Speaking of which, this is a fascinating project.

https://russiadecolonized.com/

Well well, this is getting more interesting. Still not sure how this will play out. Mark Galeotti’s excellent book Putin’s Wars mentions several wannabe warlords whose escapades came to quick and bloody ends at the hands of Russian special forces or the FSB.

I’m actually a bit surprised Comrade Shitheel Prigozhin hasn’t met the same fate. Perhaps his Wagner wall of meat is still seen as having service to render to the Kremlin.

I don’t at all see Prigozhin as a leadership threat to Putin, but I like that he and Strelkov and Kadyrov are all busy trying to one up each other’s stupidity. I’m all for it as long as it hastens Russia’s battlefield defeat. If it leads to Russia’s decolonization, all the better.

The John Oliver pics weren’t quite sexy enough today.

@Kupo_Knight posted an article recently that I think is very relevant here:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-kept-gardens-die-by-pacifism

Racist is racist. Fuck them. I have no interest in appeasing these people, and even if I did, it wouldn’t calm them down or make their hatred tolerable. Sexists, racists, homophobes and the lot should be shunned without compromise. As the saying somewhat goes, there should be no tolerance for intolerance.

I have not seen it yet, though I have no doubt that it exists.

I believe that in real life as in the fediverse, hate speech and bigotry of all kinds needs to be very firmly shot down. Immediately downvote and block that shit. It has no place here, or anywhere.

That being said, debating or even engaging with these pricks is worse than pointless because you’ll never change their minds and will only give them a platform.

I can definitely see how that’s all frustrating, and I’m sure we all have our experiences with lag or with that goddamn Cloudflare verification or whatever, but I hope you and everyone else will stick around so we can help shape this space the way we want it. You’re already doing that with your comment above. Imagine the almost impossible chances of making suggestions to Reddit and having changes made. At least here that’s a possibility. I hope to see you around.

This is SUCH a good post. I love the energy of embracing the new, even with its inconveniences, and perhaps especially with them.

I’ve felt for years that this drive for convenience at any cost not only helps create bland societies and exacerbate environmental and economic destruction, but it also makes each of us that much less adaptable every year.

I’m weak as fuck, but I still believe there is essential value to be had in some discomfort and inconvenience on a somewhat regular basis, and this also goes for community-building, which I feel very fortunate to be witnessing in real-time.

In general I like the idea. My only suggestion as a caveat is that whenever possible we offer non-corporate alternative URLs instead of the types of sites the fediverse is trying to improve upon.

For example, post Invidious links instead of YouTube, Nitter links instead of Twitter, and just about any link you can think of instead of Google or Facebook.

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=U06rCBIKM5M

https://nitter.kylrth.com/ChristianSelig

Goddamn. I know people suffering with long covid. It doesn’t seem fun at all.

tl;dr I don’t understand feminism, at all.

Great shout out to Open Collective. Better to support open source community efforts than yet another corpo-profit-machine