No Stupid Questions

I just rewatched The Good Place and I'm having an existential crisis... (again)

Like what if, everything I'm seeing is just a simulated reality of a habitable planet, but its all just part of the torture? And worst yet, what if everyone else is just a demon torturing me..

See: Climate Change, Politics, I mean wtf, I leave PRC, an authoritarian country, just to end up in another autocracizing country? (talking about USA btw) Like this seems like part of the script, this is a torture chamber. All the racism I faced, bullying, evil teachers, people olaying loud music in the middle of the night, shitty parents, random kids screeching throught the neighborhood, Everything. Like if this world is really a random chaotic universe, there should be both good and bad if things are random. But the overwhenming thing is just bad. This just has to be a torture chamber. My "parents" and my "brother" could just be demons in disguise trying to torture me.

Like IDK why I'm even asking this, all of Lemmy could be part of the torture, what if everyone on Lemmy is also a demon that are gonna dismiss my theory anyways. (Hello Lemming Demons 👀)

And you might say "Well if its hell, why did they let you know about such a concept", well that's the thing, it makes it more realistic. If a subject in this Fake Universe Torture Chamber wants to question it, the other "people" who could be demons that would dismiss the claim and just say "that's a work of fiction".

Oh yea btw, if this is actually The Bad Place, I have something to say to the demons: go fuck yourselves with your demon tentacles, ya basic

Okay I'm not literally saying I believe all this, but its a scary concept to think about. And now I can't sleep. Thanks, The Good Place

I watched the last severance episode.

A manager (an 80's looking, strong and tall black man so you identify him) is told during a performance review he "uses too many big words".

To me, while this character can appear pretentious, he is simply an articulate man, like somebody who was taught at Oxford or Princeton. It's simply how he was raised, it's not his "fault".

I would feel attacked is somebody told me that for trying to use an appropriate vocabulary to describe or explain something, like being posh was something to be ridiculed.

If a coworker told me that I'd use a more detailed description so he understands what I mean but otherwise keep using my regular vocabulary. If a manager told me that I'd start looking for a new job, as it'd signal he feels entitled to micromanage me and a job doesn't have to be stressful.

Am I too thin skinned?

It's like it hits "normal people are sleeping" time and I suddenly have a million things to say to them.

To be clear, this is not "I'm going to wake you up with inane ramblings" it's "why do I feel like rambling inanely when I shouldn't" for people who like to skim.

The title's a bit disingenuous, I know: this didn't come out of nowhere. White supremacism is as American as Manifest Destiny and has been heavily intertwined with Nazism from its inception. That overlap with the Republican party, and their gradual slip into the extreme far-right, is evident.

But Seig Heils? Even the most dense among them must know that blatant Nazism hurts their legitimacy in the eyes of the public, even among MAGATs (as is evident right now if you peek at their echo chamber on Reddit). Surely they would have a much easier time pushing their rhetoric and establishing their agenda by keeping a purposeful distance from that sort of indefensible imagery and symbolism. How do they expect to keep cohesion in the military when you imply to the soldiers that they are Nazis now, seig heils and all.

Why Nazis?

Any theories as to where this is coming from? Follow the ketamine-fueled leader? A directive for operative Krasnov, from Putin himself, to implode the country? True Nazi beliefs among the Heritage Foundation, Proud Boys, etc? I just don't understand how they thought this would fly. I don't understand anything anymore lol.

well, at least, from my experience, there was only like 3 people who acted like them and they treated everyone else like inferiors, acted weird or mocking, etc.

most of them were only nice to the guys or didn’t talk to them, were rude to the girls.

Just hypothetically, if a state decided to stop receiving money from the federal government as well as intercepting and/or stopping federal income tax payments, could they do it? What might the consequences be?

Please be respectful so that rule 5 doesn't get broken.

Just saw the post of some dude who said all Germans are racist because they don't have black people.

People like this just make me cringe. I also know some people who say they will only date a specific ethnicity like only white or only Asian people and I think it's very weird.

I wonder where this movement started where people overly obsess about this. Can't we already just treat people for who they are/their personality and not judge them by their skin color and also not prefer some ethnicities over others?

BBC Article

These are propaganda coups for the Russians. They're dragging anchors and getting away with it.

Can't EU countries block Russian vessels navigating the Baltic sea?

To access the Baltic sea from the North sea any ship must cross the Danish straits. Same question.

It gives the impression they're winning and makes the EU and NATO look weak.

Like... where does the default windows signing keys come from? Isn't that like hard embedded into the BIOS/UEFI when the hardware is made? If so, how does Linux even use Secure Boot? Does it somehow replace the keys when you install a new OS?

I tried googling, but all I find is just simple pages that doesn't have much detail.

my dad specifically has really been feeding into hypermasculine, gun-loving, "true American" MAGA nonsense. I am gay and while he has no issue with me or my partner he continues to align himself with people who do not believe in my right to exist. He didn't believe Elon did a nazi salute. He said I was listening to the liberal propaganda. Now that trump has pulled out all the stops and continues to implement project 2025, I question whether I can still be in contact with him. Even if he is not (outwardly) rooting on everything, him not condemning what is happening to me seems like he is doubling down on his beliefs.

I am drained mentally and honestly think that he will continue supporting the destruction of this country and the rights of millions all because he idealizes their "alignment" with masculinity, guns, the military, traditions, etc.

How do I approach the topic with him and tell him it's either me or these beliefs/trump? Is that selfish of me? I know some people say that this will only further the divide but honestly I feel like things now are irreperable and I should not be involved with people who turn a blind eye to fascism.

