It’s great you are looking out for your friend’s well-being, at the same time unless they are causing harm to themself or others I think it can come across as insensitive to try and tell them their spiritual beliefs are “wrong” even if they seem new or unusual. Would you stop a friend from praying even if they think that it’s a literal attempt to get a higher power to intervene on their behalf? Is casting a spell really that much different?
Great summary, and I think kbin is in a great position because although maybe not a feature rich or mature as Lemmy currently is so many migrators have said they’re here because “it just seems nice.” I think that’s an incredibly difficult feeling to capture and maintaining that friendliness and approachability as the platform grows will be key.
Here is the answer on the Polish instance directly from @ernest, kbin's creator. For reference, he was being accused of being a gun lover based on the name of the Polish instance "karab.in" and "magazines," as well as his Monty Python profile pic with a gun in it.
Here are the relevant sections from Ernest on the origins of both kbin and magazine:
Hey, I'm the admin of kbin.social. The name "kbin" comes from the Linux "/sbin" directory - I've mentioned it multiple times before. The name of the Polish instance - karab.in - does indeed reference a rifle, but it's just a play on words, and it was actually chosen through a survey among other domains. It's simply easy to remember and sounds nice in Polish. There's no place for nazi bullshit on my instances.
On the other hand, the name "magazyn" refers to the virtual edition of a late 90s gaming newspaper :D
Yeah this one is almost scarier than any other for the precedent it sets. While most of the actual decisions this term were bad but par for the course of a conservative majority court (with a few pleasant surprises like rejecting racial gerrymandering, dismissing independent legislature theory, and reaffirming Native adoptions) this case was uniquely dangerous for being just conjured from thin air. The idea that you can take an issue to court over something that was proven to be entirely hypothetical prepares the way for more ready-made cases designed to create a particular legal outcome.
In case you want any more proof Republicans are just manufacturing outrage for the sake of outrage.
“The undersigned request that you provide U.S. Attorney Weiss the full protections and authorities of a special counsel.”
— Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on September 16, 2022.
“There may be others who would be a worse pick than U.S. Attorney Weiss to be special counsel, but based on the prosecution of Hunter Biden to date, he has got to be close to the worst pick. This is unbelievable.”
While it’s possible that Reddit could be rigging the scales, I think the simplest answer is that the people most critical of Reddit have already left Reddit. Vice versa, everyone here is clearly in favor of boycotting Reddit because well… we’re here now.
As a phenomenon you'll see a lot of people call it "enshittification." The term seems to originate with Cory Doctorow who writes, "Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die."
This blog and the Wikipedia are good starting points. I don’t speak Japanese, but I do speak Chinese and have a background in linguistics so am peripherally aware of what’s going on so take that with as much salt as you need.
It’s useful to note that there were multiple attempts to go the “Oops! All kana” route or use romaji, but for a variety of reasons cultural, political, and linguistic, those didn’t pan out. Writing systems are deeply informed by a specific historical and social context, and what at first seems like irregularity or unneeded complexity, are often actually the traces of that history marked on the language.
As for issues like why katakana is used for non-foreign words too, I thinks it’s best to think of language feature less as strict rule followers and more like a species in its ecological niche. Katakana is very good at rendering foreign words in Japanese, but if it finds some unfilled gap that isn’t being better filled by some other feature people will use it to to fill that gap too. When the semicolon was developed in English no one imagined at the time we’d use it to do this ;-) but here we are.
God it’s so fucking frustrating that this shit is happening because Rep. Tricia Cotham (was D now R) flipped. And you’d think she’d be like a moderate semi-independent vote considering she ran as a dyed in the wool dem. No. Full on culture wars, full on conservative authoritarianism. I can’t imagine how angry the people who voted for her must be.
I hate the word “taxpayer” to disparage anything government funded or that implies the government is cheating the average person. For example, I found this headline after 2 seconds of searching:
“The Taxpayer-Funded Electric Bus Company Pump and Dump Scheme that Benefitted Biden Donors”
They use “taxpayer” to make it sound like instead of citizens, we are customers who buy into government services, and should feel personally victimized by people who use government services as they are taking money from our pockets. And don’t even get me started on the “small business owner”…
EDIT: wow, unsurprisingly the word has always been used for political oppression (from ITPI):
“As the Brookings Institution’s Vanessa Williamson has documented, wealthy southern whites “focused their critique of Reconstruction on rising government debt and excessive spending, painting government by Black people and poor whites as intrinsically corrupt.” They called themselves “taxpayers,” allowing them to convince small white farmers to join their side while avoiding explicit opposition to Black male suffrage. Ultimately, they were successful.”
I remember watching a lecture from a microbiology professor dispelling common health-related myths. I believe it was polio he was describing and how after the vaccine was developed it went from killing one in every thousand children to causing “severe reactions” (but not necessarily killing) 2 in every MILLION. There was an antivaxxer in the audience who kept repeating “but how do we know children are better off if we are vaccinating all of them now? What if they could live happier healthier lives without it??” And the prof was just like we DO know what happens, literally 1000x more children will die. Wild stuff.