I've been pondering the concept of Reddit "karma," and I believe it's time for a serious discussion about its true nature and the impact it has on our communities. I've written multiple posts about this previously here on kbin (https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/95140/Dearest-developers-Stop-reinventing-the-wheel) with very mixed results in the engagement. Though I am still working on refining the argument.
While the idea behind karma is to provide users with a reputation score or social credit, I've noticed that it doesn't necessarily align with those intentions. Instead, it often serves as a reinforcement for users to stay within their comfort zones and echo chambers, stifling diverse perspectives and constructive dialogue.
One of the main issues I've observed is the tendency for downvoting to occur when a user expresses an opinion that goes against the prevailing sentiment within a particular community. Even if the opinion is well-thought-out, respectful, and contributes to meaningful conversations, it becomes a target for downvotes. This behavior discourages users from engaging or expressing differing viewpoints.
It's disheartening to witness how users can manipulate the system out of spite. Some individuals go as far as visiting other users' profiles and downvoting their past posts to deliberately lower their karma score. This kind of behavior further emphasizes how the current karma system is more of a reflection of how often a user participates in echo chambers that align with their views, rather than an accurate measure of their quality engagement or contribution to the community.
With that in mind, I propose that we reconsider the name of the point system to better reflect its actual usage. Here are a few alternative names that encapsulate the behavior we often see:
Echo Chamber Score: Highlighting the tendency to reward users who stick to echo chambers and discourage exploration of different perspectives.
Bias Points: The system measures a user's inclination to conform to specific biases or ideological groups.
Conformity Score: The score reflects a user's adherence to the prevailing opinions within specific communities, rather than their engagement.
I believe a change in the name would serve as a wake-up call for the community, highlighting the importance of open-mindedness and respectful discourse. It would encourage users to think beyond their echo chambers and engage in meaningful conversations, even if they hold different opinions.
I've previously discussed how it would be more beneficial to leave the rep system in place, but keep the scores hidden to everyone besides the user of that profile. Another thing to think about is the way Steam has a rep system regarding VAC Bans. Instead of banning a profile completely, just some big red text on their profile noting which game or community there were banned from and how often.
I'm eager to hear your thoughts on this matter. What are your suggestions for improving the system to foster more open and constructive dialogue?
I don't think downvotes do anything. I don't think negative reputation scores represent much more than a user's inability to engage prosocially in any environment, and those users should just be referred to admins. So, I think downvotes should be left in the rear view mirror.
Instead, I think we should replace upvotes with two actions: 1) A 'favourite' action, which could be a single, mod- (at the community level) or admin-defined icon, or maybe even user chosen emote reactions, and 2) a 'helpful' or 'interesting' action. This would allow uses to differentiate between things they find interesting or helpful, and things they just enjoy, and it would give an extra dimension to use in sorting posts and comments.
If we want to attach any kind of reputation score to a user (and I'm not convinced that we should), then we can consider having aggregate breakdowns of those different point pools. Which instances did those points come from? Which communities? If a user has 80,000 points but they all come from c/ElonForGodEmperor, that tells you something significant about how you might want to weight those points.
I'm already disheartened after a single day because I did in fact engage in a thoughtful discourse but was summarily reprimanded. I was hoping this environment would be different than the echo chamber that was Reddit.
You can't pay any attention to reputation on kbin at all. The dev changed how upvotes are interpreted, but the reputation hasn't been updated to reflect that yet.
Just so you know reputation is bugged on kbin right now just so you know. Down votes reduce your rep but upvotes do not increase it. Only boosts increase it. As a result most people onhere that participate a lot have negative rep.
As far as I can tell your comments were downvoted for either:
playing into the "both sides are the same" narrative that there isn't much patience for anymore, especially after Roe being struck down and the decision on Student Loan forgiveness this morning.
coming across as concern trolling for right wing extremists. I'm not accusing you of actually doing that, but a couple of your downvoted comments conforn to retorical devices that white supremesist groups commonly use. Looking at your profile I think it was just genuine ignorance on your part, but that's the reason.
In general, there are so many bad actors online that hide behind "just wanting to have a discussion" that people have lost patience with it. I've been seeing that sort of rhetoric my entire life used as a way to trojan horse advocacy for things like barring gay couples from having the same rights as straight couples, defending racism -- not even just racist policies, but straight up "black people are all thugs" racism -- taking away women's rights to choose their own medical care, allowing trans people to exist at all. The list goes on and on. I've just totally lost patience with it, and I'm not alone.
When 9/10 people who "just want to have a discussion" use that discussion to spread misinformation, gaslight, gishgallop, and make false equivalences, eventually you become wary of anyone who opens up a dialog that way.
Blame Ben Shapiro, that was his bad faith weapon of choice and it caught on.
you're not wrong. I feel brow beaten but that's really because politically I have no idea where I stand anymore. I'd probably take it less to heart if I was more firm on my own views. I may seem to tapdance a little around the issues trying to be thoughtful of other people's opinions. thank you for your thorough and kind insight. I have previously kept my opinions to myself but l am trying to grow as a person and that means engaging in meaningful discourse.
Look, I don't really know you or your personal values, but I would just suggest you keep the following in the back of your head:
When you look at political discussion and debates, which side goes out of its way to try and help people that aren't like them and which side generally is fighting only for people like them.
I disagree with a lot of the policy particulars of the Democrats, but the issue for me is that my only other viable option is a party trying to rip away basic rights from a lot of the population. Right now the basic question we seem to be struggling with as a country is: "should we be using our massive collective wealth to help people?" as well as "should people be allowed to live the way they want, as long as they aren't hurting others?".
