Pugs are not "so cute" because they're ugly. They are deformed from countless generations of in-breeding and genetic manipulation by horrible horrible humans and are in constant pain, cannot breathe, and have countless other physical ailments. They should not exist in their current form and it makes me sad for the animal whenever I see one, and immediately lose all respect for the owner for furthering such a travesty.
I would own a pug or any other dog from a shelter that I click with when Im in a position to have a dog. The dog did not choose to be born but it was and needs a home now.
This is an important distinction. I loathe the idea of people continuing to breed/buy them, allowing this cycle of suffering to continue, but the ones already born by irresponsible people deserve a home as much as any other dog
Honestly, I don't even think this a petty hill to die on. It's importanr, if bitter, truth.
Flat-face pugs don't deserve the existence they got given. Continuing to breed them is not just unethical, but borderline abusive given the range of physical ailments they're born with (ironic considering many can't even give birth naturally).
Whenever I see them, or hear them wheezing, it makes me feel angry knowing what that poor animal is being put through just to exist. We made them like this, and it's our collective duty to stop bloody letting this happen.
Humans aren't horrible for creating them nor is anyone for owning one. However, now that we know better, I think we should ban the breeding of them, including mandatory sterilization of all pugs. Kinda funny how much worse that sounds on the surface.
My brother has pugs and has only owned pugs/pug mixes (the first came along because of a girlfriend. He kept the dog, ditched the girl, who was not a good owner). They were all rescues, all older, mostly seniors (the youngest was three, and morbidly obese when he got him).
He would agree with everything you are saying, but his dogs needed someone to rescue them and he has a love for pugs specifically because that first accidental pug was his doggy true-love. He also has the means to provide them with medical care and try and ensure their lives are as pain-free as possible. As he has experience with the breed he knows of their ailments and how to best care for them. It horrifies him the ways they suffer due to how they have been bred within an inch of their lives. He absolutely believes that they should not be bred, but until people stop doing that someone will have to rescue the ones that have been abandoned and neglected.
Please don’t judge every pug owner. Some of them are just trying to help the ones they can.
The only way that it'll become better is if the standard for the pug changes. The UK kennel club has updated it's standard to include a healthier head and muzzle shape. Unfortunately the American Kennel Club has not yet done so. The pugs that are presented at Westminster are sickening.
I also take beef with the awful roached back of the German Shepherd show standard.
Not telling you how to live your life but if I may offer a different perspective: tomatoes can be very flavourful but the ones you buy at supermarkets won't be. Your stance might simply be due to not having had good tomatoes? (which is fine in its own right but I will not stand for tomato slander)
They can be, sure. I enjoy tomatoes otherwise. I can enjoy eating them like an apple or those cute cherry ones as snacks. But generally there are other ingredients on a burger (dressing, cheeses, bacon, whatever) that makes the tomato disappear completely and just become a watery slice of nothing but annoyance.
I used to not like tomatoes until I started growing my own. Commercial tomatoes still taste like shit but the homegrown ones actually have a flavor that isn't just sad water.
Seems very likely you're eating bad tomatoes, sliced at the wrong thickness and on poorly constructed burgers.
I could make you a burger with tomato that would make you cry with joy. There are few actual "bad" foods/combinations, just the wrong chef preparing them who is usually undereducated on the nuance of a given cuisine.
A problem with the internet is that because you hold the world's knowledge in your pocket, many start to think they hold the world's knowledge in their heads. Just because it "feels" like your cooking, doesn't mean you're a chef. A YouTube video doesn't make an expert, it might make a convincing copy that can't improvise to save it's life because it lacks a basic knowledge of foundational concepts.
It's like chat GPT; yes, it drew hands, at a glance, but if you look closer you'll see there are 8 fingers, extra knuckles, no fingernails and no bone structure within the fingers - because the program doesn't actually know what it's doing. So you and I may both have burgers with tomatoes on our plates, but we're having entirely different experiences.
Unfortunately, being a chef feels too accessible as a concept and marketing patches many wounds, hence the boom in food trucks and YouTube channels run by "chefs" churning out garbage.
See, I dont really disagree with anything you say. Its just that on that burger you make that willmake me cry of joy... Its not the tomato that breaks or makes it. Its not going to be the tomato that pushes me to tears. No matter how good that tomato is, that's not what makes the burger.
I've had amazing tomatoes, the tomato itself is not the problem. Its the tomato on a burger. It might, in the best of cases, enrich it. But it will never make it, or break it. And in the most cases, it's just annoying fluff
That's very dependant on the other characteristics of the burger and the protein type and size. I've had tomatoes stand out in a beautiful way in certain burgers that would have been less without them.
The acid and sweetness in certain tomatoes, cut and compliment the fat/salt in say a seasoned beef patty. There are also texture and temperature contrast when prepared correctly. In certain combinations, both are less without the other. That acid cutting the fat of the beef actually chemically changes the way that your taste buds translate the bite. So in some cases you might not think of the tomato first as you bite, but it's actually changing the way you taste other ingredients, like the beef.
