stickly
@stickly@lemmy.world
- Comment on What are some old games that are hard to revisit, because a more modern and superior version exists? 4 days ago:
Old Sierra games do suck as actual games. But the satisfaction of beating them is unrivaled, I’d put them above any Souls like.
They played best when you had other people to commiserate with. Hot seat multi-player getting more and more frustrated until someone realized you have to walk completely around the police car to check it before driving… 🤬
- Comment on Why aren't there mass protests in the USA? 1 week ago:
Any that are widely in use or accessible?
Signal is based in San Francisco and, last I checked, runs on AWS/Azure. Bsky is similar, US based and operated. Google/Apple could be ordered to delist anything from their stores preventing wide adoption of other apps.
Best I can think of is something very decentralized like Briar or Matrix/fediverse/i2p alternatives. As of right now, adoption of those is limited. If you pulled the lever tomorrow and cut the major platforms, most people wouldn’t even know where to go as a fallback.
- Comment on Why aren't there mass protests in the USA? 1 week ago:
The Arab Spring is a great case study on why that type of resistance will never happen in the USA. The proliferation of social media was a key spark in those movements. Let’s take a look at what stance those platforms take today:
- Comment on Why aren't there mass protests in the USA? 1 week ago:
Eh, I feel like every day there’s a new story of Tesla’s being torched. That’s a pretty directed and forceful form of protest that gets no credit.
Also, it’s not like America never has large scale protests. Hundreds of thousands of people fill the National Mall pretty regularly, skimming Wikipedia I counted 14+ since 1950 of over 200,000.
Just 5 years ago 15m-26m people participated in some especially roudy protests across all 50 states, but no credit for that either.
Large protests that get even slightly out of line in the USA usually end with:
- well armed, paramilitary police violently dispersing everyone
- the CIA assassinating protest leaders
- and/or the 6 media conglomerates suppressing coverage at the behest of the ~15 people that own them
If you’re criticizing Americans for anything, it should be for their response to that and not their ability to organize and orchestrate protests.
- Comment on Anon uses Discord 2 weeks ago:
Lemmy is celebrating cracking 50,000 users. Discord has 200 million MAU. They take a broader approach to punishment because it’s the only feasible way to avoid legal problems.
IIRC some Lemmy instances were defederated at that time for poor moderation and nobody complained. Its a reasonable approach to avoid liability.
- Comment on Anon uses Discord 2 weeks ago:
My question is why do people feel the need to be in 40 servers? I couldn’t name 10 I give a shit about.
As a user you’re voluntarily joining a server, you should know what the content is and how well it’s moderated. Ignorance isn’t a defense here; a server doesn’t get nuked for one bad actor posting illegal content once or twice.
Nine times out of ten these stories are from a user that joins servers made for NSFW content (usually for something like OF leaks). There’s no content verification and lots of active channels.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that combo almost always ends poorly (see: reddit jailbait or old pornhub). If it feels risky just leave, there’s no lack of places to find porn on the internet.
- Comment on Is it a common thing for people who have left authoritarian countries to still feel the fear of their now-former country? 2 weeks ago:
They’re a minority because it’s an extremely dangerous and low success-rate way to enter. You’re comparing global affluent population shuffling to actual poverty migration. The vast majority of the globe doesn’t have the skills desired for a work visa, much less the ability to pay the costs of relocation. If people desperately needed to migrate quickly, that’s the only way they can.
Poland is a weird example to pick, they’re very publicly in the news right now for blocking a refugee initiative. They may have lax requirements for legal entry at this moment, but all signs point to a shift.
All migration is population pressure, I can assure you these governments don’t care if you’re from the USA fleeing fascism or a South-Asian country fleeing wet bulb events.
- Comment on Is it a common thing for people who have left authoritarian countries to still feel the fear of their now-former country? 2 weeks ago:
Point is it’s not something a “normal person” can do. It’s an obscenely privileged thing to even suggest. Most countries require proof of enough wealth to support yourself and your family before you can even start the process. And it’s only going to get more strict as countries start locking their doors to climate refugees.
More realistically your exit involves an overflowing boat straight to a migrant camp, then “remigrated” back as the world plunges into a recession and the locals don’t want you. And that’s if you’re lucky.
- Comment on Is it a common thing for people who have left authoritarian countries to still feel the fear of their now-former country? 2 weeks ago:
What a dumbass piece of advice
- Comment on Common Ground 4 weeks ago:
…you are a detriment to this species, and your role has to be minimized.
I’m not going to advocate for taking away the rights of people I don’t agree with…
Lmao which is it?
These people have a right to vote and live in the same society as you. What the fuck is your solution? Disenfranchisement? Balkanization? Ghettos?
It’s hilarious because you could swap out a few talking points and the hillbilly voter would say the exact same thing
- Comment on Common Ground 4 weeks ago:
What a fucked up view of the world. Its not about them being your “friends”, it’s not about trusting them.
