cabbage
@cabbage@piefed.social
- Comment on Y'all ever have intrusive thoughts about accidentally dropping stuff in storm drains? (particulary when you have your phone out) And like if that happens, wtf is someone supposed to do? 6 days ago:
My intrusive thoughts usually revolve around yeeting my phone off a bridge or a boat. I’ve managed to contain myself so far.
As for storm drains, I lost my keys down a deep one a few months back. Went to the hardware store and bought strong magnets and a wire and got them out after a lengthy fishing expedition.
- Comment on Let's say hypothetically I wanted to leave the US permanently; 1 week ago:
To find jobs in Norway, try searching for the word “jobbportal”. At least some of these sites allow you to sort for English language jobs.
- Comment on Can someone break down the real differences between kbin, mbin, Lemmy, and PieFed? I know they're all in the Threadiverse, but I'm not sure what the draw is to use one over another. 2 weeks ago:
If we can have fewer nazis at the price of a slight inconvenience for users who were born in 1988 and for some reason want to have their birth year in their user name….
Yeah, I’ll take fewer nazis, please.
I’m fine others may disagree, but let’s at least be honest what we talk about when we talk about “controversial moderation”.
- Comment on Can someone break down the real differences between kbin, mbin, Lemmy, and PieFed? I know they're all in the Threadiverse, but I'm not sure what the draw is to use one over another. 2 weeks ago:
It seems Ernest recovered, and just decided to step away!
Unfortunately, due to personal circumstances, I had to step away from actively working on Kbin and leave its further development to the community. Nevertheless, I am happy to see the project thriving, with a dedicated group of users and contributors who continue to push its vision forward.
Open-source has always been important to me, and while I am no longer involved with Kbin, I still believe in the power of community and the potential of open technologies to shape the future of the internet.
- Comment on Can someone break down the real differences between kbin, mbin, Lemmy, and PieFed? I know they're all in the Threadiverse, but I'm not sure what the draw is to use one over another. 2 weeks ago:
Again, what exactly are you talking about?
The lead developer recently started a thread in the Piefed meta community specifically to open for people to ask questions about these things. In full:
I have received word that there are people combing through the PieFed code looking for anything that might be harmful. This is excellent and can only make PieFed better and less harmful. We appreciate their interest in PieFed and look forward to answering any questions and showing people around the code. Please join us at https://chat.piefed.social or https://matrix.to/#/#piefed-developers:matrix.org.
There’s no need to listen to rumors and amateur speculation when we’re right here and happy to help. Come on in, the water’s fine!
Nobody managed to come up with an even remotely critical question there.
If you have an issue, ask in !piefed_meta@piefed.social. If the community agrees your concern is valid I can guarantee you it’ll be addressed.
- Comment on Can someone break down the real differences between kbin, mbin, Lemmy, and PieFed? I know they're all in the Threadiverse, but I'm not sure what the draw is to use one over another. 2 weeks ago:
Also multi-communities is a pretty central feature. A list of differences with Lemmy is maintained here.
- Comment on Can someone break down the real differences between kbin, mbin, Lemmy, and PieFed? I know they're all in the Threadiverse, but I'm not sure what the draw is to use one over another. 2 weeks ago:
Piefed is Lemmy with cross-posts collapsed to one thread, and controversial developers (moderation defaults)
Would love to hear which moderation defaults of PieFed are so controversial. Your phrasing seems to indicate that Lemmy developers support for Putin and Xi Jinping is no more controversial than Piefed developers’ preference to silence trolls and fascists.
- Comment on Steam On Linux Use Skyrocketed In March - More Than Double The macOS Gaming Marketshare 2 weeks ago:
Yes, absolutely. They are digging their grave with their transition to being an AI company and it will absolutely catch up with them eventually.
- Comment on Steam On Linux Use Skyrocketed In March - More Than Double The macOS Gaming Marketshare 2 weeks ago:
This is not being ignored my Microsoft
My impression is that Microsoft won’t care all that much. They are primarily a cloud service provider at this point, and while they will try to squeeze Windows users for as much money and information as possible before it goes down for good they have no real interest in keeping on developing Windows. It’s just not where the real money is at.
