Weird bc I got my certificate right away… oh I mean uh, yeah, s-s-s-sure!:-)

I may do that! (Read: I won’t do that!:-)

I suppose it depends on your goals - for a child or pet, is it okay to lie to them or simply force the issue, whereas for an adult human, how far should someone go to remove from them the consequences of their own actions?

Interesting article about the changing language surrounding climate change. Like now it’s starting to become climate emergency/breakdown/crisis, but before any of that it was global warming, and in the 80s apparently it was “inadvertent climate modification”.

Never forget that behind the mobs is a controller.

Oh, I naively thought it was included, but I see that it’s a bit controversial. Interesting 🤔.

Just that they are actively recruiting people from STEM.

Most of what made Reddit great was not Huffman’s software but the people that were worth chatting with. Most of those people did not come here, hence the huge lack of niche subjects here by comparison.

Though indeed, even before the whole fuck spez fiasco Reddit was becoming enshittified, as it encouraged people to talk rather than listen - e.g. to make a new post rather than be able to find an existing one. And yes, it also encouraged us to become pedantic assholes, making every one of us defensive - me too.

A fantastic article somewhat related btw: https://medium.com/@max.p.schlienger/the-cargo-cult-of-the-ennui-engine-890c541cebcb, highlighting that social media becomes what the vision of the developers makes it to be. From the size and position and coloration of the buttons - and which ones, like are downvotes even turned on? - and every little thing, Reddit was doomed to become what it was purely bc of its choice to encourage its own profits at the expense of all else.

A favorite example of mine is that since ads go in-between posts but not comments, Reddit encouraged “more posts”, far more so than “more comments”, and not at all searching for existing posts, e.g. they only allowed 2 pinned posts, not 5 or 10 or 20 or something, just 2. So in places like r/Android they would have weekly mega threads where people could ask things e.g. “what phone should I buy?”, but rather than help connect people to those mega threads specifically offered for that, the developers forced mods to do the work to try to stem the absolute tsunami of posts all saying “which phone should I buy?” - almost invariably with no other details, each just a child (of whatever mental age) wanting personalized recommendations attention, but thereby halting the ability of people to discuss things related to Android phones, bc how could you get a word mixed in among all that noise?

Even nonprofit social media is still damaging to us, but to a radically lesser degree it would seem, compared to a for-profit one attempting to predate upon e.g. our anxieties.

What about intentional ones?

_{do it do it do it you know you want to…}

Well, don’t keep us in suspense: did you? (is it as hot there as they say?)

But… we could always use new memes!?

Maybe something like this:

with the caption "I use Arch btw"😁

It’s a double edged sword, that.

On the one hand, we’re kinda awesome the way we are.:-) Perhaps a bit more content would be good though?

On the other, there’s like 50 people that generate virtually all the content, and they won’t necessarily be able to keep up that pace forever. If we aren’t sustainable, this project will die off. And I don’t mean like cease working, but rather lose our uniqueness, like what happened to Reddit, which technically remember still exists:-).

I hear you about “fully mainstream”, but I think we could stand to grow a bit more. What’s going on with mander.xyz and scientists/academics is awesome:-).

Never once have they known about it already:-).

The horrified looks come on our subsequent visit, and then they refuse to talk about it again. I suppose it’s our dirty secret… that we use Lemmy btw.:-P

Yes and no.

I feel it is important for the human condition - it’s also a part of my faith system but entirely separately from that it also seems to me to lead to the most “zen”, as in if we only focus on ourselves that seems like the fastest way to unhappiness? (Is Jeff Bezos happy? Is Elon Musk? Is Steve Huffman? money flows like a river and if it only comes in but never is given away then that leads to imbalance)

But so very many organized charities have been revealed to be frauds that I am extremely wary of giving to one that I had not vetted, especially one associated with organized religion. But that requires so very much effort… still it’s part of it and connects you to it.:-)

One thing I love to do is tip. I’m in America btw, so it’s an important part of what they need, and these are people who are WORKING for it - like, they aren’t just street beggers (although I’ve given to them too - I usually have quite mixed feelings about that one though, and tend to not). Especially if I’m ever in a southern state - 10-20% just barely does anything for a $6 meal at a Waffle House, so those rules should not apply. According to my way of thinking, it is just part of the cost of the service - like I could go to a grocery store and make my own food, but if I to “out” to eat then I want to do what I can to counteract the evil fuckwads who decided that $2.25 an hour or whatever it is before tips are counted towards their paycheck (so not minimum wage + tips but that amount instead).

And as others are also saying, don’t neglect the non-financial ways of “giving” as well - something as simple as offering to flip a mattress for an old person or trim someone’s yard for someone dealing with an injury, which may be trivial for one but exceedingly difficult for another.

Also compliments. I’m not good at this and virtually never do it actually - but it might just be more important than anything else you could do for someone, e.g. could you prevent someone’s suicide just by offering such a simple gesture of support? (possibly not entirely intentional too, like a fentanyl overdose) Maybe I’m being too naive here and inflating the power of such… or maybe I’m still underselling the importance here?

Anyway it’s more about you than it is them - who do you want to be, someone who takes takes takes or someone who gives gives gives? Like when someone sees you walking into the room, do you want them to cover up their wallet/purse or beam with an authentic smile?

But don’t be stupid about it. If you give away your paycheck and then cannot pay rent, then you’ll be the one needing help. Therefore, treat financial “giving” like any other budgeted amount - not a “I feel like it today so here’s a good tip”, and more of a “every single time I go out, this is what I expect to offer” (and if service is poor so you feel that you can’t give it to them, then find someone else to offer it to?). The vast majority of us really need so much less than consumer culture says that we do - and I for one find chasing the monetized dream to be a futile endeavor, but giving is one of the most sure-fire ways to produce, if not “happiness” (not every time) then at least a settledness/peace overall.

Dare to be different, especially if you know that you are doing a right thing, and “remember the human” very much seems to be that, for me.

Ah Taco Smell - paving the way to push the boundaries of what can legally be defined as “foodstuff product”. :-P

If you say that 1+1=2 and they say that 1+1=3, what should be done?

Thank you!:-)

Are we increasing though? I thought we plateaued or even dipped. e.g. https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/stats even says we dropped sharply, like 51k monthly active users in April compared to 47k now (this ignores the halfyear stats that iirc were affected by some technical changes), and the total users tanked from 1.9 mil to just 1.4 (though we surely don’t have that many lurkers, so a lot of those were surely bots/alts), and even servers went down.

Everyone that I’ve mentioned Lemmy to irl gives me a horrible look like why would you tell me about this TruthSocial-like place (except leftist instead of right-wing as that one is) that actively calls for public beheadings of e.g. landlords?

So we’ve got some… issues that are blocking our future growth, from reaching more mainstream audiences.

Not me! I am still trying to get through the last season of Babylon Five first…

After that, which of the newer series should I engage (hehe) with first - is chronological release the best way? I’ve watched everything up through to the end of Enterprise (yuck).

Money

The inverted Turing test, it would seem.

Beep boop I am smarter than you… 🎵

Bleep bloop you seem to me dumb as rock… 🎼