Fair, but those were volunteers. Obviously he is referring to Americans deployed by the government in some form, nobody died in the line of duty so to say.

I generally agree, but as long as there is no safe way to prevent malware spam posts (of which I reported plenty whenever I encountered them) I find it a minefield that is uncomfortable to navigate when I just want to browse some content lying in bed.

So you replied to the first sentence and ignored the paragraphs in which I describe why supporting either is misguided to malicious.

I understand the arguments that are constantly being spewed about the evil western imperialists, and they are of course true for the most part. Only that this doesn’t in turn validate or justify the human rights violations, atrocities or even genocides committed by either Russia or China; they cannot be guides or aides on the path to the desired egalitarian utopia.

If either of them had their way, would that do us in the west any good? The answer is no.

China desires a global hegemony under their sino-centric ideology, and to extend its control structures outside its own national borders. They employ the same imperialist strategies and methods to acquire influence and resource access in emerging countries as the west has or is doing. Russia currently displays its own imperial ambitions by its war of aggression on Ukraine. At least they don’t even bother with any greater good pretense, and are straight up about it.

The only real option is to consolidate the west in ethical and ideological opposition to these totalitarian parodies of their former goals, to create a new economic system that works for the people and not the reverse, without sacrificing our freedoms and individuality in the process.

One that truly represents what socialism is about.

Tankies are so fucking weird to me, and I would consider myself a progressive socialist as well.

How can they so unapologetically support Russia and China, when both nations are objectively not socialist in any sense of the word.

China does state capitalism, just because they have a one party state installed by the communist party doesn’t automatically mean they still are. All that is left is intense authoritarianism, with dystopian ambitions on global hegemony.

Russia is a failed state in the grasp of a kleptocratic oligarchy, with an extreme degree of corruption and disturbing moral decay in all levels of society. The only thing communist about it today is the old soviet ordnance they make their conscripts die in at the ukranian front.

Modern China and Russia are antithetical to actual leftist ideals, and any tankie supporting them just screams misinformed idiot or foreign propaganda shill and should be dismissed by default.

One thing I dislike about Lemmy so far is the amount of highly suspicious links no one has ever heard of, that are constantly being shared. Makes me as a user really paranoid to touch any links before examining the url closely, which is good practice I guess, but makes the whole content browsing process a bit stressful.

I just yesterday saw a post how disabling downvotes for an instance that still acts as part of the greater fediverse causes issues and unfair advantages with posts being created there that can achieve a high score very easily, even on accident.

I would expect Lemmy to rework that function to avoid these issues so that up- and downvotes are either mandatory or can only be disabled together. I would not recommend trying to find an instance based on if they practice this most likely not here to stay functionality.

There isn’t a product in the world, even my most used and beloved, that makes me care enough to bother looking up beliefs of involved executives.

Not who you replied to, but I always assumed that she sort of knew about her second personality from previous occasions when this had happened. The terraformer with the god complex (whom i found the real star of this episode, LET THERE BE LIGHT!) tells sisko about it, so it is implied that she is even aware herself whom she mr. Hydes into to some degree. She may not have the memories, but should know about her second personality.

This is what “deep” teenagers post on social media.

That’s not how capitalism works. You already bought the product, they have your money. You even spent enough time on the game to have an opinion on it, so it’s a win for their engagement metrics as well.

Why invest in fixing a product you have already been paid for if there is no legal obligation to do so, and you can alternatively make another product and get paid again? Star Wars games always sell enough to make them net profits.

German infrastructure has been neglected for several decades. In the past, the whole phone grid was nationalized under the Deutsche Telekom, which eventually got spun off into a regular company.

For some insane reason the government basically let them keep almost all of the existing telecommunications infrastructure, giving them a quasi monopoly for many years and the lobbying power to delay upgrading the grid to modern fibre connections in favor of squeezing marginal improvements out of the old copper wires.

Even today the upgrading is going slowly, but at least in cities the connections are reasonably fast, I have about 300 mbits in a fairly small town (about 200k people)

Since the age of streaming has made it very uncertain that shows are completed or even get a reasonable finale episode I prefer waiting until a series is complete before I start watching it. Nothing worse than getting invested in a show only to have it cancelled mid story arc. Also makes binge watching easier.

