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The main reason my parents fled #Saigon #Vietnam was because they were hoping to go somewhere else where doctors could help to save my life. I carried that guilt for decades until healing it with my loving parents who sacrificed their lives & their own life dreams in order to try to get me the medical help that I needed as a paralyzed toddler with #polio. My parents wanted to stay in Vietnam & rebuild our lives there. They couldn't stay because there was no medical help available for me.
« Le but du jeu n’est absolument pas de restreindre les libertés ou de taper sur l’enseignement supérieur privé, qu’il soit lucratif ou non. Le but du jeu, au contraire, c’est que ces formations et ces établissements se développent »
Ph.
In a landmark collaboration across 22 labs, neuroscientists have created the first brain-wide map of decision-making in mice, tracking over 620,000 neurons across nearly 280 brain regions.
@dr_boree Dr Boree how did the tooth crown you received while in Antartica held up? I just remembered it as an unexpected twist of events with the resident medical doctor requiring someone else assistance. Also a pig’s head was involved if I remember correctly 😀
Francia: il 10 settembre blocchiamo tutto, atteso il voto di fiducia per Bayrou @anarchia Da circa un mese sui social e sui siti di movimento, ma non solo, è iniziato a girare un appello per una giornata di mobilitazione e di blocco per il 10 settembre. In questa giornata infatti, in tutto l’esagono si...
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A CPMI do INSS, presidida por Carlos Viana, segue concentrando esforços para rastrear as movimentações e conexões dos suspeitos dentro e fora do Congresso.
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I asked my online peeps to reflect on how their lives have been changed through the joy of photography, and even shared a few details of my own journey. Life's better with a camera. Welcome to Vlog No 090.
Join Ewen's newsletter for short updates on new articles and photographic inspiration. A special treat for new subscribers is a FREE download of my 80 page eBook called 'Camera Not Included'.
someone: "lol, remember that time kolektiva.social got raided? me: "wait, really?" someone: "yeah, and they were making an unencrypted backup so the feds just had everything" me: "lmao wow. imagine being unencrypted" me: "now if you'll excuse me I have something to attend to"
Slightly off-topic, but from my pov, technical incompetence isn't the only red flag about Kolektiva.
The code of conduct on their "About" page reads like a desperate attempt to NOT be called "tankies" (as if liberals know or care about the finer differences between various shades of leftist thought, and are going to spare the good anarchists as against the bad communists), the only propaganda they warn their readers against are from the USSR, CCP and DPRK, they also explicitly flag the topic of Russia-Ukraine war, but not any other war. Even mastodon.social and their ilk don't sound so anxious.
I have also seen posts from prominent accounts there equating Hamas and Hezbollah with Israel (something like "Anarchists should also condemn Hamas and Hezbollah, in addition to Israel"), and claiming many of Israel's present actions as similar to Assad's in Syria. Don't have links handy though, so don't recall if it was posted by a member of the team.
@Feral Ferment Oh, I'm aware, I've had my own run-ins with Kolektiva. For a while, it was the only explicitly revolutionary-left instance, so there are a lot of communists on there, as well as anarchists that aren't determined to divide the movement further, but the instance itself is pretty fucked.
tbf that goes for a lot of instances, though. I've found ones run by straight up fascists that nevertheless MLs still decide to call their home. It's something I'd like to solve, but I'm not entirely sure how; shilling WotW certainly isn't the answer lol
tbf that goes for a lot of instances, though. I've found ones run by straight up fascists that nevertheless MLs still decide to call their home.
Yes, I know.
On a related note: are you aware that despite the left-wing ecosystem being a negligibly minuscule corner of the Fedi, hit pieces swaddled in academic jargon have already started appearing? (Came across this one just now, there may be more.) This paper has received some coverage, and I came across at least one thread discussing it.
MLs should be proud of this achivement 😉
A few more hit pieces like this cleverly clustering together terms such as tankies, lefties, extreme left, china, communism, dprk, castro, authoritarianism, autocracy, nazis, anti-zionism, antisemitism, and so on and so forth; and you will soon have most of the liberal/fascist instances virulently defederating the "tainted" instances and en masse banning "tankie" accounts. The Fedi is dominated by colonialists and white supremacists masquerading as liberals, these kind of papers will encourage them to jump out of their closets and practice their imperialism in the open. Better a fash in my bed than a commie as my ally—they will proclaim! I routinely check out the "explore" sections on popular mastodon instances, and I can see a good deal of this already happening, though the language so far is not blatant.
Only today saw this very popular post by the admin of one of the most prominent mastodon instances proclaiming (white) European civilizational supremacy in a language that strongly appeals to liberals and stokes all their complexes and biases.
