Isnt that how all social media sites start out. Starts with nerd culture and eventually other people come in later?
Exactly my thoughts. Back in the day when I joined the Instagram in the first month of launch there were only professional photographers posting some great stuff, it was fun until celebs and general public started using it.
Those darn celebrities, always ruining people's fun on social media.
I wonder when one of them is going to show up on Lemmy...
Of course I am.
Would esteemed Academy Award nominated character actress (and producer) Margot Robbie ever lie to you on the internet?
Honestly, this schtick is so tired and played out. I don't believe you are who you claim to be, and even if you are, so fucking what? Big fucking deal. Its honestly pathetic if you really are her constantly going "hey look, it's me!". And if you're not her, why are you running around the internet cosplaying it?
You seem mentally ill and everyone needs to stop enabling your delusions.
So normies are the original enshittifiers, then corporations come in. I knew it, I should have stayed a shut-in.
If the response from The City of San Diego to Tom Cruise visiting is any indication, they seem to be allergic to people experiencing homelessness. Invite more people experiencing homelessness to keep them out?
/mild s
That's how social media was invented. I remember when computers were things that only geeks and nerds were into. And then Neverending September happened, and suddenly normies were everywhere on the internet. We create something new to congregate, and they just invite themselves in after we make it popular. MySpace, Facebook, Reddit...even IRC and Geocities were taken over by them. We eventually took back Usenet at least, but only because it stopped being free for most people.
Haha, the appeal of political science to me is less about arguing with strangers about the news and more talking about broader philosophies and theories and then applying them to what we are seeing in the world. I feel like I can have a more nuanced conversation about the prisoner's dilemma with regards to x topic, or applying philosophies like American Pragmatism to solving problems.
Talking about the news without using some of the tools political scientists use has so many emotional trip wires that it can feel like I'm just keeping up with the Kardashians. That said sometimes I just can't help but keep up with the Kardashians.
Is American Pragmatism a thing? If you explain it to me, will I feel better about myself?
"You can philosophize over how many fairies fit on a toadstool all day, but if it won't help anything, what's the point?"
If you're talking politics, you need to take a step back and ask how useful your questions are. It may be tempting to try solving a conflict that has a long history by finding out "who started it", but if the answer would yield no progress in the peace process, it would be a better use of time and energy to focus on other discussions.
I've used it as an economic philosophy as well. Instead of looking at capitalism and socialism as ideologies to guide thought, look at them as tools to an end. Identify your goals for society (more educated populace, lower infant mortality, greater freedom of the press, etc.) and then look at what different perspectives bring for solutions. Sometimes you may find letting a free market take it's course is an answer. Sometimes you may find deep regulation or nationalization is the answer.
When this philosophy is applied to something more personal like religion, it would ask "is the religion that you are in helping you or hindering you?" If someone's religion gives them immense guilt and depression, it would be worth it to consider something else. If an alcoholic finds peace in a Mormon Temple, then it might just be what they need. It's a pretty chill philosophy when it comes to religion.
Thank you, that’s an excellent read! This reminds me of the “expected value of perfect information” - sometimes it is worthwhile to answer a question, and sometimes it isn’t. Every once in a while I find myself in an engineering call discussing a minor problem, and I run the numbers to see if the change we are discussing is even worth talking about. One time the combined salaries of the people on the call had already outpaced the cost savings of the change over the next 10 years. We quickly stopped that discussion lol
Recently the only news about politics I don't find disgusting is done by political scientists. You you recommend a book on the topic for beginners?
A book about current events or a book about the study of politics? OP indicated they were political theory focused, so a lot of the theory was written by old dead guys; not exactly news about current events.
Plato has basically nothing to do with modern politics.
You're going to laugh, but I'm absolutely serious here: if your objective is to understand modern politics, I would start with The Prince and the Communist Manifesto.
Both of these are short, written by extremely influential figures, written for non-academic audiences, and have some amount of relevancy to current political operations. They absolutely do not explain modern politics, but they are important foundational texts. Spend 20 hours on the manifesto; 2 hours to read and 18 hours of commentary and related topics. Avoid going deeper into the communist rabbit holes. stop there. Spend 30 hours on the prince; look for college level lectures. You can spend more than 30 if you like, but don't go for the self help guru dipshits, obviously.
Just keep in mind the target audences and the potential bias the two authors bring to the table.
After those two, I want you to read On Liberty and read up on John Locke's social contract theory. Those four works will get you a lot of milage.
I've read a good part of Communist manifesto and found it interesting. The fascist Manifesto is very similar to it. I found very weird that communists are against fascists, given that their manifestos are so similar.
Depends on what you're wanting to focus on, but a great start would be Rules for Rulers by Arnold Meltsner, Freakonomics by Levitt & Dubner, CIA: legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner, confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins are some that I started early.
