. I’m not the vanguard, I’m just giving small nudges here and there where I can and am able.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
I think if the rich kill everyone, they will also die.
They have been preparing for decades, at least. You are free to believe what you want though.
They want the Fallout games to become reality. It’s almost certain. Fuck all of that. Pushing the development of AI unsustainably in a way that other countries can mirror (e.g. China) is suicide for the country, besides them.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
Russia has been capable for a decade now and again, has been propped up by China including the use of NK.
Disagree. Russia will see a coup or revolution before a proper war. They have utterly failed against Ukraine, it’s unbelievable to me how much they have failed. I have been observing the invasion, now and again, from before day 1.
Suicide for the human race? Duh. And that’s climate change.
See my instance. I’m aware. I can say for sure that the oligarchy here in America wants the whole world to perish while they wait it out in their self-sufficient bunkers.
Then don’t use it. Just like we have a post office, and UPS. But you need communications to be centralized somewhat lol, that’s how communcation works. You also wouldn’t say anything on there you wouldn’t say in a Town Hall, it would be your official profile. The power structure also wouldn’t be as centralized as regular social media- that’s why you can sue and demand things, based on constitution and bill of rights and other laws. That means you actually have ppwer over it.
I argue for decentralized, loosely standardized, democratic, socialist structures. The legal system is absolutely and completely busted. I really shouldn’t need to get into that. Hopefully you can agree that the Supreme Court is beyond saving. Your idea is a fantasy, but it’s a nice one if there was any state that truly represented its populace. I do value it though, and even if I call it a fantasy, I like it in theory.
There’s no legal way for us to depose the government or even to suggest to depose the government. I would never organize to depose the government.
Guess we just let Trump destroy the government and install a dictatorship…
I disagree, we do have power. This government is entirely ineffective, even before Trump rose to power, and I’m not going to roll over and lose any semblance of democracy - I’m going to do my best to save democracy with democracy. Hopefully you come to agree at some point. I never imagined to hear you use legality as an excuse. Trump and the current administration are taking a shit on our legislative branch and our laws in a general sense. 77 million voted for Trump. There may be around 290 million citizens. There are approximately 344 million people living in the US. The numbers are there to take back democracy with democracy. I am completely serious.
Complicated topics cannot be summarized in a Tweet or Lemmy post, they take time like books, long form media, or yes, documentaries and news interviews, gasp.
If people in debates are told to source their claims, they provide the direct context, and there is a preference towards direct evidence, primary sources, and specific excerpts.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
[…] first block of your comment […]
I -already- said I am acutely aware of recent developments. We disagree. Russia is not capable, India is unstable, and China is likely to let Russia fail as they essentially already have been. World war is absolute suicide for the human race.
I am not saying to ban other social media, I am saying as a cornerstone of democracy, we need to be able to have forums with our government in official and secure ways, that we can track, and sue over free speech violations. We cannot do that with private companies including private servers. You can just get banned and silenced. Further, we should have streamlined ways of getting government notices, recalls, and contacting our officials. No upvotes or ads allowed.
If I trusted my government, I’d be more inclined to agree with you. I’ve been lied to and gaslit far too much. My government didn’t represent my interests or the interests of the American people even under Obama. Centralized power structures are literally the problem causing every single thing we are talking about, for the most part.
so we DON’T have power
Let’s organize a vote of no-confidence to depose our government because it’s all kinds of fucked up.
No, you don’t manage my feelings, and further, your edits messed with my other comment and made it reset. So I think I get to be annoyed that it cost me an extra 15min of my life trying to tell you stuff that you couldve googled yourself because you’re so geopolitically ignorant.
You edited your initial response to me after posting. I caught your comment before you finished.
Linking me documentaries instead of primary sources does not respect my time.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
I want to thank you for sourcing most of your claims and engaging with me in good faith. I wish you sourced the claim I specifically pointed out, but alas, I’ll engage with what you posted.
Please see American Kompromat by Unger and Active Measures documentary linked elsewhere itt.
I’ll will give it a watch at a later time when I get over my illness, but the rise of Trump surely didn’t have anything to do with the DNC and Clinton campaign pushing Trump as a pied piper candidate and telling the media to take him seriously. Russia did not make the mainstream media mention him an uncountable number of times. Russia also does not fund domestic right-wing organizations that back Trump to the best of my knowledge.
From the verified, leaked DNC memo sent by the Clinton campaign in 2015:
Our hope is that the goal of a potential HRC campaign and the DNC would be one-‐in-‐the-‐same: to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to a majority of the electorate. We have outlined three strategies to obtain our goal:
- Force all Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election;
In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more “Pied Piper” candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party. Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to: • Ted Cruz • Donald Trump • Ben Carson
We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them seriously.
It’s clear that the press took him seriously.
Regarding illicit content/ snuff, here’s a much smaller example with monkey torture rings: www.bbc.com/news/world-65951188
I’m not sure if that’s relevant to the discussion.
Torture by Putin’s admin in prisons: www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62465043
I don’t disbelieve that.
Cyberwarfare by Russia, including propaganda: geopoliticalmonitor.com/exploring-cyber-darkness-…
Not entirely relevant to the discussion, but a lot of these vectors could be mitigated through sane practices like not exposing our e.g. energy infrastructure to the open web.