If you can answer that basic question, start looking at the policy positions of each party through that lens.
Your comment clearly demonstrates your own bias. You are engaging in what is known as collective punishment or collective blame, unjustly punishing or mistreating individuals who may not have been involved in any wrongdoing, simply because they hold different beliefs or opinions than you and your group. This approach completely disregards the principles of individual responsibility and fairness, ignoring their individual actions and intentions.
Until an individual user posts racist or hateful speech, they deserve either the discussion they are looking for or, if you don't have anything constructive to say, ignore them and don't say anything at all.
It is crucial for you to recognize and acknowledge your bias, as it undermines the credibility and objectivity of your argument. By allowing it to dictate your actions, you are not fostering a constructive environment for discussion. You aren't considering their merit or engaging in meaningful dialogue.
It's important to remember that a person can hold bigoted views even if they actively advocate for social justice. Prejudiced or intolerant views towards a particular group of people, regardless of whether they are based on race, religion, gender, or any other factor, are equally unacceptable.
Remember, it is important to approach discussions with an open mind, respecting the diversity of opinions and perspectives. Only by doing so can we create an environment conducive to productive conversations and the exchange of ideas. Otherwise, we might as well create echo chamber magazines for everything. As an example, instead of "Politics" we'll need Left Politics, Right Politics, Center Politics, Top Left Politics, Top Right Politics, Bottom Left Politics, Bottom Right Politics............. etc.
I generally used to believe in that precept, that you should approach every debate with an open mind, and engage with anyone willing to debate you. But as I've grown older, I've realized that, while nice in a vacuum, that code is naive. It presumes that the person across from you is engaging in good faith.
As we navigate this new phenomenon of social media, we as a society are beginning to grapple with a few problems:
It is easier to spread misinformation than it is to combat it.
The Rhetoric of 'reasonable' discussion can be easily co-opted by bad actors to spread misinformation.
When you engage with a bad actor, you amplify their voice.
So when you get people talking about vaccines not working, or black people being inherently more likely to commit crimes, or blah blah blah, engaging with that in good faith runs the risk of just amplifying that message. I'm not really sure what the answer to it is. Like, I don't think the Nazi's would have been stopped by more reasonable discussion, and we are at an inflection point in this country where we are having similar discussions over trans rights.
I don't think "always keep an open mind and engage in good faith" holds up when one side consistently and systematically exploits weaknesses in that philosophy to spread misinformation and bigotry.
Lastly, I hit the downvote button on comments that contain misinformation, not as a bid to punish the commenter, but as a way to push falsehoods lower in the chain so good information can float to the top. If there is a discussion about trans rights and the top comment is "I'm just against kids getting life altering surgery", then that gets a downvote, because kids aren't allowed to get gender reassignment surgery, and the comment gives the false impression that they are, and that's what's being debated. It doesn't really matter if the person is engaging in good faith or not. Bad information is bad information, and it should be pushed to the bottom or removed before it spreads erroneously.
I understand the repetitive reasoning behind your perspective. However, the problem lies in your understanding, or lack there of, of misinformation.
Who do you propose is the arbiter of what qualifies as fact or fiction? Because you make it sound like you are qualified to know everything about everything with your ability to downvote... Or, do you think which ever argument is the most convincing to you, that's who is obviously correct...? Or are you more simple than even that and think, "this information is on TV so it MUST be correct!"
When you have a thousand qualified professionals saying the same thing, yet another thousand qualified professionals saying the opposite, what then becomes misinformation, disinformation, or malinformation? Are you still wearing a cloth mask outdoors and getting your boosters?
I love how everybody throws around comparisons to fascism and Nazis these days. We could focus on the left or the right and easily create a list of all the things we've done that was similar to things Nazis did. It really isn't hard to do...
During World War II, Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the forced relocation and internment of around 120,000 Japanese Americans.
Under the Democratic administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, the FBI's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) targeted various political groups, including civil rights activists, anti-war organizations, and socialist and communist groups.
The Democratic administration of President Woodrow Wilson used the Espionage Act of 1917 to suppress dissent during World War I. The act was employed to prosecute individuals who criticized the war effort, including socialists, pacifists, and anarchists.
Democrat Bill Clinton invoked executive privilege to withhold information in various investigations, including the Whitewater controversy and the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Democratic President Barack Obama faced criticism for the use of drone strikes and the extensive use of executive orders.
The Democratic administration of President Barack Obama faced criticism for its continuation and expansion of surveillance programs, such as the National Security Agency's mass surveillance programs revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
We could talk about how Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, continued and expanded the "War on Drugs" policies. Which disproportionately affected minority communities and led to mass incarceration, raising concerns about civil liberties and racial inequality...
Good old "Drug War Joe".
one side consistently and systematically exploits weaknesses in that philosophy to spread misinformation and bigotry.
Or you know, we could accept the facts that both sides are similarly as evil as the other. Instead of just pointing fingers and creating more disinformation.
For anyone keeping score at home this is exactly the sort of thing I'm taking about. Like, this comment hits pretty much all of the general devices I outlined.
I'm honestly kind of thankful to you for providing such a clear and illustrative example. Gratz.
Nobody is keeping score, buddy. This includes you, apparently. It's sad to see people who are so conceited. But hey, you lie to yourself as much as you need to, whatever it takes to keep you feeling content. Have a great day, friend.
