AHemlocksLie

joined 11 months ago
[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

No, they're upset that the cops themselves flagrantly violate the law to beat and arrest protesters without sufficient cause when they're leftwing protests, but when it's a bunch of literal Nazis, everything is handled politely, and suddenly, protester rights are a priority again.

For example, take kettling. The cops make the protesters move in a given direction. Again. Again. Until they've pushed the protesters into a dead end or another wall or two of cops. Typically, they keep moving in, tightening the space until there's no more. When the crowd has no choice to push back, they call it assaulting an officer, say it's turning violent and label it an illegal protest, and arrest everyone.

Of course, this is illegal as shit, which is why most protesters arrested this way get the charges dropped. The judge knows there's no case, and neither judge nor cop wants the tactics more widely publicized. But they've already broken up the protest. They've given these citizens arrest records. They've won. That protest, at least, is over, and they'll just do it again if another starts.

And that's not even counting the violence. Look at some of the footage from the 2020 George Floyd protests. If you don't agree with the protests, put aside your differences and just look at what was done to protesters and what they were doing when it was done to them. Some of those protesters that got kettled didn't just get arrested, some were attacked with less lethal options like rubber bullets. For all their reduced lethality, a couple dozen American citizens still died at the hands of their own police force. More were maimed for life with injuries including lost eyes.

I personally saw dozens and dozens of videos of police ruthlessly abusing those protesters. Things like a man laying face down on the ground when the cop standing over him shot him in the back point black with a bean bag round. An old man shoved over and cracking his head on the ground, only for the cop to just step over him and leave him there. That shit doesn't happen at Nazi protests. The cops play nice and remember how to do their fucking job for the Nazis, but try to get the cops to stop hurting people unnecessarily and see what they do.

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 days ago (4 children)

People are upset at the contrast to other protests. Had they been protesting for minority rights, the cops would fucking find a reason to arrest them. And probably beat a few asses along the way.

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 week ago

The Minsk Agreements only exist as a direct result of Russia shitting on the Budapest Memorandum. The Budapest Memorandum was signed in 1994, and Russia promised to never violate Ukrainian sovereignty if they gave up nuclear weapons. The Minsk Agreements were signed as an attempt to end Russia's invasion of eastern Ukraine, whose sovereignty you may recall they promised to never violate just 20 years prior.

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 31 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Poor widdle Russia had no agency, NO CHOICE, but to invade. They were OBLIGATED to violate the Budapest Memorandum and attempt to seize Ukraine.

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

he is threatening the reputation and profits of the NFL franchise. This is a more dangerous act than the violation of any law

Holy shit, is it physically possible to lick corporate boot any harder online?

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Collaboration among their own developers, maybe. And support for users. Both of those could be done other ways, but Discord has a lot of pull as a free place to build and manage a community.

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

No fucking shit, I'm tired of it, too. But grown ups deal with the choices in front of them instead of throwing a tantrum and trying to take their toys and go home. If the thing you really care about is Gaza and Palestinians, you have to deal with the immediate issue, which is that four years of active encouragement from Trump is going to do a fuckload of damage that can't just be undone, even if your protest does encourage some change from Democrats. Now, Democrats don't seem to have learned a fucking thing, and Trump is trying to make american soldiers active participants. I understand why you're upset and why you want change, but the tactics you're using are actively making things worse. And then, when your protest vote ushers in "the doom of the USA", who do you blame? The people you refused to vote for because somehow, the greater evil was preferable to the lesser evil.

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Or maybe the Gaza detractors should have considered cause and effect. Or listened when Trump outright said what he'd do.

The question is specifically about people who refused to support Harris because of Gaza. Since Trump is so far objectively worse than Harris, seems pretty reasonable to wonder if any of them changed their minds now, even if it is too late.

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 weeks ago

Sure glad that's not why they did it because you're right, that'd be kinda stupid. That's not why they made a secondary layer, though. They made a secondary layer so transaction throughput can grow exponentially while maintaining the security of the blockchain without significantly impacting fees or requiring the blockchain itself to become proportionally larger.

That last part is the real motivation. The goal is to above all else, remain decentralized. That means the average user needs to be able to run a full node capable of verifying any transaction it needs to. To do that, the blockchain can't grow too quickly, or people will get forced out. If it grew exponentially faster as transactions grew likewise, nodes would eventually centralize in fewer and fewer hands until someone could exert control over the network.

The blockchain is currently something like 650-700 GB, which is a lot, but most people can manage it, even if it might be pushing it for poorer regions. Without the lightning network and with substantial user growth, the only option is to increase the block size, and to achieve an actually usable capacity of strictly on-chain transactions, you'd be looking at sizes on the order of hundreds of TB or pushing into PB territory. Nobody would be able to store the blockchain without a dedicated server rack. Not a single server, a whole rack. It'd costs thousands and thousands of dollars to run a node. Instead, we acknowledge that you purchasing a pack of gum at the convenience store doesn't need to be immortalized on the blockchain and use the lightning network to secure your transaction without having to create a permanent record.

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

There are no hard coded minimums. Some providers may demand a minimum commitment, but there's nothing to stop people in poorer regions from opening smaller channels, especially between individuals. Any business attempting to operate in the region will have to work with that.

There is also a lot of work being done on... I think they call them channel factories? Might be off on the name, but basically create as many channels as possible in as little space as possible to keep it efficient and minimize costs for individuals.

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

You still use it as a settlement and security layer. The lightning network is made up of pairs of people that both lock money in a new account with a transaction. Both people get a fully signed copy of a second transaction to reclaim the money, but they don't publish it immediately. If they need to make a new transaction between each other, they just replace the second fully signed transaction with a new one that divides the money according to the new balance. They can do this as many times as they want for as long as they want, and they only have to make two transactions: one to start and one to stop. If anyone tries to cheat, the only thing they can do is publish an older version of that second transaction that favors them, but you have... I think a day or three, I forget, to publish a newer version that proves they cheated, and if you do, you get ALL the money even if some was owed to them, so cheating won't go well. The down side is you need a node that's always online or connects to the network frequently so you can be ready to catch a cheater.

To make a network, they use some fancy cryptography to send money to someone if and only if they send it (minus very, very, very small fees) to the next person in line towards the destination. If anyone in the chain refuses or fails to commit, the transaction fails and no money moves at all. Because it's all secured by the blockchain, you can trust that everyone both can and will complete the transaction exactly as requested, or the whole thing fails and nothing happens.

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