Confirmed. A few weeks ago I did a multi-hour ride across a mountain pass in driving rain, protected only by Decathlon’s cheapest raincoat (the one that stuffs into its own pocket). Stayed bone dry.

Well, except shoes, which were sodden of course.

the face gets wet

Cap.

Intéressant en effet. Moi non plus je n’étais pas au courant de cette loi.

Since when did I claim to be “passionate” about anything? My proposal concerns new users, it’s in the title. I’m not a new user any more and I have a bunch of post and comments to my virtual name (not that it’s important, sure). But I now see that it would have been better if I had been pushed to another server when I signed up. Hence the proposal.

You’re just saying I should practice what I preach and get off LW, is that it? Can’t be bothered, but fair enough. My proposal here concerns new users.

Everyone can do what they like. I just believe we have a small opportunity to strengthen our offline communities, and we should take that opportunity.

Since when am I proposing a utopia? I’m proposing that people talk to people in their physical communities. Nothing more ambitious than that.

Terrifying. I saw it for myself last year in Shanghai and elsewhere (including Xinjiang).

This is what awaits the rest of us if we don’t push back. All governments want to do this, deep down. And China will soon be selling them off-the-peg kits. If we live in democracies, we need to quit the nihilism and cynicism, we need to realize what power we still have and get more involved in politics while there’s still time.

People not wanting to see hate speech or propaganda does not mean they are in echo chambers.

You know that bad guys are now calling your ideas “hate speech” and “propaganda”, right? And they believe it as much as you do. How do you propose to get out of this mess if not by talking?

That’s exactly what they’re saying - and believing - about you. Meanwhile they have the power. Good luck.

Well, if the true nature of the fediverse is to encourage people to silo themselves into echo chambers where they never have to deal with others who don’t already share all their values and opinions - if that’s truly the point of this thing - then yes, apparently I’m wasting my time here. I still hope there’s a better way.

This - IMO - is the kind of thinking that has got US politics into the state it’s in today.

Bird laments that the decline of traditional travel writing erodes a more humanistic understanding of the country, insights that cannot be replicated by digital snapshots.

So true.

The publication history on China guidebooks confirms this decline: DK Eyewitness’ last China guide appeared in 2021, Fodor’s in 2019, Rough Guides and Insight Guides in 2017, and Frommer’s as far back as 2012.

Really sad.

Yes and I answered that argument

There’s only one mexican instance

Join it and make it better.

it uses a whitelist and it fucking federates with grad

Change that fact, or accept it, or use blocking features (which are not lacking).

Sure, these won’t be popular suggestions, but IMO social media should not be just another form of shopping, where we pick exactly what agrees with us best, and annoys us least, and then lock the door to keep everything else out.

So the recommended unit can be the nearest server with any critical mass. If you’re in Greece you get pushed to whatever’s the leading .gr server. Ultimately it doesn’t matter much since we can all interact with everything via federation. My point is that this might responsibilize users more, and encourage communities to overlap with the offline world a bit more - a place where community is very much needed right now.

Putting aside your insults and arrogant tone, I’ll just stress that my suggestion is political, it has nothing to do with technical factors.

As a bubble-ensconced expat you’re likely in a different category!

But sure. My proposal is that if you sign up from a Czech IP, you get pushed to whatever’s the most local server with more than X active users, or X recent uptime ratio, for example.

Yes indeed, but partly the problem with those places is that their bias towards conflict and toxicity is fueled by ad-based algorithms.

This need not concern the physical location of the servers, just their purpose and audience.