Lastly, I hit the downvote button on comments that contain misinformation, not as a bid to punish the commenter, but as a way to push falsehoods lower in the chain so good information can float to the top.
Feel free to point out the misinformation and falsehoods in my previous comment, which you downvoted. LMFAO. Talks in circles, blatantly lies, provides no evidence... Sounds like a spineless leftists.
I like the idea of a more nuanced upvote. It's much more useful. Also I agree with you about a reputation system. No matter what you have in place, users will find a way to exploit it. I think a breakdown of the communities that contribute to a reputation score would actually be useful rather than a generic single score. I love both your ideas. I give it the HELPFUL💁 upvote.
nothing new, theyve been investigating UFOs for a long time. heres some. the government itself hasnt specifically said aliens exist, but its kinda obvious from their documentation and history of handling these types of things.
The aliens are real and they look like little red astronauts with a single half reflective spherical visor and floating hands. They came to me and beamed me up into there spaceship. Afterwards one of the aliens was found dead and after that they ejected another out into space.
If you were in a room with Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, could you stop fellating yourself long enough to give disappointing blowjobs to all your heroes?
No, there’s no way it’ll ever happen. If he’s even on the ballot, liberals will come out of the woodworks to vote for Biden. It also doesn’t help that RFKJr is stealing a sizable amount of votes from the Republican party as well.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” Also, “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”. Carlin of course.
I was curious, so i googled. I could find a mention that this quote could never be positively connected to Carlin even though (speciallu on facebook) people shared this quote. It most.likely is a wrong one.
No it isn’t, tons of people predicted it when the democratic party pushed for Hilary Clinton when democrat voters wanted Bernie Sanders.
Edit: No, this isn’t some propaganda conspiracy people, this actually happened. Lawsuits confirmed it, but they were subsequently thrown out because the DNC’s charter of impartiality was determined to be a political promise, not something enforceable by court. But even before the email leak, anyone who was following the DNC primary knew what was happening long before the email leak, they didn’t try to hide it.
The world told itself even though they knew the USA was stupid enough to do it anyways.
Your entire comment could have been a campaign by the opposition to sow discontent to do exactly what you claim it did. We will never know for sure, but it sure as hell has propaganda written all over it.
No, that actually happened. We all watched it happen in realtime, emails were leaked confirming it, but by that time we all already knew what was happening.
This isn’t some crazy conspiracy by the way, lawsuits confirmed there was a clear DNC bias, but they were dismissed because the DNC argued it was their right to choose a candidate and the impartiality in their charter was determined to be a political promise, not something enforceable in court.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. The emails came at a shit time for the DNC for sure, maybe the Republicans were involved, maybe they weren’t, but that’s irrelevant because this actually happened. This isn’t a conspiracy theory, it isn’t propaganda, this is a bed the DNC made for themselves.
Imo it wouldn’t have made a difference, everyone watching knew what was happening before the email leak, but obviously we’ll never know for sure.
That edit is absolutely embarrassing. Is your team winning really more important than democracy? It’s “propaganda” when real emails proving bias are leaked because it was your preferred political party? Come on.
Yes leaking private e-mail exchanges to gain political advantage is textbook propaganda, what else would it be…?
My apologies that you assumed “conspiracy” in my comments that was just talking about the factual leak, that the republicans used to their advantage. Without that propaganda they would have found or made more. This really isn’t a difficult concept, once you stop assuming “conspiracy”… since that was not even once mentioned until you did……
Would you like to explain exactly which aspect of my comment that stated, with evidence, that this event actually happened is misinformation? An event that absolutely happened and there’s not even anyone denying it happened including the DNC themselves?
I take nothing for granted with this clown. The fact that he’s still a free man in the first place makes me weary of his impact on the future.
I hope he loses. Or better gets hit by a car before election time. But if he makes it to the ballot and his name is on the paper in November. He’s a threat.
leery adjective ˈlir-ē variants or less commonly leary Synonyms of leery : SUSPICIOUS, WARY —often used with of leery of strangers She seemed a little leery of the proposal.
Yet Haley and De Santis could make it close against Biden in swing states according to a NYT/Siena poll. Never underestimate human beings potential for stupidity and or shooting itself in the foot.
Nah, when I see what’s going on here in Europe… These may not be such obvious jokes, but this stupid and dangerous right-wing propaganda, which seems to be gaining momentum everywhere, is frightening.
It only works because more liberal politicians aren’t helping people anymore. Embracing authoritarians is an incorrect response to the correct assessment that the West in general is backsliding. We are collectively putting the interests of the wealthy above the interest of our citizens. Some countries are just further down the path than others.
Agreed. While it’s currently bad for a lot of people in a lot of places I think it’s going to have to be more widespread before we hit the breaking point.
Some people have different priorities or ways of thinking, and this can cause them to conclude that the Republican candidate is the best option sometimes, without being malicious.
I don’t vote Republican, for the record, but such people are out there. Otherwise it wouldn’t be such a major party (unless you think nearly half the US is malicious.)
It was a huge shock to us all, all around the world, watching him go from attempting to run for president of the U.S., to actually attaining it. The best thing I can say for it, is that it shows that Americans have a genuine hunger for change. If it could just be directed in a productive way…
As a non-American, I concede that reading his Twitter meltdowns and hearing is asinine takes was extremely funny for the first 3 weeks. Then it just got sad.
the government just confirmed aliens are real another hack job with government connections is claiming that he was told by government official that alien “biologics” and space craft were recovered by the government without being able to provide evidence or details because it is “classified”
Thanks for the link. I was more interested in the original article here that focused on what exactly was revealed.
