I was reading the original discussion on dbzer0 and kept wondering what the removed by mod was under every comment agreeing with either partial ban or defed, so I looked at the modlog. It was literally the same pigshit picture posted over and over again, almost twenty times, by the same user, though fortunately I only had to see it once, by choice.

That’s a serious personal commitment to assholery right there, and this is apparently just one of the people coming over to do this on dbzer0 comms. To be honest I can’t claim to understand some of the political nuance that was coming up in the thread, but that one dude sure did make a strong argument for defed via the modlog, lol. If that’s an example of what dbzer0 has to put up with from multiple individual users of another instance, then considering defederation is absolutely a legitimate discussion to have.

Highly relevant video of what sort of culture Zuck metastasized in at Harvard

One, holy shit. And that was over twenty years ago: there is zero possibility it’s gotten any better since.

Two, I love this woman’s blunt honesty. Her take on all of it is fantastic, especially how the “they’re missing something behind their eyes” was so accurate. It’s just horrible how she came to have that knowledge.

Three, read the transcript if you can’t sit still for the whole thing, but either way try to make it to the end. After she gets done with her own personal experiences, she’s all,

So anyways, fuck Harvard. Fuck these institutions. Fuck their respectability. They’re crucibles for rapists and pedophiles. And the most powerful people on earth are the scum of the fucking earth. And we need to take back our power from them.

But the difference is now you know exactly why she says that, and with the power and force of her entire being. Shit, I would too.

In short, Microsoft is now doing for ICE what they were doing for Israel in 2024-2025 to support the genocide:

‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets – The Guardian

‘A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians – The Guardian

Revealed: Microsoft deepened ties with Israeli military to provide tech support during Gaza war – The Guardian

Note: these are all Graun links because they are what I had in my browser history and because they specifically made a point of looking into it, as opposed to other major news outlets. I’m sure there are other sources as well, I just didn’t look for any.

Yeah, exactly. That shit’s not gone at all. It’s just hidden for now. And if we the public don’t pay for it directly as a feature, these companies will still scoop up the data and just sell it to each other.

Truth.

Speaking solely for myself, I have accepted that I am as susceptible to marketing and propaganda as any other human, in an age where we are surrounded by it, none of it honest, none of it in my own best interest.

My response to this has been to cut off all possible routes of advertising: I literally do not watch or read anything that has ads, except possibly passing billboards and in-store ads. I don’t play games that have ads. I don’t listen to radio. I have adblocker on everything, or I simply leave. I can’t stand ads, and I have cut them out of everything I can. I’d genuinely rather quit a service than submit to ads. (And yes, I do love just plain silence, whenever I can get it.)

So yeah, I’m immune: they can’t influence me if they can’t get access. That’s the best kind of immunity there is.

You: I’ve pulled the ideas out my bum honestly.

Me, reading: This is intuitive genius. Seriously.

You’ve said your strategy essentially comes from listening/observing closely and winging it, but honestly what you’re achieving just through keeping at it every way you can is amazing. Apart from not being more condensed (smaller, tighter) that handwriting is actually more legible than I’ve seen from more than a few adults, including the slight nod to the presence of lines. I am not exaggerating.

Your creativity and temerity are both inspiring. Your son is lucky to have you.

Dad joke or name of a great album. That the the dad joke came first is pretty much beyond dispute, lol.

All true, but the reflective “anti-paparazzi” scarves and such that I’ve seen do not appear to be reflective. They really just fuck up unwanted pictures/recordings by throwing off the camera’s light balance, especially when flash is used.

This is the real goal, right here. To get individuals so bogged down by a controlled firehose of propaganda that we will all just keep working the daily grind for less and less because there’s nothing we can do about it . . .

Yeah, no. That’s total bullshit. We can each do something, and it only matters that we each start somewhere. A lot of little things add up, like you said. Don’t give into the helplessness: there is meaning and action beyond it.

And conversely, don’t give in to rage, because the opposite end of this elite stick is to delegitimize any growing movement by calling it the whining of the disgruntled and the vandalism of hooligans. There’s no faster way to get your movement off the front page, shut down, and ignored by the world than giving into violence when provoked. Note all the non-US comments even on Lemmy that are trying to provoke Americans into fighting in the streets: it’s not because they want us to win.