CGP Grey did a great job synthesizing Rules for Rulers on YouTube as well.
Also a big think video Why Sociopaths Rise to Power
Also Veritasium has a great video on game theory
Hope that helps!
Economic hit man I read already and it's good. Another nice one that I've read was "Silk roads" from Peter Frankopan
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
CGP Grey did a great job synthesizing Rules for Rulers on YouTube as well.
Veritasium has a great video on game theory
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I'm gonna have to check this out because I just mentioned this as an idea for Lemmy the other day. The amount of posts I see about the same thing in different communities is too damn high.
That's how I browse (all & scaled or all & new) and I'm a CS nerd. To make the experience less annoying I've blocked a bunch of communities mainly because they're not interesting to me (there's a lot of anime and/or porn communities, fucking hell), but it's generally a nice experience – I can run into all kinds of things that I hadn't heard of before. I haven't even gotten traumatized yet! Shame the only way to filter the feed is to block communities, but eh
If the instance your account is on decides to defederate with the instances those are on, you will never see the posts.
You can check what your instance blocks here:
https://federation-checker.vercel.app/
I still don't understand the Linux memes.
It's like squirting lemon in your eye is the point, and if you don't do it you're one of them. Maybe I'm just not bitter enough in life to get it.
Edit: Oh...
to be fair the 3 first points only apply to arch, the same people to say "i use arch btw" so you know they also hate themselfs
edit: 50% of devs use linux so the 4th point isn't that true
I don't use Arch, but I still think that Windows is, if not the absolute worst for your machine, then it at least ranks highly in that category:-).
Obligatory "I use Arch, btw" comment. I've been using Arch for years and, honestly, it isn't that much of a pain. It mostly works with the defaults, installation is really easy now with archinstall, and there's a ton of software ready to install from the repos or the AUR. Besides, the arch wiki is amazing and has solutions for many of the problems you'll ever have.
Rant incoming, so ignore if you're just here for the memes.
The Linux community as a whole seems to still be delusional about the real world outside power users, and it hasn't changed much in the last 25 years from everything I've seen. Distros have come and gone, some better than others, but the community as a whole is still living in a fantasy world about the "year of the Linux desktop". And it's the reason quite frankly that Linux in it's current form will never be a daily driver for the average user. Even though it would actually work for probably 30-40% of the population that just uses a web browser without any issue out of the box, as soon as they have an issue, the community would be impossible to find actual useful help from for these users. There are enough toxic Linux users to anyone that doesn't know the basics. It's almost as toxic as the League of Legends community with some distros. That leaves a permanent bad taste for all of Linux for the average user that comes across just one of these posts. Not to mention little to no support from places like Geek Squad, which is where the real average users take their systems. Even checking online themselves is heading out of average user territory in the first place.
The other main issue is that there are productivity mainstays on Windows that don't have a true Linux version. There are Linux alternatives but they quite frankly aren't the same, and the average user doesn't want to have to deal learning something new or with file format differences and not being able to just do what they already do.
My mother for instance several years ago tried to switch to a Chromebook when she needed a new laptop. She only uses a web browser and Microsoft Word through Google Drive and Gmail. Seems like a Chromebook would be a good fit for an ultra portable and lightweight system with WiFi 90% of the time. She is definitely able to search the internet well and find answers on her own, she is better than the average user due to learning from me breaking things constantly as I grew up. So even her handling of the situation would be more than many users. This was before the stripped down online versions of Office apps existed, so you had Google Docs, and the Linux alternatives like OpenOffice, which did not seamlessly support DOC/DOCX files for users who primarily work with those and need to have those types to send. Even now though the web version of Office is stripped down, some of that stuff just isn't available without the full software. Google Docs was essentially not compatible with regular Word documents at the time, everything had to be converted to Google's format and then exported back to a DOC, and constantly having to remember to save files as an alternate format just to send them off to others for further edits or distribution from their systems was a lot of unnecessary work, easily forgotten that just wasted time. Not to mention getting her head around the idea of cloud storage vs local storage if there was no WiFi available for some reason. Google Drive on Windows has a nice visual indicator of backed up stuff, and it's all stored locally by default as well. It just works for the average user. This is something that Apple does extremely well with their walled garden. They hide the magic and user is never the wiser because it just works for them without getting in the way, you just HAVE to use their system for that experience.
Those are the issues the average person already knows how to do with Windows and even OSX with the current applications they use daily. Switching to Linux is not just changing the look of the computer and the engine under the hood, there are other usability changes as well. Individually they aren't a big deal, but adding them all up, the average user just ends up deciding another Windows system is easier or trying OSX instead to go with their iPhone. Unless the user has someone they know personally that is willing to help those users with every tiny issue, without complaint, or they are savvy enough to handle a good internet search for specific error information and find a community willing to be just as helpful, avoiding the toxic users, they're just going to decide it's bad generally and stop using it, probably forever.