Again, hard to convince someone "outside the circle" on a concept like this, but the wrong person is making your burger, friend :)
Source: worked as a chef in Michelin starred restaurants for years.
Man a good tomato could just be eaten on its own with a little salt. Delicious, can't wait for ours to come in, about a dozen different varieties each more delicious and beautiful than the last. 😋
[Image description: a plate with a burger and sides. The burger is open and ready to be assembled, one bun has sauce and a slice of an heirloom tomato, the other has the patty, cheese, pickles and bacon.]
Fresh vs store bought is really a world of difference in tomatoes. Store bought tomatoes are treated with ripening chemicals, making them redden and appear ripe, but they aren't. So they taste bad. We really need a vegetable revolution in the states because for how pretty your local grocery store's produce aisle is, it's not good.
Yes, that’s the point. If people don’t like tomatoes, I’m not confident they would completely change their mind if they just tried a different kind tomato. It’s possible, but ultimately a better tomato is still a tomato.
Tastes change though, it's good to check yourself every now and again. Like I didn't like Brussels sprouts and then suddenly they taste great everywhere I see em. One, they improved the genetics to cut down the bitterness. Two, my tastes did change. I appreciate bitter tastes where I didn't when I decided, "I don't like Brussels sprouts".
Same for broccoli. Never liked it as a kid, but then my parents never cooked it right. Steamed broccoli is awful. Broil it 25 minutes with minced garlic and olive oil though, spritz some lemon juice on it? Better than junk food. It's good to test your decided tastes on occasion.
If one day I am in a situation where someone can offer me a home-grown tomorrow, perhaps I’ll give it a try. But growing my own tomatoes seems like a lot of work just to see if I might like them.
That is exactly why I avoid getting tomatoes on my burgers in restaurants except for when I cook my own, the homegrown tomato has to be there. I am still shocked at how different the taste is.
While there are differences in textures and flavors, different kinds of tomatoes are like different kinds of apples. Someone might just not like apples or tomatoes and never find one they enjoy, and someone else might only like one or a few types.
All tomatoes will have the firm outside and structure with liquid parts. Even with the variance on firmness and amount of liquid, they are all clearly tomatoes.
Yes, there are all sorts of tomatoes, coming in various shapes, sizes, and colors. They all have different tastes too, although it is going to taste like a tomato to some degree.
They’re all heirloom tomatoes. There are heirloom varieties of other things too. Tons of more flavors exist than what you are presented in the supermarket!
In addition to color variety, different tomatoes have different textures. A farmer's market is more likely to have a grower who knows the difference than a grocery store with a small heirloom basket where the staff just pit out what they have.
Like some are more firm, or have more juice, and with a lot of variety like apples.
Well that's definitely a tomato I've never seen - wild! My most interesting this year is probably the German Striped but I'm going to have to try those tie-dyes I think
German Striped and variants of them are my better half's favorite. I've read that the thing to look for is green/brown shoulders on heirloom tomatoes as that is where all the tomatoey flavor comes from, and is the real reason redder tomatoes tend to be tastier than pale ones.
I just don’t like tomatoes, but even I have to acknowledge that you make a worthy point. Those pathetic slices of sadness that you get at fast food chains literally pale in comparison to a real homegrown tomato.
It went about as expected, IMO. 90% of redditors just don't care that much - even if they agreed with the blackout in principle, most of them were likely just waiting patiently for their favourite subs to reopen so they could go back to browsing as usual. A quick browse through some of my subscribed (and still open) subs revealed a lot of commenters weren't even clear about what was going on.
But it has had the effect of essentially kickstarting a community here which seems to be taking shape nicely and there's finally a (small but growing fast) alternative to reddit - which didn't really exist before. I can see the following months and years seeing a gradual shift in user base from reddit to here.
Reddit's not going to die overnight; that was never going to happen. But it's possible it's the beginning of the end of their empire and the slow decline to the ranks of the remember-that-website-whatever-happened-to-that club. Time will tell I guess.
The migration will definitely pick up once the apps no longer work, and even if there isn't a seismic growth in users in the fediverse the seer size of reddit was both a blessing and a curse.
I think Reddit has become too mainstream to die. I think it will simply continue to become mainstream, perhaps eventually become more like Twitter in terms of userbase. and the next generation of niche forums will be born, and therefor the next Reddit. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe reddit will 'never die.'
As a Gen-X parent, I've abhorred the look and feel of Facebook even from the beginning. When I first made an account I got connected with old high school people and thought it was pretty neat. But then I tried to share some thoughts for discussion like one would do on a BBS/forum/Reddit, and realized that wasn't what it was for. That was the last I posted. I know I'm in a minority and people who love it have a need for sharing everything they do, but that isn't me.
There's a saying I like: "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." I don't think this means that a person can only be one of those, but that in discussions there is a level of thinking going on with the category. I prefer the first one more, and even Reddit had places where you aren't going to find that...but it had some, and I enjoyed my time there.
Oh, and get off my lawn. You too, boomers. Everyone get off the damn lawn!
I'm also a Gen X parent on Facebook. I don't post anything, but so many groups use it as a public posting board. My kids sports leagues all have Facebook groups, my son's piano school use Facebook for news and information. It's really become indispensable as a collection of small, easy to use, newsgroups...