There's this person, I won't name him, let's call him T. T's infamous online for stealing photos of red haired women to use for his avatars, "photos", and his whole online persona. For instance, he will claim to look like the women, saying that he has red hair and pale skin.

People have called T out on this because a real photo of him accidentally got leaked which shows he looks nothing like how he describes himself, and his rebuttal was "I never said those photos are of me"

T will also steal voice recordings from women who have exposed him in the past, using those samples to answer questions on Reddit, and when called out for this he will respond with "I never said the voice was mine". Some people noticed how his accent is constantly changing or his voice sounds AI generated at times, and he blames it on "foreign accent syndrome" when really what he's doing is stealing people's voice recordings. When people tell him he doesn't have foreign accent syndrome and is making excuses, he makes posts claiming people are "denying foreign accent syndrome exists" while leaving out the context that he used other people's voice recordings, to make himself look like he's being persecuted or is a "targeted individual".

He also is known for repeatedly making creepy comments to a forum member who he knew was barely 14, (he's in his 20's) requesting a story being written of him going on a date with him, saying "you're mine" to him, and "shipping" himself with him. When people call him out on this he says "it's slander" even though there's links to the things he posted. Then he'll say things like, "you cannot speak for a person's intentions because you aren't the proxy of their mind"

Also, when people point out that T's real selfie and the stolen selfies aren't the same race, he'll claim people are being transphobic to "transracial" people, and he'll also claim that people are being transphobic to him, even though he has never once claimed to be trans and is known for sending death threats to trans people in private message sessions.

This person does this kind of tactic a lot, and people get the impression he thinks he's being slick, and I'm wondering if there's a name for it.

Every single clock, even those that are air gapped. Countdown timers lose a minute, stopwatches add a minute. Biological clocks aren't affected.

Could it be said that this is a pattern or that someone who comes to this conclusion is exaggerating?

For example, in many animes the characters are Asian and right-wingers don't seem to mind. Maybe because most of the characters appear to be white, or because many Japanese animes have an actual cast of white characters. They don't seem to mind if in a fictional world all the characters are white or Asian, but on the other hand they would mind if in the fictional world all the characters were black or had dark skin. Is this really a fact or an exaggeration?

I have no idea how while Trump is a) ripping out the underpinnings of constitutional law which, in turn, is all that holds up all other laws (including transactional) in the US AND b) ripping apart the post war Western defense alliance leaving Europe and Australia completely exposed and vulnerable AND c) going to impose global reciprocal tariffs, which are going to kill trade and plunge the country and the world into the greatest economic depression (coincidentally) since the 1930's, how the market isn't down 75% - 90% by this point. Hopes & Dreams? Hallucinogens? Heroin?

What power on earth is allowing Hedge Funds, Banks and Small Investors the justification to keep betting on an underlying business system which is literally being pulled apart at the seams with no real hope of being functional shortly. How is this happening. It's like I'm taking crazy pills every day. The market should look at what Trump's already done (much less what he still promises to do) and say, whoop that's us, we're audi, this is insane, we can't trade our value as a corporation any longer, we don't know where supplies, labor, administration, distribution, sales, or any law governing any of it stands, we have to pull all our monies out, and put them someplace safe like our pockets.

What is happening to keep the market propped up, when literally everything, everywhere that it needs for stability in projected earnings is being hollowed out beneath it?

edit 2/20 : lol edit 2/21: lol

I've tried searching for other posts that ask a similar question, but I couldn't fine one that could fully make me understand what it would mean in this scenario.

So far from my understanding is that if I browse All, the instance I'm on won't show anything at all from the instances that it blocked. But manually doing the workaround would still show me the community and whatever posts that got federated in my instance. Is my understanding correct?

The other topic of federation that I'm interested to understand as a user are below.

The example: fedia.io states in their federation list that it does not federate with ani.social. But ani.social states they federate with fedia.io.

I can go to say !anime@ani.social just fine via fedia.io, although there is some posts that doesn't show. Is this one of the result of this situation?

Additionally, today I did basically try to subscribe to all the same communities/magazines on my lemmy.world (I'm considering to abandon this account), fedia.io and kbin.earth accounts.

Other than the situation above happened to some communities where some post doesn't sync, I've also found some communities that's just inaccessible from either 3 instances.

Is that another result of not being federated?

Thanks in advanced.

Conceivably, you could run trials by having a judge (or panel of judges) bring forth the evidence they thought was important. Instead, many countries have a system where one party prevents "one side" of a case and another party presents the "other side". How did this come about?

TL;DR: I want to learn about disinformation. Where do recommend I start?

Background:

I've been a bit apprehensive about disinformation for a while now more than ever with the rising tide of post truth content on the internet and the active toppling of governments from within using info warfare. I'm also seeing a whole lot of users in suspicious activities online who, for example, leave spicy live bait in political comment sections. So I've gotten suspicious and also curious about this secret world behind the veil.

I'm not exactly sure of what I'm looking for because of this unknown unknown, so bear with me. I'm imagining learning about an underlying theory with illustrative examples that relate to modern groups and their tactics.

I'm thinking of something more robust than articles or blog posts and yet less dense than academic material, so maybe some books or long-form videos would be great, although any format is welcome. I wonder if there are reliable & trustworthy authors, science communicators, intelligentsias, or researchers themselves who put out this accessible content.

I'm familiar with the book An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination that exposes the play-by-play of foreign disinformation farms in American politics during the 2018 election. I thought it was great but limited in scope to Facebook along with the few countries it touches on. But learning about the rest of the nations along a broader timeline would be more ideal.

Do you have any suggestions? What would be a right approach to get myself soaking wet in the topic?