This is clearly a silica gel shill. Do not listen to the propaganda.

The dotnet conference is happening right now and I was surprised to hear a couple of the speakers advertising their Bluesky. They had accounts on other social media too, but that seemed to be their main one. These are tech enthusiasts so it makes some sense, but it’s always seemed like an afterthought whenever I’ve seen profiles linked before.

On reddit there was r/comedyhomicide for these cases where someone felt the need to tack on a random reaction to something funny. As if the viewer needs to be guided to what their reaction should be. It always reminded me of a laugh track.

The obvious answer is that it’s fast, tasty, and requires minimal effort for the consumer, especially if it’s getting delivered. But it also tends to be very cheap compared to dining out. I don’t know what you are ordering where a combo is so much but I normally get a bunch of food from Taco Bell to eat over the course of two days. I can get 2000 calories of food I like to eat for $12.

It’s true that Trump had a simple majority of votes, but you can win the electoral college and lose the popular vote; this is typically what happens for Republican victories. Kamala lost MI, PA, and WI by 3% or less. If those had flipped, she would have had her 270. You are right that third party votes wouldn’t have been enough though. The bigger problem was reduced turnout from people not voting at all.

The fact that Republicans also managed to do so well in Congress to me suggests that the problem for Democrats wasn’t really just their choice for presidential candidate. Voters really care about immigration and inflation right now, and those tend to be stronger for Republicans.

This is actually a very good comparison, thank you.

You are still participating by choosing to be a bystander to injustice. Abstaining when you can support something less bad only says to others that you do not care how bad it gets.

It is rich to criticize the Democrats for claiming moral superiority while doing nothing, as a justification for not voting for the candidate who would at least try to put a leash on what Israel is doing to Gaza.

If you want what’s best for a suffering people, you should vote for the candidate not trying to give their oppressors a blank check. All of America is responsible for what the president we chose does next.

It’s important to remember the Holocaust happened largely because people didn’t do enough to stop it. “First they came for the Communists…” and all that. The Nazis were a fairly minor party for years, but they were able to consolidate power because their opposition wouldn’t rally against them. Coalition requires compromise.

I am not happy with the Democrats either, but they were the better option. And abstaining from a decision between bad and worse doesn’t help anyone. By allowing Trump to take power again when we might have stopped it, we are all responsible for what comes next.

Honestly, there is a reasonable chance he gets assassinated this term. No one is out of reach from the sword of Damocles.

I don’t see why you would think that. Someone like Bernie was too radical for the American left to win a primary, no way he would be considered more appealing to America at large in the general.

It’s frustrating because Biden/Harris are too moderate to capture far left voters and too radical to wrestle the center from a populist like Trump. And it seems many disenfranchised voters are content to stay at home because better isn’t good enough. I’m not trying to absolve them of responsibility, but I genuinely think Democrats could make great strides if the left was as good at banding with each other as the right. Instead, the Democrats lost the popular vote for the first time in twenty years.

Trump is projected to win the popular vote too, the first time a Republican presidential candidate has since 2004. There are more of the other guys showing up at least.

Fair, but it looks bad when they seem to be promoting a side and silencing another as a platform. They disabled email signups for accounts from Israel for over a year. Yes, this also affected Palestinians, but it was in reaction to Oct. 7, an event that Israeli users would certainly want to bring attention to for fostering sympathy. The stated reason was to prevent graphic material from being posted, but this hadn’t been implemented for Ukraine or other wartorn areas.

They also endorse streamers that are very overtly pro-palestine. Some of them did an “Arab” to “Loves Sabra” tier list of other people on stage at Twitchcon. Twitch later deleted the vod/clips of it.

Well, Rumble, Kick, and 4chan still exist. They are much more hands off for moderation. But I wouldn’t recommend them as nice places to explore. Moderation has its benefits too.

Compared to Twitch, Youtube is less involved in censoring based on message but much more reactive for DMCA stuff and demonetization.

And other people have pointed out that Lemmy and the fediverse in general have moderation that is entirely dependent on your instance.

I felt the same way (spoilers for whoever hasn’t read it). The protagonist just kept encountering significant people where it seems like there’s going to be a struggle to overcome, leading to character development and newfound maturity, but no. He just moves on to another scene instead and they’re not seen again. It was just annoying.

The teacher that feels he’s not living up to his potential? The private school friends that he hangs out with but often finds frustrating? The childhood friend who he shares unexplored romantic tension with? The nuns whose meals he pays for despite having dwindling funds? The prostitute he just wants to have a conversation with? Her pimp, who attacks him? The potentially rapist family friend? For pretty much all of them a relevant conflict is initiated just for him to leave it unresolved, probably after labeling them a phony.

The only exception is his sister, who he sees like two or three times. And then the final conflict at the end is like: “Hey sorry for taking your birthday money so I could keep wandering around these past couple of days instead of talking to our rich parents.” “That’s ok, I forgive you. You’re my brother and I love you. But I worry about you sometimes.” “Yeah anyway, I’m bitter about the world so I kinda want to disappear into the wilderness.” “Please don’t do that.” “Ok I won’t.”

None of you should explain anything to five year olds.

Yes, this is working as intended

The TvTropes links are mostly right though? It matches the third variation of Earth All Along. The linked examples match what OP is describing except not being restricted to Fantasy.

Mr. Bean energy https://youtu.be/4JwBaLrgzUY

The entitlement comes from the idea that these are basic features that should be available to them for free, in addition to everything else included in the free service. They are the sort of things casual users may not even be aware of. If they don’t think the extra stuff is worth the price, they can just not buy them. But thinking they are overvalued is not the same thing as thinking they should be free.

If you think the standard experience is adequate then why resort to piracy?

Because I use these a lot and want something better than the standard service when it’s an option. If you wanted to sell a car for $5000 and someone offered you $10,000, would you say no because $5000 was adequate?

Because you don’t think they are important, as if the important features to you are universal?

I guess “importance” is relative, so I’ll clarify; they do little to contribute to the main function of the apps. Youtube is a video platform, so it should allow you to watch hosted videos. Discord is a voice and text messaging app, so you should be able to send messages and join calls. They are robust enough that you can do many other things with them too, but these secondary offerings are sometimes more limited if you don’t pay. The people that do choose to pay supplement the cost of offering the basic services to those that don’t.