GONADS125

Okay but, we all know that already. This discussion is about federating with Lemmy/Fedi.

Tell that to the astroturfers simping for FB/Threads...

And do you understand how you reinforce an argument with supporting evidence? I wanted to establish factual information supporting a clear history of the company's bad practices. That was/is relevant to consideration of federating with a platform.

In fact, lemmy.world has already defederated with instances due to failure to moderate far-right extremism. So why would they federate with Threads when far-right extremism is already a systemic issue and they have admitted lemmy lacks the necessary moderation tools to manage Threads federation?

It seems obvious to me that is a bad idea and it would cultivate a more toxic user experience with more recruitment for radicalism/extremism.

The examples I listed were to demonstrate the fact that meta/FB is a bad actor, not that all are applicable to lemmy.

Also, the lemmy.world team admitted that lemmy lacks the moderation tools required for federation with threads.

This doesn't pair well with the extremist content popular and promoted on threads. And I'm tired of hearing about the false solution people keep pretending exists in the form of personally blocking instances.

That may solve me not seeing the content, but what about my fellow users? What about people browsing without a profile/not signed in?

I care about more than myself. I care about the health of fellow human beings on this site, and I don't want Threads to increase the amount of radicalization and extremism on this site. I don’t want more people to fall victim to radicalization. I have lost family to qanon/maga cults and I think we need to protect the integrity of the fediverse.

When players like threads/meta try to join in, I believe it is the responsibility of admins of the large instances to protect their users and refuse to federate with them. Period.

Still a shame to kill such intelligent and sophisticated animals.. They have some form of language able to communicate safe areas/humans, have incredible memory, capacity for empathy, and even funeral rituals.

They're so much smarter than human children. I just don't see the appeal or justification to kill such beings outside of survival. I don't see that as any different than if a more advanced species came to Earth to destroy/exploit humanity. The gap between us and them would probably be greater than the gap between us and the elephants. Doesn't justify exploitation and killing.

I'll root for the elephants 99% of the time. Humans suck! I will say there's totally a difference between hunting animals like this (even aside from endangered status) and animals like deer, where hunting overall makes their population healthier, in that it reduces overpopulation and infectious disease.

Oh for sure.. This was two white ladies flying from Florida to our home state of New Jersey for a funeral. This was also before peak TSA insanity.

But yeah, they passed the melanin check.

I couldn't agree more with everything you've said.

I was an caseworker for the adult population with serious mental illness (SMI) and was on a specialized team working exclusively with individuals whose SMI was severe enough that they were unable to live independently. All of my clients lived in various residential care or assisted living facilities in my region. A big part of my job was teaching daily living abilities and working to reintegrate people into independent living in the community (or often a semi-indepent housing facilities with more freedom to take steps).

Covid was a substantial disrupter, cost of living is out of control, housing is completely unaffordable, and before covid + RSV + pneumonia kicked my ass out of my job, all of the housing programs in my region were totally backed up. A former team member told me recently that the housing programs all basically are at a standstill.

The population I worked with typically were not their own guardians. Most had court-appointed guardians (typically the county public administrator, because family usually was non-existent, inappropriate, or unwilling) due to repeated hospitalizations and arrests (often behavior from drugs, alcohol, or psychotic episodes). Some absolutely needed guardians due to level of function, others were capable of governing themselves, but trapped under a guardian.

The thing most of my clients had in common was being homeless at some point. That's often what signified the start of their substance use and most severe period of SMI. It's very common for people to develop substance use when living on the streets due to the widespread use in the homeless community. They are simply comforting to the group that typically is their only source of support.

Since deinstitutionalization, the Department of Corrections (DOC) has been the largest mental health provider, and the situation is a revolving door. By that, I mean people are arrested due to crisis, substance use, psychotic episodes, etc.; receive medications and become stable; are released on the streets without adequate support/stable housing; can't/don't refill their medications; often fall back into substance use because of prevalence among peer-support; have a relapse of symptoms, experience a crisis, or have psychotic episode or drug-induced psychosis; and finally they are arrested again. Rinse and repeat. That is how most of my clients ended up under guardianship.

We must have our basic needs of safety and shelter met if we are to be able to live stable within society. The homeless population's basic human needs aren't being met. They are a massive and growing marginalized society in the US. We must have affordable housing and rent or the problem will just continue cascade.

Edit: Worth noting I also have ADHD and I'm slightly medicated from vaping.. Makes me rant...

I welcome the path towards singularity.

Someone did that to my grandma with a huge knife in her bag. My mom was eventually able to convince them someone put it in there, asking them what possible reason would this old lady have to smuggle a giant knife.

