flabberghaster

flabberghaster wrote

Reply to i deleted duolingo by emma

I hopped on Duolingo for a way to brush up on Spanish but all the questions are easy. I'm told i can just keep skipping ahead beyond where it puts you automatically, but I took their level assessment quiz to place me and I got no questions wrong at all.

I think they might be good for "I know three sentences of XYZ language or less, and want to be able to read a newspaper article" or something, but I don't know how much the format can help someone whose level is at "I can pretty much hold a conversation with a native speaker, if they're patient and understanding."

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flabberghaster wrote

Reply to worlds best post censored by moderators becomes worlds greatest controversy. its title? "heh... by facts and logic... you must vote for joe biden" by twovests

Even though I know a trump win will be disastrous, I will not be voting for Genocide Joe for two main reasons. Three really.

The first is, given my state, my vote doesn't matter. But I feel that that is a huge cop out, and I acknowledge that. There's so many things people say "well my opinion on it doesn't matter so I don't need a position on this." If you're weighing in on politics, you're implicitly saying you want people to take you and your politics seriously so you have to have an answer for how you'd like things. So, I won't be voting for him, and it doesn't matter if I do or don't, but I'm not just trying to avoid the question.

Number two, the dude spent the entire primary saying everything I want politically is stupid and he has zero interest in it. He then spent his entire term in office continuing to say all the stuff I wanted (student loan cancellation, climate action, an end to the maltreatment of refugees, I could go on) was never gonna happen. He doesn't want my vote. He thinks he can get by without it and he thinks we're all silly for having the politics we do. Maybe he's right, I don't know.

Third, the man is engaged in an ongoing genocide. This is a red line. I will never vote for him. Even if he had done every other thing I wanted, I find it shocking that saying "assisting in a genocide is a red line for me" seems to be an alien concept for a lot of people.

I won't vote for 99% Hitler to stop 100% Hitler because I won't vote for Hitler.

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flabberghaster wrote (edited )

Reply to I hate the victimism surrounding the discourse of Facebook possibly EEE'ing the fediverse like in XMPP by nitori

Take the big corporation's move as a victory and vindication of your open cause, but also see it as a wake-up call and challenge to support your favorite implementation's developers and their spec writers, whether by money, code, or simple evangelism ("hey bestie look at Misskey it has custom reactions which you can't do in Threads!")

I sort of think this is wrong. The reason they're currently playing nice is because they see a green field that's open to them. Fediverse has been a success! This is true! They wouldn't bother to EEE it I'd it hadn't been.

But, this is always how it goes. This is the "embrace" phase of the cycle. I don't think the people who are virulently opposed to Facebook integrating are oblivious to that. And also, using it as an opportunity to tout features threads still lacks, I think, is a losing game, because Facebook has billions if dollars and the ability to clone any features someone might want. An open project like any if the fedi clients cannot compete with them on features, all it has is the ability to say "we're not going to enable a genocide like FB does and we're a bit better at respecting your autonomy and privacy."

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