flora_explora

flora_explora , 4 days ago

The peace flag with rainbow colors is also often used by esoteric and right-leaning groups where I live. So it did clarify it for me at least :)

flora_explora , 17 days ago

She died about 6 years ago

flora_explora , 17 days ago

But who are we to judge when shoplifting is appropriate or not? Also, if you are shoplifting to spite the capitalist system, you are doing society a favor. If you are shoplifting in a small self-owned store that is struggling itself, this would be less than ideal. But all other large corporate-owned shops are ethically OK to shoplift imo.

flora_explora , 16 days ago

Yes, but the person I was commenting on judged people who were shoplifting for "fun"

flora_explora , 17 days ago

All I found about that gitlab incidence sounded like it was one single event and more importantly that they've learned from it. So I don't get the critique there. But yeah, apparently they've had a security hole a few days ago.

flora_explora , 17 days ago

I get your point. But isn't it in the interest of large tech companies that their users stay as unknowing and uninformed as possible? They don't want you to know how to actually tinker with their systems, how to change stuff yourself or have any control over technology at all. The more docile people are, the better they can sell their products (both the actual product to the people and the people's data to their consumers). And so there are those people who are not OK with being on a dumbed-down system because they want to know how it works and have control over it, so they go over to Linux.

This is not too different from modern cars that no one can really repair on their own. Consumers are totally dependent on the company producing the car. And planned obsolescence can be implemented even better in a system that is out of the control of the user.

Another point is that huge tech companies often have the most comfort and ease in their products. Yeah sure, they have the means to make it so. But this automatically makes leaving these platforms/products so much more uncomfortable. Consumers are already so uninformed but dependent on tech that they would obviously stir towards the more comfortable situation.

Using tools (be it digital or manual) you can actually control sure is more work and has a certain learning curve. No one denies this. But from a political standpoint I think it is important for people to have control over the tools they use, over their own life. Let's not allow capitalism to take away even more freedom and control from us as it already took.

flora_explora , 18 days ago

While I agree in principle with you (except for where a socialist state is basically capitalism?!), I disagree very much with your condescending tone. The other person you were commenting on has obviously not got what you meant and you dismissed them outright as a tankie.

I just listened a bit into the video until the guy talked about that the means have to be in line with ends. If you are a prick like this to other people enjoying your power of knowledge over them you definitely won't get to a compassionate community free of hierarchies. Same goes for the guy in the video, reeking of male privilege.

So why not give people a chance to learn something? (Except if they are trolling of course.)

flora_explora , 17 days ago

First of all, "love yourself first" can be interpreted in various ways. bell hooks certainly meant it in a truly revolutionary, not a individualistic or distractive way.

What you describe sounds awfully much like how the boomer generation has approached live. For ever running away from personal problems by always keeping busy and distracting themselves. Sure, at least you are fighting fascism. A lot of leftists I know put all their energy into activism until they burn out. And often I suspect that they are running away from their own problems.

And sure, spending all your time with trying to self-love is obviously not the solution either. But it sure would help so much if people would reflect more upon their own emotional state and be more compassionate with themselves and others. This is not to say that we don't need activism to stop fascists though.

flora_explora , 20 days ago

Wow, thanks! What an interesting read :O (But also really sad to watch the video on the templeos site)

flora_explora , 23 days ago

Great video, thanks! Regarding the over representation of certain concepts/things I have been disappointed from day one by generative AI. If you want it to draw you something obscure it miserably fails and tries to fall back on stuff it knows. Also all the discriminatory biases generative AI has about different people because of lacking data sets. It is very obvious that it cannot "outperform" its own data input (like the exciting curve in the video) but that it will rather stagnate.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

Wouldn't you then have to run the AI locally on a machine (which probably draws a lot of power and memory) or use it via cloud (which depends on bandwidth just like a video call). I don't really see where this technology could actually be useful. Sure, if it is only a minor computation just like if you take a picture/video with any modern smartphone. But computing an entire face and voice seems much more complicated than that and not really feasible for the usual home device.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

Fair point, I agree.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

There is definitely some german in that word!

flora_explora , 1 month ago

What? This is saying that the dudes already so detached from reality that they don't find any women should even further detach from reality. If you are an open-minded cis dude who respects women and sees them as equal human beings you'll have no problem finding anyone.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

OK, let me rephrase this into "if you are ... you will be as likely as cishet women to find someone to date". My point was that cishet men may have it hard to find someone because they are not catching up with progressive and emancipatory values. There are many many heteropessimisstic or otherwise frustrated women out there searching for a guy that does not treat them like shit.