OP, you’re on the right track. You’re already seeing for yourself that it’s just not adding up anymore. But like Cabbage above me said, don’t stop there. Find whatever thing you can do to help, to be a part of change. It doesn’t have to be great or massive, but find your niche. Look into what’s going on already in your own community, and see what people who live near you are already doing. You’ll find your part to play, and you’ll be so glad you did.

If you’re not sure where to start and you’re in the US, look at what’s happening near you:

https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/

I read the whole article. Yeah, of course it’s touchy-feely shit; it’s out of Psychology Today, lol. But it’s not just clickbait; they suggest assembling a “psychological go-bag” of coping mechanisms to help you when you get overwhelmed. While some of the examples given are probably not for everyone, they’re just that: examples.

Without quoting the entire article, here are the key points and the general list of self-help suggestions:

• Disasters and massive changes in civil society, combined with misinformation, damage resilience.
• Resilience targeting often comes via social media.
• A psychological go-bag is a collection of individual resilience skills.
• You can overcome hopelessness and cynicism to stay motivated by practicing these skills.

Find inspiration in a story of hope and motivation. Try a biography of a person you look up to. Keep such stories in mind as inspiration.

Take stock of your psychological strengths and vulnerabilities. Come up with an approach that accentuates your strengths and attends to your vulnerabilities.

Open up to the collective of care. Remember that you aren’t the only one who cares about what’s happening, that you need to connect with other folks and communities who care too, keep yourself from feeling lonely and isolated in the struggle.

Focus on next steps, don’t overwhelm yourself with everything at once. Unless you have a magic wand, you can’t fix everything at once, and worrying about everything at once is guaranteed to cause anxiety. Don’t forget to take it a step at a time.

Spirituality. Deepen your awareness and connection to spirituality however you find it.

Connect with community and joy. If you don’t have strong links with community, start to deepen them now.

Display photos of loved ones, ancestors, and inspiring figures in your home and workspace. You may want to put together a collection of photos of loved ones in a place you see every day. These are your reasons to keep going.

Take breaks from it all. It may feel like a guilty pleasure, but an important aspect of staying resilient is knowing when to tune out.

Truth. So much of what is happening on any given day can be explained by asking the simple question,

“If the US president were Putin’s puppet, what would Putin do?”

And there it is. Regardless of the individual crises, of which there are many, the bigger picture is decreasing national force, cutting off traditional allies and setting fire to the established world order, and maximizing internal unrest. All of this benefits Putin.

Also for @[email protected] - Not the Epstein files, but Sascha Riley. Stabbed in the ass with a tent stake.

For those who don’t know who he is, this is the original reporting:
https://lisevoldeng.substack.com/p/dont-worry-boys-are-hard-to-find

A partial overview of the same reasons I personally tend to believe him:
https://bethmcdonnell.substack.com/p/a-new-survivor-speaks-epstein-files

For myself, Lemmy (for now) is as good as it gets because no matter where you go you’ll always get people who disagree with you, but at least here it’s usually not structured, and not done to serve some third-party narrative (though we did see some of that this weekend). I take the trouble to adjust my comments to be suitable for the community I’m in, but beyond that mostly I either leave toxic threads or if it’s bad, stay offline.

It’s a fact that in online spaces, you will encounter censorship of some sort, but in the Fediverse at least you can absolutely minimize that and still express yourself freely, I think. YMMV, of course. But please note that when I speak for myself, as I have been with you, self-awareness does not equal self-censorship, and obeying the rules as posted is the trade I make for being in a tolerable online space. When it doesn’t work out that way, I leave and find somewhere else, and I recommend the same strategy to you.

any place that’s apparently truly uncensored is slandered as just being where Nazis hang out

Lol, too true. Remember Voat? It really was a Nazi space, among other things. But that’s the paradox of tolerance at work: any decent place is going to have some modicum of moderation (or, as some consider it, censorship), or you end up with Voat, where it really was just a cesspit.

So to me it’s not a matter of avoiding all moderation, it’s a matter of picking the instance that matches your own needs and preferences, and then – above all else – taking the time and trouble to curate your own feed, blocking communities and users that don’t suit. To me, to take your example, I don’t mind learning about other worldviews, so the Marxist/communist/anarchist doesn’t bother me at all, but if they did I’d block them.