I’m skeptical with the fact that non-human made artifacts and entire crafts were recovered, especially since no one except extremely secret organizations currently have these materials.
The fact that a well respected member of the intelligence community backed by other well respected members has made come out with these statements does raise eyebrows.
With all that said, the debrief does seem like a credible source of information, and I’m curious to see what this evolves into if other active members of the intelligence community continue to whistleblow on alleged illegal activity.
Thanks for the link. I was more interested in the original article here that focused on what exactly was revealed.
I’m skeptical with the fact that non-human made artifacts and entire crafts were recovered, especially since no one except extremely secret organizations currently have these materials.
The fact that a well respected member of the intelligence community backed by other well respected members has come out with these statements does raise eyebrows.
With all that said, the debrief does seem like a credible source of information, and I’m curious to see what this evolves into if other active members of the intelligence community continue to whistleblow on alleged illegal activity.
So that says nothing about the information itself but rather just goes on about credentials and employment, with a tidbit about not leaking classified information. It does not provide any justification as to why this person’s claims should be believed rather than just “he worked there”.
The information doesn’t have to be evidence of aliens existing to be “urgent and credible”, the statement says “The ICIG found Mr. Grusch’s assertion that information was inappropriately concealed from Congress to be urgent and credible in response to the filed disclosure.” which could mean it can just be about the organizational structure of the agencies, for example.
And I wasn’t going to mention it but this is the second time you bring up Snowden, who neither “[dumped] his load” nor “defected to Russia”. He released information to journalists that the US government was illegally spying on its own citizens as well as its allies in a much broader way than anyone outside imagined. He was then stuck at an airport in Russia because the US government revoked his passport during a flight that landed there. He has repeatedly asked for a fair, public trial instead of being put in a dark box at Guantanamo and received no agreement of that from the US government so he’s stayed in one of the only places where he won’t be extradited to a country that intends to make him disappear. Since then, he’s criticized authoritarianism and governmental overreach while living in one of the most brutal dictatorships on earth, which takes more balls than either of us have.
But if I can’t needlessly denigrate Mr Snowden, how am I gonna convince you that Men in Black was a documentary about the real aliens that are real and really landed on Earth and work (for real) with the US government?
With credible evidence? But I don’t have any because my guy is so much better than Edward Snowed-in off in Russia!
The mans trying to make sure he doesnt go to prison.
He’s also clearly operating in such a way that this doesn’t get buried. People dismissing this lack an understanding of how things work in large bureaucracies/ have a fantasy version of how they think the world should work.
So much has come out already, but only for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
I wish more than anything that there was evidence of alien life that I could see with my eyes or hear with my ears. For now, we just have some dude saying things with no real evidence.
So much has come out already, but only for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
When people say these kinds of platitudes what they really mean is they love jumping to conclusions based on flimsy evidence and then judge others for not doing so because they’re “programmed” or whatever.
he didn’t even say alien. “alien biologics” while meaningless, was a stronger assertion than he was willing to make. he said “non-human biologics”, which could mean anything from aliens to there was some grass there. he just left it vague and then people like OP who want the truth but also know exactly what they want the truth to be filled in the details using the twin powers of guessing and lying.
It is brilliant but god damn he needs an editor who will stand up to him. I have stagnated on book 2 after about 5 chapters of tangential world building for some future part of the story. By the time I get there, I won’t remember those 5 chapters.
Wait for it. It’s coming. A jump into another city somewhere with no explanation and a whole bunch of new characters you haven’t been introduced to. Like a story within a story within a story. I thought my toddler must have been playing with my ebook reader and skipped me to the next book.
No, it is not normal to state what percent-better-person you would leave your romantic partner for. It’s cynical and narcissistic.
What if your partner is in an accident that changes how they look or live? Now that they’re X% “less” than what you signed on for, you can just dip?
Like I get being upfront about stuff, but this is just transactional. It’s not about your commitment to another person, it’s about maximizing your return on investment.
You could have answered my question a bit earlier, I broke my nose this morning and now her divorce lawyer has informed me that my neighbor across the street has gone up to 12% better than me.
EDIT: I just went over and broke the guy’s kneecaps and am now happily married again.
We have to stop identifying ownership with these billionaires and “their work” because it’s not. It’s a team of people who got together to accomplish a mission whether they succeeded or failed. How often is their success just a leader getting out of their way, and how often is failure because leadership was overbearing and “used their authority” to make poor decisions over the group.
“We” society only ever focus on these individuals and it’s horribly incorrect to do so.
We need to forget the celebrities and identity the groups.
Anytime management gets involved with our work, it’s because there was a monumental fuck-up or because somebody is doing too much micro-management. In either case, it’s thrice as stressful as a normal project that goes slow as shit because everything has to be run by the big person.
Hey, if these guys do everything they can to make sure their companies’ “achievements” are considered all their own doing; let’s be fair and attribute all the fault of their failures as well.
But you’re right, billionaires ride on the shoulders of the people that do the actual hard work.
Absolutely. As someone who manages a small team, my duties are advocating for the people who work for me, listening to the people closest to the problem, mediating disputes between people with different solutions, and ensuring we are all working towards the same overall goals. Most of the success of the team is directly attributed to their work. My biggest contribution is making sure they have what they need to do their job.
So, since you're support staff and economically a cost center and not a producer, they make more than you, right? You advocate for their wages first, right?
