I remember it pretty much that way too, but not recently and not at a department store. Heck, I just browsed through commemorative euro coins (no dice) because I felt it was somehow connected to Europe in the nineties…

Then I am happy for you

“Victim” is an interesting term, but quite accurate. There’s such a an effort and investment into converting people to that cult. I wish you the best with your mother, hopefully the other half of your conversations is more pleasant and eventually overtakes the conspiracy theories.

I don’t. We don’t talk. Relatives of mine, including one of my parents, sank into vaccine conspiracies, then followed that pipeline to Qanon, and then explained to me how they were waiting for Trump to lead his secret army to take down the government of my non-english-speaking, european country.

I gave them their keys back, I got my keys backs, I blocked them everywhere, I nuked my accounts on the social media they use (and where their posts steadily got worse). It’s a hard decision, I still think about it often still (it’s been nearly two years), but I will never talk to them again.

You just saved me from future explosions.

I get my hosting for free from my workplace, which is cool but doesn’t give me much leeway on what I can install. It’s a plain PHP/MySQL system. Docker is out, and a lot of stuff with it. I’d run a server from apartment if I could, since I’m sitting on piles of old hardware, but I’ve yet to figure a way around my ever-changing IP address.

Right now, I have FreshRSS and my own websites, and Rss Bridge

I’d love to run more “Old School Tools”, I just need to find them :)

Technical question: while the instance is federated, its users can post here, right? Do you have any moderating tools that allow you to monitor incoming comments from users from a “fishy” instance as they come in?

My fear is that they have not accumulated enough of a mass of users yet, and enough of an interest in a “small” platform like Lemmy yet, but that the crowd will come once Lemmy becomes an established platform, which will make real infiltration efforts worthwhile.

And then we’ll have to deal with the usual tactics: brigades organized offsite (on discord, telegram…) to drop on anything trans/immigration/etc. related like a plague of locusts. Teams of users posturing as the “sane one” and “crazy one” allowing the “sane” actor to push far-right points that “make sense” next to pure extremism. Threats sent as PMs to individual users. Doxxing, online stalking. And, behind that, their host doing nothing to prevent- or facilitating - the behavior.

I’m fine with you not taking action for now, but would you be ready to drop the hammer if they become problematic and user-level blocking of instances is not yet a thing?

Edit: I commented on the wrong account, but I also have one on Mander.

Honest questions: What worthwhile alternatives exist already? If there are none, what can be done? What can be built to improve discoverability of authors while moderating what is visible?

With my track record at killing even cacti, I am going to suck at this game. It does sound interesting, though (and “great story” is enough to make me face the rice farming).

It definitely sounds unique, which is exactly was I was hoping for when I made the post! Thank you!

Podcast addict is both incredibly customizable and feature rich. Absolutely worth trying.

I just spent ten minutes attempting to remember. I did not remember but, whatever it was, it was “meh”.

Or it becomes mostly unmoderated, near a major election, at the same time as twitter turns into disinfo central.

Thank you! The encouragement sure helps

Congratulations to you on getting there ♥

I am taking supplements, but I need to figure my shit out because I fuck up either on the B12 or iron, each time. My first “bad” B12 deficiency came with some nerve issues and I do not want a repeat of that, it doesn’t entirely go away.

My goal is to entirely cut out meat, though. Right now, I don’t buy it for home food, but if I’m out with friends or coworkers, I’ll get whatever. It’s iterative, and as more alternatives become available in public places, I’ll get there.

I don’t feel like that’s a fair comparison. Meat consumption has a lot of issues, but the consumer, at the end of the production chain, does not eat his steak with the mindset of “how much more can I make an animal suffer for the lulz, and can we take pliers to it first?”. Mostly, they are apathetic or unaware. (Disclosure: I have reduced meat a lot myself but am not entirely out yet and I keep giving myself B12 deficiency.)

I’d compare with much higher in the production chain, the people who devised and enforce inhumane practices.

I feel like the pendulum swings on the cruelty (at least in areas of the world we pay attention to…), while the damage caused by human civilization just keeps growing and growing. And it’s definitely easier for the scum to coordinate through the internet, but also to recruit and infiltrate minds.

I’m just sitting here being nihilistic, “Après moi, le déluge” about everything, and listening to my “collapse” playlist. The relatives I used to love went full Qanon, so I only have my cat to worry about, now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have no fucking clue but it gets tiring…