It does take work and some maintenance, but it’s very doable, I think.

Understand that this is not happening in a vacuum and that attempts to convert your democracy into authoritarianism are coming for you too; in the UK it’s the Reform party, and they’re using the same old tired canard of demon immigrants to gain power. Keeping authoritarianism and fascism out of your own country, wherever it may be, helps us all.

By yourself you can’t change the world (yet), but you CAN immunize yourself and prepare yourself, so that when your turn comes (may it never, but here we are) you can readily act in your own community.

First, educate yourself: get your news from multiple sources, preferably from multiple continents, so that no one voice or group of voices can manipulate your worldview. Be an armchair expert on British history basics so that you know the bullshit when you see it online. Familiarize yourself with your own constitutional rights and how they are codified, so that you know when they are in danger.

Especially, be aware that corporate-owned, centralized social media is artificially manipulated, and instead of thinking you can’t be drawn in, be aware of the power of even seeing a headline that is worded a certain way to shape how you mentally frame a subject, for example. It’s subtle but it’s real. So tread carefully, or limit your time altogether.

Understand also that over time, social media teaches us how to self-censor and encourages us to value the opinions of others as highly as our own, giving oversized power to group pushback, when in fact it’s all just an artificial space where nothing is real and our natural instincts get very blunted over time, making us ever more intellectually malleable by tiny increments. By way of strong contrast, there is an absolute amount of power inherent in speaking your own truth, uncensored, full of the passion you feel about your subject: stick to online spaces that foster this, and limit your time to whatever lets you feel healthy and whole and still participate.

Secondly, get to know your own community in person, as much as you can. Is there already some kind of protest or direct action going on near you, like an effort to clean up a local waterway or stop an unwanted corporate building project? That’s a great place to get to know people. Even just doing little things like this you learn that just showing up has so much power. Just showing up. You don’t have to save the world. You can just be one person among many, and getting to know your local neighbors and community is the way to do it.

And that’s it. That’s how you start. Educating yourself (and protecting your mind), and getting to know your own community. That is all that Minneapolis has done, but look at how well they are resisting intense provocation and bringing world censure to the wrong that is happening to their town. That’s community working together, just doing what they can do.

You’re doing both of these things, educating yourself and getting to know your neighbors, because change does not come from “speaking truth to power” or strongly worded letters; it comes from simply knowing your neighbors, and amassing with them in large groups when the time comes. If more is ever necessary, then from that place of mutual agreement the best path for that time and that place is formed, but even that all starts with knowing your neighbors and knowing a basic level of truth about whatever you’re facing. It is far, far easier to do this if you’ve already done it before, and it helps when you already know from personal relationships that what you hate for your neighborhood, your neighbors hate too.

Your power comes from being one of many. You have something you can say or do that, in combination with many others, absolutely can make it incredibly difficult for evil to win.

That’s what you’re seeing in Minnesota, and why you’re drawn to help. Ignore the people who would tell you that none of what I just wrote matters, and look instead at Minneapolis: what you’re seeing is exactly this. They learned from the George Floyd protests, got to know their neighbors, and are relying on personal networks to do everything they are doing. The media isn’t talking much about it but ICE has been having to go farther and farther into the rural areas because neighborhood networks, made of people just like you, are making it insanely difficult to get to anyone anymore, and meanwhile relentlessly documenting all their excesses. That’s what’s winning this war: just regular people, like you, like me, doing whatever little tiny thing we each can do.

Also, thank you for your kind and supportive words. Here in the US we are relentlessly firehosed with propaganda from every direction, and to stand against this horrible thing can feel very isolating and alone. When we protest, it is consistently either undercounted or ignored altogether by mainstream media. So hearing you say that you are standing with us in spirit is very heartening, and I know that you’ve protested our insane president before, in many ways and at multiple times: it really means a lot.

Apologies for the wall of text, and thank you again for caring enough to ask the question. Hope it helps.

That’s extraordinarily insulting to Canada: our neighbor to the north does not rely on the US in any way for its sovereignty. If anything, it’s the other way around (looking at you, 1812).

The feds are trying. Minneapolis isn’t taking the bait.

Walz is refusing to hand over Minnesota voter lists, among other things.

deleted by creator

I have used both tankie and vatnik (ватник?) directly and unironically, both face-to-face and online.