I believe we (as in, people) all have a responsibility to hold each other accountable. But we can also only do so much, and inserting yourself into a toxic community …

Me too, both. That we have responsibility for others and that we are not obliged to put ourselves at harms risk.

But this is a particularly shitty, maybe wicked problem. There are three groups: A bullies B, and C could stop A, but isn’t bothered by anyone. Now, is C obliged to pick a fight with A, or is B just in bad luck to be born as a B?

I think here, it is very easy to have strong opinions, while very hard to formulate a concise moral argument. Things get muddier/harder the more we factor reality in.

There always is. Everything in life is only temporary …

“Denmark made clear that they absolutely have eggs”, said a news person in German. Which is absolutely funny, because eggs and balls is the same word here.

“Dänemark hat klar gemacht, dass sie durchaus Eier haben.”

Offering a slight damper / correction:

This is about two things (design and ownership), which are correlated, but not identical.

Malicious design can be things like:

• Algorithms to keep people engaged
• UIs to confuse users (luring them to purchases, or making ‘cancel’ hard to access)
• Using intermediate currencies to make it harder to assert value
• …

Obviously, these patterns and practices can also be applied to a FOSS instance you own. There is less incentive to do so if the profit motive is removed - which makes a huge difference.

These design patterns are fundamentally about making user numbers go up. Attract more users, keep them on your platform longer, make them leave less. And a portion of user guidance mixed in. None of that is inherently evil, to some degree even desireable, and to some extent unavoidable to offer a functional service.

Some users may expect a feed like lemmy to browse indefinitely, since they find it inconvenient to have to click to go to the ‘next page’. And because they got used to this feature elsewhere. Others already see this as a dark pattern.

I just wanted to highlight how some of the malicious stuff may still be present in the fediverse, without any company involved. Here, we’re kind of in charge on both sides: Each is responsible for their own user agency (like controlling your online hours, or what sites you visit), and collectively to decide what user experience we want to shape (which might include controverse patterns).

I spent way too many words on this. Mostly I agree with you! And overall, users will encounter far less malicious patterns on FOSS.

[Edit: Formatting]

Wouldn’t it be reasonable if another administration get in power and then need to purge all these positions of pro trump people?

Oh no! You have a great point for horror fans there.

I’d even say, it probably is somewhat necessary in order to resume administration. What a beautiful, postfactual dilemma:

The Reps fear an ideological, systemic witch hunt, which they use as an excuse to replace government workers. The new workers are ideologically aligned with the Reps, encouraged to assist the dismantling of non-Rep institutions and carry out the King’s will above and beyond the law.

Now when votes swing the other way, the new administration kind of has to revert some of this damage to assume functioning.

Which is where the circle closes; the prophecy fulfills itself. Now the Reps have evidence for their previously baseless claims. The whole system is locked in a back-and-forth mud wrestling of replacing workers based on ideology.

That really is a stark contrast. What do the apologetics say about this?

So is social media, and the openness of free societies to internal (the rich owning the media) and external (foreign adversaries) tampering. Spreading misinformation, eroding trust in institutions and truth itself, poisons like that.

Many democracies are crumbling this way. We yet have to find an effective antidote.

Regardless of the voting system, there still is a worryingly large portion of voters who were corrupted to serve other’s interests. And that is true to all (?) countries. That not just any two democracies fall first, but GB and US, kind of shows us that it could be anyone.

So while it is easy to look down on the fallen, or feel ashamed to be that - we’re helpless in this together. Hate to end like that.

There is so much in this direction. For a fraction of the budget, you could obliterate both the Russian army and economy, without losing any soldiers. What an opportunity, what a deal. Unless you’re owned by Russia, of course.

Oops, thanks. Meant Transnistria (to which the answer would be Putin, although I guess you would not have asked if I had not made that mistake). Sometimes, the letters in the middle of a word do seem to matter.

Very nice, exactly the signal The Free World needs now. Now, that the previous leader vanished in a puff of Kreml propaganda.

It’s now more than ever at stake wether Ukraine can fend off the invasion (the outcome of which is another signal to autocrats eyeing future invasions, for example Taiwan, Transnistria*). It’s a question.

One answer, one possible scenario is that each individual EU country feels overwhelmed to shoulder the additional burden. Or that the Union cannot muster enough support to replace the U.S. This scenario can be self-reinforcing. If it seems likely that the combined response would still be insufficient, a plausible outcome is everybody holding back, which already would favor the Russian aggression.

