I don’t care about that so much as the hyper specificity of not only “you have to be on the political left here” but “being to the left isn’t enough, you need to be this far left, and hold these specific views on politics, technology, etc.”.

And the community that is here is, amazingly, somehow even worse than Reddit, on average, when it comes to being a hive mind that is wildly intolerant of any disagreement.

It occurred to us that CrowdStrike is an absolutely terrible name. It sounds like a terrorist attack. Of course, it felt like one on Friday.

When I first heard about what was going on, I assumed that “CrowdStrike” was not the name of the software/company, but rather some sort of advanced DDOS-like attack where they used systems they’d previously hacked and had them all do the same thing at once to another target.

Ignoring, for a moment, the inherent and fundamental differences between an individual and a state…

…in my late 20s and early 30s I bought a new car.

At the time, that car cost more than I had in my accounts plus my other possessions at the time. In fairness, my annual income was more than the total cost of the car, buuuut I also was carrying tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt as well, meaning my overall total debt was significantly higher than my annual income, or my “personal GDP” if you will.

Yet when I applied for my car loan, it came through with easy approval and I even qualified for the best possible interest rate.

Why? Because I’ve always paid on my debts adequately and promptly.

Nobody bats an eye when a couple buys a house that costs more than what they can cover with their combined income in one year. Why? Because that’s an arbitrary and unrealistic yard stick of comparison and nobody expects them to pay off a house in a year. They’re able to buy their house and live in it immediately, and pay for it incrementally, over time, as they earn over the coming years because of debt. And the bank is willing to lend the money because they’ll make money in the long run through interest.

Similarly, it’s unreasonable to imply that the US shouldn’t carry more debt than it’s GDP because the two metrics aren’t directly linked in any way. And since the US has excellent credit worthiness, that debt is far safer than the bank’s loan to the homebuyers. And the US gains access to borrowed funds by setting it’s own interest rates through the Fed, which tells lenders exactly how much they’ll make in interest if they let the US government borrow some of their money.

And since the US is a safer bet than homebuyers, that’s why home interest rates are higher than the rate at the Fed: if they were equal, banks would never lend to homebuyers since they could get the same return by lending to the government. So instead, they set their own, higher rates for homebuyers, to account for the higher risk of lending to a party who has a much higher likelihood of default.

He’s nasty!

The only cure for “unable to eat diarrhea” is to put the patient into an induced comma.

Explains the irritability.

That’s the main reason I do an oven seasoning once a year or so. With my electric stove, it’ll get the bottom ripping hot while the sides won’t ever quite catch up.

In the oven I can do an even, set 450-500 and hold it there as long as I like. Then I can shut it off and let the pan cool slowly and evenly.

I think it’s mostly that it comes across more like religious proselytizing than “good advice”.

Also, that “advice” is mixed in with just as much messaging about how fussy it can be and implications that you’ve got to basically be an enthusiast level user to make it work for you. Not that it necessarily is that way, but overall that’s the messaging I see from this community.

As someone who tried Linux many years ago, disliked it, and went back to Windows, generally my take is that Windows is far from perfect, but it’s the best option for me, and I’m happy to try and ignore the Lemmy buzz around it…but that buzz just gets more and more annoying over time.

Also let’s not ignore the big unsaid:

Even if Biden really were as horrible as some of these people want to make others believe…

…is their implication really that the only other viable option, Trump, would be anything other than orders of magnitude worse in all of those areas?!

Civ 6 and I’ll sell my other slot to the highest bidder.

We prosecuted those responsible (in absentia) and they will be arrested once they enter Dutch soil.

Sounds like you did absolutely nothing

Both suck.

Reddit has the base and the niche communities and the activity, but is scummy for its own reasons.

Lemmy has the structure/organization but none of the niche interest activity that kept me on Reddit for so long. Plus it’s got all the weird pro china shit and an even worse problem with the hive mind bullshit than Reddit.

With the death of third party apps, I would say that my time that was formerly spent on Reddit is now spent 10% still on Reddit, 15-20% on Lemmy, and the rest just isn’t spent on that sort of thing anymore.

I’ve been reading more, maybe a 2-5% increase on Facebook of all places, going to the source for news (Axios, Washington Post mostly), gaming with the computer time, maybe a 15% increase on YouTube time…started streaming more shows and stuff, and spent more time outside, even in the sweltering summer heat.

So basically for me, Lemmy has turned out to not be a reddit replacement, and instead that time has just been split up many different ways.

I do miss Reddit, and wish that Lemmy had indeed been a workable alternative, but it’s just not. I won’t go back to Reddit because I accessed it 95% on a mobile 3rd party app…but just because I won’t go back doesn’t mean that Lemmy is just as good.

As time goes on, I’m starting to realize that the time I still spend here is mostly because I want it to be better and I’m trying to be active long enough to see that change happen…but the longer I just kill time here waiting for it, the more I see shit I don’t like.

I would expect that while I’ll still keep my account open, I’ll probably be done with Lemmy by the end of the year.