FriendOfDeSoto
Joined the Mayqueeze.
- 3 Posts
- 526 Comments
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•Would the United States actually risk a Tiananmen Square incident?English
2·2 days agoLet’s hope then that I’m right and even out of towners of the armed forces will not want to shoot.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•If a person assassinates a king or queen its called Regicide. What is the killing of a leader/president/head of state etc? Why is it called that way?English
11·2 days agoRegicide is a Latin lego word created at a time when people had long stopped speaking proper Latin. It combines “of the king” with “killer.” It followed an established pattern like fratricide, killer of the brother. Note that we slightly perverted the Latin grammar over time by using these words to speak of the killing rather than the killer.
My Latin is shit. I’m not aware of a snappy expression that encompasses “Head of state or government” so we can add -cide to the end like all political scandals since Watergate get -gate at the end.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•Would the United States actually risk a Tiananmen Square incident?English
0·2 days agoYou are more supporting my gut feeling here by invoking Kent State. A handful of people died there; hundreds+ died in Beijing.
A situation like Kent State is very possible but they will have learned the lesson and it won’t be NG or other armed forces opening fire. It’ll be the obese SA or a right-wing militia that opens fire from a sniper’s nest.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•Would the United States actually risk a Tiananmen Square incident?English
01·2 days agoNeighbors, countrymen - choose your own metaphor.
I’m no expert on the people’s army. I don’t think they had any way to refuse an illegal order. The US armed forces do have this. I think there are enough people in the US military that would refuse to shoot on protestors. Supposed drug smugglers are the out group and scruples are sadly low enough not to refuse that illegal order. Sending in the tanks in Minneapolis or Boston to shoot on their in group would be crossing the line. Not a good, sterdy, moral line but a line nonetheless.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•Would the United States actually risk a Tiananmen Square incident?English
61·3 days agoFirst of all, I don’t think the Anerican military would follow that order. Shooting supposed drug smugglers illegally and shooting your neighbors illegally are two different kettle of fish for us humans who want to belong to sonething.
They would have to turn off the internet including satellites and then destroy all camera capable gadgets, maybe with an EMP. I think this is too much hassle. There won’t be a Tiananmen Sq in the US. The Chinese could control the narrative internally and didn’t give af about the rest of the world - in 1989. As we see in Iran today, the world is but a village and footage travels fast. The risk is too high.
But keep looking at ICE or “proud” militias. I would not be surprised to hear about these bastards sniping at protest leaders or even rando participants to discourage more protests. Look for fat guys on roofs.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•Screen time needs to be regulated ?English
51·3 days agoWe live in a world where screens have taken over. Our children’s are showing early sign of anxiety, depression, eye issues , wearing glasses at young age because of being exposed to screens for long time.
I have a problem with this paragraph. You present this as fact and I don’t think it is. Anxiety and depression are not caused by screens. More known cases can also be attributed to people caring about this more than ever. More kids with glasses may be more due to improvements in medical care. We’ve been getting more short sighted as a species ever since looking out for the sabertooth tiger wasn’t a survival issue any more. If you want to get people onboard the arguments need to work and these don’t do it for me. 80s kids didn’t get squared eyes from watching too much TV, 90s kids didn’t all turn into homicidal maniacs due to video games - this strikes me as arguments along the same oversimplified lines.
I’m not opposed to regulating screen time for children. What I don’t think works is a government mandated restriction. How would you even enforce that within a family home? An unintended side effect will be the need to ID every user, taking away the opportunity to use the web anonymously, and risking the leak of personalized information from giant data bases. The risks outweigh the usefulness for me.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•Upstairs neighbor deadlifting in his apartmentEnglish
2·3 days agoI understand your rage. Has being enraged made this situation better? Management brushed you off. You could try calling the cops but I wouldn’t pin any hope on that. What else are you going to do? Keep in mind that if you’re the party that keeps playing loud music at odd hours you will probably end up the subject of a complaint by your direct neighbors.
