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If I am reading the situation wrong, I apologize.

The reason that I am not a member at beehaw was because they were overly wrapped up in concerns such as this one. I'm here for enjoyable chats with people, not to take sides in the latest macro-politics or causes or whatever lately is stirring the pot or making the winds blow. These things are fine and some people are interested in them, but I'm turned off by the idea of an instance that is particularly identified one way or another when I am not concerned with any of that.

What I'm looking for are kind souls that share an interest in technology and an instance that was widely federated so that a wide variety of my interest groups (music, weightloss, networking, ancient Stoicism) are available. That's why I joined here. SDF has been around a long time and many who have enjoyed its offerings have held many different opinions and yet shared this resource peacefully.

I'm particularly turned off by people that want a silo with only the right causes, only the right thinking, only the right speech.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't have management and protection of against those that are unkindly trolling or actively trying to do technical damage. Ban those actually doing evil. But if people of good cheer share different views kindky as neighbors and friends, I have no problem with that and don't want to see that roped off.

Remember the two rules of FidoNet? "Don't be excessively annoying. Don't be easily annoyed." That's all I'm saying.

Yes. When somebody else has a better take and I want it to be the top comment, I will downvote mine.

Fighting with Windows 11 introduced me to Linux Mint, which works perfectly! I'm not an OS geek, so I really don't care about the OS -- it's just the thing I deal with on the way to Firefox.

My 76 y/o spouse loves Linux Mint. The 2017-bought desktop was deemed insufficient for Windows 11 and now runs Mint.

I (age 60) remember buying my condo in 1991 or so, interest rates about 7% with a VA-guaranteed loan. My parent's first mortgage was 2% or 3% but my mom, a Realtor, said those days were permanently gone. (They weren't. I had that in the house I bought in 2010.) But it felt forever at the time, and she thought it would be forever.

Nothing is forever. It may crash, but something else we can't imagine might happen too. I think we all agree the present situation is unsustainable.

As an audio enthusiast, it sucks that I can’t upgrade my stereo/audio system.

Exactly! I can have the system I want but having it somehow means no heated seats in the winter.

As usual, I have typed 500 words when 50 will do, and for that I apologize.

Go to those instances and read what’s there

No, I do not care to and why would you do that? You already have determined it's not right for you. Any alleged content problem that you have to see by going there would, if true, be a problem there. Does that make it a problem here? If I have to take extraordinary steps here to see it here, isn't that on me? Isn't the apparatus doing what it is supposed to be doing if I seek out a thing and find it?

The ultimate measure of freedom is the freedom to abstain. (Nobody is forcibly opting us in to reading their content.)

I'm just a regular user of SDF so these things aren't up to me, but I would think that it would take more than "because it exists." Defederation and Federation shouldn't be used to signal alignment and nonalignment of expression, but for reasons of managing the network itself. A telephone company provides service to everyone and doesn't care what you do with your phone. But, if someone is using it in a way that disrupts the network itself or others' ability to use the network, the telephone company should act to protect the overall integrity of the network. Even then it wouldn't silence the speech because of the speech, but because of the network.

Their instance continues to exist without us, their free speech continues, but by remaining federated we are giving them a platform.

Look, it's one thing to be put off by someone going out of their way to affront you. It's another to feel affronted after going out of your way to find if there is something objectionable anywhere. By that logic, since you have found something then defederation alone should not be enough, as "we are giving them a platform" still, because other people might visit there directly instead of through federation. Therefore, due to that situation, they should not have an DNS entry so you work on their Registrar to "deplatform" them. Then, because someone can connect using an IP address, their ISP should disconnect their service or else they're providing their ISP as a platform. But as they can get another ISP in this day of mobile connectivity, you could chase down their power company, yes, because their power company is a platform -- as is their landlord -- as is their employer. And so on.

I remain unconvinced.

A lot of the comments so far are trying to stay with the negative connotation to exploitation. You exploit your comfortable shoes to walk further each day. You exploit the microwave oven's ability to more quickly warm your coffee than the stove.

This is the same with discrimination. You choose the raspberry danish over the cheese danish. This is you practicing discrimination, and it's fine.

Any evil in it comes from abuse or impact to yourself with respect to others, that second definition of exploitation in the OP.

The result of about half of recent lander missions from Earth is failure.

The USA hasn't tried one recently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon

I'm keeping to my policy of only subscribing to two things at one time, and rotating so that I get to see the seasons of the things that I really want to see.

I've never been much of a pirate, mainly because I do believe in supporting those that produce the art that I love. That said, I am a big user of the library. And when there's some FOSS product that I like, I support it. And while I could and can buy commercially now, I remember the days when I couldn't and I survived on FOSS and the library.

With that said, let me say that I think that the content industry shoots itself in the foot when it creates these higher prices, obscene length of copyright terms, polluting their own products with commercial ads ,and fake scarcity. They deserve all the piracy that their own behavior generates!

I think Mike Masnick has it right. The best defense against piracy is to compete against it with superior offerings.

It's not about money. They do have a particular take on running their instance than most open general-use instances. You can read about that and their rationale and decisions and decide whether it is for you.

Informed by that, you might then decide if beehaw is for you or not. If beehaw is for you, talk about why you are joining in particular regards to gelling with their particular philosophy.

I use a credit card because our laws in the USA protect credit-card purchases better than they do debit-card and other electronic purchases.

Although I use a credit card with revolving credit, I always pay the full balance each month. In this way, it acts as a debit card, but I get the benefits of a credit card. I have to remember to pay it on time, but I can set up autopay even for that.

My credit union (a kind of non-profit bank owned by its members) is the issuer of the card, and it gives a 2% cash award for credit-card usage.

Unfortunately, I'm finding Lemmy 2023 just as shallow as Reddit 2023.

When Google added an account switcher to its apps way back in 2019, they made it possible to switch between your Google accounts by swiping up or down on your avatar.

Wow, look at that! I had no idea. It works!

I don't know that I fit any of those label, neatly, but I've always been skeptical of the idea that the president is not in charge of everything under the Executive Branch.

Keep in mind I'm not in charge of anything and I'm not right about anything! I'm nobody here.

If Congress wants an independent agency, they need to create it and put it under themselves, not under the executive branch (so it seems to me). So even if Trump does not get into office (and let's make sure that he doesn't) Project 2025 is still going to be out there and it may be legally right in some important respects. Not paying attention to this reality is how we lost something like Roe v Wade ... What the Supreme Court can give, it can take away. There is no such thing as "never going to happen".

Please defeat Trump and Trumpism, but take this concept of Project 2025 seriously beyond Trump.

Relevant Article 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans: ‘A lot of executives have egg on their faces’ -- CNBC

I don't have a watch or a Fitbit, but these screens sure look a lot like Google Fit.

For goodness sake, send more money to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and support their calls to action!