The difference that I see between reddit and twitter is that reddit hasn't been purchased to be the plaything of a billionaire. This matters because unlike facebook and google, reddit and twitter aren't profitable. That means that reddit doesn't have to pockets to buy up competitors, lobby for beneficial regulations, focus on expanding overseas, or move into making hardware.
Yet. It hasn't been bought up yet, but they really really wish they were. Reddit has flipped to profits only mode already and they're never going to change now. Being bought out during
IPO isn't going up change that either, only intensify it
Reddit is just the plaything of anonymous billionaires that's the whole reason they want the IPO at all costs because they can't cash out without it, even if it is less than they had hoped for.
Reddit isn't going to disappear, but that doesn't mean it won't die. Going public will kill Reddit. The parent company isn't profitable, and the product isn't profitable, and public investors will only tolerate that if growth suggests future gains.
Those future gains will be had by strangling Reddit and twisting its corpse into something much less useful, interesting, and fun.
Reddit's animated corpse will carry on for years, but that IPO will be a poisoned pill for what we know and recognize as Reddit.
They telegraphed this when they started forcing users to look at depressed buskers (in between ads for Jesus and pizza rolls) and making posts scream almost uncontrollably as you scroll by them. It's like someone really wants sfw OnlyFans, or Twitch without the video games, or YouTube except the content isn't very curated. Instagram but live? Anything but Reddit.
Support your admins, if you can. But yes, bouncing around will happen. Hopefully with added development support coming from an expanded userbase, account migration can be implemented on both Lemmy and kbin and people can move around with relative ease, as the need or desire strike.
Yep! Reddit won't die. It is becoming (and in some ways has been for some time) one of a very limited number of sites that the majority of the interconnected globe uses to exchange information, like Facebook. Even if it loses .5% of its current userbase to some alternative, it's barely a drop in the bucket to Reddit, but that number is HUGE if it's mostly dorks like us setting up a new home here in the Fediverse.
It's a win-win; we want quality discussion here. Your average modern Reddit user wants the information drip. (And I should say, it's entirely possible to be someone who uses both during this transition phase)
Alternatively, it could go in the direction of facebook - still around, but packed full of everybody's racist great aunts, romance scammers, and weed dealers.
It did go away for awhile, though, and it took several attempted restarts before finally sticking on something that gained enough traction to (I assume) pay for itself.
I agree, but those who are left are either looking for easily digestible memes or content created by others. Without an engaged community, Reddit has to be afraid of the next shiny thing that comes along, and I think that TikTok has shown us that they don't even care if that next shiny thing is spying on them.
think that TikTok has shown us that they don't even care if that next shiny thing is spying on them.
I think "is spying on them" has been baked in since Snowden at least. The TikTok early adopters grew up in a post 9/11 world predicated on being spied on.
The only real difference is it was someone else's government doing the spying, for a change.
I'm actually pretty surprised with, despite how few people there are by comparison, how active and useful this has already been. And I'm expecring it to only continue to get better. Pretty sure I'll have little reason to go back to Reddit except for some useful historical posts.
Especially after apps are shut down I'm expecting another flood of new users. And the numbers keep climbing (today kbin alone has gone up another at least 10%)
I think the death of 3rd party apps in a few weeks could be another moment when we see a big change in consumption habits. I don't know that it'll push people here, necessarily, but I would imagine it'll hurt reddit traffic.
The other wildcard is what do mods do? If some big subreddits never come back, or a lot of moderators leave, what will that do to the quality of reddit?
I agree, this could be a slow burn, and these communities definitely have been kickstarted, which is nice. I just think the slow burn might be over the course of months, not years.
I never would have found kbin if it weren't for the blackout. I plan on staying around too. I will still use reddit for the smaller subs I'm in were discussion threads are actually that, but I unsubed from all the news and politics type subs. I was weening off those anyway since they make me want to just go to comments for entertainment instead of reading the article.
That's why I left that instance. I tried to explain the paradox of tolerance but they refused to listen. They didn't want "censorship" of their "free speech". I don't have the patience to watch people learn the same lesson that has been learned over and over again all throughout history, in millions of different contexts. It's always the same thing that will happen because sheeps keep thinking it's "healthy" to have "discussions" with "dissenting" hungry wolves.
I don't remember which comedian, but one made a joke a while back that has resonated as absolute truth with me. People only use "free speech" as a defense when they're trying to say shitty things.
@iAmTheTot *Things that the mainstream perceives as shitty. Imagine if slaves were still illegal, and anyone campaigning for their abolishment was not allowed to speak on social media. See why you need free speech now?
And you might say 'That's different, slavery is bad and advocating for its abolishment is good, but advocating for Donald Trump is bad', but that is the point.
'I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.'
And you might say 'That's different, slavery is bad and advocating for its abolishment is good, but advocating for Donald Trump is bad', but that is the point.