It’s about reaching out to your fellow man, educating as much as you can, focusing on their actual grievances (no matter how much propaganda they parrot) and convincing them that we can build a better future. Maybe that enthusiasm only lasts for one vote, maybe not. Winning support isn’t automatic, especially with the full weight of a propaganda machine purpose-built to crush critical thinking.
If you don’t want to even try to overcome the systemic suppression of progressive politics then why are you even here? Take your own advice and suffer in silence.
- Comment on Common Ground 4 weeks ago:
Hmmm why is it binary?.. Let’s brainstorm that… Could it be that you’re reducing 77 million human lives to which of the two circles they filled out of a slip of paper?
Aside from Bernie and AOC, when is the last time anyone on the American left actually attempted to appeal directly to the lower working class? Why are there there ballots with votes for both AOC and Trump?
This is a bloc of groomed voters: undereducated, underpaid, and living in a homogeneous bubble where they don’t see the consequences of fascism. The right has targeted their rhetoric to a sharp point, keeping this base strong even though their policies are the source of the oppression.
I went to high school in a small Midwestern town. NAFTA gutted our towns largest employer, outsourcing thousands of jobs. In a school with hundreds of students, there was ONE (1) PoC.
Like it or not, people vote for whoever promises to improve their lives the most. One party campaigns on reforming systemic racism for that one student; the other drills the lie that they’re on foodstamps because the Democrats gave their jobs to foreigners.
When the status quo has failed them, why would they vote for a candidate like Kamala?
- Comment on Common Ground 4 weeks ago:
So we agree that the ones fucking you over are the billionaires with the bankrolling the fire hose of toxic media that gets people to vote against their interest?
Genuinely not sure of the stance you’re taking…
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
Putting aside whether or not that’s anathema to the cause, I’m not sure how you’d “other” them in a meaningful way. The reason it works for the right is that they target groups who’s members are publicly visible and can’t voluntarily leave (LGBT+, minorities, foreign religions, etc…)
If you target a group of people for their beliefs (something not overtly visible), they can either relabel their group or plausibly claim their beliefs differ in some way. We already do this for fascists and nazis, but very few people are going to outwardly admit to these ideals. Now they’ll just say they’re “extra-constitutional”, “alt right”, “Christian patriot”, or any other hat a bigot wants to swap out for far right authoritarian.
You can’t “other” them where they already proudly claim a majority (white + Christian) so what are you left with?
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
There might not be an easy alternative right now.
People tend not to internalize a problem until they can personally see it, and a lot of these problems (deportations, cutting education, handcuffing the CDC, etc…) might not affect them until things get truly bleak. Unless of course they do something reckless like directly cutting funds that goes directly to their wallets (Medicare or Social Security).
Spreading awareness has always been a huge problem. Activists in Tsarist Russia had the same problem of trying to reach out to uneducated rural peasants and their efforts didn’t go smoothly. And of course this was before everyone had hand held disinformation machines in their pockets.
I don’t have a magic bullet but we do have some things going for us. It’s not yet illegal to spread radical ideas, our targets are generally literate, and we still share a fair number of cultural references.
The following is my best guess at advice, I’m just as open to ideas as giving them:
The tricky part is that mainstream social platforms are a non starter. You’d never outweigh the echo chamber. In my opinion digital organization is secondary at best because anything can be suppressed at the whim of server owner, ISP, or government.
So as dumb as it sounds, go forth and talk to people in real life. Be sure you’re educated on what you want to talk about (read your history and theory, know what political buzzwords actually mean). Try to avoid activities that insulate you in your own comfort zone, and gravitate towards ones with wide appeal and low barriers to entry.
Start a woodworking club with some like minded friends or join a book club and offer suggestions. Running group, bodybuilding, birdwatching, whatever… If you want to do some good for your community, join a mutual aid network.
Try to know the narrative these people are living in, even if it’s a fantasy. Avoid trigger words they’re primed to react to, keep it simple and let them draw their own conclusions. Not everyone will be receptive, some people are just assholes.
It’s not sexy but it’s also not that hard to point out glaring injustices in the world. Most people can at least see that far and agree that something needs to change, starting that conversation is first step.
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
Being reactionary to a nazi salute at a presidential inauguration is warranted, reasonable, and useful.
Being reactionary to my 70 year old neighbor who ate too many paint chips as a child because he had a Trump sign in his lawn for 2 weeks before the election is less useful.
Being reactionary against an anonymous stranger in your own digital echo chamber is pointless (assuming their bad argument isn’t also in bad faith).
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
It’s not necessarily a lack of education, I know a really smart surgeon, generally very reasonable, who fell for this stuff.
If you’ve never seen the echo chamber this guy lives in you don’t understand how bizarre it can be.
On the surface there’s a lot of influencers that can say truly regressive lies, and make them sound innocuous. They say it with such confidence and mixed in with truths and half truths. It can be hard to see the fallacies and misinfo even if you know what to look for.
There’s a constant drip of cherry picked stats and talking points designed to reinforce what he’s feeling. In the back of his mind he knows those support his case but he doesn’t really have an original source to reference. He tries to say them with the same confidence that he heard them with, but they’re not based in reality and look pretty ugly without the professional window dressing.