Thank you for enlightening me to my inner workings! It is always a revelation to have an internet armchair psychologist give you a diagnosis.

For that matter, I am german myself and thus have a “passing” familiarity with the legal situation surrounding nazism. I am specifically referring to Christianity in the west, with an exception to America due to their own regression in that regard. You are of course right that certain re emerging right wing parties are sometimes tied to conservative Christianity like in Poland, but that doesn’t somehow negate the danger of allowing a new and radically violent religion to take hold and carve out space in a free society.

Also, your paradox of tolerance is not actually a paradox, people just like to parrot that to not be made to change something.

Tolerance is a social contract that says I accept you to live and be free as you are or want to be in this society, as long as you treat me with the same respect. Islam does not subscribe to this notion, there is no room for acceptance of LGBTQ people, the equal rights and opportunities of women, not even for non-Muslim beliefs (infidels) or atheists (apostates).

Which in turn means Islam is not covered by the social contract of tolerance.

Why is being disrespectful towards religions even an issue? I do not respect them and have in fact strong contempt for religions. I consider islam a new cancer growing, after we finally managed to largely push Christianity out of policy making and into the realm of personal choice in the west.

There cannot be topics forbidden to be made fun of in a free society. If we cannot make fun of Muslims and Islam in any way without causing religious riots and violence then current form Islam has no place in a free society. The difference between Islam and the other monotheistic abrahamic religions is that the older two of the three have had enough time to go through cycles of reformation and ideological modernization, making them somewhat compatible with a modern pluralist society. Islam still insists a bunch of fables from when the book was written are literally true and valid today, and not just apocryphal advice on how to be a decent person.

And before someone brings up the inevitable American evangelicals as comparison, they are equally incompatible. Luckily that scourge is largely confined to the United States and not my problem.

I hate the idea that we have different kinds of prisons for different classes of people. In my opinion any kind of tax fraud or financial cheating on the public is a worse crime than most of the ones we currently punish with years of regular prison, except those causing physical / psychological harm to others.

Car stickers are never a good idea, ever. Not only do they look ridiculous, they give random strangers access to important information about you and your life situation. Do not volunteer personal Information.

And then there is the uniquely stupid prospect of a piracy car sticker. What in the fuck gave you the idea that is somehow a good addition to your car? The activity ranges from unsavory to straight up illegal depending on where you live, why would anyone advertise they are doing that irl?

As i argued in another comment, there are many useful bots for certain niche communities that I really think have a place here, even though I am generally wary of AI accounts infesting the fediverse as well.

Good examples for good and very useful, yet not mod work related bots are on TCG/CCG subs like magic the gathering and hearthstone to provide context to card names, or convert deck codes into a nicely formatted table of the used cards. Or on the Lego sub, returning any set number as a link to the proper bricklink entry. This kind of bot should be allowed and even encouraged to be used where appropriate.

Then there are the plenty of irrelevant and annoying bots we really can do without, like the alphabetical order bot, haiku bot, the dozens of bots quoting LOTR or Star Wars characters, and so on. Like most reddit jokes they stopped being funny fairly quickly and now add nothing to the conversation, but are being kept around for karma.

And then there are the more insidious bots that are about to become widespread, being harder to detect the more their refinement advances. It is going to be a constant arms race between bot detection and bot deception skills.

Even in a fair justice system the punishment would be extreme in proportion to the crime. He caused the made up number of a global corporate giant to be a bit smaller than they had imagined.

I find the whole premise ridiculous, society or in this case an individual doesn’t owe a company its profits. If a person can be sued over this, then why don’t they sue Sony over competition? Why can’t I sue someone because my projected income isn’t what I wanted?

Throw him in jail for a few months, give him a painful but reasonable fine (something mid 5 to low 6 figures) that he can possibly afford to pay off, and then leave it be ffs.

The rich and powerful steal literal billions of public money, cheat their way out of paying their fair share in taxes as a hobby, and they don’t get close to such a sentence ever. Why is this low to mid tier huckster deserving of indentured servitude for the rest of his life when people who cause economic damage and steal public money get off with a resignation, a severance package and two months house arrest?