It's something I'd like to solve, but I'm not entirely sure how; shilling WotW certainly isn't the answer lol
I am afraid my answer is going to enrage you—I don't think you can solve that on the Fediverse, given the material reality of today's world.
My earlier tentative feeling—that the Fediverse, in its present state, is useless for left-wing organization and agitation—has more or less hardened into a strong opinion. (Personally, I find it useless for socializing too, but that could be just me.) I see no way of changing that with my own actions. I see no way of connecting with enough number of like-minded folks. In fact, I see no way of finding a decent number of like-minded folks, assuming that they do exist on the Fedi. Putting in a lot of hashtags or mentioning guppe groups in posts has no effect; neither does following and interacting with the posts of hundreds of people—been there, done all of that. (I have also noticed the close to zero responses to many of your excellent posts.) In my opinion, the only possible solution is community-owned algorithms that surface in other posts based on the content of an user’s posts, and their preferences/likings as expressed in the profile. Yes, I am talking of the infamous personally tailored feeds, only in this case curated by an open algorithm selected by the user. But I know there will be very noisy opposition to anything like that; I am neither motivated enough to fight for that option, nor do I have the bandwidth to work at it.
Related issue: the Fedi discourse is entirely dominated by white liberal imperialists, and they don’t have the slightest interest in understanding other viewpoints or ideologies. Or even in interacting with people with differing viewpoints. The discourse can only change (for the worse or for the better) if there is an influx of a very large number—a number many many times larger than the present user base of the Fedi—of new users. But there are far too many structural sociotechnical barriers preventing this from happening.
All in all, being on the Fediverse is, at present, an unproductive use of time for a left-winger. Also especially dangerous is the sense of security and belonging that many left-wingers hallucinate on the Fedi. At least on Facebook or on eX-Twitter or on YouTube, you know you are on enemy territory, and can strategize accordingly.
ps: I personally very much like Hubzilla as software, but it has neither people nor algorithms )-:
SocialHub is a Discourse forum that has served as the main ActivityPub discussion forum for a long time. The platform might shut down on September 10th, as the current platform operators have stated that unless they can find a community that is willing to take over the infrastructure, they will shut down the platform. SocialHub has been run since 2019 by the small organisation called Petites Singularités, although in effect the administration of the platform came largely down to a single administrator. The current administrator Hellekin is also explicit in looking for a team of multiple people to take over, not a single individual, and other requirements for the new team are implied as well. There have been offers from individuals to take over the technical aspect, but there is less interested in the community management type of work.
A number of fediverse developers also question the value that SocialHub still can bring, who see that most fediverse developers have already left SocialHub, or were never even a part of it in the first place. It is easy to hypothesise a ActivityPub developer platform that contains reference material, documentations and lively discussions. But as Arnold Schrijver points out, it is “much harder it is to get people to collab and connect their otherwise independent initiatives, and still harder it is to find people doing the chores to maintain that.” Other efforts such as fedidevs.org have largely petered out, and it is unclear if there is enough interest from developers to collaborate on maintaining such a place.
A list published by Drop News Site contains over 100k websites that Meta allegedly has scraped for their data to train their AI, and the list also contains a number of fediverse servers. A communications representative for Meta says that the list is ‘bogus’. While it is difficult to verify the correctness of this specific news story, that Meta is scraping fediverse data for AI training is certainly plausible: the data is publicly accessible and Meta so far has shown an insatiable hunger to ingest as much data as possible for AI training purposes. Meta has shown a willingness to acquire data via methods that seem legally questionable in the most optimistic reading possible. While collecting fediverse data for AI training may potentially fall within legal boundaries, it goes against the clear wishes of the fediverse community.
The story points to how difficult it has been to evolve the fediverse to a network where people can actually publish their consent on how their data can be handled by others. The privacy policy of a significant number of fediverse servers, including some servers on the published list above, explicitly state: “Your public content may be downloaded by other servers in the network.” However, publicresponse to this news makes it clear that for a significant number of people, they do not want Meta to be handling their public social networking data to be used for AI training.
There has been some effort by the Mastodon organisation to update the their Terms of Service (ToS) to prohibit the use of that server’s data for AI training purposes, but Mastodon had to retract that new ToS due to various criticisms. It is unclear however if such a ToS would be binding to third parties who have not signed the ToS. What’s more notable for me is that there is still no easy way for fediverse users to indicate their consent how their data can be handled on a per-post level that is also distributed via ActivityPub and is machine-readable. A significant group of fediverse users do not want their data to be used for AI training, but so far their options are mainly limited to being on a server who prohibits this via regulation, and there are no easy ways to set consent on a per-user level.
