Sure, the US does skew right. I do think Lemmy is pretty far left even compared to areas like Europe that are further left from the US. It’s kind of hard to gauge whether people are serious about things like “guillotine the rich” (or Luigi references) or exaggerating, but you don’t see that type of talk on popular subreddits (even before the crackdown), at least I didn’t, and coming to Lemmy was a bit of a shift left from what I already saw as “center left.”

I am a bit left of center in the US and pretty centrist on a global scale, and I lean fairly libertarian. I’m left of most libertarian candidates in the US, supporting things like UBI as an alternative to welfare programs. So I think I have a decent perspective on what’s left and right.

Democratic socialism isn’t socialism though, it’s capitalism with lots of government services.

The authoritarian part is pretty much baked in to “real” socialism since you need something to control the means of production until society is ready, and that hasn’t yet happened. Yes, there are other theorized structures, but they’re unproven.

Tankies (i.e. many of those on .ml) are into the authoritarian part, whereas people here are more into democratic socialism, which is another thing entirely.

Tankies are pretty close to fascism, and tend to support regimes like in Russia the same as regimes in China. For them, the motivation doesn’t seem as motivated by economics as itvi government structure, since modern Russia is very far from socialist ideals. Basically, anything that goes against US interests is the priority, not economics as it would for your average socialist.

Sure, democratic socialism is center left, I’m talking about actual socialism, which gets promoted here quite a bit. Reddit was mostly dem socs and welfare state proponents, Lemmy takes it a bit further.

Right, and that’s completely brain-dead. We should be wanting to attract more talent, because more people able to take high-end jobs usually ends up creating more high-end jobs. We want more immigrant engineers, doctors, etc, because that encourages greater investment since the labor pool is deeper.

But no, we’ll instead block cheap imports and encourage more blue-collar work, and if we take that too far, we’ll end up in a similar situation as we did back in the Great Depression when demand just evaporates.

We should let developing countries develop and focus on what developed countries are better at: innovation. Attract top talent and keep investment dollars flowing so the R&D jobs stay.

Disagree, it’s pretty far left. Reddit was center-left, this is where those too far left for Reddit came as it shifted a little to the right with the top-down reaction to the API change.

You refer to .ml, but that’s not really left, it’s a tankie instance, which is closer to fascism than socialism. I see far more people on Lemmy idolizing communism/socialism than any other extreme ideology.

And if you must, leave it off, ideally in a faraday cage/bag.

Sure, but the US has a lot of well-educated people (e.g. see the Education Index), as well as a lot of opportunities for well-educated people to get in-demand jobs that pay well.

Literacy rates are interesting, but they don’t translate to well-paying jobs like education attainment rates.

Exactly, which is why I’m left scratching my head why the US wants to bring manufacturing back to the US. We’re much better of growing the well-paying jobs where our education systems can compete favorably vs bringing back jobs that compete with low-paying jobs…

Nowhere near as big as yours. I haven’t bothered checking, but probably something like 100 movies and about the same number of TV shows (only a handful of series). It consists pretty much only of what I’ve ripped from physical media, plus a handful of things my SO uploaded. Total storage is about 2TB, and mostly DVDs w/ a handful of Blurays. Rips are full quality, and mostly ripped from MakeMKV, with a handful ripped w/ Handbrake.

We don’t watch a ton, but I do order new stuff periodically, so it slowly grows (most recent addition is Adventure Time).

Yeah, I always run Raspbian. It’s stable and let’s me largely forget about it.

I think the whole Nazi bar analogy is incredibly dumb. Sharing a space w/ someone doesn’t mean you agree w/ them.

I think it’s more likely Musk got a lot more involved across the board after his stint w/ DOGE ended, and she wasn’t a fan of that. She joined on the premise that she’d have a lot of autonomy, so that being taken away would make the most sense for her reason to leave.

Exactly. A top executive leaving is rarely a snap decision, especially for companies that aren’t publicly traded. I think the more likely explanation is that she joined under the assumption that Musk would let her handle things, and now Musk is wanting to get more involved now that his stint in DOGE is over, and she’s not a fan of that. This was probably in the works for a month or two, and only announced today.