Could’ve removed the entire appositive of your first sentence,and removed “right?” to sound like less of an ass with your wording :) valid question though. my employer does operate this way
Not everyone in my position is a sniveling little shit, as much as you may think. I do get paid more than my team, but not by some ridiculous margin. The lowest paid person gets 70% what I do and the highest paid person is at 95%. When I took over it was no shit closer to 40% for the lowest paid member. I fought for that to be fixed and burned up a lot if political capital doing it too.
When COVID came along and pay cuts and layoffs were a real threat, I told my boss to cut my salary before anyone else’s. We never had to, thankfully, but I literally told him I would quit if they cut one of my subordinates pay or laid them off without first taking out of my pocket.
I had a direct report who, for three years wanted to be in a leadership role. I fought for a new position for him and put my own ass on the line recommending him for promotion every chance I got. He’s been promoted past me and I hope (since I can’t see his salary anymore) he is getting paid more than me because he’s earned it.
I’m not some superstar manager, but I do feel like I keep my team out of the political battles and turf wars so they can focus on doing what they do best without dealing with all that crap. That’s my job. When something goes wrong, I’m accountable. So when the people doing the work get it wrong and take a critical system offline by fat fingering a command, I’m the one answering the phones and taking all the shit for it and smoothing things over with stake holders. And unless it was a result of gross negligence, I’m not going to give them hell for it either because I’ve fucking been there before.
I didn’t even want this damn job. I was perfectly happy being the technical lead and not having job recruiting and performance reviews to do, but I took it because I knew at the very least I would do my best to advocate for the people I care about, and that’s not something I could say about everyone who applied.
So you can make snap judgements and assume because I manage a team that I’m just collecting a paycheck while everyone else does all the hard work, but I don’t and I won’t because it’s unethical and shitty and despite your own insecurities, I actually give a fuck about other people.
Considering how important it is to me that I’m not some piece of shit manager, yeah, it was a little personal. I take that kind of thing seriously. It kinda doesn’t work as a meme reference without the meme.
This is a shit posting community. Meme references should be assumed.
And I'm not your employee. Neither time nor place for your insecurities. Some conflict resolution skills ya got there.
Immediately talking about yourself, claiming authority, offended at the least thing, telling people what to think instead of showing those traits, serious in an unserious setting, and more. Your response to what started with a simple meme reference has me seeing more in common with the worst managers I've worked with in your actual behavior.
I have a feeling that might be a sort of add scam. Like oh look at how much watch time all the videos on this site gets. Imagine the interactions that your ad will get if you pay me to roll your ad on my platform.
People that I know irl don’t understand why I don’t want to use TikTok. It doesn’t bother me that it’s “rotting people’s brains” or that China is spying on us or whatever.
It’s autoplay.
I can’t fucking stand autoplay. The first thing I do when I log into YouTube on a new device is disable autoplay. It legitimately infuriates me and I’m not entirely sure why. All I hear when someone is watching TikTok is nonstop incessant sound and videos autoplaying one after another. The sound often isn’t even relevant to the video and is just there to make annoying loud noise. The looping is also enraging. It’s like sensory overload (no, I don’t have autism).
If TikTok were more like YouTube in that I could click on the next video whenever I was ready, I might be into it and actually enjoy it. But it’s like someone made a platform dedicated to one of my biggest pet peeves and dialed it up to 11. I don’t understand how people find that enjoyable.
The videos are literally the entire point of TikTok. It makes sense that the MAIN feature would autoplay. It’s like complaining the pages in an ebook reader are “autodisplay”, instead of every single page requiring an additional input to display the text.
Videos are literally the main point of YouTube or Vimeo or even fucking PornHub, but they don’t incessantly play and loop nonstop unless you set them to.
I search for what kind of content I want then hit play when I’m ready. If I see interesting related content, I decide whether or not click on it or whether or not to search for something else. It’s not a nonstop barrage of spam content that I may or may not be interested in and sensory assault.
YouTube shorts are different, but I’m not referring to those.
If one disagrees or opposes one, they don't oppose the other. I know that Israel has managed to spin the narrative that Israel and Judaism are the same and everyone opposing the state is basically the same kind of hateful asshole Adolf was, but that's just not true. We here in Germany have struggled a long time with that for obvious reasons. You couldn't call out Israel for doing wrong shit without being called a Nazi. In that past that is. What you've seen isn't "Antisemitism". It's opposition to some of the bullshit Israel is pulling that is the very same kind of bullshit Jews have been subjected to in the past. Or tell me: What's the difference between a Ghetto in 1700s Germany and the Gaza Strip? Correct, the 1700s Ghetto had less travel restrictions.
There is a great push in Israel to be proud of the history of unjust oppression and prosecution Jews have suffered for centuries and how awful being a victim of that was. There is this sense that together, as a nation, they finally have the means to safeguard themselves against shit like that. Yet, that very same nation pulls a swift 180 when it comes to palestinians. Pushing them back into Ghettos, depriving them of any form of economical way out, depriving them of means to get their own electricity, their own water. Paying them pittances for their jobs, restricting travel for them whenever possible. Now, as soon as those people act hostile (go figure), the "state of the oppressed" Israel responds with the military. "A little bombardment will keep them in check, right? How dare they hate us?!"
If the message all the Shoa museums, all the graveyards for the people killed in atrocities was really understood, neither the "West Bank" nor the "Gaza Strip" could exist without Israelites acting up against them.