Mastodon shared in their monthly engineering update, Trunks and Tidbits, that the organisation is working on adding Starter Packs. Starter Packs were first launched by Bluesky, and found great popularity late last year. It allows people to create lists of accounts, and other users can follow all these accounts with a single click of a button. The feature allowed new Bluesky users to rapidly on-board the platform and get a timeline full of content. However, the feature also had some major drawbacks, such as being used for spammy engagement-bait accounts to build large following networks. People also could not opt-out of being included on other people’s Starter Packs, which caused some people to get a large number of followers that they did not want or ask for, leading to clashes and context collapse. Mastodon has the advantage of being a second-mover, and being able to iterate on Bluesky’s implementation. The organisation already has said that they will let users control if they want to be included in a Starter Pack.
A new research paper on the lemmygrad.ml Lemmy instance, called “Exploring Left-Wing Extremism on the Decentralized Web: An Analysis of Lemmygrad.ml“. Within Lemmy there exists a subculture of various instances, most notably Hexbear and Lemmygrad, that self-describes as Marxist and/or leftist, and partially intersects with the developers of Lemmy. There is interesting research to be done on how that sub-community impacts the wider culture of the Threadiverse. This published paper limits itself to data from 2019 to 2022, which misses out on how these communities and cultures have developed over the more recent years. For example, the Hexbear instance was not federating with the rest of the network for a while, only to turn federation back on over a year ago, and it would be interesting to explore how that has impacted other Lemmy servers.
The Links
IFTAS has opened their yearly Needs Assesment, where they “input from moderators, administrators, and community managers across the decentralised social web” to find the needs of the people who are building communities on the social web.
All of the video’s of the recentFediCon conference have now been published on PeerTube.
Openvibe, a client that combines Mastodon, Bluesky, Nostr and Threads into a single timeline, now also supports RSS, to be both a news and social app at the same time.
Ghost CEO John O’Nolan writes some reflections about Ghost’s recently launched ActivityPub integration, and how people have perceived it.
The WordPress ActivityPub team explains how you can connect a WordPress blog to Bluesky via Bridgy Fed.
@Feral Ferment Hmm, I'm still finding a few contradictions here. You open with saying that MLs ought to be proud of being featured a frankly horribly written study about them on fedi (using the term 'tankie' unironically would disqualify it instantly from any real scholarly journal, and the paper's entire conclusion is that "they exist"; they don't use any real sociological measures at all), but close stating that Fedi is not only useless for any form of organization, but also socialization — while socializing with me on Fedi. You also warn against the feeling of security one gets in an echo-box, and follow by suggesting an opt-in algorithm to ensure the creation of an echo-box. So I'm not really sure what to make of this.
While my posts don't get a ton of direct engagement, some of them do get shared upwards of half a dozen times, which is decent for someone with only 80 followers. More importantly, the lack of an algorithm means that I can see and then directly address liberals who believe they're on the same side — the 'left' — but don't understand where socialists are coming from. The whole "Trump has become socialist because he bought Amazon shares!" or whatever has been, while frustrating, ultimately helpful in communicating to people what socialism is, and I've gotten a few very positive responses to that communication.
As for getting socialists off of fascist-run servers, 'material conditions' is going to need a little bit more explaining if you're to describe why it cannot happen. The only way material conditions would prevent that would be if servers were by and large owned by fascists as with the means of production, which, uniquely of the decentralized web, is actually not true.
You open with saying that MLs ought to be proud of being featured a frankly horribly written study about them on fedi (using the term 'tankie' unironically would disqualify it instantly from any real scholarly journal, and the paper's entire conclusion is that "they exist"; they don't use any real sociological measures at all)
In this post, I will reply only to this part.
There was a wink after "MLs ought to be proud..." statement, it was a sarcastic comment. As in: hey look, despite the negligible presence of ML thought and content on the Fedi, some corner of the establishment found it threatening enough to scribble and publish a hit piece on that content, all MLs must feel so proud of their impact!
Surely, "hit piece" means the same to you as to me? I literally called it a "hit piece swaddled in academic jargon" in my earlier post.