This is where you misunderstood. The problem here isn't slavery is bad and advocating against it is good and how that compares with the_donald. It's that in the US, many countries in the EU, Australia, and New Zealand*, getting arrested or harmed by the government simply for speaking isn't something to worry about. So, the people who use "free speech" to hide behind are, almost by default, bad actors. Even if you count mainstream (the citizens), no one is trying to harm the person speaking. In this case here it is also the opposite. What these racist fkers say (and do) can certainly hurt and harm other people, and they are doing everything they can so they don't have to be responsible for their own speech. Hence, the "free speech". It's a similar tactic to opposers blending into a group of protestors and trying to sabotage by staging violence.
Now, if it's another country where free speech is not where it should be. I'll use my own country and it's outdated and stupid lese majeste law as an example. Free speech here isn't completely polluted by those bad actors yet because it still holds a very real value to combat tyranny. So, what I'm saying is this "free speech" problem in the US is a first world country problem, which should not be confuse with what free speech is about in more oppressive regimes.
People already heard what they had to say long ago, and it's not welcomed. At this stage it's about not letting them run all over everyone else. It's not as if they have anything different to say from before. The answer is still the same, their racism is bad, their anti-science believes are bad, their disinformation is bad, their actions toward the LGBTQ+ communities are unacceptable etc. What else is there to listen to?
*Things that the mainstream perceives as shitty. Imagine if slaves were still illegal, and anyone campaigning for their abolishment was not allowed to speak on social media. See why you need free speech now?
wow, you're telling me that if you just make up a world where things are different, things might need to be different? enlightening stuff, thank you. a great argument for unfettered freedom of speech here.
Most of the time people bring up "free speech", its when free speech isn't even being threatened: they're just being told their opinions are bad or people don't want them to get paid for expressing those bad opinions. If your defense of your statements is focused on the free speech aspect, its because you don't have a reasonable justification. Those who campaigned against slavery defended their positions with arguments about why slavery is bad instead of saying slavery should be abolished otherwise you're violating my free speech.
Edit: there's a difference in being a support of freedom of speech and responding to any criticism by claiming other people expressing their opinion somehow violates your free speech.
I couldn't disagree more. The ACLU are the biggest defenders of free speech in the world. Opponents of free speech are far more dangerous than advocating for free speech.
Downvoted for supporting free speech and the ACLU. Tell me again who are the extremists? Because fuck a Nazi but they aren't the ones trying to silence discussion in this thread. YOU ARE.
Biggest doesn't mean loudest. ACLU typically embodies the quote "speak softly and carry a big stick". Their actions often speak louder than their voices, and when they do speak its generally not shouted at the top of their lungs.
There's free speech, i.e. the government cannot persecute you for what you say, and then there "free speech", i.e. people expecting others to platform speech they find repulsive.
The alt-facts folks aren't being silenced. They're free to keep on talking. No one is obligated to host them and their words, however.
Defederation opinions aside, free speech should be protected from a legal standpoint, and the ACLU is all about that. I’m glad you pointed this out, sorry about the downvotes - free speech is an important legal right.
To add my perspective - in terms of defederation, I’d say that is an example of a healthy boundary, which needs to be respected as well. If folks collectively want to create a personal boundary that they don’t want to discuss antivax theory in their space, that’s also cool. We set up boundaries like this all the time as communities - churches are a good example. Sure, you can legally swear in church, but the community set a boundary that they don’t want that there, and they might punt you out of the community if you disrespect it. One of the nice things about the Fediverse is that free speech is “legal”, as is you can use the software freely for whatever you want to say or discuss because of the open source license, but there are also tools like defederation to create reasonable boundaries among communities.
I hope more folks start to think of it this way as federation catches on and that this concept helps make room for nuance in discussion again. Healthy boundaries that keep you psychologically safe are good and necessary. In real life, we wouldn’t think it’s good or healthy to let someone constantly badger or berate us or talk about things we don’t want to discuss anymore. We’d say “end the conversation and walk away”. I think it’s okay to bring those boundaries to the internet too.
I wholeheartedly ago with everything you said. Your comment and response was a breath of fresh air, so thanks. I'm in favor of allowing users to create their own boundaries. I'm not in favor of waring communities attempting to shut one another down, which is how this post came across to me.
For eight goddamned years already we've been subjected to their "idea" - more like "mockery" - of Free Speech.
They've had their chance, and they proven over and over and over and over again that they act in bad faith, that wherever they rear their sick little heads, they are there to deliberately fill with noise, to fill with lies, to doxx, to corrode.
Nobody hates Free Speech as much as THEY do, and it's not even close.
They are a bigoted, stubbornly-ignorant circlejerk that incites violence, that wants to watch the world burn.
These creatures delight in the suffering of others, and should be dealt with in the exact same manner as this space should deal with Al-Qaeda or NAMBLA if they decided to plant their unholy seed here.
Free Speech doesn't figure into it anymore, not after all the shit that's gone down for the past eight goddamned years. A line was crossed a long, long time ago.
I don't disagree with most of what you're saying. My comments are due to having been silenced for decades for progressive speech. The rules you make to silence and suppress Trump supporters, will be used against you at the earliest available opportunity. That's why I support free speech. I'm not giving up that ideal because deplorable groups want to take advantage of it.
