"U.S. District Judge John Broomes suggested in his ruling Tuesday that the Biden administration must now consider whether forcing compliance remains “worth the effort.”"

YES, yes it fucking is worth it. JFC these ghouls

On a policy level, if we are to bring about a more harmonious Internet (and civil society), we will likely have to tackle wealth inequality and make our political institutions more democratic.

Really burying the lede there.

Another big factor is a lack of moderation, as well as the things that get platformed. People sit and stew in a broth of violent, hateful rhetoric all day long because platforms not only allow that kind of content, but massively profit from it. We seriously need social media companies, podcast apps, YouTube and other video hosting sites, etc. to step the fuck up and deplatform misinformation, disinformation, bigotry, hatemongering, and ragebait. Do not give it light. Do not give it oxygen. Smother it. Ban it. And be extremely aggressive about it. You wanna cry about censorship? Go ahead. But the first amendment doesn't apply to private companies, and you are also free to setup your own website/service/app/whatever and spew your own bile there.

We further need social media companies to change their algorithms to prevent them from rewarding inflammatory posts. People want to have millions of followers and be big stars on the web, and ragebait, lies, and misinformation are perfect ways to do that. It's gets you to the top of the heap because there's no such thing as a "bad" click. You still watched it. You still replied (even if to refute it). And that gave it a boost. That shit has to stop. The entire social landscape is built on top of this inflammatory foundation.

Exactly.

Also far, far more often than not, when someone talks about "corrupt banking systems" they're about two steps away from quoting The Protocols.

It's all Libertarian/anarcho-captialist pablum, pushed by people who think society was a bad idea

It's SO much easier and quicker to say than L-G-B-T-Q-I-A+. When in company that I know its ok with it, I just say "queer community", but I know not everyone has accepted the reclamation of that word. Which I get. I'm totally good with queer, but hearing the f-slur sets off my fight-or-flight responses

I have such a mess of opinions about Drag Race. I'm glad that it brought the idea of drag to the mainstream so that people understand that drag performers aren't the kind of monsters that right wingers make them out to be. But in a lot of ways, I feel like it's done more harm than good to the trans community. With the constant conflation between trans and drag, and also the fact that Ru Paul is a fucking asshole who's not at all supportive of the trans community, it's hard to see it in a positive light.

I also just hate reality competition shows, especially in a scene that should be so much more supportive and uplifting and cooperative, rather than competitive.

Some of the pictures people see of the big book burning fests that happened in Germany in the 1930s weren't generalized events. One of them was the Nazis specifically destroying the works of Magnus Hirschfeld, who ran the Institute for Sexual Research, that studied sexuality and gender issues and provided the earliest instances of gender affirming care. They sacked the institute, destroyed it, and burned all of the material there.

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

This is to say: trans people have always been here. And nearly a century later, the destruction of this institute has been widely forgotten.

And people don't even realize that cis people have it too! My BiL was recently talking about taking Cialis and Testosterone. I have a niece that just got breast implants and other cosmetic procedures. People going through menopause take hormones. Cis children with precocious puberty take puberty blockers so they don't have to go through that at 8 or 9 years old. And cis people don't have the self-reflection to realize that these are all gender-affirming care.

I definitely agree Bluesky is the best alternative right now. It feels like twitter used to, but with much better moderation and no Dorsey (or Musk). And I love things like Aegis, and Feeds.

Threads' algorithm is extremely aggressive and just viewing a single post will send your entire feed into reccs for that kind of thing. It constantly refreshes, making discovery and finding things extremely difficult. And it's just Instagram-y. It's not about building community, it's just there for throwaway "content."

But I do agree that Bluesky is doing federation in a way that simplifies it for the users. Non-tech users can just be there and don't even have to think about it. In fact, most people there (at least across my feeds) have no idea what Federation even is or means. If others want to federate or hang somewhere else and have the knowledge to do that, they can. So they make it much more frictionless.

Because federation is a mess, and doesn't really solve the problem. There's no quick elevator pitch that non-technical people can understand, on-boarding is painful, and even if you as the publisher understand it, your audience may not.

Exactly.

Gods this whole "if we outlaw AI only outlaws will have AI" bullshit is so so tiresome and naive

You mean to tell me that the purpose-built disinformation machine that you developed has been used by malicious actors to spread disinformation?!

Exactly.

SCOTUS justices need to be elected and have term limits. Give them three total 4 year terms max.