So this is why I want to highlight how much good news this is, because it’s exactly the opposite kind of example. Literally stepping up.

*) Transnistria: Edited thanks to a comment, original wrongly said ‘Tasmania’.

it’s dumb and silly when people go…

‘OK, so this bird, that feral bear, and these goblins are going to man this racecar and attack you!’

Heh, just before writing that comment, I thought of something similar.

“Ouch! Shoot that creature who just attacked us!” “Mylord, we can’t.” “WHY??” “It is still there in plain sight, but no longer a creature. We have to wait until the driver has finished lunch, hopped back into his seat, THEN we may shoot it!”

Care to elaborate? I agree, but I’m curious wether for the same reasons.

I’m still stuck to the idea that MTG is (or should be, in my opinion) a game about wizards having a battle, which is mostly fought out by summoned creatures.

And this simple and appealing concept is kind of ruined by adding a plethora of ways in which, well, no battle takes place. The One pinnacle for me are unblockable creatures. That’s just so lame.

Generally, all the “I hit you and you can do nothing about it” mechanics (to which I somewhat count vehicles) turn what could have been a challenging game, into a mindless slaughter, or a matter of luck (can my deck so something about the other deck?). Even more generally, much of player ambitions seem to be focused around “how do I prevent others from playing that game” (including counterspells, land destruct, infinite loops), concerning for game design.

So far my rant, care to add yours?

Germany could always turn on them when the time is right.

That’s too close to history to be an accident. I take the whole 2nd paragraph as satire, which I like.

That is, wow. I guess it’s true, but ATM it feels too high to be real. Like I also heard about two states having closer to 20% voter turnout. Which surely are outliers (and WTF is wrong with people to not vote with so much at stake), but still 84% is very high.

Sooo I just make a comment on social media stating my opinion asking for other opinions … Alright I found something more useful: https://www.wahlen.info/bundestagswahl/wahlbeteiligung/

It seems conservative Bavaria was pulling the turnout train.

And further proof he’s the much better diplomat/politician than those who exclude him.

why bother reporting?

Here are some of the many ways this could be answered:

• To exercise this core freedom, to not lose it. What comes out of it is a much less important question. The day news outlets remain silent about wrongdoings because they believe nobody cares anyways is going to be one of the darkest days towards the death of democracy.
• Separation of powers means the Press is not the Legislative, which is not the Judicative. The question seems to assume they were all one, or since the Press lacks the means of the other two, it’s mission would be kind of futile. But since these powers are separated, it is irrelevant to the Press wether and what legal actions follow (aside from being stories worth covering in themselves). It’s simply not the job of reporting to carry out arrests, and the lack of arrests, even when necessary, does not devalue the reporting. Maybe even on the contrary: It’s probably of much more value to society to report about things which aren’t already dealt with.
• It is totally relatable to feel powerless, maybe even getting accustomed to things going south. But I think we should be extra careful how these sentiments are communicated. A necessary prelude to that darkest day from above, is when outlets still report, but are met with nothing but indifferent “water is wet”, “can’t do anything so why care at all?” comments.

Wtf. How I hate muzzle velocity politics. Put those guys in camps, they are a threat to public safety.

Ja, ich dachte das wäre ein Instrument, “ähnlich” wie Xylophon. Mit der Verwendung in dem Satz da weiß ich auch nicht, was gemeint ist.

Not sure how 0.00006 helmets per capita is the better figure, but there you go.

Yes, I mean, for Germany, being the 3rd largest economy in the world (only surpassed by the USA and China), it would be a real shame if they were not among the topmost supporters in total. Here, it makes much more sense to use per capita numbers, relate to GDP or whatever. Compared to it’s economic potential, Germany is merely #15 in supporting Ukraine with Denmark, Finland, and the Baltics doing at least twice as much.

If you deem the bit about the 0…6 helmets per capita to be false, what’s the correct take?

Remember how it took like two days to overturn 70 years of precedence of “no weapons delivery into crisis regions”?

Oh, thanks. Yeah, now I remember making that jump, too, although it took me more than two days. Wild times.

Hofreiter (Greens) put it quite well … something like … not our ideals have changed, but the world has changed, brutally so.

I think you did well in dialing back my comment and adding more context, although I still think there was truth in it.