Cethin

The idea that a kid will be influenced by a hijab or a cross is also total bullshit .

Do you think no kid has really liked a teacher and done things to get them to like them? I promise you, there are children who got into a religion, a hobby, etc. because a teacher they wanted to impress was into it.

The real issues that should be addressed in extremist messages in places of cult like a imam who would support terrorism or a synagogues that sell occupied land in the west bank

I mostly disagree with this. Which definition of terrorism are we using? The problem is the state gets to define whatever they want as terrorism, so they can target dissidents. Why does the state get a monopoly on terrorism/violence? (As proof of the term being bullshit to target people, why did use use an Imam for your example? Biased?)

People should be allowed to do and say what they want in private. If they’re a public official, they shouldn’t use that platform to lend credibility to other organizations/faiths. That’s not the place for it.

The argument for it is to remove hate and division. The purpose of them is to act as a shibboleth, to identify yourself as part of an in-group. That necessarily requires division. If you make it harder for people to show their affiliation with exclusive groups then it makes it more inclusive.

This doesn’t make them not allowed to follow a religion. It just makes them not allowed to share identifiers of that religion to children. Children are easily influenced, and having authority figures identities with religion lends that authority and authenticity to that religion, influencing the children.

I had the idea to use an old phone as a server recently. Phones are pretty energy efficient, so it seems like it’d be a smart way to recycle one. Does anyone know if this is actually a good practical idea for a lightweight personal server, rather than just a novelty? I haven’t heard of anyone doing it before so I’m assuming there’s a reason it isn’t a good idea, but I don’t know what that’d be.

Yep, I agree. The state gets to call anything they want terrorism (even when it isn’t) and nothing they do is called terrorism. It’s just a cudgel they can use to suppress dissent. We need to point out when they do terrorism, and also point to where terrorism has been used to do good, so they lose this tool that let’s them do anything they want.

You’re correct, but states usually have a monopoly on violence, and state sanctioned terrorism is rarely called such. If you’re using violence and fear to achieve a political goal, that’s terrorism. Every state employs it to some extent. (Usually not this obviously though.)

I guess fair enough, though every other federated site I know of uses some other algorithm, and you seem to have been talking about the fediverse in general, not Mastodon, except for the example. Still, Mastodon’s sort is still an algorithm. You can’t display anything without an algorithm. That word just means a set of rules to complete a task. Mastodon uses one that only uses who you’re following and time to decide what to display.

Algorithms aren’t the issue. We can have sophisticated algorithms that help users find the content they want. That’s great. It’s when there is an incentive, and ability, to influence the algorithm by the platform controllers when there’s an issue. The fediverse solves this not by ditching algorithms, but by having no singular controller.

I’m curious how the Counter Strike subreddit was. It wasn’t that bad I don’t think a long time ago, before Reddit was as large as it became, and also before it was free. Now that Reddit is a hell-hole and the game is free, is the subreddit horrible too? I’d imagine it is, but I’d expect it to lean a little toward older audiences than the other games, so there’s a chance it’s fine.

I hate this phrase. There are several algorithms. There’s new, hot, rising, etc. There’s no company manipulating content discovery. That’s the difference. Algorithms are great. For-profit companies with an incentive to control content is bad.

I agree mostly, in this case, because they have the media attention. If they didn’t then they aren’t protected by everyone watching, and also going down fighting would bring attention to the situation, which is beneficial.

It’s literally worse than nothing.

“How do we make people less extreme and more open to our culture? Oh, I know! We harass and insult them! That’s sure to make them want to join us!”

Nah, fuck that. I hate religion more than most, but this isn’t how you create change. You change things by making them feel accepted and a part of the culture. French isn’t a thing that came from nothing. It’s a conglomeration of all cultures of the people before who joined as one into a fairly cohesive group. This is true everywhere.

Muslims aren’t better or worse than these groups (in fact, they’re part of it already). However, anyone who thinks they are worse is worse than them. You want them to be accepting of your culture, and you can’t accept any of theirs? Yeah, fuck you. Maybe you’re the extremist who doesn’t deserve to be accepted.

Hey, an actual comment that understood 1984! That’s nice to see. Normally people think it just talks about surveillance.

Even in 1984, where the party has total control over all media, and even control over the language, there is still small dissent. It makes it harder to go against them, but not impossible. It’s just a story though, so it doesn’t actually show reality.

If things get bad enough there’s only so much the media can do to calm people down. Once they can’t calm them they need to scare them from fighting back. If it gets to that point I think they’re done. There’s already very effective partisan activity in the Russian mainland disrupting the war effort. If they can better blend in to native activity it’ll be even easier.

According to this, Russia has a casualty rate of 1,523 per day (in November of last year, and this has gotten worse IIRC). That’s 88.6 days. Less than three months.

Edit: This source has it at about 30000/m, so about four months at the current rate.

You don’t need unbiased reporting to see the funerals of your friends and neighbors. You don’t need unbiased reporting to see the huge increase in gas prices —if you can get any at all. You don’t need unbiased reporting to see that Russia is gaining ground literally several times slower than a snail’s pace (a snail would have crossed all of Ukraine, and that was a year or maybe more ago).

At a certain point, biased reporting can only do so much. They know that things are wrong. They know they’re suffering. They know that they aren’t winning like the government told them they would. They just need to do something to change this.

There is good strategic logic to what he’s doing to NATO. If he can make them scared then maybe they withhold aid that they think they may need to fight Russia when they get attacked. This is a stupid plan for those scared nations, as it’s much better for it to be expended in Ukraine against Russia now, weekening their threat, rather than hold back and allow them to gain power. Still, it has worked previously. It seems to be backfiring now though, with NATO nations realizing giving everything they can to Ukraine is the best way to protect themselves.

I’m certain that can’t be totally true. In remote areas hunting must be allowed. Maybe you have to have a license, but there’s no way no civilians own guns legally. Also, there’s a lot of illegal guns in Russia too.

That’s assuming there isn’t a populist revolution. It’s not like Russia is immune to revolutions or anything…

Yeah, the oligarchs are planning to take over, but that’s also why they keep dying. Who’s going to be left in the end? Is there actually going to be an oligarch capable of taking over? Anyone capable of it will be a target.

“It was a mistake! We didn’t know that well identified flotilla of civilian aid wasn’t enemy warships!”

Maybe, to make sure we’re clear it’s bad, we should make it an even L. Oh wait…

Sure. The term in the US that is used is “socialized healthcare”, mostly as a pejorative. I use the term in this instance to point out their hypocrisy. It’s state-provided taxpayer funded healthcare, but that’s only acceptable in the US for service members and dependants, for some reason.

Sure, you’re entitled to say that. I’m not trying to stop you. This started with someone saying Americans should do something (they didn’t say what) pretending like their nation doesn’t have problems. All nations have rising fascism right now.

Also, as we’re going with entitlement, American soldiers are entitled to be there. They’re there with the express permission of your government. You can not like it, but they’re entitled to it. Being entitled to do something doesn’t make it right.