But sure, if you don't have the capacity for a social life or for dating then obviously this won't be as easy. My comment was a response to the premise that cishet guys have it harder in dating and that they should be allowed to scam people.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

It seems very annoying to me when cishet dudes whine about how hard they have it. It might be true, but the problem is usually that they've been brought up with a misogynistic worldview and hegemonic masculinity. That's what I referred to by calling them detached from reality.

It is like a narcissistic person telling you how hard their life is while abusing you. You can empathize with them because they sure have a hard life. But as long as they're not self-aware and reflect on their doings, I won't have much empathy with them. Same goes for cis men.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

Oh hello, you again! Sorry, won't discuss with you any further about this topic. Nothing new to be said and you newer replied to all the scientific studies I gave you why a high percentage of pwNPD tend to abuse others.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

Nope, I disagree. I see shades of gray and have some few friends that happen to be cishet guys. But I know very few cis men that are not bigots, feel entitled, treat women like inferiors, etc.

But, do you agree with the original statement I replied to?

flora_explora , 1 month ago (edited 30 days ago)

Yeah, it's pretty disheartening and even frightening. I don't know how to educate men on feminist ideas and get them on board. And being antifeminist doesn't even benefit them that much. There are so many men living their life miserable and ending up in jail because of their toxic masculinity and societal expectations of men. And I'm certainly interested in helping cis men get better, reconnect with their emotions and learn about emancipation. But at the same time I don't see how people who are not cis men can do so much to really help them. We are pretty busy surviving them and supporting each other.

flora_explora , 30 days ago

Yes, it is really a frustrating situation. Since you seem to be a man, maybe you can be a good example to your nephew? But well, not so easy either unfortunately :(

flora_explora , 1 month ago

But tiktok the company is? And there are certainly also people on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and even Lemmy rallying to support Palestine. And that's what you tried to avoid with your "argument" in the first place, that many us companies are far worse in spreading misinformation. How does your one very specific point prove anything? And why focus on this one at all? Meanwhile fox news especially has been rallying against all kinds of minorities since forever in the US. You have very weak arguments here, maybe you just want to have tiktok banned? But then just say so outright.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

Playing the devil's advocate here:
Under capitalism, you could also see it as a provision of services where the landlord invests in the means of production (the building) and provides the service of letting people stay there for a certain amount of money. The offered services include the maintenance of the building. If a landlord is keeping a building poorly maintained and/or expects an over the top rent, then this is simply a bad service.

But well, this obviously doesn't work out as soon as you consider a safe place to live a basic human right that mustn't be commodified.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

Well, I tried to find any arguments that could speak in favor of landlords. From the additional comments I got here it is pretty obvious that there isn't really any justification for housing to be in the hands of landlords.

flora_explora , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Lol, as the others already commented, you clearly have no clue. I have an old Pixel 4 (bought it refurbished for like 300€ 3 years ago) and run a custom rom on it. It just works great, no complaints. Meaning that I never ever had to fiddle around or seen any error codes like you described. I don't see ads, ever. It is much more privacy respecting, I don't have any Google/Apple app stores. I can run cracked software on it so I don't have to pay for premium. I can also have much more control over what apps are allowed to do and what not. And everyone is envious of the pictures it takes, too (I do a lot of macro photography on it). So how is this any worse than an iPhone that constantly spies on you and has a closed ecosystem?

flora_explora , 1 month ago

It took me like 10 minutes but you do you

¯_(ツ)_/¯

flora_explora , 1 month ago

Seems like he is doing pretty well. Paying 1200£/month and not noticing is very privileged. But yeah, I also only pay like 1€/month for my mail account and nothing else.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

I think the problem is that there are many people who would describe themselves as "leftwing" but then propagate neoliberal, conservative or reactionary politics. I'm not 100% aware of all the terms dropped in the post, but in my mind a leftwing community should definitely not include liberals, capitalists or conservatives (these are filtered out above via e.g. liberalism, social democrats, anarcho-capitalists, etc). Imo this rule makes perfect sense.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

