I hear you.

I’d just offer a slight counter, which is that if the devs want their software to succeed, they should probably work a little harder to police how their politics overflow, or work harder to contain them. And bringing these issues into the full light of day may help with that, or at least convince them to crack down on bad actors they a currently allow to function with impunity.

It’s a good trend, but I still think it would behoove the admin of more reasonable instances to make it more obvious that there is a sizable and aggressive group of people with nearly unlimited (internet) power, and making it clear that they do not associate at all with those instances/individual practices.

There is a huge dearth of naming and shaming bad actors, and it’s going to reach a size where people won’t do their research as I did, but will assume that all of the fediverse is run by authoritarian Communists and (not) engage based on that.

And that wouldn’t be an unfair understanding, given who the creators of Lemmy are, who their disciples/mods are, and their influence across the platform.

Lemmy really runs the risk of being “left wing Truth Social” otherwise.

Thanks for illustrating that I was banned from not just one community I don’t participate in aside from upvoting, but several that I have never even visited. All for “Rule 4,” which as far as I can tell is spamming ads, which I have never done. I’ve tried to message the mods of those communities, but haven’t gotten any kind of response.

It’s really disappointing that this is how Lemmy seems to work. As a new user, I had to actively persevere through the .ml bullshit to understand that lemmy as a whole is not like that. But it’s almost impossible to be a progressive (but not full blown anti-western communist) on an awful lot of this platform.

It really does the other large instances a disservice that those mod/admin practices are so commonplace.

I know the answer is to defederate/block them, but I genuinely find the news and posts interesting, and .ml was one of the instances that I was first looking into, because I literally didn’t understand how the fediverse worked but kept hearing “just pick an instance, there no wrong choice since you have access to all the other instances.”

But even those posts about topics I am educated in and care about, it all just literally seems to be a vessel for a specific type of (dis/mis)information in the comments, which actively preys on the gullible and shuts out even moderately different views.

Edit: mobile formatting fix

That specific email was when I knew my mom was irrevocably radicalized.

She wasn’t, and still isn’t, religious. But she was fucking convinced that Obama was literally the antichrist.

The article discusses this.

This is the result of the PiS, Law & Justice Party, the previous right wing dickbags that constantly undermined rule of law who was voted out (pretty resoundingly, as I understand it) in 2023.

Tusk, the current PM of Poland, has made promises and provided an action plan to bring Poland back into compliance with Article 7, some of which are currently under way.

The EC has acknowledged this change of circumstances and subsequently ratcheted down its own response, releasing some of the previously withheld funds, for which it was necessary for Poland to be released from Article 7 in the meantime.

I think it’s important to consider just how… ickily inviolable most (if not all) of the right wing feels about the second amendment. I don’t think this line of logic would carry much weight with that crowd.

But I agree with what you’re saying. We need much more stringent controls on who is eligible for office.

This is kinda huge. Germany is one of Israel’s most ardent supporters. It’s really great to see such a clear and concise answer that confirms a commitment to international rule of law over international politics.

Edit: I hope I did not speak too soon, as this seems like relatively positive news. However I am having a hard time finding the original Politico source that this link refers to. I am also unaware of this source’s integrity. Does anybody else have another source; or the original Politico source that is referred to in this article?

Second edit: apparently this is coming from the Twitter/xitter of politico. I don’t have one of those, so I can’t personally verify the veracity of this statement, but it does seem as if Politico (Peter Wilke (@peterjwilke)) reported this. [I put the name and handle in here for others who may be interested in digging a bit more than me before this is more widely reported]

The United States has also seen a dramatic increase in Chinese migrants cross its southern border. I wonder if this is a trend all over the world.

Do you travel much?

Too hip to sit down.

[edit since I can’t resist: the correct thing would be a “hoopy frood”, not dude. I’m sorry, the superfan in me got out.]

Honestly!

And then some have clearly never lived in a food desert without a car.

This other person being like “cook at home” would be hard pressed to find anything at the shitty corner store/bodega/gas station/dollar store that many people rely on for groceries that’s healthier than canned tuna.

Yeah. But over and over again.

You post this article a lot.

It’s really important news, but damn. Maybe ease up a bit on sharing the same thing over and over?

I’m not interested in whether foreigners can buy houses, so your Google search on my behalf is useless and doesn’t support your assertion.

I’m interested in how the Japanese government is supposedly enticing people of child bearing ages there. I also do not see anything in the link you provided about agreeing to upkeep the home for 10 years in exchange for very cheap pricing.

Do you have any evidence of these programs?

If this is the case, can you please provide some proof?

I’m sure there are plenty of people who would love to take advantage of such a program.

Listen, I respect you enough to believe that you saw some fucked up things. Seeing those kinds of things can really do a number on your head and memory, and it’s easy to conflate memories of trauma. Especially when it’s consumed as it seem like you have, via (social) media. And I do not at all disagree with your assertion that US policing needs fundamental change (approaching complete tear down, ideally).

However I, too, have been around on the internet for quite a while, and frequented bad parts of it. I didn’t see what you describe. I have a professional interest in watching such events, and I have worked very closely with police for quite a long time (albeit in just a few municipalities in a single US state).

Your “trust me” just doesn’t cut it, so my point stands: unless you have specific proof or ability to refer to evidence, don’t be hyperbolic. You simply can’t compare US policing to Iran, it’s apples and oranges of terrible, awful, horrifying shit.

And I have also met and studied with folks who have fled from Iran. I have had conversations with them and heard first hand stories. Please, use caution when you compare such dramatically different settings and circumstances of brutality. It really serves to undercut the complexity and uniqueness of these circumstances. Since different forms of resistance are necessary to combat them, it does nobody any good to try and compare them.

Finally, please don’t seek out things you don’t want to seek out for the sake of “winning” an internet argument with somebody who genuinely agrees with the spirit of your statements. It’s not worth it, I think.

In all honesty: I have missed these numerous videos. Can you source any of them?

Please note that I am plenty well aware of how often police abuse prisoners or use their powers of arrest to coerce people. I just doubt that there are plentiful videos that show police officers arresting, raping, and killing 16 year old girls.

Hyperbole undermines causes. As the other poster right under you alluded to, though, there is sufficient evidence of other police misconduct that is nearly as egregious.

These things that really happened should be the focus of conversation, I think, if we absolutely must shoehorn discussion of the USA into every conversation about how authority figures abuse their position worldwide.

Edit: “one” to “old”

Russia again, with its incendiary nuclear politics. First all the ABM and arms reduction treaties, then the nuclear test ban treaty it pulled from last year and now this.

Putin really thinks his nuclear threats are getting his way, I guess.

Removed by mod

Woof.