I agree with your conclusions but it’s an oversimplification to say
Israel is a state
Judaism is a religion
Those things are very tied together, partially because no, Judaism is not just a religion. It’s a culture and ethnicity as well. And given the history of how/why Israel exists, it’s in the unique position of not just being any ole state.
I see what you’re trying to do but that’s very much a false equivalence. It’s more akin to the US’ role in the creation of the Taliban (among many, many other orgs)
Enlighten me, what similar situations are happening with Israel and Palestine that makes this comparison relevant? The politics and history around slavery in the US are completely different than this
Did the South have left-wing, secular parties with popular support that wanted abolition? Did the north actively suppress these parties while funding a group of religious extremists to do their dirty work and then turn on them when the arrangement wasn’t convenient to them? Was the north violently oppressing the south for decades before the civil war? Did the north interfere in the elections that lead to the religious extremists gaining control of the south? Are the results of that election hotly contested to this day?
You’ve just made it even clearer that this comparison doesn’t add up. The underground railroad was legitimized with the fugitive slave act. The more you try to force this comparison, the more obvious it becomes you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. The US civil war and the problems with Israel and Palestine have little in common. Support for Palestine isn’t support for Hamas. Hamas barely won the election that you’re hinging your braindead takes on, the PLO and fatah still exist and would be much better options than Hamas, and between the two of them have more popular support among the people of Palestine. Israel is a fascist, apartheid state with dubious claims to the territory they occupy. They hide behind Judaism to justify their war crimes and actively promote antisemitism to conflate support for Palestine with said antisemitism. You’re falling for their propaganda hook, line, and sinker.
Is it real antisemitism or just not supporting Israel?
About when they start going on about “Zionists” Is where I draw the line and where it typically takes a turn.
As a Jewish person, I find it healthy to criticize the Israeli government. Most young Israelis do. Their government has been steamrolled by a wannabe dictator that is corrupt as hell and his team of racist, backwards conservative orthodox buddies.
They were just protesting in the streets weeks ago and now we’re expected to turn around and support the government? Nah. This doesn’t change anything.
I also disagree with many things the Israeli government does. But when people ignore the complete history of Israel and exclusively ventilate the pro-Palestinian propaganda, a red line is crossed for me.
The christian churches around the world would hate that. He'd hand their asses to them for being backwards bigots and overall betrayers of his message.
The complete history of Israel forcing Palestinians into ghettos and systematically slaughtering them? The fact that they told civilians to flee to the south and then bombed the very area they claimed would be safe? The fact that they claim the right to self determination but refuse to allow the Palestinians the same right? The fact that netanyahu funded Hamas to destabilize the region so that he’d have pretense to carry out his war crimes?
I don’t condone the attacks by Hamas, but to pretend that Israel isn’t trying to carry out a genocide is crossing a red line for me.
This whole conflict has just always felt like a massive grey area as an outsider. Both sides have done horrible things over the years, with the retaliation often being even worse. Most governments (including mine) are actually supporting both sides, for example through humanitarian aid. That’s just kind of weird when you think about it, in a way they’re enabling both sides to keep going. And I just don’t know if there’s any way out of this besides one side completely destroying the other. Peace talks have been had so many times and it just doesn’t lead anywhere. It just feels inevitable.
There is no argument for “both sides bad” when one side is currently right now this instant blowing up hospitals, schools, and children. One side is objectively worse and it’s the side hiding behind the skirts of “antisemitism” as they carry out an Arabic genocide
Both sides are bad, no matter who is currently the aggressor.
Now because there is aggression, the aggressor has an obligation to stop it, and we have an obligation to force a stop in the conflict as well. But that doesn’t make the other party less Bad in this. Both sides killed a lot of innocent people, both have inhumane ulterior motives and both are supporting further escalation. But ofc if there’s only one party doing the fighting, then that’s the party that acutely needs to be stopped.
This distinction is very important to me, because you are not suddenly the good guy because you stopped killing civilians. You are just not actively doing war crimes which means we don’t have to intervene because of you anymore, which is at least one less reason. But you are not holy because “this year it was only 300 war crimes”.
Israel wants to genocide Palestine and live in their homes
Yes I can see how wanting liberty and self governance is exactly the same as wanting more land for your historically landless people regardless of how many natives you have to kill. Completely balanced
Lmfao that hasn’t been true since Athens invented democracy. Alcibiades was elected plenty and still turned traitor. The average Palestinian doesn’t support Hamas, but they’re not going to denounce one of the few factions actually fighting towards their goals. Get Israel out of Palestine and you’ll be amazed how few rockets will fly
As a native American in modern America, tell me more about how the terrorists won. Lmao my people also fought back, were labeled “terrorists” (read “savages” for old timey historically accurate racism flavor), and were damn near driven to extinction. There’s a reason I’m French Indian instead of just Indian.
The attacks weren’t perpetrated by a free Palestinian people or some recognized advocacy group, but by an extremist wing of the Muslim Brotherhood that has been pushed by Israel for decades.
Being attacked by a terrorist isn’t an excuse to act like a terrorist. You don’t get to murder children because someone else did. And you don’t get to use war as an excuse.
When did the Palestinians vote last? What were the demographics of that vote? Are you completely confident it was a purely democratic vote or was it the kind of democracy Putin got voted by? Perhaps the kind kim was voted in by? Or do you think Palestinians have an electoral college like the US?
