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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)LA
Posts
1
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801
Joined
1 yr. ago

  • It was meant lighthearted, but trolling by fascists (maga) or agitprop (putin) does have an mental effect. That is my point, the culture and attitude has changed. To say it hasn't changed is just factually incorrect.

    This is the factually incorrect comment, heavily upvoted:

    Lol what? What year did you join Reddit? As someone who’s been there since 2008, I promise you that this is nothing new.

    He's not just laughing at me, implying I'm some reddit noob, and then attempts to gaslight me. But I'm the meanie? Ohwee.

    You're saying you don't waste time and when someone disagrees on facts, they are wrong and you move on. Could you imagine that if the mainstream constantly fed you one version of events, you might be the one being so sure that the historical events are one way that you end up saying 1+1=3?

    You rely on facts being what they are because a google search results in sources trusted by you say so. All neoliberal sources fed by the US state department. And the dissident arguments and evidence just happens to be the same as a certain russian dictator - so they must be wrong. Which is called a genetic fallacy.

    Luckily blocking, banning and defederation is easy on lemmy, so we can just live happily ever after in our echo chambers.

  • Thanks, really interesting analysis! I'd argue that profit seeking is significant in this change though. Polarizing content leads to anger and higher engagement. So any algorithm that is written or trained to increase profit from advertisement will encourage that outcome.

    I believe there are other influences too, the fascists and putin trolls (agitprop) has led to some "automatic downvote and ban reflex". On lemmy the mods are basically power tripping non stop in trying to curate their fief into a single minded community that brooks no dissent. There is one narrative and anyone dissenting is a

    <insert slur>

    . On all sides, people are just sick of the bullshit and are on a hair trigger.

    This seems to the be result of the last decade of mainstream media and social media being run for profit through engagement. I have no idea of how to reverse this.

  • The problem is that the mainstream is simply declaring historical events one way and any other dissenting viewpoint or evidence is suppressed. And there IS evidence.

    The fascists (and Putin's propaganda trolls) have been successful in disruption any dialogue between people from the actual left: socialists. Not the neoliberal "democrats".

    And now you do their work for them: You censor the socialists (marxist-leninist, maoists) because some "dirtbag left" troll once was mean to someone. You probably can't even link to an example of what you accuse entire group of. But this tankie slur gets repeated and amplified more and more. People simply call you tankie, downvote and everyone piles on without thinking.

    The problem is that disinformation and post-truth doublethink on the so called "left" (=neoliberals) is almost indistinguishable from MAGA like OP.

    If you check out lemmy from an instance that hasn't defederated from the socialist instances you'll see that basically half of lemmy activity is invisible - the socialist half. The result is rather predictable.

  • Your link directly contradicts that "everybody... always..." thought this since there is discussion about it. My point is that it's an attitude problem and the aspiration to do better has an effect. And this had an effect and that has changed.

  • Well in this case they used his likeness and brand to appear more legitimate and make money. So I'd argue this is trademark (even if not registered) so a legitimate complaint.

    I don't believe in "copyright" for a voice. See for example impersonators. But in this case it's a deliberate deception which is pretty simple.

    I don't believe in intellectual property at all and think it is a form of theft, to deprive others from common knowledge or information just to seek rent. In case of patents I equate it even to aiding in genocide, since most advances in more energy efficiency use are patented and exploited for profit and slowing down adaptation. Without exhaustive attempts to try other systems to pay creators, copyright law is a moral abomination. That is a philosophical or ethical argument, not a legal one.

  • Yeah the "happen to be" was meant to be slightly sarcastic. The only answer is to make conscious and smart decisions to be more inclusive and representative instead of profit motive. Unfortunately there seems a lot of pushback with hatewagons that will make producers more conservative.

  • Thanks, sometimes it does feel like going crazy!

    I really wish we could design systems that allow to come closer to that old ideal again. But maybe that age has simply passed and all of our attitudes have changed forever. For example instead of just voting up or down, you could vote for example "funny" or "contributes" or "misinformation". Maybe there are even some clever statistical algorithms in the background aiding that. Somehow technology ought to evolve to further good discussion.

