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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • You’re right. A lot of people in China would probably disagree with me. But a lot of people in China lack the basic critical thinking skills to even question their circumstances, because secondary schools (if you even have the means to attend one) don’t like students who ask too many questions.

    A lot of people in the US would also disagree with me politically, because they think they were chosen by Jesus to oppress brown people and spread glorious capitalism around the world. But that doesn’t make them right either.

    I am a Marxist. I’ve done my homework. What do you want me to do, start quoting Zizek or Gramsci to pass your shitty litmus test?

    China is an experiment in socialism gone awry, because like the rest of the world, those with power lust over capital. I lived in a T3 city in China where things were relatively quiet, but flew out to visit a friend way down in Shenzhen periodically. It’s hard to see billionaire kids racing their Ferraris down the street there while the poor masses look down from the windows of their destitute coffin house apartments and think that this is somehow a socialist success story.

    China is as capital-driven as any other world power. The government just likes to participate in it a bit more directly.

    But sure, you’re the expert, not me, so I’m sure this is all just capitalist propaganda intended to denounce great Mao zhuxi and sabotage the workers’ revolution.



  • Stovetop@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.mlWe can all agree on that, right?
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    1 year ago

    I’m going to level with you, I don’t have time to watch an hour long video for a topic that is likely just government-approved talking points.

    In practice, I just don’t see any difference in the way the mega rich in China control society, just as they do in the rest of the western world. There is too much aesthetic reverence for the West in the upper eschelons of Chinese society.

    It is just as dystopic as the West with the way workers are used as fodder by megacorps with no regard for their well-being. Any country with such widespread income inequality cannot call itself a socialist success story.



  • Facebook/Instagram (Meta) is one I am not sure how to get a read on. They are branching out a lot, but I have no idea what they’re doing to remain profitable. It seems like they’re in “Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” mode, hoping that they find a new niche before their sizable warchest from the 2010’s runs dry.

    They severely downsized once this year already and I have a feeling that won’t be the end of the story. Wouldn’t surprise me if they sell off/shut down Oculus in the near future.

    Tiktok, meanwhile…well it’s already undergoing enshittification (it is the subject of that original essay) and old people are starting to use it, so I feel like it’s only a matter of time before it’s no longer cool with kids and they lose a sizable chunk of their revenue stream and content.





  • Just to add onto this good answer, you are really only expected to tip for sit-down restaurants with service and bars.

    For takeout, cafes, fast food, etc., you don’t need to tip. A lot of places these have payment machines that just ask if you want to tip by default. You can safely hit “No tip” on these if you don’t want to.

    Ostensibly it’s just to replace the tip jar for those who don’t use cash, but the prompt appearing every time you pay by card has convinced a lot of people that tipping is what you’re supposed to do in those situations, when in reality you have no obligation to.



  • Baseless speculation here, but my gut tells me that Microsoft is going to put a remaster-focused studio to task on a current-gen Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim triple pack, a la the Master Chief Collection, to tide people over.

    Remastering Skyrim is the easy way out, but Oblivion is still trapped on the 360 (if you don’t have a PC) and Morrowind is the darling title of the franchise that people would love to see remastered (and was recently used as an example by Nvidia on “how to remaster a game”). Remaster the earlier two and then just shove the Xbox One copy of Skyrim Anniversary Edition in there for funsies is something people would get behind, more than just another port of Skyrim alone.


  • But even then, however, what’s to stop an army of bots from just ChatGPTing their way through the application process?

    I went to a website to generate a random username, picked the first option of polarbear_gender, and then just stuck that and the application questions for lemmy.ml into ChatGPT to get the following:

    I want to join Lemmy.ml because I’m really into having meaningful discussions and connecting with others who have similar interests. Lemmy.ml seems like a great platform that fosters a diverse exchange of ideas in a respectful way, which I like.

    When it comes to the communities I’d love to be a part of, I’m all about ones that focus on environmental conservation, wildlife preservation, and sustainability. Those topics really resonate with me, and I’m eager to jump into discussions and learn from fellow passionate folks.

    As for my username, I chose it because I’ve got respect for polar bears and how they live with the environmental challenges they face. And throwing in “gender” is just my way of showing support for inclusivity and gender equality. Building a more just and fair society is important to me.

    I don’t know the full criteria that people are approved or declined for, but would these answers pass the sniff test?

    I’m just worried that placing too much trust in the application process contributes to a false sense of security. A community that is supposedly “protected” from bots can be silently infiltrated by them and cause more damage than in communities where you can either reasonably assume bots are everywhere, or there are more reliable filtering measures in place than a simple statement of purpose.


  • The Sync community turned toxic when the dev implemented an updated UI a couple years ago. The new UI was beautiful and much more in line with the evolving visual design of Android, but the average user hates change. The dev version spent a while on the new UI while it was being refined, but the free/pro version was not upgraded until I want to say probably a year or more later, the developer having gone radio silent for a while under all the criticism.