Linux must be objectively better than Windows in major ways to get the average person to jump ship and learn something new, dealing with all the small issues and differences they'll come across.
The various Linux communities need to be careful what they wish for IMO, would it be great for market share to get onboard with Linux? Absolutely.
But like you said, things will have to be dumbed down and hidden extensively.
At the same time whenever a piece of Linux software or distro takes ANY step whatsoever in this direction, the backlash from the community can get rather large. They're trying to have their cake and eat it too.
IMO Linux is great the way it is, low market share and all, and we all know what happens when something starts catching on with the general public...
But like you said, things will have to be dumbed down and hidden extensively.
At the same time whenever a piece of Linux software or distro takes ANY step whatsoever in this direction, the backlash from the community can get rather large.
I switched to Ubuntu years ago after getting frustrated with Windows. It took some getting used to, but I love it and wouldn't go back.
I'm not a programmer. I don't game on my computer. I pretty much just use a web browser. Occasionally I'll install a new program.
I'm just tech savvy enough to figure out how to do stuff by googling. Most of the how to guides are over my head, but there's usually a very remedial one that I can understand.
Ubuntu has served my needs perfectly. It's stable, simple, and runs like a dream on my older laptop.
Lemmy is my first exposure to the Linux community. I was surprised at the hate Ubuntu gets.
I think the main issue is too much fragmentation within Linux. There's the whole choosing the distro, choosing a desktop environment (or window manager), figuring out how to use the packages for your distro, etc. Then you have issues like some software being too outdated for your distro or not packaged at all so you look into Flatpak but it's a whole other system on your computer to have to keep track of and maintain or the software you need is not there either so you have to compile from source. There also comes the issue of getting help when something breaks. There's hundreds of different little bits in every single distro that makes it a pain in the ass to fix sometimes unless you're using one of the few large distros where the guides actually work.
I really don't think Linux will become truly mainstream for the every day user until there is a proper "default" experience like what Windows and MacOS provide. Sure some people will say use this distro and this desktop environment and it'd just work but that forces the common person to trust the other person online and that common person has to make a choice. If their first experience on Linux is bad, they'll just throw it off altogether and go back to Windows or MacOS. Everyone has a different first experience with Linux.
I'm not saying strip Linux of all configurability. I'm saying there needs to be a focus on a standard Linux distro with a standardized desktop environment and standardized overall user experience. If the user wants to change any of it, they're free to do so like anyone can with Linux right now. Also, the user should be able to manage the system entirely through a simple GUI. If the user has to for any reason go into a terminal, Linux has failed at being usable by the common person.
I say this as a person who uses Arch (btw) on my laptops and desktop and Debian 12 and Proxmox 8 for my servers and RHEL 8 at work. I really love Linux but I just can't in good faith recommend it to a person who wants to just use their damn computer unless they're willing to put up with the massive fragmentation and lack of support in the community.
Tl;dr Linux doesn't have a "default" experience like Windows or MacOS so a common user will struggle to even get started or look for help/advice
I've used Ubuntu for a few minutes for work and realized I was too lazy to learn a lot of stuff. All my coworkers used the console and I just wanted to use the UI...
Kde plasma does a good job at giving you gui options for console tasks.
System updates and software installs are done in their discover app i believe.
Ubuntu is probably one of the easiest for the average user to jump into coming from Windows. It is designed around the GUI and to be close to a drop in replacement much more than many other distros. Linux needs to be usable 100% without the console or it will never be a true competitor for Windows. The average user sees a terminal and had no idea what to do, or what to stay away from. They are 100% reliant on the OS to prevent them from breaking things. Look at all the issues users had with learning to approve system changes via basic security like UAC prompts that just need approval, not even their password, compared to something like sudo.
Granted a big part of that was lazy developers assuming and using admin privileges they didn't actually need for their programs, because the proper way to do things was a bit harder. Something Microsoft had been telling developers for over a decade they needed to stop doing. So many applications prompted every time they were used, because of shitty applications. As soon as a basic security screen was added, those applications became annoying for the end user, and Windows got the blame from the average user because of shitty devs and Microsoft's complete lack of being able to explain things to non-power users.
I switched from Windows to Ubuntu years ago after getting frustrated with Windows.
It took some getting used to, but I love it now!
I'm not a programmer or especially tech savvy, but I'm old enough to have used DOS when that was occasionally necessary in Windows.
I recommend Ubuntu to anyone looking for a Windows alternative.
