Raccoon

Raccoon, 5 days ago

@RememberUsAlways @mondoweiss
More like the native population, after being murderized for several months, began to support violence against the invading forces, because that is literally always the problem with trying to control an area with a resistant native population. The US learned this the hard way in Afghanistan, where the Taliban were as strong during the pull out as they were at the beginning of the war.

Netanyahu has put himself in a conflict that does not have an end point, other than ceasefire or complete genocide, which is likely by design, as the moment the war ends his prosecution will begin again.

Raccoon, 5 days ago

@RememberUsAlways @mondoweiss
This is a highly simplistic view of a complicated situation, and also assumes the Netanyahu regime or its successors will even stop with Palestine: Jordan, Egypt, and many other countries could become the next "Breathing Room". Israel will not last forever against its ever-growing list of adversaries, only when it has leaders who are willing to make peace.

Raccoon, 5 days ago

@ahimsa_pdx
Feeling this real hard lately... Doctor's appointments can mean whole days of nothing else.

Raccoon, 10 days ago

@lea
Just checking, is this harassment or an inside joke?

Raccoon, 12 days ago

@wjmaggos
> "The Biden administration’s chaotic border policies and enabling of several million migrants to enter the country" ... "Biden had an opportunity to move to the center on illegal immigration — his core vulnerability — and decided to move, with his entire party, to the extreme left." ... "his blaming the GOP for mass illegal migration of the last four years is risible."

The Biden administration has not opened the border, he is not far left, and Republicans have both caused part of the border crisis and actively impeded efforts to resolve it.

Is this person going to repeat actual facts, or just repeat misinformation the Trump campaign is blasting as if that would be helpful? Because none of us have any control over what kind of lies the Trump campaign will say, and everything we do is irrelevant to that because they can just say whatever lies they want.

Someone telling us that we need to respond to those lies as if they are truth is not worth listening to.

Raccoon, 13 days ago

@rolle
I don't feel like that's ever going to go away, considering there's no profit motivation to implement features that worsen the user experience. The developers and server admins are 100% dedicated to just making this a better place to be, because having a good social network was the entire point of being here in the first place.

Raccoon, 21 days ago

@FinchHaven @privateger @Mastodon
Reminder that $100,000 is an amount of that sounds big on paper, but when you use it on the expenses of running multiple servers that millions of people connect to every day, then split it between two full-time employees, it whittles down to minimum wage type numbers.

Raccoon, 28 days ago

@manlycoffee @oblomov @mike
I should also note that #Graze is a thing that exists and people should use it because it simplifies browsing other instances exactly as you described by making your Web Browser effectively act as your front-end.

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@BlueDot @mstdn_jp @TheAdmin @berserker
I just noticed that all three of these accounts have the same message pinned about blocking Mastodon.social over censoring their Holocaust denial...

I am suddenly suspecting these are all the same person, using different accounts to evade blocks.

Could the admins of these servers please check for that? That would be an entirely different issue (block evasion), on top of the open and egregious Holocaust denial (hate speech) and the harassment of the Auschwitz Museum account. (harassment)

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@atomicpoet @barney @fediversenews
I think we might be able to change that, eventually, with some sort of petition. Hence why I posted a rough draft of a petition the other day..

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@beandreams @notes @longcovid
Basically every disability can be described as something everyone goes through, it's just that with us, it's extreme to the point that we can't just do the things everyone else does to get past it.

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@CatherineFlick
If they don't like the kind of things you report, once again, you're probably on the wrong server. If they're keeping an eye on you, it better be as a potential person to bring in on the mod team, lol.

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@CatherineFlick
They were, they were on the wrong server. ;)

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@CatherineFlick
Yeah, in general I'm mainly thinking about the people I see talking about how they go look for people to block, and how it's so much to keep up with, even if it's better than other networks, and I'm just wondering if they realize that shielding users from the worst actors is the mod team's job on this network.

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@verge
LOL. I suppose it's standard practice, just because it takes some time and is worth a shot, but it's just so amusing how standard it is that they always "move to dismiss" charges which are so obviously valid and belong in the court.

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@eatyourglory @BeAware
Bae.st has been blocked by every major instance for a while now. I'm surprised it's still coming up for anyone...

