Sorry, maybe I'm misunderstanding. It's just that none of what you've listed is inherent to the fediverse? There's nothing preventing data collection of that sort by an instance owner, and claiming anonymity on a system explicitly designed around open ledger social media doesn't seem entirely credible. There's nothing preventing someone from including tracking pixels, for example, and your browser can still be fingerprinted and linked to your activity on lemmy by 3rd parties through a number of meta-analytical approaches.
I love the fediverse and there's lots of good reasons for that, but I really just don't think anonymity is a selling point here. Again, might be misunderstanding what you mean, if so I apologize!
Wait, so are they injecting the number into the actual legit support website, or does this only show up in the google search results as the wrong number, but following the link directs you to the legit site? The article is kinda unclear on which it is.
Yeah it's absolutely not true, everything done on the fediverse/activitypub is extremely easy to scrape (an unavoidable consequence of the design) and inevitably will be, if it isn't happening already. Though, it's true that it's not being hoarded and since everyone can scrape it, it's probably not being sold either!
(Apologies that this response took a minute, there were scythe-related hijinx)
Sorry, things are getting... dumb... here but I think that hits your major points. I don't like to do full point-by-point breakdowns, since it just spirals into longer and longer walls of text if both parties take to it, and I already spend enough of my time bickering with well-meaning randos on this website. This seems like a decent response to your overall thesis, though?
Do you notice when you're doing that? Constantly shifting the conversation to a new topic when you've been batted down over the last one, rejecting things out of hand that might go counter to your position instead of trying to at least understand the intent with which they were shared? Remember when this was about Ukraine, Instead of what you're trying to shift it to, the moral relativity betwixt China and the US?
All those links are highly relevant here (I admit #2 requires you to scroll a little, and #4 is a database frontend so maybe it was unfair to assume you'd be able to interact with it), arguably the third link most of all (it shows a ton of things in that very compact table, individual donations yes and it's a fine example of how China's restrictions on extraterritorial charity affect their potential impact.)
Look I get it, you're pro-china, but you're just assuming I'm opposed to you. It's... I mean, it's the stereotypical reason why so many people dislike .ml users, you're constantly coming in here and intentionally provoking interactions that you comfortably know the dance steps to. You personally are persecuting yourself, and it's kinda embarrassing. Gladhandedly dismissing the other party, focusing only on the things you support, never reflecting on anything that's actually said in favor of attacking in kind.
even if the US is narrowly ahead, it’s a richer country and it’s a much smaller fraction of the military budget compared to the same numbers for China
(edit:) Look you did it again. "Even if you were right, it doesn't matter and anyways I'm still right"
Anyways, here's a fun hypothetical example: I do not support China because of their ongoing public genocide of the uyghur people.
The unspoken implication there was credible people. Generally one can assume things like that, if they're discussing in good faith. It's like how I didn't point out you're so unfamiliar with this topic that you can't even spell realpolitik right - it's a minor concession made to ease conversation that costs me nothing. "The benefit of the doubt", as it were.
“Whataboutism” isn’t a real thing and if it was, this isn’t one.
Oh boy. Only have time for a top three, so in no particular order:
There's lots of things to criticize the US on (and it's something I do all the time, lets be clear) but you clearly don't know what you're talking about.
You might have a point if the US were fighting in Ukraine, but... we're not? We're advising the Ukraine army, sharing intelligence we'd be gathering anyways and giving AFU a bunch of export weapon systems we found by rummaging around in the pentagon's couch cushions. This has been a spectacular opportunity for the US because it costs us almost nothing, yet what used to be considered our biggest opponent is teetering on the brink of cultural and economic collapse. Seriously, even if Kiev were to fall tomorrow NATO would be no-contest the victor. Nobody cares about the bear any more.
But... Ukraine falling to Russia would strengthen the US's military (and cultural) hegemony over the western world. If this truly was the rationale behind the US's involvement in Ukraine, everything we've done thus far would make absolutely zero sense. Strengthening Ukraine and spurring investment into the home-grown EU defense industry only serves to weaken our position as the lynchpin of NATO. A better justification for US involvement in Ukraine is that this is a great opportunity to starve Russia's economy by forcing them into conflicts they cannot economically support (which was much the same strategy that lead to the collapse of the soviet union).
I think we already knew they'd taken over Customs and Immigration. This is yet more of the same shit they've been pulling for decades - just more blatant and with a lot more coverage than usual, which is nice that people are finally seeing what they're doing. Eyes-on is, despite the lack of rebellious glamour, a critical thing to have...
Oh my apologies, I did not intend to imply it's impossible to get down there, just that the resources needed to recover the treasure aren't ones that can be surreptitiously obtained. There just aren't all that many ROVs in the world capable of this work, so while the act of getting down there and looting it isn't difficult, getting away with it after the fact is the challenging part.
(also the depth claim is... well there's a few reasons to be skeptical of it. This whole saga is already rife with accusations of coverups and intentional deception, and both parties involved are incredibly motivated to lie about it for their own gain. It's good to take anything either side announces with a big ol' skepticism pill...)
Not them but also an instructor - where I teach, we're having to pivot sharply towards grades being based mostly on performance in labs and in person quiz/test results. Its really unfortunate since there are many students with test anxiety and labs are really exhausting to turn into evaluation instead of instruction, but it's the only workable solution we've been able to figure out.
Hands on, like engage with prior material on the subject and formulate complex ideas based on that...?
Sarcasm aside, asking students to do something in lab often requires them to have gained an understanding of the material so they can do something, an understanding they utterly lack if they use AI to do their work. Although tbf this lack of understanding in-person is really the #1 way we catch students who are using AI.
I decidedly don't "loot", I "acquire". Usually by having have my ambassador nab things while nobody's looking. Much more respectable, I'm sure we all agree.
Colombia has declared it an important cultural heritage site; a limited archeological survey is underway while techniques are developed to allow for the excavation and preservation of the site. (Edit: the first artefacts were recovered a few days ago!). There's also lots (30+ years) of lawsuits and drama that is too tedious to summarize but everyone sucks (although imo its good that the Colombian government seems to have emerged victorious over SSA, after umpteen years of them being just total dicks to each other. Go check out the wikipedia page, it's pretty fun.)
As to why it hasn't been looted, the location has been kept a secret but we can guess it's down -deep- deep, by the type of UUV (AUV?) used in the discovery. This means that anyone who knows where it is still has to have the resources to actually go down and loot it, and ultra-deep equipment like that is pretty hard to come by.
Sorry, maybe I'm misunderstanding. It's just that none of what you've listed is inherent to the fediverse? There's nothing preventing data collection of that sort by an instance owner, and claiming anonymity on a system explicitly designed around open ledger social media doesn't seem entirely credible. There's nothing preventing someone from including tracking pixels, for example, and your browser can still be fingerprinted and linked to your activity on lemmy by 3rd parties through a number of meta-analytical approaches.
I love the fediverse and there's lots of good reasons for that, but I really just don't think anonymity is a selling point here. Again, might be misunderstanding what you mean, if so I apologize!