It doesn’t make sense outside the world of capitalism, but we see again and again that big tech companies are happy to kill even profitable services if they are not their most profitable services. Microsoft’s revenue these days comes from selling cloud office solutions to (seemingly) every company on the planet. Even their own cloud runs on Linux, meaning that Microsoft themselves makes more money off Linux than Windows these days.
Windows is now in the extraction phase of enshittification, and Microsoft will profit as much as they can from it while they still have market power while spending minimal resources developing the product. Windows has effectively been declared dead already, and remains as a sofware zombie just like Facebook. Windows 12 is not going to be an improvement upon 11; it’ll be another fuck you to the customers, and the beatings will continue until customers leave for good and Microsoft are finally relieved of their side gig of making an operative system.
- Comment on Is Kagi Worth It? 2 weeks ago:
I paid for the lower plan for a while. It didn’t have nearly enough searches included for my use, and the higher plan was too expensive. Especially since I just wanted search, none of the other products they were busy developing.
Search results were good. Recently I’m using Qwant and I’m happy with that as well, so right now I don’t miss having access to Kagi at all. With the limited number of searches it was more of an inconvenience than a benefit the period I was using it.
There are some questionable things about Kagi. A few years ago the CEO reeked out this tweet showcasing how Kagi AI could call out the BBC for being too mean to Elon Musk, which is honestly enough of a red flag for me to steer clear.
- Comment on Why are people so rude on Reddit compared to the Fediverse? 5 weeks ago:
rude disgruntled noises
- Comment on Why are people so rude on Reddit compared to the Fediverse? 5 weeks ago:
Large userbases, and the “somebody is wrong on the internet” effect. If we like something we see we’ll possibly like/upvote it and move on with our life, if we see a problem we’re far more likely to jump on and interact. So a hundred people might read something and be neutral towards it, and it’s enough to have one asshole react poorly to ruin the mood completely.
The same dynamic works for reply guys, and sadly the fediverse is in no way immune. But hopefully there are more people on here who are aware that it’s a community building exercise, and who make an effort to leave a positive footprint. :)
- Comment on With regards to cutlery, do you prefer a spoon or a fork for eating cake? 5 weeks ago:
I moved to Denmark a few years ago, and have been picking up a line of cutlery whenever I see stuff I need in red cross stores. I have small tea spoons, big tea spoons, and one tiny cake fork.
I prefer the smaller tea spoons not only for ice cream cake, but anything served with ice cream. So typically that’s also a lot of pies. The fork is better for dry crumbly cakes, but the spoons are better for creamy cakes. I wouldn’t eat a tiramisu with a fork if I have a spoon available.
The bigger tea spoons I mostly only use for yogurt and stuff like that.
- Comment on A Day in the Life of an Enshittificator - Norwegian Consumer Council 1 month ago:
It’s an actual government agency, just that it’s not under political leadership. It operates as part of the state.
- Comment on Are there any easy ways and methods for actually studying socialist theory and such? 1 month ago:
I just remembered this amazing book: Why Not Socialism by Gerald A. Cohen.
Super nice and easy read, fantastic introduction. It has been years and years since I read it but I highly recommend it as an introduction.
- Comment on Are there any easy ways and methods for actually studying socialist theory and such? 1 month ago:
I’m a bit sceptical of people who are too into “socialism as a government type” - they tend to develop fundamentalist ideas about what the perfect society should look like, and which means are justified in order to get there. Usually all means will be. To me socialism is at its best as a critique, allowing us to understand what’s going on in the world and how to fight it piece by piece instead of trying to construct some ideal society based on a feeble understanding of reality.
- Comment on Are there any easy ways and methods for actually studying socialist theory and such? 1 month ago:
I guess what is considered easy is very subjective. I seriously think Marx’ Manifesto of the Communist Party is not a bad place to start. It’s everything Capital is not: short, easy to read, somewhat superficial.
