JubilantJaguar @ JubilantJaguar @lemmy.world

European. Contrarian liberal. Insufferable green. History graduate. **I nev

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2 yr. ago

Hard truth: In democracy you get the politicians you deserve. It's right in the name. If you don't feel represented, it's not their fault, it's yours. The politicians are only there because you and your fellow citizens put them there. Rhetoric of "them and us" is irrelevant because they are you. It's the "self" in "self-government".

Sure, this won't be popular. Lots of excuses will be offered as to why voters are responsible for nothing and this alien blob of "politicians" is to blame for everything. It's always easier to avoid responsibility, and what simpler a target than politicians? But alas the logic is watertight.

Personally I don't think the problem is a lack of good people. Some people are good, some bad, most are in between (or rather both). The problem is rather that we are, collectively, dumb.

Be the hope. You are not alone. Be loud. Others feel the same way and feel alone.

But this is clearly all true and important.

Symmetrically alternative recipe that I recently heard (from a French academic): "hopeful pessimism". The idea being, roughly, that while it's delusional to be optimistic, hopefulness is by definition subjective and therefore valid. And indeed quite sensible given that we can never know the future and therefore it really might turn out to be better than expected.

Surely that's the point of OP's question.

Sure, and that's why this question is unlikely to produce a useful answer.

That's certainly an oddly optimistic take in this neighborhood.

Unless you mean space exploration, which I personally think is a delusional distraction.

that could be because it is an AMAZING post – it covered all the points and no one has anything left to say

Finally, I know why.

First, there's often no choice, it's SMS 2FA or no 2FA. Personally I would prefer no 2FA at all because, as mentioned, I'm doing this all on desktop. The attacker would need physical access to my encrypted computer. Not happening.

The cited article is, at the very least, a mess that needs fixing.

I was under the impression it was the opposite: that gay men earn less but lesbians more. Which is what seems to be confirmed here.

And that really would have given you an unpopular opinion, i.e. that gay men may be earning less because they are less obsessed with status than straight men and so less forthright in demanding more. An unpopular take which I personally, as someone directly concerned by it, am quite willing to believe.

This is the most solid solution IMO. I use Linphone on desktop with a Twilio phone number over SIP.

It works. Not that I get to try it often: I consider phone calls a barbaric relic of the past and get by fine without them. I use the number to receive 2FA SMS mostly.

That's not what I advised at all.

Lots of self-important, irrational, hand-wavy responses to this question as usual.

Assuming you are the only user (sounds like it) and you secure your client device properly, then no, there is no reason not to do what you propose. Go ahead and do it, you'll save yourself lots of redundant typing and clicking.

Others here can keep performing their security theater to ward off the evil spirits.

All fair points. There are definitely multiple ways of playing with fire.

I saw that article about illiterate college kids too. Worrying.

That's fair. Although I believe the Jewish minority was the only one that seriously dissented from the prevailing polytheism.

My main point is that secular liberalism is the only political system that has been shown to protect individual freedom and rights - i.e. without the need for a shared supernatural mythology or an iron fist. And this system relies on a shared commitment to evidence, reason, facts.

In this context, to inculcate irrational beliefs in children seems to me to be like playing with fire.

The problem with "faith" is its literal meaning: belief that is not based on evidence.

A society based on faith can only work is everybody has the same faith (think: Ancient Rome, theocracies, communist countries). The only reason modern Western democracies work is precisely that they are not based on faith but rather on evidence, on reason, on truth-seeking. This is the amazing and historically anomalous heritage of the enlightenment and it's looking more fragile by the day.

Teaching kids fairytales and calling it truth is the reason religion exists. It's the reason it's so hard for adults to leave the religions they assimilated as children. And in a free society where we have to find a way to live together, it's profoundly dangerous.

So my answer is: no.

Interesting insight. Perhaps the underlying issue is privacy. The web is public. In a world where literally everyone is on it (this was not the case in the 90s), having conversations there may just feel a bit icky for many people. You need to protect yourself with pseudonyms, you're always subconsciously censoring personal information from comments, and so on. Semi-private group chats take a lot of this pressure off. I get that.

I’m looking for an actual forum, with a sense of community. The whole decentralization aspect of the Feidverse seems great to prevent enshittification, or to prevent a billionaire from buying and tanking the place, but I don’t really see it ever appealing to normal, non tech savvy people.

This seems like a non-sequitur. How does decentralization prevent a forum from being "actual" or make it appropriate only for "tech savvy" people? I don't get it.

Decentralization is an anecdotal technical detail. What you seem to be looking for are human qualities, but that question is relevant for any and all forums.

weasyprint will convert it to PDF. I use it in a script to make my emails readable offline.

True. Did.

Hello? Are the moderators out to lunch?

6. No US politics

This rule is being rampantly ignored literally every day in this community.