I also have no evidence for this, other than an understanding in how executive handoffs usually happen. Given her history at X, I highly doubt Grok would be what pushes her out.

Or just close off the most common vectors, such as disabling root ssh login, doing key-only SSH auth, and block traffic from regions of the world you don’t need to support.

Yup, we don’t have IPv6, so we’d need a VPN or something to do that.

nobody is born a gambler

I disagree. You can have two people from the same upbringing and one becomes addicted to gambling and the other doesn’t. So there’s absolutely a predisposition toward addictions, which is why some people struggle a lot more than others at breaking bad habits.

My views on transexuality are a bit different though. I don’t think the issue is necessarily that some AFAB person is actually a man and biology/God got it wrong, I think the issue is that people feel more comfortable with a given set of social norms that may not match the social norms of their sex. This doesn’t have to be a conscious decision either, they can just feel uneasy with things and blame their sex, but really the issue is society not matching their mental model of themselves. For those people, sex changes and/or hormone therapy can be the most effective solution, because changing society is much more difficult than changing how you present. I’ve even heard some people can change how they present from day to day because they’re feeling like they align more to one or the other extreme that day.

I suppose that doesn’t matter all that much in practice

Agreed 100%. Whether non-binary genders (or genders at all) are an actual thing or a social construct doesn’t really matter, what matters is love and acceptance.

Does calling someone by their preferred gender cost you anything? No. Does arguing semantics about whether what they’re experiencing is innate or a subconscious processing of societal norms help? No. Just accept people for who they claim to be if it doesn’t harm anyone.

And yeah, I think homo- and trans- phobias are stupid. We’re all just people, so treat each other with respect and fight for each other to get whatever they need go feel loved and accepted.

I went into detail here in case you want to read it. I’ll keep this reply short.

Basically, it’s possible to be happy for someone who makes decisions you disagree with because you know it makes them happy. For example, I think gambling is bad and nobody should do it while also being genuinely happy for someone after a profitable trip to a casino. Likewise, I can also be happy for someone who finds happiness in a gender identity and use their preferred pronouns while also believing gender is an arbitrary social construct, not something baked into the human condition.

Supporting someone doesn’t mean believing exactly the same way they do. If it’s important to them and isn’t harmful, support them in it unconditionally. I do that with people who have conflicting religious views from mine, and I think that’s completely reasonable.

I’ll try explaining with a different example that’s less emotionally charged: gambling.

I think gambling is terrible and nobody should do it. It’s addictive and has ruined tons of lives, and I absolutely refuse to do anything related to it for fear that I’ll get hooked.

So I should be in favor of gambling bans, right? No, quite the opposite, and I genuinely get excited for my coworkers and friends that do gamble when they do well. They know my personal opinion on it, but still share their ups and downs with me because they know I won’t judge or lecture them.

The same is true for a variety of policies, I generally believe in fewer restrictions on individuals. For example:

• I don’t drink but support looser liquor laws
• I believe prostitution should be legal, and also that it’s bad
• I don’t use drugs, but believe that all recreational drugs should be legal if they can be used safety (i.e. under medical supervision)

As long as it doesn’t restrict those who don’t want to participate, I’m in favor of more options for people.

I believe everyone should be able to live the way they choose, and I can be happy for someone who makes different choices than me. I don’t have to understand why someone values something to feel happy when they achieve it.

My view of homosexuality applies to me, not you. Me preventing you from doing something I consider to be a sin is worse than you doing the sin. You have every right to decide how to live your life, and I can feel happy for you finding happiness even if I believe it’s the wrong choice.

I don’t think that’s at all comparable to your creationism example, which is about accepting two opposing views simultaneously. If you accept science that conflicts with your religious views, you need to adjust your religious views so they’re compatible. Likewise, society and law don’t need to match your religious views, they just need to be compatible (e.g. religious institutions shouldn’t be forced to perform or accept same sex marriage for religious rites).

I hope this makes sense.

Gotta get that recurring revenue!