i don't know the legal details, but afaik in poland and the rest of warsaw pact area, they seem to conflate communism with (russian) totalitarian imperialism/colonialism practices and the downstream effects on the smaller countries. unsurprisingly.
there's also the whole sucking up to US / "west" / capital in the hopes of getting help with rid(d)ing themselves of russian/ussr influence
eastern europe's attitude on communism seems kinda like US appreciation for monarchy circa 1776, stalin and the ussr having done fucked communism there for another hundred years or two.
(and the occasional use of soviet flags by the invading forces currently in ukraine isn't helping it any)
not to particularly disagree with you, this is imho one of the reasons why them rich get away with it
@ShadowInTheVoid@kabrams
buses and plumber vans (hopefully electric) are gonna be there anyway, no-one (except reactionary demagogues) is saying there won't be /any/ cars at all.
the argument is that, getting around without a car needs to be convenient enough that most ppl choose to do so.
If you'd like to do something for me for my birthday, would you please reply to this with—or by other means send me— something with colors you liked? Like an image or a video or a link. Music would also be acceptable if it gives you a strong synesthesiac association with color.
If this request confuses you, here are some examples of images with colors I found striking [Artists: Laurie Barmore, Vian Borchert, Erica Aurahack]. But your reply can be whatever colors you like.
How many old white guys out there would be willing join a 501(c)(3) whose mission is to oppose old white guys in positions of power? How many people would be willing to provide financial support for the same?
Nothing like this currently exists in the U.S. and I think it could be a damn effective form of protest. Personally, I’m sick and tired of seeing old fucking white guys in power everywhere I turn. Am I an aberration?
Oh, and despite thinking of myself as a bit of wordsmith, I’m admittedly terrible at acronym generation. What’s a good name for an organization pursuing said mission?
A few more hints that the current #Poland blockade is being coordinated by #Russia
There were several protests: March 2023 farmers’ protest, then May 2023 truckers’ protest, which in November 2023 turned into truckers’ blockade. Protests had many legitimate postulates, blockade was caused largely by inaction of Polish and Ukrainian governments. Back then, most protesters clearly declared they support Ukraine but are forced to fight for their jobs.
The border blockade stopped in January 2024 after truckers signed an agreement with the Polish and #Ukraine government and promised to suspend the protest until March 2024 to allow implementation of all agreed controls.
In February 2024 farmers’ protest restarted but was limited to traffic from Ukraine to EU, consistent with their economic demands regarding Ukrainian grain.
In mid-February 2024 however the nature of the protest drastically changed, as it was joined by openly anti-Ukrainian banners presented by members of pro-Russian groups in Poland. These were openly xenophobic, calling to “kick Ukrainians out of Poland” etc.
At the same time the blockade was also joined by the same truckers who earlier promised to suspend the protest until March. And truckers started blocking traffic… from EU into Ukraine.
In perfect synchronisation #Russia media started mass campaign portraying the protests nearly as a Polish uprising against Ukraine.
At this stage there’s little doubt the whole campaign has been coordinated by Russia, who saw an divisive topic and decided to capitalize on it. What worries me is the passive posture of Polish government in this situation.
@kravietz@krimsonbun
the soviet flag is a bit too on the nose tho :)
Also, even the earlier protest were led by ppl from the pro-putin 'confederate' party, surely they have had this sort of thing in mind from the start. whether they had encouragement from the kremlin or came up w/ this themselves, the result is great value for at least solovyov and co.
And any legit concerns farmers/truckers may have had are now gonna get lumped with this shit, making them appear anti-eu/ua or pro-putin.
fun.
@krimsonbun@kravietz
yeas and noes
im not sure how comparable it really is, given the different character of the protests, but in both cases there probably are far-right/pro-kremlin provocateurs with inflammatory messaging trying to stir shit up.
ru historically inflame and amplify any social unrest in the west, so ditto here.
the thing with the protests on ua borders is they seem purpose designed to be helpful to vlad, kinda like the trucker shitshow in canada preceding the feb'22 invasion
Lot of talk about Arc Browser “cleaning up the internet for you.” If AIs (Bing chat included) read our blogs, skip ads, and generate summaries, there’s no incentive for bloggers or writers to write. The AIs will quickly end up summarizing another AIs confidently generated crap.
I blogged for two decades. 900 episodes of my podcast. AIs can’t generate human interaction. I’d like the web to be more personal. I used ChatGPT to read, summarize my furnace manual yesterday and found great (1/2)
@roelkok@wagesj45@shanselman
also i think op's point is specifically that the machine-generated stuff isn't better. it's not like when midi was invented, making player pianos cool again, its more like, if a curse was cast on all musical notation making it anxiety and vomit inducing
@wagesj45
fair.
but the folk at risk of being displaced by the synthetic content seem less worried about being outcompeted on quality, but rather about being drowned in a sea of garbage.
Those with intent would generate something better (ai or not), true, but their number (or at least resources) is going to always be smaller than the spammers'.
@Free_Press
i still think "more frequent" / "more severe" is better than "normal" / "new normal", as the latter implies there will a new stable state ("normal") whereas this seems to be accelerating rather than plateauing