"It's just a differing view point that I think [x] people are the root cause of all the problems in society. In fact, I daresay society would be better without them. I'm not opposed to finding ways to get rid of those people and that they just shouldn't exist. Why can't you be civil about me implying genocide against a group of people that have actually not caused any harm to anyone?"
I've seen plenty of actual death calls for gay and trans people. A Texas pastor even talked about lining up gay people and shooting them. Or that trans people should be eradicated completely. Donald Trump himself even reposted a tweet where the first sentence was, "the only good democrat is a dead democrat".
Can't say I've seen nearly anywhere near as much about republicans. Not as many people nor prominent figures. Sure, they're called corrupt and maybe stupid or harmful or other words but I don't remember Biden endorsing "the only good republican is a dead republican".
Obviously if someone says that republicans should all die, then yeah. That's just as bad. And it does happen. But not nearly as often as minorities get targeted. You're still right. Dehumanizing is absolutely not good and you should judge each person as an individual. But just realize there's quite a bit of difference in scope.
For example, this comment will be enough for some people to put me on the “nazi” side, without knowing anything about me.
if you have to pre-emptively say this, this is already a self-report. i have literally never been called a Nazi (or anything similar) for saying political things online, and neither have the vast majority of normal people with sane things to say.
There's a never ending sea of people like you who just make assumptions about others. You know fucking nothing about me and have already dismissed my position in favor of free speech because you're so incredibly biased and not open to conversation. It's not surprising that someone so opposed to any opinions contrary to their narrative is opposed to free speech.
We are explicitly anti-free speech. In the context of this document on what we stand for, making a statement that "free speech is good" without addressing any of the issues we bring up isn't operating in good faith towards us, so you should not expect us to treat you similarly.
You know fucking nothing about me and have already dismissed my position in favor of free speech because you’re so incredibly biased and not open to conversation.
it is a bit wild to get indignant about me immediately writing you off as Yet Another Annoying, Probably White, Probably Cis-Het Man who doesn't understand why the minorities and transes are so uppity when you literally opened with "Opponents of free speech are far more dangerous than advocating for free speech." you do realize how that comes off on an instance with a ton of minorities and LGBTQ+ people who are currently having that freedom of speech used to advocate for things up to and including their systematic murder, correct?
I oppose your reactionary, thoughtless response. You think that attempts to silence them is righteous. I think you're every bit as misled and confused as they are.
And fuck you for your assumptions about my race and gender as if they're at all relevant to the support of free speech.
You're just like those people you despise. You make ignorant assumptions, assume righteousness, and refuse to have open discussion. You're using the EXACT SAME in-group out-group dynamics that are toxic as fuck.
When you find yourself in opposition to the positions held by the ACLU, you're probably fucking wrong.
okay so no, i guess you don't get how this comes off. i'm not even going to dignify your false equivalencies or appeals to the ACLU as if they are infallible or can't be criticized for some of the positions they take (however principled). i think it's telling that you're screaming about how insulting it is for making "assumptions" about you--yet you in no way deviate from how a person who my assumptions apply to would respond here. to put it another way: you're not beating the Yet Another Annoying, Probably White, Probably Cis-Het Man allegations, and this space isn't for you. go away.
You're just like those people you despise. You make ignorant assumptions, assume righteousness, and refuse to have open discussion. You're using the EXACT SAME in-group out-group dynamics that are toxic as fuck.
Since you clearly didn't get the message the first time around. Controlling speech is wrong, regardless of how much of a victim you portray yours as.
Free speech, as a concept, is the very first thing all fascists turn on people who value freedom. It is that value of freedom that makes the free speech argument so powerful. "How can you love freedom if you don't even let us speak?" they will say with crocodile tears and false humbleness. And then, they will take full advantage of the fairness and moral treatment they are given to promote their brand of hate. You cannot stop fascism by treating it with fairness. They will not give you the same, and the end goal is to destroy the exact thing you are giving to them. Fascism has to be stopped in its tracks, immediately. If you entertain them in any way that allows them to signal with their dog whistles you've already lost. And we've lost a lot, because our leaders aren't even bothering to use dog whistles anymore. They're just stating it outright.
Doesn’t anyone else remember back in circa 2011-2014 when ISIS was all over Reddit?
Like you just be browsing r/Syriancivilwar or r/Arabspring and all of a sudden there’s some ISIS motherfucker just shitting everywhere? Saying the absolute worst things. r/syriancivilwar even had ISIS/ISIL flair for a while. To be overly fair, I did have one really interesting conversation(with a dude who thought I deserved death) about ‘Paulinism’ vs ‘Christianity’ but I don’t think that overall makes it worth having folks like that around.
I feel like people forget that era of development of mod tools and site policies. r/The_Donald were running into rules put in place to deal with literally ISIS.
Give yer balls a tug. Seriously. Maybe if you’re being as shitty as literally ISIS then you should take a look at your behavior. Get the fuck out of here.
It’s also highly disturbing that at least ISIS was honest. R/The_Donald would never admit to their hatred.
As someone with a wayward interest in the history of Christianity (though far from a believer), I feel compelled to ask: how did such a topic even arise in the first place?
it appears we're all too engrossed in our personal lives.