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Palestine doesn’t have a strong democratic tradition to begin with. Additionally, Hamas is only governing Gaza, not the West Banks. Hamas also suppresses secular Freedom organizations. And ~50% of the people in Gaza wouldnt even be able to vote out Hamas since they are under 18. Then we have the case of Hamas indoctrination, which finds fertile soil in the impoverished and destitute Gaza youth.
All of that isn’t to say I support Hamas. I am quite vocal in my disdain for them. But Israel plays a significant part in their success. So does Iran. And let’s not forget that the religious right has been torpedoing a resolution aswell, not just the Jihadist organization Hamas. Rabin wasn’t killed by a palestinian hardliner.
So forcing an entire people’s into ghettos and taking their land, while putting them under blockade and only reluctantly letting I’m small amounts of aid and food, all while bombing them weekly is actually good, because sometimes they fight back, making them the aggressor?
The post you replied to called no actor in this good. That's your own forced dichotomy. To condemn an act does not mean you condone every act taken in response.
Could you elaborate on the “zionist” thing? I haven’t really followed the Israel situation (I tried, but it’s just so complicated). What I heard, is that “zionist” is used when talking about the Israel activity in “taking” territory from the surrounding area, is that correct or did I just misunderstand? If I’m not wrong, then what happens when people start going on about it?
The idea that discussing Zionism is a sign of an anti-semite is a shit take. The Zionist movement worked very hard to establish a colony in the middle east, in an area where they knew there were already natives and those natives were hostile to being colonized. It’s impossible to truly study the founding of Israel without learning about the Zionist movement.
This isn’t about religion, or even very much about race. It’s about the powerful asserting their will over the powerless. To some extent you could argue that the Zionists were used by the British to screw over the Arabs, but that doesn’t make the Zionists innocent.
Equating discussions of Zionism with anti-Semitism is part of the Israeli propaganda playbook for dismissing all criticism of Israel’s founding.
The idea that discussing Zionism is a sign of an anti-semite is a shit take.
There is some history to back this up, especially among older folks. I know I’ve heard a few irl antisemitic tirades start off with a testing of the waters by complaining about Zionists
Although for real, Jewish people are cool and great, but fuck Zionists.
I’m a big proponent of understanding folk better. Zionism is one of those terms with subtext. Acquaintances I know who use it (some of whom I can believe not understanding the subtext) do a better job explaining that they don’t support ethnostates rather than they don’t support zionism.
But to be fair my experience is mostly people half a globe away trying to look like they’re staying current and relevant in the news and trying to show sympathy with people they view as oppressed and hurt, without taking the time to truly dig into the history of the conflict and having never even heard the word intifada. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt while sharing with them the tiny bit I’ve learned. They do the same for me. We’ve got a wide variety of views at one of my lunch groups and it’s phenomenal.
Then how about your government stop killing and abusing Palestinians. It’s almost as if decades of apartheid oppression, murder, and human rights abuses have consequences
Awh that’s great! They’ve attended anti government protests. I guess we can ignore the call for a heavy handed ruthless response in retaliation in that same comment or the implicit support of their government’s ongoing role in the bombing and murder of civilians. Also, nowhere did I see them specifically decrying their government over the Gaza response, only in response to “corruption”
I must admit, it’s quite refreshing to hear a critical take on the Israeli government from a Jewish person. I don’t know if it’s due to the news sources and forums I typically frequent (e.g. BBC, Guardian, etc), but I feel like it’s quite rare to hear an opinion from someone who actually lives there or who practices the religion.
It’s also quite reassuring (as a fairly ignorant outside observer who is only beginning to learn the tiniest bit about the complex and bloody history of this region) to hear that not every Jewish person or every Israeli likes the way that the state is developing.
Edit: I made some language changes because upon re-reading the parent comment I realised that the poster didn’t actually say whether they lived in Israel or not and I had made a faulty assumption.
who actually lives there or who practices the religion.
There are a lot of Jews that don’t fit into either of those categories. Ethnic and cultural Jewish people that don’t practice or believe in Judaism as a religion are very common. I call myself Jewish, because my mother and my grandmother are Jewish, but I don’t practice the religion. I’d recommend googling Jewish Atheism and Jewish Secularism for more info.
People should really stop conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Unfortunately it’s very common and even part of the official classifications used by some countries. To me it seems obvious that this is another attempt to cut off any criticism of the state of Israel by labeling critics as anti-Semitic. Here’s an interesting read about how flawed that logic is:
The problem is a lot of people don’t differentiate between the israeli government and the israeli people as a whole - i’ve seen some straight up ‘they had it coming’ style bullshit that is verrry careful to place Good Jews and Bad Jews (the festival goers) to try and get a pass on antisemitsm and maaaan it is transparent as fuck.
What are you talking about? I know Jewish people that openly condemn the behavior of their gov. A person is good or bad depending on their actions - you cannot lump everyone together based on whatever characteristics you want and after that starting a genocide campaign.
The festival goes were just normal people like you and me that were trying to live and enjoy life. Same with the innocent people that are dying in Gaza.
and I was pointing out that some people are using this as an opportunity to be antisemitic. Calling israel out on its bullshit is one thing, but we’re legit seeing people saying the victims of the attack had it coming for being israelis having a festival relatively near gaza.
But that’s how politics work nowadays. You need to assume that every group is homogenous and when someone from that group points out that it isn’t, you call them a hypocrite.
No child is to blame about any of this. And when I think about this (i’m sorry) very stupid conflict, all I can think is people killing children because of land. FUCKING DIRT. Not a specific people, just people, humans, killing children becuase a piece o land, that to be fair it fits everyone! That is of a stupidity that I can not fathom
Yes, it’s really just about how the land is called and who makes the rules. There are Israelis living in Palestine and Palestinians are citizens of Israel already.
