It's baffling how people on Lemmy hate Musk so much and yet can't stop mentioning him in every random, unrelated thread.
The starlink was privately bought as per the article, it wasn't officially procured using federal funds. So the comment I responded to doesn't really make any sense in the context of this post.
But it gets 50 upvotes because Musk is very bad man. I guess that answers my own question about why people can't stop mentioning him on Lemmy: it's free upvotes to shit on him. That's fine I guess, but it can be annoying when it clogs up the discussion in unrelated threads.
Rage against him when he does evil things, by all means. But when you start raging against him 24/7 for no particular reason, it serves no purpose. In fact, it lessens your ability to actually call him out when he does bad stuff, because you sound like the boy who cried wolf.
And more importantly, it also affects the quality of discussion on Lemmy. One major advantage we have over reddit is that people tend to actually read the articles and make insightful comments that add to the discussion. "Hurr Durr Muskrat bad" is the opposite of that, it's a reddit style pandering comment that ultimately has no substance or meaning. When these circlejerky comments become more common than good comments, the value of this site as a forum for legitimate discussion falls off a cliff.
You got me. I don't have a problem with him being given the security liabilities of a defense contractor and control over people's Internet access. I posted for upvotes.
I still use Lemmy and Reddit side by side. I find a lot of submissions and comments on Reddit downvoted, where they're nothing burger contributions; some of the most non-divisive, non-offensive, and opinionless contributions I've come across.
I don't recall this behaviour when I first started using Reddit about 10 years ago. It makes me wonder if the world has become a lot more bitter in recent years since this type of behaviour is seen across platforms.
I just feel like people are just too quick to assume the question is asked with bad intentions nowadays. It might be more bitterness, as you said, and it could also be more cynicism from most people. All I know is that it makes a lot of platforms more unpleasant to participate in.