I think it was either just to get rid of it, or to see if she got thru, and maybe they'd try to take it back out of her bag on the other side of TSA. We gave her a lot of crap for it.

I don't know if it's available where you are, but a decent but more entry level brand IMO is Cameron's Best organic, shade-grown.

I like their breakfast blend and Columbian. If you didn't know, lighter roasts have a little more caffeine. Source I always go for the light roasts.

That's what I meant by harm reduction.

Another big problem with vaping is electronic waste/pollution (especially with the cheap disposables).

You also have to worry about cheap atomizers leeching heavy metals into the vapor.

TIL. Edited my comment to be more accurate.

I'm pasting an old comment of mine from the official lemmy.world post discussing potential future federation with threads/meta:

I would like to start by expressing my sincere gratitude and appreciation for the hard work you've done with lemmy.world. But I am strongly opposed to federating with Threads. Please read this comment in full, as I believe it outlines the sentiment and reservations held by many within our community.

I think it might be helpful to use an analogy that I think will help express the feelings of many of those within our community regarding the problem with the "wait and see" approach.

What's to say Threads won't follow in their very well-established footprints under Meta as a company?

If I go to a friend's house and their child spits in my face every time, I don't want to go to my friend's house. I tell them this. The friend again says, "Well this time just might be different, let's just wait and see!" Meanwhile, this kid spits in my face without fail, every chance they get. There is a very consistent and pervasive pattern of this.

Why should I believe this kid won't spit in my face all of a sudden, when they've taken every single chance they could repeatedly, knowing that it was wrong and not caring what repercussions would befall them? Do you really think this kid is going to refrain from spitting in my face this time?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. -~~Albert Einstein~~ -someone.

Meta/FB have continually demonstrated their core business practices are unethical and that they will continue carrying them out without regard for laws or their users' well-being. There's no reason to wait and see. It's not logical to believe this time will be different.

Threads would bring such a large influx of hateful, racist, violent, bigoted political extremists to the fediverse. They will also do whatever they can to exploit users on this site for their own gain. Their modus operandi has been to exploit their users.

Instead of just conjecture and analogies, I will now provide factual information regarding Meta's practices as a company.

This really should be obvious by now.. but Meta mines and sells their user's information. Just look at the permissions you have to grant them for Threads... That alone should tell you there's no reason to "wait and see." Just look right now. They haven't changed...

FB users have to agree to all sorts of unethical things in the TOS, including giving Meta permission to run unethical experiments on their users without informed consent. Their first published research was where they manipulated users' feeds with positive or negative information, in order to see if it affected their mood. It did, and they successfully induced depression in many of their users!

Meta has played a very key role in spreading misinformation, perpetuating dangerous conspiracy theories, and radicalizing the alt right. This is present across nations, but it certainly contributed heavily to the climate of political extremism that led to a mass of insurrectionists to attempt to overthrow my duly elected government...

I will now turn to an article that surmises well the core practices of Meta as a company:

• Elevates disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories from the extremist fringes into the mainstream, fostering, among other effects, the resurgent anti-vaccination movement, broad-based questioning of basic public health measures in response to COVID-19, and the proliferation of the Big Lie of 2020—that the presidential election was stolen through voter fraud [16];

• Empowers bullies of every size, from cyber-bullying in schools, to dictators who use the platform to spread disinformation, censor their critics, perpetuate violence, and instigate genocide;

• Defrauds both advertisers and newsrooms, systematically and globally, with falsified video engagement and user activity statistics;

• Reflects an apparent political agenda espoused by a small core of corporate leaders, who actively impede or overrule the adoption of good governance;

• Brandishes its monopolistic power to preserve a social media landscape absent meaningful regulatory oversight, privacy protections, safety measures, or corporate citizenship; and

• Disrupts intellectual and civil discourse, at scale and by design.

I ask you now if you truly believe this is the sort of player you want on the Fediverse? Do you really want to federate lemmy.world with such a blatantly immoral and detrimental corporation?

I have really enjoyed my time here on Lemmy.world and have so greatly appreciated the hard work of you and your team. I have been donating to you to help with the costs of running this instance.

However, federating with Threads contradicts my philosophy and ethical principles, and I will be sadly canceling my donations and finding a new home should we federate with Threads in the future. I firmly believe that most users on lemmy.world share this sentiment. I hope this comment helped express the resistance and fears of our community.

Once again, I appreciate all the work you guys have done. But I respectfully and severely dissent on this issue.

Haha, you're either trolling or can't comprehend use of an analogy. I hope for your sake that you're trolling me.

My policy is not to feed trolls, so I'm not going to keep fueling this. This obviously isn't going anywhere anyway, seeing as how you're arguing in a circle.

Feel free to get the last word in and feel like you "won" an argument or whatever you think.