We live in a society. Society includes among other things dicks and injustices. You have come across the former and suffer the latter. I understand why you’re pissed off. Every action you take that isn’t the measured response of an adult will decrease your chances of solving this problem. Not having gotten in touch directly with your neighbor - that should have been step one, which you have missed. Petty retaliation - as much as I get the urge - is another misstep.
As far as I can see it, you have three choices:
(1) Continue escalation, which will feel good in the moment but has only a very low chance of succes.
(2) Move apartments.
(3) Follow the advise by a [email protected] in this thread. Keep in mind that your position in that is strengthened by being a flawless, rule-abiding victim.
There is no point in telling me how they are weird hermits or about whatever assholery they also get up to on the reg. I don’t care if they also eat puppies for dinner. You already have my sympathy here. You need to calm the fuck down for a second to realize that (3) is your best strategy if you’re not willing to move. And if you cannot resist the urge to argue with me about this in all caps, then I wish you all the best.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
Fediverse@lemmy.world•Is there any Fediverse project aimed at creating a safe space for kids to interact within?English
8·3 days agoI don’t think that what you are envisioning and the fediverse are necessarily a good fit. The fediverse is potentially able to network with every other instance operating on the same protocol. With every instance you add more potential to have bad actors within reach.
a system for stricter content moderation, especially something that would automatically delete NSFW/NSFL posts,
There is no tool that can automatically remove everything. There is also the Scunthorpe problem. And there aren’t enough moderators in the world to do this job safely for children that don’t also expect remuneration for their services. And then you need to add in the cross cultural differences in what constitutes NSF anything. Maybe in a few years you can train a model to do a decent job with this.
The protocol can probably be adapted to fit most of your requirements. But the fediverse is held together by donations, sweat, and duct tape. It’s having a hard enough time attracting adults; I don’t think a kids version is in the works. Plus, there are now real legal hurdles like in Australia.
Personally, I wouldn’t want my kids to social network until they are 15-16. Before that I’d try to keep them in services and settings where I’m the moderator. And only after having not only the birds and the bees talk but also the know about grooming, no nudes, and no bullying talks you can slowly release them into the wild. And at that age they will not want to sit at the kids table any more.
Dass die Grünen mehr ihrer Politikziele jetzt, wo sie nicht mehr in Regierungsverantwortung stehen, umgesetzt sehen können, ist der Treppenwitz der jüngeren Geschichte.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•How can I remain professional toward this female colleague I feel wants something romantic with me when I don't?English
5·5 days agoI would tread very carefully. If she just seems interested but doesn’t cross the line into stalking territory, I would do nothing to confront her about it. If she doesn’t take it well and goes to HR as an unrequited love revenge move, you’ll be sitting in unnecessary hot water. You can do everything right and still lose.
Treat her neutrally. If you can send down the office grapevine how you’re interested in this person outside the office, that’s about as aggressive as I would get. Try and keep a physical distance. Discourage physical contact and avoid situations where you’re alone with her.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
Technology@lemmy.world•TIL putting solar panels on land currently used for biofuels would produce enough electricity for all cars and trucks to go electricEnglish
4·6 days agoYou’d be surprised how many people don’t take the time to read a long article like that but will have a quick glance at the comments.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
Technology@lemmy.world•TIL putting solar panels on land currently used for biofuels would produce enough electricity for all cars and trucks to go electricEnglish
11·6 days agoAgain, our proposal isn’t that we should cover all of this land in solar panels, or that it could easily power the world on its own. We don’t account for the fact that we’d need energy storage and other options to make sure that power is available where and when it’s needed (not just when the sun is shining).
This is a thought experiment more than a plan.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
Fediverse@lemmy.world•Chinese propaganda is rampant on the fediverseEnglish
22·6 days agoYou are your own algorithm. If you see a lot of propaganda or whatever, it’s because you chose that content at one point or another. And you can just as easily stop seeing it by unfollowing and blocking.
