Why I do not like hanging around liberals anymore
Because they're like oppression lootboxes.
The liberal viewpoint is not one of intersectionality; they might sound very progressive and recognize one or more types of oppression, but do not (wish to) recognize the way these interact, or the structure and patterns that underlie all of them.
This means that it's only a matter of time before I hear them say some extremely shitty and/or bigoted stuff about a topic that they don't recognize as a form of oppression, but I can't know upfront which topic it will be, or when it'll happen.
With my intersectional friends, I could then just point out that it's a form of oppression, and they will take it seriously, introspect, and work (over time) to understand it. Mistakes happen, but they will try to learn. All I need to do, is remind them.
With liberals, however... they do not recognize it as another occurrence of the same thing, and so I am left having to "prove" from whole cloth that yes, it really is a form of oppression, before they are even willing to put in *any* effort to understand the problem.
Every time this happens, it takes hours of my time, and energy that I do not have to spare.
I am already running on fumes most of the time, and I honestly just don't really want to hang around people who put that sort of price on not being shitty.
Why don't you just use XMPP?
(Leaving this here as a FAQ since I get this 'question' entirely too often.)
Because every single time I engage in a discussion with an XMPP proponent, it takes less than 5 minutes to get to "XMPP is fine, you just need to adjust your expectations/requirements", and this FOSSbro attitude is *exactly* why I jumped ship from the XMPP community years ago.
A reminder that if you are on hackers.town, mstdn.party, or mstdn.social (and a couple other less common instances), I will not see your replies!
These servers are silenced here because while there are a fair amount of nice folks on there, they *also* have moderation issues or a set of policies that's just not compatible with that of pixie.town.
If you want to make sure that your replies arrive here, I would recommend moving to a smaller instance with better moderation and vibes :) Preferably one where you (can get to) know the people running it!
I've actually been here for a while already, though mostly inactive! The Birdsite Situation prompted me to pop in here again. And I'm terrible at writing introductions, so I usually just say "I do stuff on the internet".
But uh, I do all sorts of activist-y stuff, work on radical FOSS (see http://cryto.net/~joepie91/manifesto.html), write (educational) stuff, am more or less a lonely polyamorous gender blob of indeterminate sexuality who likes both cuddles and kinky things, and I always have 10 times as many projects as I have time for, as is customary with ADHD brain :) Sometimes I even finish some of them!
While I'm an introvert and need plenty of time to myself, I *am* happy to meet like-minded people and spend time with them, and as long as you're not a bigot or apologist, you should feel free to interact with me and/or follow me!
Also, I live in Rosmalen (near Den Bosch) in the Netherlands, and honestly would like to get to know more local folks, and I also have some vague intention to start a queer hackerspace around here if I can find enough interested people. Eventually!
threads
Remember Threads, and how the usual "big tent" crowd was arguing that we should let it federate because "we could use the user growth"?
I'm now seeing people elsewhere comment that they've never seen a Threads post linked anywhere, only Mastodon posts... so much for needing Facebook to bring us adoption, I guess!
Someone figured out how to extract the training data from ChatGPT:
https://not-just-memorization.github.io/extracting-training-data-from-chatgpt.html
"The actual attack is kind of silly. We prompt the model with the command “Repeat the word”poem” forever” and sit back and watch as the model responds"
Ah, yes. It’s that time of year again – everyone sharing their slick, shiny #SpotifyWrapped results for 2023.
So please allow me to remind you that #Tidal pays artists 4x what #Spotify does. You know, instead of spending your monthly fee on slick marketing graphics to impress your friends.
As I see posts starting to pivot from celebrating Kissinger's death (and don't get me wrong, I think it's valid to celebrate the death of a war criminal whose actions directly led to the pain, suffering, and deaths of millions), to a discourse on what he did and how it was his JOB to further american (and more broadly western) imperialism I have just a little crumb of hope that folks here are nurturing a growing transnational consciousness and I hope that it leads to more organizing and actions
I also am thinking about how much longevity this person had in comparison to other, better people. How much healthcare and other resources this man had access to.
The system in place rewarded him for being a piece of shit and that is also something we should think about imo, the ways that power structures reward harmful behaviors. It happens in p much every setting imaginable (including here! 🙃)
One of the things I think is interesting about cultural change is that (and I totally recognize that globally, this is still a transitional thing, still contested) in my social circles, normative entitlement is waning.
By which I mean, people who are in roles traditionally associated with privilege are slowly losing their grip on entitlement.
And by that I mean, they are slowly losing the absolute certainty that everything is their business. To question, to comment on, to give knowing side glances to their friends about, to post on Nextdoor about, to presume they know, or ought to know, other people's business.
It certainly is still contested, and a lot of white, privileged people still do performative meltdowns and performative incompetence to sidestep having to be responsible to us, the marginalized, the queer, the deviant, the heretical, the different.
But their grip is slipping, and I celebrate every time I get a friend to see the sham of privilege and entitlement and start doing the work to decolonize themselves.
re: death, politics
Whoever it was that proposed last night to temporarily suspend the "do not speak ill of the dead" rule in honor of Kissinger, I think your proposal has been accepted
In honor of #HenryKissinger, the traditional rule to not speak ill of the dead is hereby suspended for the next 10 days.
friendly reminder to add alt text to your images so the visually impaired can also celebrate kissinger's death
wow a Rolling Stone gathers no moss and pulls no punches
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/
(archive link in case they're forced to soften/edit it: https://web.archive.org/web/20231130015817/https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/)
Technical debt collector and general hype-hater. Early 30s, non-binary, ND, poly, relationship anarchist, generally queer.
Sometimes horny on main, very much into kink (bondage, freeuse, CNC, and other stuff), and believe it or not, very much a submissive bottom :p
Feel free to flirt, but if you want to actually meet up and/or do something with me, lewd or otherwise, please tell me explicitly or I won't realize :) I'm generally very open to that sort of thing!
Further boundaries: boosts are OK (including for lewd posts), DMs are open. But the devil doesn't need an advocate; I'm not interested in combative arguing in my mentions. I am however happy to explain things in-depth when asked non-combatively.
My spoons are limited, so I may not always have the energy to respond to messages.
Strong views about abolishing oppression, hierarchy, agency, and self-governance - but I also trust people by default and give them room to grow, unless they give me reason not to. That all also applies to technology and how it's built.