I’d say the historical analysis is at the core of marxism as much as the economic one, and it’s summarized perfectly right from the start:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
Make sure to take a second to reflect on this and the Soviet Union and the failure of Marxist-Leninism. It was not the end of history, but another common ruin. Which brings me to the biggest problem of studying socialist theory: The line between theory and propaganda is often blurred. The Manifesto of the Communist Party itself, thought-provoking as it is, is a pamphlet made for wide circulation, and more propaganda than academic work. Marx’ understanding of history revolves around how proletarian revolts such as the Soviet Union go wrong and end up reproducing existing power structures. Yet many of today’s self-proclaimed Marxists are somehow blind to this and end up tricking themselves with all sorts of mind games.
That’s why I think it’s important to start with Marx himself. Understand his view of history and his criticism of the economy, and reflect on what it means for what you see in history since it was written. It still holds, though the theory itself has become weaponized in the very historical and economical dynamics he is describing. If you understand this independently you’re less likely to become a sucker who falls for propaganda.
And of course, Marx wasn’t a god, and he didn’t get it all right. I personally think the main problem is his understanding of history as having an “end” (a teleological account) - Marx believed every class revolt would lead us slightly closer to a classless society, and that eventually we would get there. This builds on Hegel, who had a similar understanding of history rooted in religion rather than communism. I think this is plain wrong - things very well might just get worse, and there is no end of history. But that’s me.
Of course one shouldn’t focus only on Marx, but I feel like he’s important enough that it’s worth taking him seriously. And with all the stupid takes people have on his work, I think it’s a good idea to go straight to the source.
- Comment on Former Prince Andrew Arrested in Britain Over Epstein Ties (Live Updates) 1 month ago:
Considering the scope of what we’re learning about Epstein and his circles, yes, I am Indeed not happy at all with “just a prince”.
The system still protects its own, I can’t help but feel Andrew is arrested not for raping children as much as for not being well liked and/or powerful enough to have friends in high places to protect him.
It’s gonna take a hell of a lot more than this before I’m even remotely happy.
- Comment on Former Prince Andrew Arrested in Britain Over Epstein Ties (Live Updates) 1 month ago:
What I’m bitter about is that this piece of shit never had any power to begin with, he’s just some non-heir piece of shit royal.
By all means, lock him away, but start doing the same to the men who have actually been powerful in their lives.
- Comment on What are we being distracted from? 2 months ago:
You’re being distracted from actually doing something.
A constant stream of awful bullshit, right to your screen. The feeling of doing something by shouting into the abyss.
Trump doesn’t care if you see pictures of him raping children or learn about all his corruption unless it is transformed into actual political action. Taking to the street, organizing, running for office, supporting those who do.
Everything is a distraction from action.
- Comment on What should I NOT do in front of rich people? 2 months ago:
For real. Whenever I eat (Italian) pizza normally around a bunch of freaks using knife and fork I just silently rejoice about my superior cultural capital.
And if OP is American, chances are those people don’t even know how to use a knife and fork properly.
- Comment on Why are americans taking health advice from a former heroin addict ? 2 months ago:
Yeah, “from a guy with a dead worm in his brain” would make for a better question.
- Comment on Videos Show Moments in Which Agents Killed a Man in Minneapolis 2 months ago:
US Border Patrol, not ICE.
It’s probably important to remember that ICE is not the only fascist paramilitary that needs to be abolished.
- Comment on If the United States of America was renamed, what should it be? 2 months ago:
Go back to the original European name - Vinland/Vineland/Wineland. Though that might have been in Canada, technically.
Better yet, find some pre-Columbian name for the land that was used by the actual locals. I’m sure there’s plenty of alternatives, and some of the most beautiful state names in the US came about that way. Maybe some Native American name for the Mississippi river could be a good starting point.
- Comment on How do you fight doomerism/pessimism in these trying times? 2 months ago:
A piece of American optimism:
America has been awful since the start, in one way or another. It was never going to change because the majority population was either comfortable enough, or scared enough of the minorities that they would accept a certain discomfort as long as their fellow man had it somehow worse.
Right now nobody is having a good time over there. We’re approaching a breaking point. And that’s scary, but it’s also an opportunity to build a better world on the ashes of the old. We are on the verge of huge changes.
