No worries! I hope I was not too much of a dick in my response, and I totally understand why and how you would read things the way you did. I’ll just try to express myself more clearly in the future. You know, this communication thing? It’s a never ending struggle! :D
I’m just pretty sure that people are either making it up or ascribing normal, terrestrial things that they don’t understand as fantastical things.
Yes.
As I said: If there were aliens, those fantastical things, are the descriptions I would expect through most of human history. And in most non US places. After all, aliens are a modern US legend, invented from Americans, for Americans.
I didn’t say that there were any aliens anywhere. Or that there were any other fantastical things anywhere.
That “almost everywhere that isn’t the US, even today” is superstitious and wouldn’t know what aliens are
Didn’t we just establish that aliens are superstition? I think you are overestimating how many people share “aliens” as the most popular superstition which comes to mind first.
Most of the US shares that. A lot of other places probably don’t. Don’t underestimate how many strange stories about strange things in the night are out there :D
You didn’t get the point I made.
So… what were they mistaking the aliens for?
Ghosts. Spirits. Dragons. Or any other mythical creatures, or mythical phenomena of your choice.
If there were aliens, those are the descriptions I would expect through most of human history. And those are the descriptions I would expect in basically all the world, almost everywhere that isn’t the US, even today.
until the market adapts on how to recuperate that money since it can expect every citizen to get that every month, I don’t trust a free market not to ruin that.
Simple: Make UBI is inflation adjusted. Problem solved.
It’s always the most racist asshole who believe “reverse racism” is a thing
Okay. I believe that.
never willing to acknowledge how they actively victimise already marginalised people constantly
Yes? What have I done? Can you give me specific examples of my problematic actions which actively victimize already marginalized people constantly?
If you can not, then we might have a bit of a problem. After all, you don’t know what I did or did not do. You don’t know if I did that, or how I did that. To me that seems like ignorant stereotyping. It is something racists regularly engage in, and a big common part of what makes lots of different bigoted and prejudiced groups of people (not limited to just racists) into such a big problem.
So I would appreciate if you could stop to ignorantly stereotype me without knowing me. If you still choose do that… Well, actually, I don’t mind it that much. You are just a random internet person after all. But if you behave like that, you are sharing that behavior with racists, and lots of other types of bigots. If you think that is a good idea, feel free to carry on. But I thought I should let you know.
Of course! How could I miss it. The argument: “User numbers are an indicator of quality”, is not valid, unless in context of the fediverse. Because…
Wait, I don’t think me, being the dumb asshat I am, understand that: Why? Why do you think user numbers indicate that something “can’t be as bad as you make it out to be” in the fediverse, but not anywhere else?
Reddit has more users than lemmy. Can’t be that bad then!
I see! Thank you for clarifying!
So let me see if I understand you correctly. I asked what Mastodon is for. You answered that Mastodon is for having meaningful conversations with people one on one about subjects important to you.
That would mean Mastodon is not in any way comparable to twitter, or any other social media platform of the like. To me it seems that, by this description you provide, it is best compared to a chat room, where you are together with a hand full of friends you already know, and can have a conversation. Just in a timeline that is a bit slower, and a bit more permanent than a chat room, but not quite as bloated as a classical internet forum.
That means Mastodon is not “social media”. The purpose of you being there is not to easily discover new stuff which might interest you. And likewise you also can’t easily reach out to new people with stuff that interests you, and which you think might interest other people. Mastodon doesn’t want you to be able to do that easily. Because Mastodon is an internet forum with people you already know, just with an added word limit.
So it seems I have misunderstood Mastodon. It doesn’t intend to be social media. It intends to be an early 2010s internet forum with a word limit. Now that I know what it is, and that this is what it is supposed to be, it makes a lot more sense to me.
And there are small independent artists who want to display their latest artwork to an audience of followers on a social media platform, with the potential of broader reach and impact. And there are activists, who aim to raise awareness by doing the same thing.
What you seem to be saying, is that social networks like Mastodon are not for that. No artists. No activism.
So, what’s Mastodon for?
people who support Russia/Stalin/China regimes.
Congratulations: That, and only that, is a tankie. It is a good practical defintion for the term.
Are tankies people who are economically left but socially and politically right
As I see it, tankies are just the same as the Trumpers. You can’t really say where they stand socially and politically, because they do not have a coherent opinion or ideology. Everyone who opposes their favorite regime is WRONG, and everything their favorite regime does is RIGHT. Bonus points for every action and opinion that hurts “woke lefties”, because the favorite regimes of tankies are all inevitably incompatible with progressive ideas and ideologies.
without knowing anything about the corrupt oligarchies in Russia or CCP China?
Imagine the answer a Trumper would give when you ask them if they don’t know about Trump’s corruption and character. The tankies answer just the same in response to allegations in regard to corruption and character of their favorite regimes:
First of all, none of that is true, because the woke lefties, the media, and everyone are all corrupt, and lying. And what is true, is all a well played move of brilliant 5D chess which will save us all, because the supposed “corruption” is actually all part of a very smart and deliberate system of ploys and strategems which the woke lefties just don’t understand.
Now, do the tankies and Trumpers truly believe that? Who knows. Doesn’t really matter anyway. What is clear is that both of those “ideologies” are dumb idiots.
Do you notice a pattern?
Every single one of those is either SF or Fantasy.
There are a lot of artsy lovers of literature out there who hate exactly those genres, and who have a burning passion to fix all the (perceived) flaws which (in their view) come baked into them.
As I see it, that’s a big part of the problem: For the last century “a writer” was always “the literary type”. There were some nerds who pretended to be writers. And those wrote pulp, SF, fantasy, and comics. Those were not real writers. You wouldn’t hire one of those, if you wanted to have a real, well crafted story. At least that has been a rather common prejudice for the last 100 years or so.
And now, all of a sudden (over the last 20 years), the most popular franchises, generating the most income, all turned into SF and Fantasy, while eating everything else in their path.
In that context, I don’t think the current situation is all that surprising. If you want to hire “a real writer”, there is a good chance that you will hit one who despises what writers were taught to despise for the last hundred years. In an unlucky twist for everyone involved, that also happens to be what they now have to write.
Of course. That’s easy.
Only one person in those examples intended to kill someone, and then followed through with the plan. Murder is worse than unintentionally killing and hurting people through negligence.
It’s really easy to explain.