Exactly. I’ve seen such a gigantic rise in like “conspiracy-everything” posts online (wherein people seemingly assume that everything ever done by the government is in some way a poorly concealed conspiracy) and i think anyone who has actually worked under government funding can pretty quickly attest that this just… isn’t how things work.
All these “little conspiracies” operate under the assumption that the US government is this hyper-connected, ultra advanced and professional shadowy room where everyone is out to get non-government employees for vague purposes (“they just want to have control… man…”.)
When really, 99% of government employees are like some guy or gal you went to high school with who is working in a cubicle because the benefits are pretty decent
Anyway, not to make the joke post too serious. I just always worry the naively minded might take posts like this too seriously lol
Idk man I’ve worked in social services under a multitude of government funded grants and I’m pretty sure tax evasion is extremely bad for many of the homeless veterans / abused children / etc I’ve worked with who are dependent on said grants.
Completely seriously; while I’m sure essentially no one actually does, the IRS is not going to like network with the FBI or your local police department if you, for some reason, decide to pay taxes on your weed sale profits. Unless you report that you’re selling sex slaves they seriously could not care less.
I know it’s just a joke image but I do love the idea of someone who makes much of their money illegally but also has this very honorable commitment to paying their fair share in taxes.
That’s simply not true. You might be basing your opinion on the widespread (but almost entirely made up) statistic that “90% of war casualties are civilians”.
Add in that this is no longer 1945 or whatever and you have to come to terms that the death toll is so high largely because the IDF is one of if not the most profoundly cowardly militaries on the planet
I saw this on twitter and it was really funny/bizarre to see how many blue check marks were going “wow… hope this MR OLIVER enjoys going to jail for BRIBERY” and like, making threats of ‘reporting him’, quoting legal statutes.
It’s just so goofy, like comically dumb. Aside from “obviously a joke” points, who are the big Clarence Thomas defenders??? Do people really just make their opinions based on “well, liberals don’t like him… which means he must be good!!”
Oh absolutely. I was on Reddit a long time and you really did see when they started to “Astro turf” the website a lot. And it was never… nefarious imo. They realize the website was overwhelmingly geeky white guys so they sprung up a lot of subreddits targeting women and minority groups. And that’s good! I think that was a good move. But they just… kept finding ways of drawing people in. And they kept drawing more and more in until the website had essentially no “culture”, and it just became Facebook where you browse through and can read top posts about entitled old ladies talking about how fucking angry she is because her door dasher asked if there would be a tip or whatever.
So yunno, I’m sure profits are at an all time high. It’s just kind of a shame that the site is basically Facebook sludge now.
Ehhh.. kind of. Even more “mid range” interests are kind of co-opted and you need to do odd bends and twists to find good discussion. Subs like the chemistry subreddit are very obviously not made up of majority “chemists” (even student chemists), so you have to seek out the “chemistry professionals” subreddit which is more hidden to actually discuss the topic.
That’s an example where there is a “good version”. For many topics, especially pop culture related and such, you might have one “main” sub, but then the “alternative” sub is just the racist one.
Then you have things like dataisbeautiful which doesn’t really have an alternative and it’s all terrible despite the concept being good
For general purpose discussion? I don’t think so. The internet being so open and accessible means that the only ways to find more educated discussion on various topics is typically through more specialized websites (like Hacker news for computing), and even then it’s kind of a crap shoot.
It’s actually kind of crazy how like… stupid Reddit got over the past 2 years.
Like don’t get me wrong Lemmy isn’t exactly an intellectual powerhouse either, but especially on the front page of Reddit it truly feels like you’ve gathered a few thousand of the dumbest people ever and made them high five. Browsing the science and dataisbeautiful subs is insane
Just a really horrid situation. Israel has become its own Golem. Created to secure and defend an oppressed Jewish people, but then gone mad with its own bloodlust and violence and going on a murderous rampage. We just have to see if, like in the legend, anyone is able to stop it.
This image is a pretty good example of AI art being pretty bad at doing what it should.
Because this isn’t the style of H.R. Giger. Like… not at all. It’s black and white? It has… details? This is just 5 or so different “robot detective” pieces blended together and it turns into sludge.
Yes but don’t you get it, the nerds want constant influxes of free new content - they’re being “literally robbed” by paying $70 for 200+ hours of entertainment as it is!!
It’s funny, when I was a fresh college grad I actually considered joining the millitary because I really did have a desire for that competent, almost bureaucratic professionalism and mature outlook.
Then I kind of got my heads out of the clouds and realized diction and reality are pretty separate
I am obviously not claiming the image is fake, I’m claiming it’s being used in a joking context