Change is no guarantee for improvement. Americans should not only protest the regime, but start preparing to rebuild. Get smart. Read your own history, especially the parts you’re not proud of. If you don’t know or fully understand those parts you will never manage to build wide alliances. Read postwar history, read about the French revolution and it’s messy aftermath. Read Arendt, read Rawls, read Steinbeck and Locke. Prepare yourself to grasp this historic moment. You have an opportunity unlike anything since the 18th century to change America for the better. Don’t waste it doomscrolling. Don’t think you know enough already. Prepare yourself to be the kind of person who is needed once the regime falls.
European optimism:
After the events of the last few weeks I think a lot more people are fed up with this fascist bullshit, and it seems even Eurosceptics now believe we need to stand together in solidarity across the continent. It’s a new European moment, and the American hegemony has been broken. I’m feeling genuinely optimistic.
The protests in Minnesota also fill me with joy. I sincerely believe things are beginning to crack. Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu are all in extremely fragile positions, and dictators have famously poor life expectancy. Change is gradual, then sudden, and the destinies of these despots are intertwined. The darkest hour is right before the dawn.
- Comment on Why are they different shapes? 2 months ago:
Or Vietnam!
- Comment on To Their Shock, Cubans in Florida Are Being Deported in Record Numbers 2 months ago:
I am sure there are plenty of good people in the American Cuban minority just as there is anywhere, and it’s as awful for them as for anyone else. But yeah, a lot of people are having a leopards eating face moment, and it’s difficult to feel sorry for the Rubio types out there.
- Comment on With what's happening to Grok AI (generating nonconsensual images), how do you think AI would be taken care of? (repost!) 2 months ago:
A lot of it will correct itself once the bubble bursts and AI companies have to be profitable. AI needs to be regulated and all that, but also importantly it needs to not be subsidized. Make them pay for the environmental cost of computing. Subject them to the same laws you would anyone else - don’t allow crazy data centres that steal people’s water and electricity.
Then again, even when it becomes more expensive than it is now creeps will still pay to have non-consensual content produced. So regulating the fuck out of the industry is also essential, but I honestly doubt we’ll make much progress before after the crash. The EU is making some decent efforts but it’s also too afraid of missing out on the slop bubble.
- Comment on I CAN'T go outside without permission - is there any way I can help fight for a better world from the comfort of my bedroom? 2 months ago:
- Be informed. Read books rather than endless snippets of doom. Arendt, Orwell, Graeber, Steinbeck there’s plenty of options. Avoid spiralling into ideological rabbit holes - reading Marxist scholarship is good, exclusively reading Marxist scholarship is deeply concerning.
- Share quality content on the open web where fascists cannot sensor speech. Focus on building communities.
- Encourage others by being kind and supportive, and understanding of differences. Inspite of popular opinion there’s still a big gap between centrists and fascists—welcome the centrists with open arms, take their points seriously, and debate on reasonable terms. You can both learn something from each other—just because you understand the contours of the system of oppression it doesn’t mean you’ve got it all figured out. Remain humble.
- Take care of yourself, if it feels heavy maybe make some tea and craft something or read a pleasent book.
That would be my advice, I guess. In general I think there’s more positivity to be found in long-form content, as people have had time to think about issues beyond the initial shock and disgust of the state of affairs expressed in daily news and short form content.
- Comment on Trump Threatens to Take Greenland ‘the Hard Way’ 3 months ago:
Historical footnote: It was actually Norwegians who settled in Greenland, not Danes. Greenland only became part of Denmark-Norway when Norway was forced into a Union with Denmark for 400 years. In the span of those 400 years the current population of Greenland settled the island, and the one Norwegian settlement left probably due to bad crops or something. There’s no sign of conflict.
In 1814 Denmark-Norway was split up after the Napoleonic wars, but Greenland remained in the hands of Denmark, despite it never having been Danish and the Norwegian settlement being long gone.
Currently the Danes are spending quite a lot of money on welfare in Greenland, which is not yet very wealthy in its own right. There’s a lot of bad things to be said about Denmarks Greenland policy, and their historical claim to the territory is a complete joke, but for now they are providing a decent enough service to the people there.
That Denmark’s claim is a joke of course does not help the case of the US one bit. It belong to the Greenlanders.