I imagine that these very specific titles to very specific political flavors is what throws some people of. Imo they've first given the overall value system that they don't want to see here (i.e. liberalism, reactionaries and revisionism) and then give some specific examples what that could mean.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

I've never heard of dengism before (just read through the Wikipedia page now), but that it is banned here doesn't contradict that China may have benefitted from it economically. Many countries may have benefitted economically from colonialism or from capitalism. That does not make them good politics for the people.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

I 100% agree

flora_explora , 1 month ago

Wow, it's been ages since I've used google without a layer of privacy in between and haven't realized how comfortable it would be with all its spying power enabled. But anyways, I find it scary that companies like google try to get so much information about you that they then sell to third parties. I'd rather have less comfortability if it means I have control over my own data. And I guess Kagi could be better in this regard if they value your privacy while still having some data on you.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

I'd love to do that, too. But I'm a bit overwhelmed with setting it up :/

flora_explora , 1 month ago

I don't know. I find the underlying principle of kagi a bit problematic. For example, look at what they say in this piece here. I get that any search engine that is "free" but sponsored by ads is gonna be skewed towards the advertisers. But like kagi phrases their response, it sounds somewhat classist. If you can afford a good search engine, you deserve better search results. If you don't, well, your bad. I mean, it's OK if they finance themselves by being a paid service. But this should be only a necessary first step before finding other ways to finance themselves.

flora_explora , 1 month ago

Yeah, I get that. While "no ethical consumption under capitalism" shouldn't be used to justify passivity, each individual person has their own limits to what they can reasonably achieve. Sometimes when I'm traveling and my anxiety peaks, I also eat dairy products/eggs because I cannot mentally afford to search for vegan alternatives. It's so hard to always keep the balance between doing what you can and trying to stay sane.

I've been using startpage for years and don't really miss the missing location features. But I hardly leave the house anyways.

flora_explora , 2 months ago

I see your point of trying to help everyone communicate with each other. However, as has been pointed out repeatedly in the last few months, the threat of a 3e strategy (embrace, extend, extinguish) applied by Meta is imo very real and dangerous to the whole fediverse. That's why people want to defederate threads. And when large corporations use their huge userbase to make everyone else's life harder and peer pressure you into joining them then that's on them. I mean, there is a reason we few people are here on the fediverse. For most it's probably making the effort to stay away from those privacy-invading, controlling corporations and create something by the people for the people. I get that it is tempting to be able to reach the masses stuck in platforms like Facebook or Instagram. But this comes with the real threat of destroying what we've build here. Restraining from federation doesn't cost us anything though, as we've already made the decision to get together here in this small community.

flora_explora , 2 months ago

Haven't heard of glassdoor before, but the article repeatedly states that the name is not shown to the employer and that reviews are still anonymous. That is not the issue though. The issue this person and the author have is that there might be data breaches or that there might be information on fishbowl that would link your account name to your real name. And they make out that this is a real possibility. Also they have an issue with the company trying to find out your real name and saving it without consent. They do not say in the article that your real name would be visible right now.

But by you talking about "the media" I guess you are trying to find reasons to further your already present distrust in any media that contradicts your beliefs?

flora_explora , 2 months ago

Well, why would you talk about "the media" and you feeling gaslit by them? Maybe I misunderstood you? Was it meant as a joke?

flora_explora , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

Sorry, but where did I personally attack you? And maybe I misunderstood why you referred to "the media" because this gets thrown around by a lot of people like conspiracy or right wing folks. And gaslighting is imo a pretty heavy term where someone intentionally tries to manipulate you into distrusting your own sense of reality. (I know that it is thrown around a lot these days, but that's what I would associate with it). In combination feeling gaslit by "the media" sounded like you distrust the majority of media outlets and that you imply that they intentionally deceive you until you cannot tell what's actually happening. But obviously that was just my interpretation of your statement...

I get that you didn't mean that, so all good.

flora_explora , 2 months ago

Ouch, so I'm a certified weirdo just because I don't have accounts on GAMAM sites?