Also, evidence. I see no signs of rampant propaganda on the fediverse, not on Lemmy or on Mastodon. Now, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. But that’s where you should provide examples so I can check for myself.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
Star Trek Social Club@startrek.website•35 Years Ago, Star Trek Retroactively Created New Canon, And No One NoticedEnglish
5·6 days agoI don’t think this was “blistering.” At the time watching it as a kid I thought it is weird that nobody ever talked about the Cardassians or the war before. But things get introduced like that in Star Trek. And it is a big universe. I don’t think this is the worst or the most pivotal of retconning because it fit into the story and quickly got expanded on.
Chekov hadn’t met Khan. WW3 didn’t happen in the 90s. Mark Leonard was both a Romulan AND Soock’s daddy. Picard meets versions of his parents during TNG that are nothing like the ones in PIC. Virtually all main TNG main characters lost at least one parent early in their life (or their sight). There is no way in hell that Riker can just stay #1 after Wolf 359 and not get his own ship. There wasn’t a queen but baby borgs! Scotty knew Kirk was dead already. And there are plenty of cases when beaming through shields is possible.
That’s just a few examples that grind my gears more than the introduction of the Cardassians. But I love Trek and am willing to forgive a lot.
Trek is a statue that many sculptors work on at different times. Inconsistencies must happen as a result. It’s not like The Expanse where the story has been written down before in great detail before they started filming. They took liberties from the original but would’ve succeeded at sculpting their piece of marble as planned if it hadn’t been for the assholery of a certain Mr. Anvar.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•Why do people pronounce ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) like it's a word?English
95·7 days agoWould it be acceptable in a conversation to talk about the I.C.E ?
I don’t see anybody getting thrown out of the house for daring to spell out an acronym that is usually pronounced as a word. What kind of people do you hang out with? It might cause confusion but context normally helps.
If you were speaking of I.C.E. to me I’d punch you in the face. Also if you referred to them as ICE. That’s because I refer to them, correctly, as the SS.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•Do you have any ideas on how to attract people from centralized platforms to such as lemmy?English
3·7 days agoAt this point in time, let them see what it’s like and if they join, great. If not, no biggie. The fediverse is not depending on user growth like any of the corporate platforms. And it is hindered by people having to learn to be their own algorithm.
Yes, it would be nicer to increase the ranks in certain Lemmies or on Mastodon. But I haven’t felt it’s tumbleweeds in any of my feeds lately - this may be very subjective. And I feel reddit or the Melon are doing a lot of the convincing for us at the same time.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
Technology@lemmy.world•Eric Schmidt: ‘Europe doesn’t have an AI strategy. If it doesn’t invest heavily, it will end up using Chinese models’English
3·7 days agoTo be fair to the lad, he didn’t peddle his wares. He just says if there isn’t a European strategy to develop their own models it is very likely that Europe would run on Chinese made ones that are more open source, whereas American ones become increasingly closed source and expensive to license. Now, that’s his prediction and I don’t really believe him. But this article at least doesn’t make it seem he wrapped his doom and gloom prediction in a Gemini sales pitch.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto
No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•What if the USA decided to use another language as its *de facto* national language at it's founding? Would it affect the world's lingua franca?English
7·7 days agoFirst of all, they did not pick any language at founding. They refused to settle on one. And I don’t think they ever changed that (although I wouldn’t put it past the current administration to do something like that because 47 has the best words as we all know). English is de facto the language of the US like Bern is de facto the capital of Switzerland but it isn’t set in stone.
German was briefly seriously discussed. That would have been funny.
I think the influence of the British Empire has done more to make English the lingua franca. But I think it is conceivable that we would be conducting a lot more diplomacy in French or Spanish if they had won out. But there are still huge chunks of Africa and Oceania that speak English. And Hockeyland. And big business hubs like Singapore or Hong Kong - the language of trade would still be English.





I’m not sure why you feel this way. It looks to me like you tried to do your best looking out in a reasonable way for a colleague in your group who was in a chemically altered state.
In the end, you’re not responsible for him. Don’t go partying with him again. If you end up in hell, it won’t be due to this stuff.