SwingingTheLamp

Apparently not. ¯\(ツ)/¯

If you have the privilege to ignore “politics” while people are gravely suffering in real life, is it so hard to just ignore it in your Lemmy feed?

Yes. Very much so. Calling it a “virus” is an analogy to simplify the concept to a sound bite, and an author like Neal Stephenson made a “mind virus” central to the plot of his book, Snow Crash. But strip away the literary liberties, and it’s based on real neuroscience. See, for example, this article from a few years ago.

Quote:

It is well-documented that for example words like “reptiles” and “parasites” were used by the Nazi regime to compare outsiders and minorities to animals. Strongmen throughout history have referred to targeted social groups as “rats” or “pests” or “a plague.” And it’s effective regardless of whether the people who hear this language are predisposed to jump to extreme conclusions. Once someone is tuned into these metaphors, their brain actually changes in ways that make them more likely to believe bigger lies, even conspiracy theories.

I have this pet theory that the fact that some of the first TV broadcasts were Hitler’s speeches is more than just a historical curiosity. Broadcast media (i.e. radio) had come along just a few years before. Right after it provided a way for authoritarian leaders like Hitler to reach great numbers of people with their spoken words., the world saw an explosion of right-wing populism at a scale never seen before. I suspect it’s not just a coincidence. (The Nazis certainly understood the propaganda opportunity.)

It certainly resembled a viral outbreak.

I’m reasonably confident that the reason has a lot to do with social proof. I don’t think it has much to do with UX, or amount of content, because both of those reasons would require people to actually try the fediverse to find out. In my experience, people don’t cite reasons as to why they won’t try a lesser-known platform, they enter a low-key fight-or-flight mode and sort of go blank, shut down, and don’t engage with the idea either way. It’s kind of spooky once you notice it in person.

To speculate, I think perhaps centralized, corporate services have an immediate advantage, because a brand name and a logo inherently provides a certain amount of social proof, since corporate brands and logos are so central to Western culture.

The common loon flies and swims, but isn’t able to walk.

Would that be a human with ostrich legs, or an ostrich with a human body? Indeed, there are a lot of philosophical questions, but if we’re allowing technological augmentation, then Todd Reichert is indisputably human and managed 144 kph.

Kinesiologists and mechanical engineers are the who. Ostriches have a radically different body plan than humans, one that’s mechanically much more suited to running fast. Add long, lightweight legs which bend the other way and hence have advantageous leverage and a stride length of 3 to 5 meters. (Usain Bolt has a stride length of less than 2.5 meters, and he’s an outlier among humans.) Even if we genetically engineered a hyper-fast-twitch muscle fiber and springy tendons, those would just tear apart our joints when paired with the body mechanics and locomotion style we’re working with.

Bubba is aroused.

No, they told me I could stop.

Come to think of it, the word they used was “should”. They were really quite emphatic about it.

If Québec would be open to making poutine with deep-fried cheese curds, it could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Nah, Wisconsin is too purple, sadly. This is the state, after all, that voted for the semi-sentient bucket of pig shit named F. Ron Johnson over Russ Feingold. Maybe Douglas County and blue parts of LaCrosse could sneak in there on the edge of Minnetoba undetected, though.

Ross was spirited away from the scene and hidden away immediately, like before his gun cooled down. There was no opportunity for any MN officials to act.

As for lawsuits, a news search for “Minnesota lawsuit” turns up lots of stories, like this one which talks about the one Ellison filed on the 12th to end the invasion. Courts are slow; they can’t keep up with events on the ground.

Lastly, the DNC is pretty much irrelevant these days. It’s not a surprise; folks here on the Threadiverse have told me that the Democrats aren’t there to fight for us, and we have to make them do what we want. It’s a fascinating and weird mindset, but does appear to be accurate these days. Anyway, this isn’t two teams facing off anymore, and the regime is attacking people directly. It doesn’t matter if the DNC rolls over, the people of Minneapolis aren’t.

Will this reduce premiums, or boost insurance company profits?

Minnesota prosecutors would like to press charges, but the regime is protecting Ross; it hasn’t identified the agents who shot Pretti, and is obstructing MN investigators. Over here in Wisconsin, we have John Doe proceedings for starting a case without knowing the identity of the defendant, but the reason that’s useful is to use the court’s powers to investigate. In this instance if Minnesota has a similar law, it’d just get a case on the books which couldn’t go anywhere because investigation already is stymied.

Walz has mobilized the National Guard to protect Minnestotans from ICE. However, it’s a fine line, because the NG can be federalized, and anything too aggressive he might do would just see them taken out of his control. Nevermind possibly kicking off the second civil war.

And, Minnesota has filed lawsuits. So that’s three out of four of those things that Walz has already done, to the extent possible. Calling them pedophiles sounds like finger wagging. But maybe it’d all work if he Wanted It Badly Enough?

Look, just three weeks ago, complainers were bitching that Americans were too complacent, and a general strike would never happen. Now, a general strike is happening, and you’re complaining that it’s only a day? Even this was allegedly unthinkable at New Year’s!

We don’t know the future. Let the momentum build.

Cool enough to make the troll delete their account immediately after this comment…

Say, friend, I realize that there’s this streak of magical thinking a mile wide through American culture. It’s rampant in our stories. The kicker can make a 60-yard field goal, if he Wants It Badly Enough. Some dude can levitate his spacecraft out of the swamp, if he Wants It Badly Enough. A couple of local boys can jump their car over the river, if they Want It Badly Enough. The bumbling sheriff cannot, because he doesn’t Want It Badly Enough.

So is the idea here is that Tim Walz could do something about it, if he only Wanted It Badly Enough? Unfortunately, this is not a movie. He can’t drive them off by sheer force of will. What should he do about it? Grab Paul Bunyon’s axe from the state warehouse where it’s stored, and charge through the streets of Minneapolis brandishing it? Anything he could do boils down to one of two things: Talk (executive orders, legislation, telephone calls to [REDACTED]), or direct, physical action. The former, you dismiss as finger wagging, and the latter would be met with overwhelming retaliation, getting a lot of people hurt or killed.

In his place, what “something” would you do, that would actually work and not make things worse?

I dunno, when was the last time Japan dismembered a reporter at one of its consulates?

Yikes. MAGA can still surprise me over just how fucking stupid they are. I mean, the differences in treatment could not be more obvious.

I saw that post, and honestly, part of the issue is that the pain of messing with mode-lines in /etc/XF86Config and worrying about physically damaging your CRT monitor with out-of-spec frequencies was a very real thing 30 years ago. Hence, the idea that configuring displays on Linux is fraught and difficult has stuck around, even though it hasn’t been true since the advent of DDC, and multiple displays for most use-cases has been sorted out for at least the past 15 years. Non-Linux users will still occasionally talk about displays on Linux as if we were still editing mode-lines in vi.

It’s a sore point, I guess I’m saying, and you poked it inadvertently. When I read the post, I just kind of smiled, because a few days before, I plugged the HDMI cable from a conference room display into my Thinkpad, and it lit up with an extension of my desktop. I started LibreOffice Impress, hit ‘F5’, and the presentation appeared on the big display, and the presentation notes on my laptop screen. (Actually, I was surprised and impressed at how smoothly it went.)

It’s no surprise that issues remain here and there, though. Glad to hear that folks wanted to be helpful!