  • IMDB used to be independent and have a pretty amazing forum for movies. Like people would have lots of debate and discussion and insight. I loved going there after watching a movie. It was sort of "secondary literature" and nothing like this existed before. Then they just decided to delete countless contributions and shut it down. Instead of paying for moderation for the few trolls.

    Of course there are plenty of other movie forums, some even copies the old posts and there is r/movies, but it's much more fractured now. There are certain network effects for social media that need to reach a critical size.

  • This is simply incorrect. It's true that they now evolved completely to that, but you are wrong stating that it was always like this. It's still in the reddiquette: https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette

    Vote. If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you think it does not contribute to the subreddit it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it.

    This used to be understood that people often treated it as agree/disagree but that you are "supposed to be better than that". And that made a difference.

    It's historic revisionism to say it was always like this because clearly there was discussion about this if you go just 10 years back: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/search/?q=downvote

  • Basically any anti-imperialist and anti-US empire critique is stamped as Putin/China apologism and downvoted or outright banned. You don't even have to be a socialist to be "odious". And of course the big instances have already defederated from the major socialist instances.

  • Not sure what year but the culture definitely changed somewhere around 2008-2016. A big part was trump of course, but before that the rise in android and iphone and becoming more popular to a broader segment of the public (e.g. "boomers"). Before it was tech enthusiasts all on desktop PC. This was also before toxic gamer culture.

    If you don't think it changed you must have trauma induced amnesia.

  • Peaceful contact with aliens would tell us something fundamental about the nature of ethics and the universe.

    Advanced aliens do not need any material resources or real estate from humanity. We can already interpolate that from existing science. So that is not the reason why there are here. And we know they haven't exterminated us already centuries ago.

    Instead it would tell that we share some fundamental values like curiosity and diversity with alien species - as long as they evolved through natural selection and had to raise and teach and love their children. As long as they had to find productive ways to work together as a people.

    We would realize that we are not alone and that we are being judged. That we can't just endlessly bulldoze the galaxy and that there are limits to acceptable behavior. Because there is always someone more powerful that could smash us, but they already didn't. That certain ethical ideals are fundamental properties emerging from the universe itself.

    It would be a powerful counter to the current nihilistic materialism, that we need to start working to improve our culture.

  • Reddit culture (and lemmy by extension) changed so much in a short time. Just a few years ago you weren't downvoted just because someone disagreed with your opinion. The polarization and culture war turned reddit users completely dogmatic and as immune to arguments or facts as magats.

    The same is true of lemmy. Most users prefer to defederate from socialist instances because "tankies". Which really shows how right wing "limbrols" have become. They hate socialists with a different viewpoint on US empire more than they hate fascists. The fascists have succeeded in utterly destroying reddit and lemmy as a platform for useful political discourse.

    We now have the vast majority of "liberals" on lemmy upvoting comments using racist slang terms for Russians to dehumanize them, just like they did for enemies in Japan, Vietnam or Korea. The fascists have made massive inroads.

    The OP meme almost seems quaint to me now. The real culture war is elsewhere now.

  • Ok this is seems like a problem of trademark not copyright, or impersonation and fraud by pretending to be him. It's about his name, not really about his voice. His voice is also pretty generic EDIT: it's only in this specific market segment that it's problematic.

  • Not just tech, all over the product spectrum. They started by selling books.

    A large problem is payment system and accounts. I hate going to a new shop and create a new account, a new password, bla bla bla. I hate it. And wiring with online banking is still a pain the ass, you have to enter some password into your shitty phone keyboard and then wait for an SMS... paypal and amazon payment make shopping convenient.

    So part of the problem is banks who have been sleeping on the job for decades. At least here in Europe. You finally can wire money so it arrives immediately from your bank account at a shop! (without having to waste some tax on a payment provider either). But 2 factor authentication is still a pita. Where is my online bank with easy to use FIDO2?

    There are now alternative popping up because amazon has become so enshittified (high prices for many smaller items and reviews etc). And of course I'm a fan of aliexpress but shipping from China is stupid too.

    We definitely need to avoid a monopoly by a corporation like amazon.

  • The problem is that it's commercial driven. They want the big stars who just happen to be white. But then want to sell inclusivity for profit that lead to questionable creative decisions.

    The rage is misdirected but not wrong. Representation is important but is being exploited by soulless corporate robots.