I understand the sentiment, and when I was younger I probably would agree and I might agree again when I'm older. But right now, my personal life is the only one I have, and the world has organized itself in a way that all I can do is work to slow my losses.
I'm giving the fediverse a real shot, but it's a slow burn It's not "there" yet, there aren't a decade worth of conversations about my favorite topics. For some people, they have more immediate needs and desires that can't be satisfied here and if Reddit is all there is, it's where they'll go. But it's important to me that nobody forget that most people aren't in love with spez and the Reddit corporation, they love their communities, the way many people dislike Zuck but stay on Facebook because they love their friends. Platforms are code, they're also people, and our peers are not mindless sheep for wanting to be with people in spaces they enjoy. It's what's human.
For Fediverse to win, we have to provide more than just platforms, we have to have good people, good content, something to stay for. A reason to join beyond just Fuck Reddit.
I think I've seen enough now to conclude for-profit social media will always end looking like 90s AOL. But you know, I was on AIM until 2010, because despite all my contempt for AOL it wasn't about whether or not I loved Steve Case, it was about whether or not the people in my life could talk to me.
I just have one life. I have strong beliefs about many things, tech ethos especially, but I have only one life and I don't want to empty it wholly of the communities that enrich it to score points for FOSS.
It’s been said before, but talking through it is a coping mechanism. Like it or not, a lot of people are/were heavily invested in that site, and talking through it is a way to help clear the air and start to move forward.
It’s drama is dominating social media right now, so it’s hard to NOT see it and hear about it, but we all need to let each other move on in the way that’s best for each of us.
Yeah, I definitely feel like I can't shut up about it/stop engaging with it because that's how I'm processing my decision to move away from it. (And because, like @Breafulus_Emphotoga points out, Reddit is/was really addictive, so I'm struggling to go cold turkey and need a support group lol.)
I think about it this way: this protest/blackout was the most interesting thing I've gotten from Reddit in quite a while--so it only makes sense that I want to go somewhere else and talk about it, right? XD
This is very true, I've noticed I've had more free time and others have as well since the start of the end for reddit, reddit was extremely addictive and now people either have to find an alternative, which isn't easy if you use reddit for most of your information or entertainment, or stay on the platform where worse mods are replacing the subs' old mods and most the site is dead.
I say give it a few or 2 and it should die down a lot more as people become more comfortable with the alternatives they chose.
Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.
I feel like we need to stop trying to overexplain the fediverse. The decentralization stuff isn't the selling point y'all think it is. It's confusing and complicated and entirely unnecessary. kbin.social has a landing page with actual content on it, signing up is exactly the way one signs up for anything else, the UI is reminiscent of old reddit, and nobody needs to know how it's connecting to the rest of the fediverse on the back end to comment on a picture of a funny cat.
The sales pitch shouldn't be some neckbeardy ultra-nerd shit where we gush over decentralization and instances and blah blah blah. The sales pitch should be "It's still a little rough around the edges, but it does basically the same thing. It aggregates content from other places on the web. And, for all you're going to need it for, it works basically the same way as reddit. Read the front page, if you see a community you like, subscribe to it. Just, if you want to post a thread on kbin, that's under 'post article' for some reason."
90% of the people who are on reddit bitching about how "complicated" this is are only saying that because it's being explained in literally the most obtuse way possible. I was one of them. And Lemmy's absolutely not helping by filling their landing page with a bunch of technical bullshit normies don't need to understand, instead of, you know, showing them content.
Yes, it's cool. Yes, it's modern and novel and a new way to connect to people on the web. Not a damn bit of that matters. Stop pushing that like anyone other than techbros give a fuck.
"Kbin is like Reddit, except it's not privately owned. Individuals run their own servers and people can communicate and follow each other across the whole network. You just pick a server and sign up with that one. Here's a couple servers that I like..."
That sounds concise and non techy, I think. But I'm sure someone could come up with an even simpler, more inviting elevator pitch.
I'd probably just choose a server and send it to them. Then, I'd explain it like this:
Kbin is like Reddit, but (assholes|fuccbois|corporate interests) can't control it like they can control Reddit. It's a bit rough around the edges, but it's getting better every day. You can try it out by going to this link and signing up: <insert link>
If you want to know more about why it can't be controlled and ruined, look up the "fediverse." None of that matters if you just want to have a Reddit alternative though, you'll figure it out as you go along.
EDIT: the instance you send them to should be a general purpose one, btw.
Kbin isn't ready either. The simple fact is that most people these days use social media (almost) exclusively through apps their phones. Yes, you can install it as a PWA through your browser, but that's a possibility most non-techy people aren't even aware of, nor is it really explained anywhere. Not having apps in official app stores is a major hurdle to adoption.
Yes, on the Lemmy side of things Jerboa is on the Play Store but it doesn't allow you to actually create accounts on Lemmy instances, and even if it did you'd be back at the "you must chose an instance" hurdle.
To be fair- when I opened kbin in Chrome, Android, I was asked if I'd like to install the "Kbin.social app". I was surprised how simple it was. Firefox offers nothing.
