@Kalki_Rider

I guess you haven't been keeping up with the news? Yes, they have abducted many US citizens. Some are still in custody. Some have managed to get released, but with no compensation or any consequence to the abductors.

@Supervinh47 @solitha @davidnjoku

There was a young man from Peru
Whose limericks stopped at line two

@rey tall baby

@artemis In 1940, Heinlein predicted a theocracy that started with an election in 2012. fwiw.

@AlexanderVI @wdlindsy Re 2nd paragraph: yes, exactly -- that's why I think we need to offer a rational alternative.

(Nuance: some religions, even some branches of Christianity, aren't at all problematic in this way -- but I don't know of any that actively promote critical thinking.)

@JMMaok @wdlindsy I keep thinking there needs to be a "discipline of belief" -- like, we have all these religions that basically condition people to accept what they're told; we need something like that, which fills the need for ingroup-belonging and culture/ritual but which conditions people into habits of critical thinking.

@osma Yeah, I remember that. 1965 baby here. Some people just like violence, apparently. 🤯 😡

@manon Possibly it's one of these? [/probably_unhelpful]

@Asuyuia This is all very, very relateable. I often can't relax into a brain-relaxing game because I keep thinking about my dad, who (reportedly) still supports and excuses TFG -- despite not being limited to just right-wing outlets.

Clearly, humanity does have some very deep problems, as a global society, that we will need to deal with. (That's kind of my life-work-project, although I'm still "designing the machine to make the bricks to lay the foundations for the new tools we will need in order to solve it.) I'm thinking that we need to start drawing boundaries between "people who understand the situation" and "people who want to believe the lies", so that the former can work together without being constantly side-tracked by the latter... that's a whole 'nother discussion, however.

...but anyway, TLDR: :hugging: (if wanted)

@BigShellEvent Two ideas have come up so far?

• Any chance of getting those folks (the ones you want to follow) to move to a better instance?
• Should we, possibly, fedi-block or at least fedi-limit that instance? (Fedi-block would obviously prevent you from following anyone there, unfortunately; fedi-limiting might not prevent access, though. I need to type up a wiki page about how this works, or at least my current best-guess understanding...)

@naga Given that typing on a phone is already difficult, your situation kind of makes the case overwhelming.

More generally: Phones should almost never be the primary UI target for any app. Mobile UIs are always going to be inferior to desktop -- what with the lack of screen-space, keyboards being tiny and almost always virtual, and the limitations of mouse-equivalent inputs (try doing a hover-over or location-sensitive right-click on a touchscreen).

@signalapp

@BenAveling @bicmay @thriftwicker @mossyrua ...aka "sunk-cost fallacy" :-/

@skydancingblog.com The offmessage.net link got truncated (full URL: https://www.offmessage.net/p/make-trumps-lying-bad-again)

(added:)

treat Trump like a faithless operator.

I don't understand why everyone isn't already doing this (power/money-motivations aside).

@osma I would not place a bet either way, at this point. (...speaking as a Murrican.)

I guess I'm leaning, slightly, towards the idea that his handlers (and the military who would have to actually carry out the order) would find ways to distract and divert him from it, unless he became fixated on it.

@silvermoon82 @somecat [solemnly] So say we all.

RE: https://metalhead.club/@manon/116204969471845248

long live the illegible death metal band logo

@wdlindsy I have to suspect motivated reasoning -- they are much more willing to believe things that are emotionally appealing to them, or which are couched in terms that are emotionally appealing (e.g. framing vaccination as a form of government control, and refusing it as therefore an assertion of personal freedom).

I just updated @signalapp and read the update message (from March 4, iirc).

I liked the first part:

Signal secure backups are here! Now you can choose to enable automatic end-to-end encrypted backups so you'll never lose a message when you get a new phone or reinstall Signal.

...but then...

You can back up all of your messages and the last 45 days of media for free, or you can pay a small monthly fee to get 100 GB of storage to back up every attachment. Tap on backups in your Signal settings to get started. Thanks to everyone who helped test this feature during the beta period!

...umm, where's the option to back it up locally, guys? This feels like extortion and customer lock-in, which should be antithetical to your mission. :kestraglow:

Worse, I clicked on the "learn more" link (buried elsewhere in the app) and found:

Signal Desktop does not support transferring message history to or from any device.

WTF. Just WTF. I am not okay with this. (Desktop should be where the most features are.)

#softwareGripe #WTF

@Asuyuia When you say "humans are evil", how do you mean it? ...cuz it seems to me that some people are pretty darn good, many are just so-so, and only a few are actively malicious -- it's just that the systems we now have in place have selectively given the most power to some of the most evil, who are then able to persuade the so-so ones to be even more dubious than they would be normally.

(Please ignore me if this inquiry feels counterproductive. ^.^)

@BigShellEvent I'll check with Da Mod Team to see if they have any ideas. ^.^