didn't expect myself to be in the top 1.03%, as i only joined in 2020. which is 6 years ago. holy shit. maybe pasting a huge lorem ipsum or ai-word-slop in here would put me in the glorious top 1%!
I picked a random throwaway which made two comments a few months ago and then disappeared, it was still within the top 25%. I'd guess the vast majority of 774235 accounts are unused, spam, or single use throwaways.
unrelated tangent, sorry. i agree with your comment, just ranting/venting about a detail.
> a very left-wing state such as California.
seeing any US state being described as "very left-wing" is interesting to me, think it just shows how different these views are depending on who you ask. i'd describe California as Centrist. sure, socially open, no issue with sexuality or heritage. but also, free markets, corpo power, $$$, generally pro-system. the Orange is disliked heavily, but after all it's not the system which is the problem, it's the Orange!
> The userbase here is considerably further left
can't agree, from my own experiences of discussing political topics on here. again, socially open, free minds, sure. but positive towards Silicon Valley, VC-funding, investments and a general lean towards Imperialism(for freedom, of course, not the bad kind). yes, overtly racist comments get downvoted until they're dead.
"further left than very left-wing" could be the description of an anarcho-communist, self-hosted mastodon instance, not a US state.
That's the problem with trying to put political opinion on a one dimensional scale. California is definitely very far left wing on the matters that concern the discussion at hand, that is illegal immigration and law enforcement actions related to it.
Thats not left/right, thats lib/auth. But I guess you cant scare people with "ooooh the government likes elements of civil freedom" it just isnt spooky enough, you gotta try and tangle it up with leftism somehow to really push the point home.
>seeing any US state being described as "very left-wing" is interesting to me, think it just shows how different these views are between US and Euro. i'd describe California as Centrist. sure, socially open, no issue with sexuality or heritage. but also, free markets, corpo power, $$$, generally pro-system. the Orange is disliked heavily, but after all it's not the system which is the problem, it's the Orange!
California is considering a wealth tax which is already causing billionaires to flee the state.
> It's the Europeans who want us to ship more weapons to Ukraine.
well, you chose the one "good" example, where weapons are actually used for defense against a different Imperialist. what about the money going towards the Palestinian Genocide? what about other wars/invasions/operations, started or backed by Democrats/Bi-Partisan support.
> California is considering a wealth tax
a one-time tax of 5% on the net worth of residents with over $1 billion, bunch of commies!
some decades ago, wealth tax was a high, double-digit number.
even so, do you think a one-time 5% wealth tax is enough to be called very left-wing?
>well, you chose the one "good" example, where weapons are actually used for defense against a different Imperialist.
It's interesting that in the conflict you have the greatest familiarity with, you support greater US involvement. In other conflicts, you appear to fall back on simple thinking like "dropping bombs is bad, therefore the US is bad".
I would suggest that many Americans have internalized the simple message Europeans have been sending for years: "dropping bombs is bad, therefore the US is bad". And that's why we lack enthusiasm to help Ukraine. We know helping Ukraine will be added to our rap sheet as supposed warmongers.
Personally I am quite envious of the Swiss, and think a Swiss foreign policy would be very good for the US. We have to stop trying to take responsibility for what is going on in other continents. Dropping bombs is bad, therefore the US is bad -- in Ukraine, Israel, everywhere really.
>even so, do you think a one-time 5% wealth tax is enough to be called very left-wing?
if you get caught in high-school fake-clearing your TI, you may get a failed grade for this specific exam and/or detention.
if you get caught doing an illegal activity in an authoritarian dictatorship, you face fines and/or prison time or death.
of course we can compare these situations to use them as light analogies, but i think that's about where the comparison ends. or in other words, of course you can 1:1 compare situations if you completely dismiss the potential consequences.
having the spirit to free yourself from fascism is needed, but you may get shot while trying to flee to safety or while being pinned to the ground, defenseless.
The more the world can do to normalize good personal security & privacy, the harder it is going to be for regimes.
Iran has had to turn off the internet for good to maintain their vicious violent theocratic totalitarianism. They had to basically give up technology, pull the plug. Sure that demonstrates them "winning", them having control, but also, they couldn't monitor everyone, they couldn't control technology, and their nation will be immensely poorer and worse generally, in remarkably huge ways, because they lost so hard & had no choice.
The declaration of Independence of cyberspace was over the top & ridiculous, but it's right. These states have extremely limited power, and are smaller, much smaller, than the noosphere that surrounds them. With extreme injury states can secluded themselves, like a North Korea, to maintain control. But humankind comes from man the tool maker, homo erectus, and that has been and will keep being our better side. Giving the bastards up above hell, building liberatory, private systems isn't nearly as pointless and hopeless and useless as your 100% all negative don't even try view would indicate, we do have power, especially if we work broadly to improve the general footing, rather than building just exceptional war-time tooling.
> Invest your money (e.g. world passive mutual fund, or VT ETF).
i despise stock markets, investments etc., so i just kind of have accepted that i'll probably never grow my money passively. from time to time i stumble across advice like yours, talking about ETFs, and feel a bit left out again.
money just sits in my bank account with close to 0% interest. i know that ETFs would slowly generate more money, but i also know that my money would then be invested in a ton of companies i absolutely don't want to be a part of, even when considering that my sums would be a drop in an ocean.
There are ETFs that specifically exclude companies with lots of negative externalities (no Exxon, etc.). The term to look for is "socially responsible".
a bit ironic to recommend a "socially responsible" ETF, managed by the one and only UBS.
but you're right, i forgot that my socially responsible bank claims to have socially responsible ETFs. i just hope that they are actually socially responsible, and not "socially responsible".
lots of things claim to be socially, ecologically or otherwise responsible, but that's exactly my issue. they're claims, most of the time just [insert color]washing.
Sports Betting Scandals have been a thing for probably almost as long as sports exist, i don't get why you think that this was a thoughtcrime 10 years ago?
after reading all of these mastodon threads and gists, something really irks me.
this ptorrone guy acts in some pretty questionable ways and constantly uses his wife and kids as a shield. if someone gets harassed out of nowhere and their kids or spouses are being dragged into it, then that's truly a horrible, shitty thing to do. but to be involved in and start flame-wars, doxxing campaigns and more and then constantly having to mention that you have a newborn when people push back sounds pretty manipulative.
smacks someone on their neck, "don't hit me back, man, i got kids and a wife!"
US would probably have a large impact as well, of course because lots of internet-users are from the US, but also because the US likes to astroturf as well.
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