The simple fact is that most people these days use social media (almost) exclusively through apps their phones. Yes, you can install it as a PWA through your browser, but that's a possibility most non-techy people aren't even aware of, nor is it really explained anywhere. Not having apps in official app stores is a major hurdle to adoption.
So we are at the stage where people are unable to operate a simple mobile website, and everything has to be turned into its own special app?
I don't know, for me kbin doesn't have to get as big as reddit to be a cool place to hang out. Not sure if I'm interested in an influx of people who only post selfies and shitty tiktok videos and don't bother reading the community rules because they're on mobile and seeing the sidebar requires tapping on a button but they don't know how to do that or something.
Maybe I'm just bitter from reading all the comments on reddit and seeing how people don't even bother understanding what happened with the API etc. and just keep screaming "give content now".
Not speaking for anyone but me, but sometimes when people say they something is too political it really means too much "extreme" political views. Personally I don't want to interact with extreme auth-left or auth-right content. I think politely discussing why access to housing should be guaranteed by government, or arguing for lower corporate taxes or whatever, isn't what bothers most people.
Fortunately Fedi allows instances who are fine with it host those users, and I don't have to see it. And Lemmy -the project- isn't political, it's just software for which I'm grateful to the devs.
Yes exactly, I call myself very left but the minute I tried /kbin a thread about china from lemmy.ml showed up and there full of Tianomon Square deniers I tried to engage but just after half an hour I was almost done with the whole reddit alternative and was on my way to delete my account.
People are put off of extremist places and don't want to join them, think they are lost already to the extremists. Both online and in real life.
This is difficult to hear but may be good feedback to share with kbin.social's admins and kbin's devs in the kbinMeta magazine. I don't want to see lemmy.ml defederated at this point, but it's a risky one to have on the front page. It's kind of nuanced:
Lemmy's devs have been running a successful campaign to recruit Redditors to use their app, and many Redditors have chosen lemmy.ml (the instance run by its developers) by default. A few of us have been trying to sound a warning about this, but it's muted amid the outrage at Reddit.
Lemmy's developers are often described as "tankies" but the word seems to be acting as a euphemism, as though it's just an eccentric subculture. The fact is Lemmy's devs are stooges for the CCP. They actively welcome its propaganda on their instance, and they've compiled apologetics for the CCP's human rights abuses including the Uyghur genocide.
At the same time, lemmy.ml is the primary instance for Lemmy, and an important support resource for instances that run on it. On top of that it's now home to a lot of Redditors trying to build their own communities there. For those reasons I don't think it should be defederated, but I think kbin.social might need a way to prevent the instance – or at least some specific communities – from reaching the front page.
For myself, I've blocked its china and technology communities, as well as a few specific users that I've seen post propaganda pieces there. I'm satisfied with that solution to address my own use, but your own experience makes me realize it still reflects on kbin.social to have that stuff reach our front page.
To block users: when you go to someone's profile there's a 🚫 button to block them. It's next to the "Follow" button, below their name.
To block magazines/communities: the 🚫 (block) button is next to the Subscribe button in the sidebar. On mobile the sidebar gets moved to the bottom of the page, so you have to scroll down a ways to see it.
Yep, I'm working on solving this problem. I want everything to be clear in the end. However, in the meantime, I need your help to use the reporting option in such situations.
Makes sense. I've unblocked some things so I can help with reporting.
It's looking a lot better right now, so I think ex-redditor posts are overwhelming and diluting a lot of the problematic content. There were even some things I thought I'd blocked but hadn't – they just haven't reached the front page since I created my account a few days ago.
It's good to know there's another solution on your radar, though. Thanks!
I was almost gonna agree until the end but unfortunately, I really can't agree with the notion that technology is not political.
The project is political. The license they chose for the software, what they're using to develop it, how they fund the development of the project are all very political things.
I don't completely disagree, but that's not what I meant. People are conflating the views of Lemmy's main developers with the project itself, and I believe they can be separated.
I am reading this and commenting from kbin.social.
I hear you and agree that reddit was peak awful in the past few years, but I do in my heart of hearts want a reddit-like experience.
What I think is intriguing about the Fediverse is that it almost doesn't matter how many people seem to be on any on instance because they mostly talk to each other.
I commented elsewhere two weeks ago that I think reddit's redesign attracted a bunch of users who were looking for a facebook-like experience, and at the risk of falling into the false dichotomy of normies vs redditors, I think the redesign brought too many normies who didn't want to learn reddiquette. I think something that will help kbin immensely is how (I say this lovingly) ugly and mostly featureless it is. There aren't bells and whistles to make it an attractive draw for any other reason besides you want to be here and engage the content and community.
I do hope that as many of these early instances who seem to be "in it" for the right reasons quickly and unequivocally defederate from instances started up by companies like Meta, though.
I fully agree with you. My only concern is that we're missing some quality of life improvements. Like it takes two clicks to either go to the All page or my Subscribed mags, these can take one. Just put it in the header. Notifications need to be more visible, I didn't know I had any until I was trying to switch to my Subscribed view. Images should be viewable without having to go through multiple clicks. It's small things that make the experience a little less tedious.
