takeheart @ takeheart @lemmy.world Posts 21Comments 231Joined 2 yr. ago


According to the study 37% of participants verify information before sharing it on social media.
There you have it folks.
Disinformation campaigns don't need to be super convincing with the latest tech or elaborate fake outs, although it certainly helps. For the masses (ie election interference) it's easy enough to to establish narratives, vibes by users simply sharing headlines to fake or manipulative reports. The people that bother to deep check and cross reference sources you typically couldn't convince anyway. Sadly enough, most users never read beyond the head lines (75% this Facebook study estimates).
Think of your own feed: how many head lines // posts do you just scroll by w/out ever opening them? Even if you don't share actively it still can influence the your perception of the world today and shape your mood.
Social media is eating away at the fundamentals of Democracy đ« , change my mind!

Saw the small preview thumbnail for this post and was expecting some historic laquered helmet or some thing. đ«ą

Oh I knew I had to check it out once I saw the artist name; he did a lot of the tracks for Unreal Tournament 1 from 1999.

As the saying goes: listen not to what politicians say, but watch what they do.
By his own previous public proclamation anyone cooperating with the extremist AfD is to be expelled from his party. If he had decency he would now self-expel.

Hmm this section sounds familiar:
The persecution drove hundreds of directors, managers and workers â including the author â into exile and/or imprisonment. In their place, the government appointed political operators, lacking knowledge and experience in the oil sector, who provided unconditional support to Maduroâs policies but damaged the companyâs operational capacities, bypassing all control or accountability mechanisms.
That's essentially what Trump admin wants to do. Fire civil servants en masse, replace with loyalists (proficiency for the job is optional).Then if something is goes wrong, and it will, just blame it on DEI, Biden, wokeness or something.

Honestly, there's nothing wrong with career bureaucrats // civil servants per se. ÂżDo you want to swap out every geologist, accountant, teacher, interpreter, ranger, manager, safety inspector, lawyer, technician, secretary every 4 years? These people literally run the country and by extension allow society to continue. And they are part of the idea that power and expertise are spread amongst many people.
Is it fair to criticize individuals, agencies, institutions. Yes. Is there corruption, mismanagement, incompetence? All the time, happens for any sufficiently large enough organization.
But no need to spin this into some bonkers conspiracy theory.

I've updated my initial comment.

This guy literally wrote a book about what he dubs "the executive branch deep state" including a list of high profile names he wants to target.
It's all out in the open. Confirmation hearings are supposed to weed out people like him.
Edit: the way I previously worded my comment it might have been construed as me stating Patel was rightfully going after these people. Instead I meant to indicate that they rightfully resisted/investigated Trump.

Die AFD dann so:
Russland war ĂŒber Jahrzehnte ein zuverlĂ€ssiger Lieferant und Garant einer erschwinglichen Energieversorgung, die aufgrund unserer energieintensiven Industrie die Achillesferse der deutschen Volkswirtschaft darstellt. Zur Wiederherstellung des ungestörten Handels mit Russland gehören die sofortige Aufhebung der Wirtschaftssanktionen gegen Russland sowie die Instandsetzung der Nord Stream Leitungen.

Used to have a ThinkPad decades back. Still remember Howard comfortable the typing was.

It's crazy to think that while we now live in a globalized, interconnected society with billions of peoples yet Dunbar's hasn't changed from when we formed tribes and harmlets thousands of years ago.
A lot of the structures and institutions of modern society essentially center around somehow overcoming or side stepping Dunbar's number: to reliably interact with strangers, ease tensions and achieve greater things (from credit scores to spelling dictionaries to standard sized clothing to electing representatives to online wikis to opening hours, calendars and time zones; the list goes on an on).

tacking on: https://european-alternatives.eu/
These are all digital services. Europe has strong data protection and privacy regulation. The US tech billionaires throwing in their lot with the Trump administration gives them plenty of leverage if push comes to shove.

p 698 of project 2025 document:
The federal income tax system heavily taxes capital and corporate income and discourages work, savings, and investment. The public finance literature is clear that a consumption tax would minimize governmentâs distortion of private economic decisions and thus be the least economically harmful way to raise federal tax revenues.
more riches to capital and corporations, consumers will pay for it. it's all in there

One of her arguments against the allegation of her spewing Russian talking points was that she doesn't follow Russian Propaganda.
Truthfulness aside, that argument is not the elegant dodge that she probably thinks it is. Because that speaks against her informedness. As someone applying for this job she should be interested or better yet well versed in what current Russian propaganda is, how it is disseminated, who the target audience is, how well it is working, and how it relates to the wider goals of the Russian regime.
Strangely enough Robert Kenney also made use of a similar defensive veil a couple of times. Well I'm not a medical expert, so I really couldn't tell you. đ Bro, why are you applying for this position then?