And my mail accounts not by big corpos work well regardless...

flora_explora , 2 months ago

From a European perspective I can only say that the US is as bad as China in terms of privacy violations (probably even worse). The whole Snowden and NSA scandal really broke any trust in nations or corporations to respect anyone's privacy. I want to see how the US stops spying on everyone and regulates its own companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft. I get that banning tiktok is done out of competition over information etc. But the US certainly has no right to claim moral high ground or argue in favor of trying to protect anyone.

flora_explora , 2 months ago

Why not convince people to use Signal as well? Even my family has a group chat on Signal. Of course, it's a slow move with most people sticking to non-open chats. But it's worth the effort I would say.

flora_explora , 2 months ago

That's always the problem with monopolies and big corporations. They make it harder for you as an individual to use alternatives.

flora_explora , 2 months ago

Meanwhile I can do all that what you describe on Signal just as easily as that. A friend of mine often sends me Instagram reels on signal because I don't have any insta account. And I actually don't know anyone who has or at least uses a fb account anymore xD

flora_explora , 2 months ago

Oof, I only read a third of the article until the authors starts talking about tech clusters in detail. But it seems so weird to me how so many economically focused people seem to have a very strong tunnel vision and see the world only in terms of economic growth and nothing else. Like, in the whole introduction there is no mention at all of the environment and how we have already more than surpassed its limits in many ways. How the global north's growth heavily relies on exploiting the people and the environment of the global south. Of course there was a lot more economic growth in Europe and the US when they could depend on colonialism and slavery. What I want to say is that, while the proposed question might be interesting, not even considering these factors is a huge oversight. I don't get how these fans of capitalism can understand so little of how it works. Like those economy "experts" who have been praising neoliberalism as benefitting everyone for ages but have made most people's lives miserable.

flora_explora , 2 months ago

Well, I would love to talk about fundamental research. But the author of the article actually conflates research and economical growth. That's why I was discussing the problems that come up when you only focus on economic growth. Especially fundamental research is not expected to reliably generate economic benefits. That's the whole point of it.

I think that the author actually gave the answer, or at least a more compelling one, in the article itself: any research and especially fundamental research gets harder the more you already know. We already plucked all the low- and medium-hanging fruits. Now we need to wrestle more and more with much harder niche problems often on much smaller or bigger scale (transistors on atom level vs huge climate models).

The author may also have conflated research with its economic output out of a confusion. In my view, the opposite is the case. Research is more and more under capitalist pressure to produce output, to compete with other researchers and to publish whatever you can in record time. This is detrimental to research, as this competition leads to many more papers that are nonsensical or that only lead to tiny progressions. No one has time to actually research anything in depth because you have to publish right away and have to persuade investors that your research is the next breakthrough. Under heavy competition, researchers then begin to steal findings from each other or try to cheat in some other way. The supposed room-temperature superconducter finding last year was such a case where they tried to publish their findings before the rest of the team. Had they spend just more time researching, they may have found that it actually wasn't a superconducter. Weren't they under such a financial pressure, they wouldn't even had the incentive to publish this finding. And then there are all these predatory journals that thrive under capitalist pressure.

This system is rotten. Research does not do well under capitalism. Maybe that's what the author tried to say as well? I doubt it but I haven't read the last part.

flora_explora , 3 months ago

Yesss! I love that feeling ♥

flora_explora , 3 months ago

Wow, what a great article! Thanks for sharing :)

flora_explora , 3 months ago

Well, obviously by living in the UK or a European country you benefit from (neo)colonialism and capitalism quite a lot. People here do have a certain responsibility, although more so in making their government and the involved economy take responsibility for their actions. It certainly is a strange position to be in, because you cannot really live ethically under capitalism. But we should still strive to change this, to abolish capitalism and to make the world a better place for everyone to live in. Just seeing that the world is unfair and continuing to exploit people for your own good is imo unethical.

Btw occupation is definitely not only based on military force but more often than not by capitalist exploitation. And occupation doesn't work in a way where you have one distinct group of people conquering some land or people. It rather is the combination of administrative and economic power, i.e. various companies exerting pressure, to maintain control over a people. So yes, if a company is benefitting from the capitalist exploitation of these people and is therefore continuing this exploitation, I would think they are in part responsible for the situation. And it would be unethical to support this domain with your money. Of course, it is a question of degree, because it certainly isn't as bad as directly giving the Taliban money but worse than giving the money to a less problematic country.

It is a bit like paying ExxonMobil, Coca-Cola or Nestlé for a hypothetical service. Do you really want to support them? If you have a choice, use something else. If you don't have a choice, protest against not having it.