Okay now this is completely dictated by which instance you use. I see that you're on kbin.social as well, but other instances may have this fleshed out already.
These QoL features - and others, such as comment collapsing - are in the pipeline. Ernest knows people want these features or are frustrated with parts of the kbin UX for now.
Vanilla is NOT a boring flavour. It is the best flavour and most versatile flavour!!!!!! Describing things as vanilla should not be synonymous with boring and I'll fight anyone who argues otherwise
I always considered Vanilla to mean default and not "boring". I feel like only a minority of people interpret it that way and even fewer use it that way.
@Xariphon@thrawn21 who are you fine folks with your exquisite words? Where do you come from? Is this a reference to something or are you Obi-wan Kenobi?
I don't think they have delusions of grandeur. They legit are afraid of everything, and they pee CONSTANTLY (more like large dribbles, but pee regardless). Oh you're home? Pee. You startled me? Pee. Oh you said something? Pee. You gave me pets? Pee, sometimes while on my back blasting it everywhere. They shake for no good reason. They yap ALL THE TIME. And it's not a noise you can ignore easily. It's high pitched, and surprisingly loud. I hate Chihuahuas so much.
A year or so ago I mostly would have agreed with this but there are exceptions. I had a foster dog who was the opposite of everything I ever imagined about a chihuahua. She was curious about everything instead of afraid, only peed outside or on the piddle pads during training, didn’t shake unless it was actually cold, and didn’t really bark, even when we kept her separate from the rest of the house during the introduction process. She was friendly to any people she met and loved other dogs and cats. She was a quick learner with tricks and desperate to please. She was all-around super chill and honestly I should have kept her and immediately regretted letting them adopt her out. What prevented me from doing so was… my prejudice against chihuahuas and being seen as someone who owned a chihuahua. It was dumb and I regret it and miss her all the time. I hope she is living her best life out there in the world. So hashtag notallchihuahuas! (My neighbors also have some pretty chill chis, but foster Pixie was the shit. Great little dog.)
There are always exceptions, but I have yet to personally meet a chihuahua that didn't have ALL of the stereotypical awful chihuahuaisms.
My grandmother has had so many of those stupid dogs now, I've lost count. My family also seems to really like them, for some unknown reason, so there have been plenty of them around. Admittedly, my grandmother is a TERRIBLE pet owner, so they have all been zero training, or rule following, but still they just have shit temperaments to begin with in my experience.
Hey OP. Kudos on acknowledging your feelings and expressing them ;)
TL;DR: your reaction makes a lot of sense, don't stay alone with this, lots of empathy
Where I speak from : I'm a white and socially cisgendered male, 35 yo, living in France. I had the chance to go to university and to have several educations.
I have been a climate change and biodiversity collapse educator and activist for 3 years, and I'm currently struggling with crippling adhd, depression and anxiety after a rough burn out.
I try to base my opinion on the IPCC reports which I regard as the best science consensus provider on climate-related matters (more on the IPCC at the end of the post).
In my opinion, being terrified by climate change is a very appropriate emotionnal response.
What scientists say about the amount of suffering climate change already inflicts to hundreds of thousand is hard to fathom, and imagination fails to grasp how much worse it's going to get in the coming decades.
To my understanding, humanity as a species is not under threat, and we will not all die in 50 years. But a huge amount of people already suffer and die from climate change and it's going to get much much worse. As usual, the less privileged you are (and the less you contribute to climate change), the worse you have it.
CO2 emissions keep going up when scientist agree that they should be cut in half by 2030 and divided by 3 or 4 by 2050.
The IPBES (same as IPCC but for biodiversity) current analysis reinforces the "we're in deep shit and we're diving faster and faster" feeling.
And while individual action is absolutely necessary, it is by large insufficient without structural collective change.
I also feel terrorized. And so angry. And more sad than I'll ever by able to express. And so fucking frustrated.
I found that sense of community is what keeps me going. I met some great people in environmental ngos, and getting together to do something about it is a great feeling. Having a drink together and ranting about how hard it is to witness our collective failure makes is really not as bad as doing it bu myself. And crying among friends feels a lot better than crying alone, for me.
So I wish for you to find people around you who understand the world in the same way you do, who care as much as you do. I wish for you to find safe spaces in which you can stop pretending it's ok, in which you don't need to explain yourself, to have a debate about whether or not climate change is a big deal, in which you can let your emotions flow. I wish for you to find meaning, belonging and even happiness in action.
Take good care of yourself, the wolrd needs you in good shape !
Btw, compiling and summarizing together papers about the mechanism and impact of climate change is exactly the job of the IPCC. They take in account thousands of papers from all the fields related to climate change, write a draft an publish it, wait for questions/criticism/corrections to be sent by all the scientists who want to contribute (for several months) and then they correct their draft and publish the final version. I recommand reading at least the key points of the "Summary for policymakers" of the 6th assessment report..
It's likely that most people think of themselves as a should-use-Morgan-Freeman-voice kind of person, when in reality they are a deserves-only-Bobcat-Goldthwait-voice kind of person.
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