If I search for "hit piece" on Google, this is the AI summary I get at the top (the formatting is all gone in the copy-paste, but you will get the structure nevertheless):
A hit piece is a derogatory, critical, and often unfair article, publication, or piece of work designed to damage someone's reputation, reputation, or the public perception of a person or entity. While not always factually accurate, its purpose is to discredit and harm. Key Characteristics of a Hit Piece: Intent to harm: The primary goal is to cause damage to an individual's or group's reputation. Negative bias: It often contains biased and prejudiced information, rather than objective reporting. Focus on discrediting: The content is designed to undermine the credibility and image of the target. Can be inaccurate: While it may contain some truth, it often relies on exaggeration, misrepresentation, or outright falsehoods to achieve its negative impact. Where you might encounter them: Journalism and Media: They appear in articles and stories, sometimes masked as news but with a clear agenda. Politics: Used in political campaigns to attack opponents and influence public opinion. Corporate World: Companies may use them to damage competitors' reputations. In essence, a "hit piece" is a form of attack disguised as information, intended to ruin someone's reputation through relentless negativity and unfair criticism.
I used the term "hit piece" broadly in the sense described above. So given the context of all the surrounding sentences, wasn't it obvious that the "MLs ought to be proud... " statement was sarcasm?
Anyway, the sarcasm did not get conveyed; there is obviously a great divergence in the way you use and interpret language, and in the way I do it.
I will try to be as literal as possible in future communications.
ps: My comment on the academic hit piece was essentially me sharing something that you as a fellow communist would find interesting. My comments on the Fediverse in the second part of my earlier post were not a continuation of my comments on the academic hit piece. I wasn't intending the whole post as a coherent write-up.
Will write a separate post on the (ir)relevance of the Fediverse for leftists.
You also warn against the feeling of security one gets in an echo-box, and follow by suggesting an opt-in algorithm to ensure the creation of an echo-box.
What echo-box? For leftists, and I mean leftists, not liberals, almost all of the visible, vocal Fediverse is a lonely hostile place. The hostility may be open, or it may be masked, but it is palpable.
The sense of security simply comes from a leftist osmotically absorbing and believing the idea that this place is not controlled by Zuckerberg or Musk or any of their ilk, so this must be a safe friendly progressive arena. It is a false belief, this place is simply populated by thousands of mini-Zuckerbergs and mini-Musks (I am talking of all the liberal and fascist instance admins) who turn hostile at the first echo of a revolutionary leftist thought.
More later...
ps: I am writing in bits and pieces primarily because I am anxious that you will abruptly reboot the server and I will lose a long write-up. This has happened many times in the past.
Also especially dangerous is the sense of security and belonging that many left-wingers hallucinate on the Fedi.
That's what I read from this.
I don't restart the server that often. More frequently, it's because it's crashed. I've optimized it a bit, taken off some unneeded services to keep this running, but I do still just need better hardware.
90% of my products, according to the broker, do not qualify as tariff-free under the free trade agreement. EVEN THOUGH I make them myself 100% within Canada. Make it make sense.
So, I'm going to apply with another broker and see if they will accept my products for export.
This is asinine.
It's this, or charge all my American customers 35% more on their orders, which effectively is not an option because people will just buy from a competitor instead. My prices would be sky high.
I hate this timeline so much.
... I guess everything I sell now will need to be classified as a "decorative item” to get over the damn border.
wait for it… “decorative mini animal" "decorative dragon" "decorative stress relief item" lmao what
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Time for a short intro: Hello folks, I'm interested in languages and linguistics, in literature and writing. As a reader of fiction, I oscillate between literary fiction and SFF, occasionally I branch out into other genres. I'm also enthusiastic about astronomy and geology, about medicine and computer science, and many other topics. A chill social media site with people who like some of the same things sounds good, it's nice to meet you all. #introduction
In case you are like me and have always wondered what was in garum, the iconic fermented fish oil popular in the ancient Roman world: At last, we have an answer! Archaeologists analyzing DNA in an Iberian garum workshop have discovered ... SARDINES! (Obviously people might have used different fish in other areas, which will be the focus of future studies.) cambridge.org/core/journals/an…
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The image shows a screenshot of two tweets on a dark background. The first tweet is from a user named Kur, with the handle [@]ShakursWorld. The tweet reads: "Your bladder hit DIFFERENT when you're putting the key in the door" followed by several laughing emojis. The second tweet is from a user named Tristan, with the handle [@]AyoTristan. It reads: "That bladder connect to the home wifi and it's time to GO." Both tweets are presented in a typical social media format, with the user's name, handle, and profile picture visible above the text. The overall tone of the tweets is humorous, focusing on a relatable situation.
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OMV will in Österreich 400 Arbeitsplätze streichen exxpress.at/economy/omv-will-i… Beim österreichischen Öl- und Gaskonzern OMV ist ein Personalabbau geplant. Im Rahmen des Spar- und Effizienzprogrammes Revo sollen in Österreich 400 der 5.400 Arbeitsplätze wackeln. #news #press
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