Ach ja, Starcraft. Die ausgehenden 1990er Jahre zĂ€hlen nicht umsonst zum golden age of gaming.đ

I think in that scenario it's more likely that they would "buy the dip" then that they would up and leave. Some of the billionaires also want to found their own techno-fashist fiefdoms. This could be a good catalyst for that.

Saw a policy expert say it's a mixture of 3 things really:
- Trump likes to blame outsiders for problems and this is well received by his loyal base and gives off strongman vibes
- long term plan to switch from income tax (scales the more you earn) to consumption taxes (the poorer you are the more you pay for for consumption, relatively speaking) which benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. this wealth transfer is easier to sell when the populace is focused on outsiders
- Trump doesn't understand basic economics
source: https://youtu.be/2I1L1fXaYDs

Bei echt vielen online shops ist es mittlerweile möglich schnell und unkompliziert zu bestellen (dh ohne Anmeldung oder Konto). Das war fĂŒr mich frĂŒher als oft eine kleine HĂŒrde: noch einen Account, den man sich anlegen muss, noch ein Passwort zu verwalten, noch ein Newslettern abbestellen. Und ĂŒbersichtlich gestaltete Seiten mit Suchfunktion sind auch gang und gebe geworden.
Amazing ist ĂŒbrigens schon lange nicht mehr der gĂŒnstigste Anbieter per se. Sie sind jetzt in der "squeeze" Phase in der sie ihre Marktmacht, Integration und die TrĂ€gheit der Kunden ausnutzen können.

There's so many parts and pieces that all failed to get to where we are today. Each time you reflect a moment and realize that we shouldn't be be here in the first place:
- The FBI // justice department shouldn't be a tool of personal revenge.
- But wait Trump/Musk shouldn't have become presidents to begin with.
- Voters should be educated and well informed enough to simply not vote for an autocrat.
- Merrick Garland should never have become attorney general and even so Biden should have pressured him hard to do his job.
- Trump should have been impeached multiple times already.
- But the democrats too should have had a better alternative candidate.
- The democrats should have had a real primary contest.
- Biden should have never announced to run for another term out of the blue.
- And his handlers shouldn't have tried to hide his frailty for so long.
- If only Donald Trump should have been sentenced for his many crimes.
- And he shouldn't have had the backing of the Republican party for this long.
- Arguably voters should have realized he's inept the first time around.
- The media shouldn't have sensationalized him as much when he first ran as a publicity stunt
The list is not exhaustive and goes on and on...
And in the background there's all the systemic failures and problems that enabled this: terrible public education, ignoring a large chunk of the electorate for too long, citizens united, social media and outrage culture, rampant disinformation and propaganda disguised as news, the electoral college and de facto 2 party system, too few checks and balances being hard codified, obvious loop holes like presidential pardons, ...
Petty sure historians will analyze this for generations. If we will still live in a world where historians are allowed to about their work freely.

Had to reimage my deck; impressed by how well a backup of my home folder carried over system and app settings

The Creation of the World (Die Erschaffung der Welt) - author unknown; book painting on parchment; circa 1270; Austrian National Library


custom vehicle manufactured for an expedition to explore the Belgium Congo in 1938; for when you wanna explore the jungle but can't possibly part with the amenities of your penthouse


The Chocolate Girl (La Belle ChocolatiĂšre) - by Jean-Ătienne Liotard; pastel painting with Gouache accents; 1743-1744


had to rescue data via a live USB boot. turns out the USB image got corrupted too

the official dock is never quite plug & play when it comes to an external display (DVI)

Notre-Dame-de-GrĂące/ Our Lady of Grace - by A'shop (spray paint mural, 2011)


TIL about Titivillus a medieval demon that would feed on misspellings, mispronounced syllables and mumbled words. He was considered a natural enemy and tempter of scribes.

ÂżWhy does Discover (the software installation manager) occasionally offer me downgrades to lower version numbers in the updates section?

Utah Supreme Court Rules That Alleged Sexual Assault by a Doctor Is Not âHealth Careâ