You cannot separate Zionism from the formation of the state of Israel and how the history of the conflict has been shaped since.
In order to obtain a more holistic perspective of the conflict people need to know about Zionism, it’s history, and how it currently affects Israeli leadership.
There are still people alive on both sides that lived through Zionist conflicts with the British Mandate and the Nakba.
Remember kids, don’t ever plug something in to your computer that you don’t trust or are unsure about. Picking up flashdrive off the street and plugging them in is one of the easiest ways to get malware installed on your computer.
Previous work got USB sent to them via post and they had to access the data on this drives. These drives came from end customers, so they had two computers specifically for the purpose of retrieving images from the USB sticks and burning them on CDs.
Well, an instance could decide they wanted to try to make money, but I think everyone would just bail on them. People are more than happy to help out servers with donations, no need to make it a business venture.
I don’t think so. There are very few communities that actually successfully fully left reddit. A good number of them splintered across circlejerkers on multiple lemmy instances with the users remaining on reddit asking “what’s a lemmy” and staying put. The vast majority never left reddit at all, and don’t give a fuck that reddit is trying to build a business.
Where the lemmy hivemind fails is that a bunch of us are reddit refugees that lost our favorite mobile apps, so you get a bunch of delusional people here thinking that reddit is dead and lemmy is the best thing ever. It’s not. Lemmy has a lot of the same problems reddit had, and we’re just repeating history. Wait until you need to squash extremism, prevent illegal content, and people maintaining the main instance (don’t kid yourself, it’s lemmy.world) need to eat.
For me, that’s not the case. I enjoyed the amount of content and discussion, but I just lost interest in reddit over time.
I saw the same jokes too often. I got sick of seeing the ads. The admins perma-banned my fiancee’s account, despite her never really commenting or posting. They never gave a reason for banning her, other than going against “policy”, which they never specified when asked. It would be the equivilant of being banned from every single instance. Some of the “helpful” communities were becoming much more toxic over time. I stayed despite that stuff.
Then, the API thing happened. It wasn’t that reddit wanted to profit, but rather how they went about it. Had they been honest with the developers when they asked at the start of the contract year, it would have been much smoother. You can’t change the cost of a yearly subscription halfway through the year. I disliked the provable false rumors that were spread about developers.
I disliked that Spez heavily implied that people leaving reddit would harm reddit employees. He didn’t make that statement about someone who made those threats, but instead he made it about the people leaving. It left a very bad taste in my mouth. I’m not monetarily supporting someone like that if I have any say in the matter.
I disliked the sudden overwhelming toxicity that I saw start against people who were recommending Lemmy. I get being rude to people who are rude, but it’s lame to be rude just because. Someone told me that I would be back, that I should just wait to see them right. That person helped me stay off reddit, tbh.
I don’t understand fanaticism, regardless of the company/platform/group, etc. If I start to dislike a social media, I will move somewhere that I like better. If Lemmy becomes like what Reddit is today, I’ll leave Lemmy too. There’s always something else. I also don’t really care if Reddit sinks or swims. That has nothing to do with me. If I get sick of all social media, I won’t use it. There are lots of other things to do with free time.
I picture the problem being someone doing that low-key. It’s common for app developers to get offers to install privacy-violating code in exchange for very tempting amounts of money - like, have a somewhat successful piano or to-do list app that you make $15k a year from? Wel, how about you install this spyware crap and we’ll give you $60,000. It’s difficult for small developers to say no. I could picture the same thing happening with Lemmy instances - a small change in ToS, some new JavaScript, and many people wouldn’t notice. At this point Lemmy members skew towards tech and privacy aware, but it could happen later on as the membership broadens.
They took way too long to come to town, and now they have and it has ads, I don’t even want it, since Liftoff has pretty much the same UI and without ads.
Yeah, but you can pay a pittance to remove the ads. It’s a one time fee of 3.50. Granted it’s still proprietary, but I chalk that up to the dev not knowing a lot about FOSS. Both the Sync and Boost devs came from developing Reddit apps and you need more cash flow to pay the proprietary API.
I don’t mind the news bot ones as much as the ask Reddit type threads that get crossposted here. If the OP can’t even see our responses (since the discussion is on Reddit), and a bot created the thread here on Lemmy, what the hell is the point.
I filtered off 99,9% of the bot from the setting, the rest seems pretty normal content. The “lack” of user is just what it is for a newly adopted platform. Ofk the small new community needs time but the progress in few months was incredible. We are not talking of social like Xitter/Thread, where all you need is to move the user and recreate the page. Reddit work as a big discussions database with years of old content wich new user search all the time to find guides and info, you can’t replace that overnight.
The scenario of companies opting to host instances may happen, just to try to jump into the bandwagon, which could imply they could/would at some point start to run ads but I’d risk the instance would quickly be defederated and/or turned into a hell pit.
But the notion of seeing an instance being run by GOG, Valve/Steam (not a client or fan but I aknowledge they have put a lot of work towards Linux and gained a lot of support because of it), AMD (fanboy here, give me a pass), RPi (I am aware of the shady turn they have undergone) and other companies that have some degree of respect in the Fediverse could be interesting.
Read on one thread here about the RPi5 they took the evil route by funneling most of their stock to enterprise customers, which hurts the DIY hobbyist and end users trying to get hardware for the proposed purpose, which should be experimenting and learning.
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