Agreed
Seems 99% of posts on Lemmy, regardless of content, will have some goblin schilling Linux. I don’t have anything against Linux but I will never adopt it, mostly because WHY? What the fuck is the benefit of Linux?
There are some benefits in some circumstances, but a lot of people who use linux do so not because of any tangible benefit, but because they support open source, and don't like the idea of one (arguably a couple) big corporation having a monopoly of that magnitude and deciding alone the way tech should evolve.
Speaking for myself, I'm from a developing country, and I mostly use dated tech, some of which don't even support windows anymore, and it gives me the possibility of extending the lifespan of my stuff. This is the main tangible benefit for me.
I’ll have you know that I wrote a semi-functional webpage in HTML when I was in college 😎
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
My education background is nursing and social work. I've only ever used Windows and very surface level. I've never programmed anything, the closest I've gotten to anything technical is troubleshooting a game that I've modded to within an inch of its life.
Though I'm picking up an old laptop from a school surplus next Monday to wipe and begin exploring Linux. My only other experience with Linux is the interface of my housemates NAS (which I use only to manage a plex and valheim server)
I'm an IT tutor in a community centre - basically just teaching grandma how to close all her iPhone apps. No experience or formal qualifications needed. If you can be patient while showing seniors the basics of the devices they've got at home, you're hired.
Our organisation currently pays too much for an IT managed service provider, who doesn't provide a comprehensively managed service, so my boss wants to end their contact and hire me as a dedicated IT management officer. My boss is 75 and is confident in my abilities because she thinks power cycling the router when the internet goes out is an amazing and high level skill, but I know enough to know how much I don't know. But I also know I can learn.
So maybe in a year or so I'll understand more of the jokes on lemmy.
be patient while showing seniors the basics of the devices they've got at home
I'm not a programmer either but I bet this is actually harder than learning at least a few coding languages.
Not a programmer either, nurse in a psychiatric hospital. But I am interested in FOSS and web 3.0.
What web 3.0 implies are great, what it actually is in its current form is not. Simply focusing on FOSS should be enough for now and there's a shit ton of really good FOSS like this medical practise software as well as stuff inspired by Open Source culture itself like the Open Source Ecology.
Their entire business is constructed by harvesting the open internet, then keeping the end result closed. Yet they are called "open"AI.
When the company was named, they intended to create open source AI tools, but then greed.
The FLOSS community should have the right to revoke usage of the word "open" from for profit companies like that.
Python? Where? All I see is people praising Rust here. Also, Ubuntu? That's the most hated Linux distro on Lemmy.
Yeah, the rust circle jerk is hard here... I'll be over here getting work done with my hated OS and my hated programming language. Living life on hard mode, man, I just wanna relax. 😵
I'm not a programmer either, but I am a Linux and open source user so I can at least wade through the waters, lol
Same here. I count the days until it's discovered that I'm just a normie who agrees with the ideology of open source, and am hanged for my crimes of not knowing what a "cron" is, thinking stdout has to do with diseases, or wanting to play video games with 0 troubleshooting haha.
If it makes you feel better I feel the same, I was primarily a pc and networking hardware guy before my current role, which I won't say but it's closer to hardware than programming.
I know a little bit of Python thanks to ren'py, and I have Linux on my Steam Deck, so... I guess I'm in transition?
Not long before I have programmer socks and start binge watching Star Trek 👍
Hopefully you don't conform and assimilate into trekdom or Linux nerd popular memedom.
As a reddit api refuge, I realize just how much effort it is to A create content B maintain frequency
For power users its easier to run a bot to automate posting. I would suggest two things need to take place possibly 3. One a new community for just new community request, and we direct ppl there and combine the posters with ppl.who want the content?
As much as everyone enjoys the beans, I'm sure if content makers had insight on what content leechers wanted some shift.
Right now lemmy still feels like a private club, bit once the news outlets start looking to lemmy communities for information the shift will happen.
I just hope the spirit of lemmy being free but understanding support the mods, donate to the org and this will remain free.
To make things more confusing, I program, I use linux, and I talk about all of these stuff, but I am not a programmer :p .
If you program you're a programmer. No need to do it professionally to call yourself that.
In the early days, it was laborwave and esoteric websites, the programmer humor seems relatively new to me
I studied both political science and programming.
I can't think of a good joke, but I wanted to share.
For representational reasons, I miss the logo of the Rust programming language, but I have the hint of an idea why the creator of the meme didn’t put it in there.
I’m referring to this controversy, just in case that wasn’t obvious: https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/17/rust_foundation_apologizes_trademark_policy/
Do jazz shitposting communities exist? I don't have the time to create one, but I'd love to see some.
I can create and mod one for you if you want but i can't post anything if you or any others are interested lemmy know (pun intended)