There’s videos where people do deep dives on this stuff (I can try to find one if you want). You could probably also experiment with it yourself if you have a VPN and a fresh/virtual device to make an account on.
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
Wecome to Disney’s North Korea+ (brought to you by Tesla)
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
I’d agree that your reasoning makes sense but is reductionist when talking about America’s two party system.
I grew up in a conservative town and I personally knew lots of people that were truly, deeply compassionate people. Christian in the truly radical, hippy sense of the word. Except they had one issue, abortion made them sad.
It wasn’t any ignorance of the issue or believing in satanic baby eating, but a philosophy arbitrarily picked by their community. They didn’t hate anyone getting an abortion, they just had some utopian vision of a world where they didn’t happen.
Since abortions were framed as murder and one party promised to ban abortions and the other party expand access, they were told there was only one ethical choice.
So their one line of thought trapped them. I could argue up and down the ballot on issues they agreed with, how the economy should be handled, prison reform, etc… but that one stupid idea held them back.
They’re still good people, and voted 3rd party a few times when the mood struck them. But I don’t think wanting one bad policy (with the best intentions) makes them bad people.
So I’d say yes. In that instance, with those people, it’s generalizing to say they were on board with any of the hateful policies. They were held hostage by their single issue, and the right’s rhetoric made damn sure they could never wriggle out.
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
What if the system is designed to keep you ignorant?
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
If you want to come to that conclusion in a political postmortem 20 years from now I’d fully encourage it.
The problem is that right now the house is burning down and shaming people for playing with matches won’t save us.
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
This is the political awareness equivalent of telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
People are overworked, lack childcare, have poor healthcare, come from underfunded schools, never get exposed to diversity, etc… Just because it’s possible to escape those conditions and doesn’t mean it’s natural or easy.
Saying people are dumb and lazy is a thought terminating cliché, you have to view that as an extension of the problem.
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
Right but this isn’t the conclusion of a world war yet. I don’t doubt that the problem gets worse after people are forced to participate or be complicit while atrocities are committed.
There’s a series of miniscule steps from being ok with a hateful statement to being ok with dangerous people being rounded up to being ok with dangerous political opponents being rounded up to being ok with gas chambers.
Assuming that everyone who ignores the first step is a full fledged Nazi isn’t putting faith in people to change or even resist. Plenty of people stepped out of line in Germany and paid the price.
The real lesson after WW2 is that the Nuremberg Trials were far too lax and narrow in scope. Germany’s populace (while on the cusp of swinging far right) went through the most thorough denazification. It’s still putting up much better resistance than the United States (which had basically no punishment for nazi sympathizers) or Italy (handwaved due to surrender).
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
Fully agree that we can see the obvious fascists at the top and the rot seeps down. But idk that I can call 77 million people who casted one ballot Nazis.
My (maybe optimistic) perspective is that the rot has shallow roots. These days you don’t need thousands of dedicated grunts to print flyers and hang posters. Just get one billionaire with a social media platform and a few dozen managers and you can broadcast anything you want.
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
Surely my message will be seen by the millions of Trump voters on… checks notes …Mastadon
How do people not realize they live in an entirely separate digital space from the right.
Not just separate platforms (YouTube vs Rumble, Mastadon/Bsky vs X/Truth) but perfectly segregated by their personalized algorithms. They keep us separated by design. How many trans influencers are on truth social? Not enough for a user to view them as anything but an “other”…
This post is reaching nobody that needs to see it unless it has a sarcastic title over the screenshot
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
That’s the one thing that gives me hope: their views changed radically but only in one generation through concentrated, directed effort. Calling people idiots or sheep misses the point that this is the natural result of exposing people to this shit daily. Nobody in history ever thought people are inherently rational and considerate, society is held together through a culture that reinforces it. The tools of the information age can rapidly and drastically shape our society however we want it, we just need to pull them out of the hands of those billionaires burning civilisation to the ground for their own benefit.
- Comment on Yeah, let's stop with this "don't judge people for their poiltics" bullshit 1 month ago:
Nobody’s born a nazi, and in my opinion painting millions of people with a broad brush solves nothing even if feels righteous. There’s a whole spectrum of people ranging from apathetic to ignorant to hateful and inflammatory.
As funny as it is to call someone an idiot for voting based on the price of eggs, it lacks empathy for what that might mean to some people. What if all you’ve been eating is instant ramen with an egg to pay for a medical bill that insurance didn’t cover and now you can’t even afford that.
You might be more inclined to scroll past yet another “Trump says wild shit” headline but engage more with right wing Tik Tok content arguing that the system is broken because of the ((woke-ism)) and ((DEI)). Even if you don’t believe it, now the social media algorithm has your weak spot and can put you in an echo chamber to exploit it…
Are there still people out there waving swastikas and chanting racist shit in red hats? Sure. But screaming at them won’t change anything. If someone can be changed, you’re not going to reach them now with lecturing and scolding. It’s not kiddie gloves, it’s taking a realistic approaches to convince real human beings