EDIT: I know this would take a Constitutional amendment to change, which given our current political climate, is functionally impossible

Not really a fan of republicanism. I don't like the idea that the people we elect can just ignore their constituents, or that those people can then make appointments that are not something the general public want. I do however like the idea of a unicameral legislature. I think our bicameral legislature creates more problems than it solves. On top of the Senate being wildly unequal in its representation.

We need a strict representative democracy, where representatives are legally beholden to act according to the wishes of their constituents. And we need to reform or eliminate positions where unelected persons are appointed without any input from the public. For example, SCOTUS needs to be expanded, given term limits, and the justices need to stand for public election, not appointment by whichever president is in power at the time. Currently, SCOTUS can be entirely stacked and controlled by a given administration, nullifying any semblance of checks and balances, giving functional control of the government to that president long after their term has ended. Further, SCOTUS can simply act of their own will, with literally no recourse for anyone to stop them. Same reforms should apply to all court appointments (federal/circuit/district/etc.)

• Abolish the Senate
• Abolish the electoral college
• Establish ranked choice voting
• Term limits top to bottom

Of course, part of this would take constitutional amendment(s), which given our political climate, is functionally impossible, on top of legislation that no one in power would ever be willing to put forward nor support. The people in power aren't going to willingly surrender any of that power. So I don't really know how we fix it.

Wish I were nearby! Also 80s/90s kid. Linux nerd, software dev. Love writing, art, music, cooking. I'm in Central FL. Scary af here and makes it really hard.

As someone who enjoyed skateboarding in the 90s, there were very, very, very few women in the scene. There was a skatepark I frequented that would be super packed on the weekends, and I think I only ever saw one or two women in several years time.

Regardless of gender is was an extremely insular scene that was majorly actively hostile to anyone starting out overall. But if you weren't male, everyone was either gross af trying to hit on you, or they just assumed you were shit and couldn't be otherwise.

The area I was in, the skate scene also had a large number of Straight Edge folk, who I think were using it as a sort of appeasement tactic, like "Look Police Guy/Parents/School officials, etc, we make sure we're substance free. We not satanist trying to menaces" but used fucking militant tactics against people in the scene. They were fucking terrifying.

It was so off-putting for me that I completely lost any interest in skateboarding. I didn't want to be part of a scene that treated people that way.

Exactly.

"I want a woman who is submissive, and respects 'traditional' gender roles"

No, you want a servant you can fuck, and then get violent with if she ever refuses to comply.

These people don't want partners or relationships. They want power fantasies.

I can certainly see why there would be appeal but you need to be very cautious of who you want to be a tradwife to. You create a lot of dependence on your partner, You sacrifice a lot of power, and once you start doing this it becomes increasingly difficult taking it back.

Hear hear.

I've seen so many older couples where the woman was 100% dependent on the man. He never allowed her to manage finances, have access to the bank accounts, pay bills, etc. and then after 30-40 years he leaves or dies, and then she's left without any life experience whatsoever and has no idea how to manage her own life.

Or, he's abusive, shitty, and terrible, but since she has no agency of her own or any idea of how to have that agency, she's trapped and can't even conceive of the idea of leaving him.

It's a horrifying experience.

"We need to return to a time when women had no agency, no real personhood, were essentially slaves in their homes, treated as property, and bore literally all the work of the home and family."

...

"Wow, this is oppressive."

These people have no thought that the situation women were in 50+ years ago was forced. They didn't have a choice. They couldn't even open a bank account on their own. But want to paint that time as some sort of heyday that we need to return to.

Further, I'm convinced that the tradwife movement isn't in any way genuine, that it's entirely white supremacist, patriarchal propaganda. Maybe there's a handful out there that genuinely want this. But otherwise I think it's entirely a pushback against modernity, and bigots and white cishet men trying to claw back their cultural hegemony.

“We want to protect our cattle and our ranches,” said Arizona representative Michael Carbone. Speaking at the Hardee County Cattleman’s Arena, DeSantis said that cultivated meat would “wipe the people sitting here out of business,” and that “we will not let that happen,”

Funny* how these chuds all about the "free market" unless their products can't compete, and they have to have subsidies and monopolies to protect their profits.

Maybe it's a misplaced modifier, like, the husband was with a squirrel, then she stabbed him.

Or maybe she fashioned a dagger out of a squirrel carcass.