Long read, got through most of it. States and our country being broadly incompetent with our voting systems is well-known. We can do better at any point and standardize systems, increase oversight and transparency, improve efficiency, and vastly improve security. Experts and other influential figures have been sounding the alarm for a long time.
[sources of election interference in Europe]
I don’t live in these countries and I did not experience these happenings, but I will say that it is incredibly more plausible to me that Russia is more overtly influencing European politics, and I don’t need a wealth of evidence to hold that position. Thanks for the links though, I will check them out on my own time.
Crypto funds rightwing extremists, usually in preparation for an election takeover: www.defenseone.com/threats/2025/01/…/402427/
Unregulated, speculative, and essentially untraceable currency should not have ever been able to be converted to other currencies. I am unsurprised, but at the same time we can do better.
[various sources relating to the Ukraine sovereignty conflict]
I am a believer in sovereignty and I support the people of Ukraine. I’ll leave it at that.
[various sources relating to Musk & Starlink]
Yes, Musk is very likely a traitor and is not a good-faith actor. The facts are in evidence, yet you are the first person I have seen consolidating this information.
Lol you sweet summer child. There’s a world war coming, the entire EU has been unable to stop this.
The EU has done nothing concrete on multiple fronts. The Biden administration also largely abandoned Ukraine…
I don’t see a world war or a civil war coming, call me naive but I feel there is little appetite from populaces across the world. I don’t believe China would seriously position themselves with Russia against the world, despite recent developments which I am aware of. Again, maybe I’m naive, but I’ll hold my position.
Yes, had we had a national online forum, this could’ve been prevented.
I disagree, I am a firm believer in decentralized social media. I dislike Lemmy and other fediverse platforms for a few key reasons that we may agree on, but they are the best we have currently. Specific countries could regulate or tailor decentralized media to fit their needs.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
You can source your claims. I’ll wait. There is too much here that is hyperbole and not based in reality.
If a majority of right-wing influencers are literally and currently traitors, that is a serious accusation and requires serious proof.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
What are some major talking points that Russia seeded in their heads that persist to this day? These people are pro-American in their minds - many likely believe they are more pro-American than anybody else.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
You’ve fallen for propaganda that convinces you that there is an external enemy to worry about instead of actually looking at the situation critically. Right-wing organizations drive right-wing talking points.
They’ve sown distrust of traditional media and of democratic institutions
Pretty sure they did that to themselves. I didn’t need Russia feeding me propaganda to see through the bullshit, and many others reached that conclusion on their own. The Fairness Doctrine being repealed is one big reason why traditional media failed. Russia didn’t do that.
they’ve polarised discourse to that communities that mostly rubbed alongside one another reasonably well now are so idealogically opposed to each other that the middle ground has evaporated.
Right-wingers and liberals alike have polarized discourse. Leftists aren’t innocent either, especially MLs (many whom seem to be biased towards Russia), but there are plenty that I have interacted with that or witnessed that were exceedingly fair and human.
Liberals blame anybody to the left of them for not falling in line, constantly mock or berate them for demanding better, and do absolutely nothing to meaningfully do anything to improve their preferred party or improve the human condition in America. As for the right, we all know what they do.
middle ground has evaporated.
Politics and governance shouldn’t be a game of tug of war where the right have a monster truck pulling their side and Democrats pretending to hold the rope on their side.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
How is Russia controlling their talking points now? Is everybody on the right threatened, blackmailed, or are otherwise under duress? We know they aren’t the most intelligent bunch, but they are being traitors for their own reasons - for the most part.
The major talking points mostly came from the aforementioned organizations and outlets even when some of these people were being paid.
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
If you look into it an amazing amount of them are further funded by Russia.
You seem to know more than me based on your response. You are claiming an amazing amount are presently funded by Russia, source?
Do these people also take money from right-wing organizations?
- Comment on Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, let’s just ignore the right-wing think tanks, conservative/MAGA influencers who aren’t on Russia’s payroll, and right-wing “news” organizations. It’s totally just the Russia and not right-wingers trying to destroy the country to grab all the power for themselves…
- Comment on 'Borderlands 4 is a premium game made for premium gamers' is Randy Pitchford's tone deaf retort to the performance backlash: 'If you're trying to drive a monster truck with a leaf blower's motor, you're going to be disappointed' 3 weeks ago:
That’s just the inherent cost of going with general purpose engines.
Some studios are able to use general purpose engines very well, others not so much. It seems like there is a level of expertise needed to make well-oiled games.
- Comment on What would stop you from switching to a flip phone (or dumbphone) in 2025? 3 weeks ago:
Doesn’t really make much sense for me to switch to a flip phone unless it was specifically built for privacy/security. SMS and regular voice calls are insecure, it likely could connect to fake cell towers uninhibited, it likely doesn’t have hardware switches to disconnect various features e.g. modem, microphone, or camera.
- Comment on There is no good reason why there is still homelessness and poverty 4 weeks ago:
It’s absolutely heart-wrenching to see human potential being snuffed out, to see this level of suffering.
Truly, the only things we stand to lose by incentivizing positive action is our dysfunction. Good riddance.
- Comment on There is no good reason why there is still homelessness and poverty 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, I know they weren’t. Regardless, I apologize for my bluntness. Everything they said is true if we don’t change and evolve.