The founding fathers set this shit up and they knew it was going to go sideways from the moment they signed the paperwork. If anything, it likely lasted longer than they imagined it would.

“A republic, if you can keep it” - Benjamin Franklin, 1787

Except that they most certainly are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States - hell, they pay federal taxes. They aren’t subject to the jurisdiction of any particular state is all.

I know you’re joking, but it made me think.

On platforms like Twitter I never felt seen. I felt like I was talking to myself for the 30 seconds I actually engaged with it (I never could stand the format or the interface really).

On Lemmy I do feel seen, because it’s so much smaller. I know people read what I write and I get way more feedback here than I’ve ever gotten since (maybe) 2010-era Reddit.

But important? Anyone who can use the Internet to make themselves feel important must have been a sociopath to begin with because as near as I can tell the Internet is a misery machine designed to make you feel like a dumbshit.

Come to think of it, that’s probably why I hate the entire concept of “influencers” and the human toilets who call themselves that.

And yet not a single word in that entire article about bots being used to post on Internet forums to engineer public opinion, which is certainly what came to my mind when I read the headline.

The closest it comes is the section where it admits that because they’re all spoofing known Big Tech scrapers, they can’t actually say how much of any particular activity is actually going on beyond some broad generalizations.

I can confirm though - my web server was positively getting hammered until I locked it down with fail2ban.

I’ve been through pretty much every stage shown here and now I’m firmly in the “I don’t know” camp. It feels like I’ll be here until I’m dead, tbh. Not that it matters (maybe).

taps_head.jpg can’t scan my camera roll if I don’t have one.

Well fuck. I was worried it was going to drag out for far too fucking long, but now that the orange turd has said it’s over I’m absolutely certain it’s going to drag out for far too fucking long.

This is their wet dream, but I’ll never participate.

Edit: I don’t participate now. I pay for no subscriptions, no streaming services, and I use no cloud services. Oh, and I’m now completely Microsoft-free since October last year.

Which won’t matter at all once they start losing market share to Microsoft’s stupid decisions. The world will not sit on its thumbs because of Fortnight players. And good riddance in any case.

Windows? Facebook?

lol

I’ve never once posted on the Internet using a real name. I’ve never been a member of any social anything other than Reddit and Lemmy. I only even found Reddit because an IRC link aggregator I used to browse for news/memes went tits up.

Yeah, reflecting back on the hell he made my life with all that antitrust shit recently really got me ashamed I’d ever slipped and given him any generous thoughts at all. The dude is a piece of shit, through and through.

I’m without question one of the 90% and I never thought they were going to require it for everyone. But I don’t like the idea that an algorithm is constantly writing a dossier about me to determine my “age” because I wasn’t fucking born yesterday.

Open source your shit and make it auditable or I’m not fucking using it anymore.

Market’s a pump and dump now. Down 800 today, up 1200 tomorrow. Everything recovers in days or maybe weeks and always to new highs. Even covid recovered in less than a year. This is not a normal market, it’s just pretending to be.

(you can donate to their defense fund)

I’m pretty certain we’re not going to spend our way out of this. If the answer is not to seize the means of production, then we’re gonna have to at least seize the means of oppression. Everything billionaires own in any country that means to be free should be seized.

This won’t happen, of course, until they wreak a lot more havoc, unfortunately the havoc they are wreaking is not laying the groundwork for the countries that host them to be more free.

Are there influence agents on lemmy, like paid bot supported agents pushing bullshit like on the major social media, or was this guy for real?

Bet on it.

Edit: influence agents, that is

But like, what about the UN ( i know, i know).

Well, I mean, do you? You’re asking about a body created by and hosted in the US and funded also largely by the US. It’s toothless and useless because nobody has ever done anything substantial to legitimize it except the US and now that the US has decided that unilateral fascism is the easy path, what exactly does anyone expect?

It’s like a microcosm of the sum of Europe’s problems rn, tbh.

So my wife is a Pats fan, which pretty much makes me a Pats fan… but yeah, this was an embarrassment. Both the defenses put on a decent showing. The Pats offense just could not protect Mays.

And like Christ, in earthly ways our brave warriors are not called to appease the world, they must confront it.

“Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.” John 18:36

Everything that comes out of these people’s mouths is white nationalist revisionist bullshit because they all gave up any cause for Actual Bible Jesus a long time ago, which is its own brand of bullshit, so whatever I guess. I’m just sick of people in positions of power feeling comfortable shoving their fairy stories down everybody’s throats.

Congress can impeach and convict for any offense at all, which would remove him from the presidency. Short of that, a president may do as he pleases, because the courts have no similar analog. Sad to say it, but it’s true.