No contradiction. Law is a dumb basis for deciding what you like and don’t like.

Also consider not having an economy where our jobs dominate our lives.

There’s plenty of studies, videos and anecdotes discussing how despite technology becoming more and more efficient, we work more hours a day in the Industrial era. Most of the older culture we consider traditional didn’t come from the media industries we see today, they came from families and communities having enough time to spend together that they can create and share art and other media relevant to their own lives.

(although given the decentralised framework of the fedi, I’m not sure how that could even happen in the traditional sense).

It’s possible to dominate and softly-control a decentralized network, because it can centralize. So long as the average user doesn’t really care about those ideals (perhaps they’re only here for certain content, or to avoid a certain drawback of another platform) then they may not bother to decentralize. So long as a very popular instance doesn’t do anything so bad that regular users on their instance will leave at once and lose critical mass, they can gradually enshittify and enforce conditions on instances connecting to them, or even just defederate altogether and become a central platform.

For a relevant but obviously different case study: before the reddit API exodus, there was a troll who would post shock images every day to try and attack lemmy.ml. Whenever an account was banned, they would simply register a new one on an instance which didn’t require accounts to be approved, and continue trolling with barely any effort. Because of this, lemmy.ml began to defederate with any instance which didn’t have a registration approval system, telling them they would be re-added once a signup test was enabled.

lemmy.ml was one of the core instances, only rivaled in size by lemmygrad.ml and wolfballs (wolfballs was defederated by most other instance, and lemmygrad.ml by many other big instances), so if an instance wasn’t able to federate with lemmy.ml, at the time, it would miss out on most of the activity. So, lemmy.ml effectively pressured a policy change on other instances, albeit an overall beneficial change to make trolling harder, and in their own self-defence. One could imagine how a malevolent large instance could do something similar, if they grew to dominate the network. And this is the kind of EEE fears many here have over Threads and other attempts at moving large (anti-)social networks into the Fediverse.

Almost all of my creations which I share (mostly code and visual art) are entirely volunteer work. Community culture doesn’t cost money. Entertainment does not need to be a job, even if it must take time and work.

Of course industrial large feature films cost full-time money. But I don’t come to online communities for that.

The upvote/downvote button is not a [] petition for making a problem go away by disagreeing with it.

Unfortunately, in a material way, it is. Downvoting a post is a way of lowering its visibility on the platform.

I’m not complaining about it being crypto - I prefer crypto over credit card payments for online stuff. On the other hand, any monetisation of online communities leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I came to Lemmy years ago to get a step further away from for-profit internet treating me like a customer. Root of all evil, and all that.

As a wildcard (my first pick is already here) I put forward Pathologic. I’ve never played it and playing it seems torturous, but it’s absolutely an amazing game with an powerful immersive story. Or perhaps, it’s an amazing game which is a powerful immersive story. The game mechanics are a story-telling mechanism, rather than a mere medium to overlay story onto.

Hbomberguy video: Pathologic is Genius, And Here’s Why

Thank Goodness You’re Here

Just by the name and you mentioning it’s a comedy, I suspect it’s a nod to the TV show Thank God You’re Here (or more likely the British version), where performers such as comedians enter a surprise setting and must improvise.

• https://youtube.com/watch?v=FnM-cWvPoMg
• https://youtube.com/watch?v=rAmIG2c3e_0

My blind playthrough was great, despite or even due to mistakes made. Lost once playing sport so badly it destoyed my self-esteem, but also won a miracle 5% perception roll right at the end (although we scared it away). On my first playthrough I intentionally tried to avoid losing and I played conservatively enough for the game to start bullying me over it, which is great design.

I’m the kind of person who thinks it’s hilarious how fragile the player can be where (esp. because of the class I picked). The cursed chair didn’t get me but it sure made me laugh.

“World Socialist Web Site”, the paper of the Socialist Equality Party (who, in my personal experience, are toxic idealists who will counterprotest pickets and any union action whatsoever)

I’ve had great experiences with reading socialist news sites. They tend not to care about ‘the spectacle’ and don’t like ads. Although you still have to avoid the ones like WSWS who just use it as a platform to call other socialists ‘pseudo-left’.

Side note: There’s a great famous analysis of the US media in the book Manufacturing Consent. You can find a PDF online, but at the very very very least you should read the Wikipedia summary. It explains the reasons why media organisations almost inevitably have some of these biases and bullshits.

What do you think was the source of the general disdain in the UK?

If the citizens weren’t tacitly benefiting, in any way from the resource extraction of the bourgeoisie, maybe you’d have a point there; but since they do, you don’t

Someone tacitly benefiting from a state’s imperialism doesn’t stop them simultaneously being victims of the absolute horror that is capitalism. That’s a big part of why even in the most exploitative regimes there are millions of anti-capitalists who engage in international solidarity. The capitalist class like to pretend there’s some national unity at play when they screw over the proletariat, but it’s all clearly bullshit.

Just fuck off if you’re gonna go to bat for a settler before you waste any more of both of our time.

I don’t bat for settlers. I’m publicly replying to your public reply, because it was sectarian in a way which is harmful to the international socialist movement. If you think this conversation is wasting your time, then just ignore it.

If I remember correctly, the admin (a US Lolbertarian) finally closed it down, among other reasons, when they realized the resident nazis there were not just joking to troll da libs and actually believed the things they were saying about ‘jewish shapeshifters’. They wanted a free speech haven, and so they got the people we collectively told to shut up.

Why would it? It seems like it would just be similar to the circlejerk forums they’ve have for decades, alienated from the mainstream and unable to normalize their ideas and recruit so easily.

It sounds as if you’re using the atrocities of the French bourgeoisie as a way to excuse nationalist bigotry against a people. The French state is imperialist and colonist, the French citizens are mostly victims of capitalism, not the settlers.

Obviously it’s a different situation with French people overseas, but we’re not in that context.

Carl and the Aqua Team make their position on piracy very clear.

https://inv.us.projectsegfau.lt/watch?v=MCTlcJMCSpM

Don’t know why you’d give a joke answer at all, but there’s nothing wrong with unsweetened yogurt (e.g. greek) on potato. Put chives on there, maybe some zataar. Or use it to offset a chilli sauce, make a barbecue sauce creamy. I’d even just have it by itself on fries.

This is a good point. The pseudonymous internet is like a confessional booth. I can bluntly say all my political beliefs here with little-to-no consequence that I can’t solve by registering a new account. There’s no risk of alienating a friend or family member who disagrees. As an extreme case, I’ve met a couple of people online who can be legally killed for their political views (e.g. not following the state religion). So the internet can provide more comfort in free expression and therefore more people arguing over differences.

I’m starting to feel like all this hate and division is manufactured

Even putting aside biases or conspiracies, mass media and (for-profit) social media has an economic incentive to get people passionate and interested and viewing more ads. So there are systematic factors at play, which I’d say are enhanced by digital technology.