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@eatyourglory @BeAware
Note: Sealioning is a form of "debate trolling" in which someone harasses someone with repeated requests for elaboration / evidence where none should be needed, and disingenuous appeals to "reasonable debate" when the other person clearly just wants to go on with their day. It's very circumstantial when it's bad, but it can be pretty bad when employed against, say, disabled people talking about ableism.

Webster's defines it as "a form of trolling meant to exhaust the other debate participant with no intention of real discourse."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@eatyourglory @BeAware
Let's say a person with post-COVID was complaining about people denying the existence of their disease, and just how absurd that can feel when your nervous system is full of tiny holes where the virus ate it.

A sealion comes into the thread like, "who is doing this? what evidence do you have? How do you know they're not mistaken? Are you sure you're not mistaken? What makes you think they're not also suffering from having to deal with so many people claiming to have post-COVID?"

Any response is met with more questions, with varying levels of absurdity.

The disabled person clearly wasn't looking for a discussion on that, nor is it their job to explain why things are harmful to them or prove the situation they're talking about, nor is it really this person's business: they're just talking about how annoying it is. When they try to walk away though, the sealion doesn't respect their right to, just as they didn't respect the person's thread.

(continued)

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@eatyourglory @BeAware
TLDR: the sealion isn't so much here to engage in normalized, civil debate, they're here to argue with a person who is just talking about a fact of their life and how annoying it is.

At good times, it's a great tool for dealing with bigots: I often respond to what seem like veiled dog whistles with questions like, "Oh? Why would Mark Zuckerburg support the genocide of the palestinians? What might cause him to do such a thing?" that force them to either respond with something stupid like "The Jews" or find a better group to go after.

At bad times, I have seen people go onto the timelines of people who are literally afraid for their lives and ask them to prove they are really in danger, try to debate the specifics, insinuate they may not have a right to safety, and claim they are taking the pro-democracy route because this person wants to limit freedom.

It's some VERY circumstantial stuff.

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@BeAware @eatyourglory
It can be hard to tell. 🤷‍♀️

Remember, marginalized groups deal with bullshit constantly, people just going after them for being members of said groups, and being just veiled enough about it that it's not obvious to the people around them. This creates a lot of paranoia about what is or isn't legitimate.

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@BeAware @eatyourglory
I'm not so sure: WelshPixie is a marginalized person herself, from what I gather. I think she's legitimately dealt with a lot of discrimination, and legitimately starts to see it in places it's not obvious, even when it may not be intended...

But that sort of "block on suspicion" policy DOES make .Art a VERY safe instance if you want to avoid that stuff.

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@dragestil @schizanon
Speaking as someone moderating a server that is not blocking #Threads yet, this is a vast over-simplification of why servers are blocking Threads: that network is a cesspool of hate, misinfo, CSAM, scammers, and bots, and it's totally appropriate for mod teams to not want to deal with that.

If @trumpet decides a preemptive block is in order, that's their right.

That said, this is the entire point of decentralized moderation: different servers have different policies, so you have different options when it comes to where to go.

Moving your account is easy: making a new one on the other server and linking the two in the settings. If you need help, just ask!

I suggest you look through your follows / boosts, or search JoinMastodon.org, to see if there's an appropriate server you'd like to move to, then go there and search for the POTUS account to see if you can still follow it from there. Anyone who hasn't blocked yet isn't going to: we've all had time to decide.

Raccoon, 1 month ago

@drcaberry
Wanted to follow up by saying, this is good advice for pretty much every degree field. If you don't find accounting, management, medicine, law, etc at least interesting and somewhat fulfilling, you are not going to put in the thought that it takes to be truly good at it. Even if you do get a job, it's not a job you're likely to be happy in or excel at, and you don't want to go get a degree to work in a field you're going to dread working in every day.

If the idea of going to the office or whatever to go do the work you're learning to do doesn't delight you, you're in the wrong field.

I know plenty of people who got degrees in fields like accounting who ended up working low skill jobs anyway because they just didn't have the interest, drive, or talent in those things to capitalize on them.

I got my degrees in computer and managerial science because I absolutely love those fields. I love thinking about them. I love talking about them. I love doing them.