Drewfro66

Drewfro66 , 2 days ago

Honestly I think Adobe is in the right here. The trademarks are very similar and it's not as if Adobe was trying to shut them down - just change their trademark.

Trademark law is not as vicious as copyright law. If a consumer could be lead to believe that the Delta emulator was an Adobe product because the logos look too similar, that's a problem, the exact problem trademark law is meant to prevent.

Drewfro66 , 10 days ago

Science is Yellow.

Drewfro66 , 21 days ago

They're allowed to complain, but that doesn't make them correct. I don't believe it to be wrong, because to a large extent people have a right to know public figures - they lack a right to privacy and must fight for every bit they want.

If I, say, found a coworker's cringy Reddit account and shared it with other coworkers in a mean-spirited way, that would be rude and a transgression of privacy. If I found out that my state Senator, or my favorite YouTuber, had a private Reddit account and shared it, that would be okay (or even good, an act of transparency).

And there are of course levels to everything. Take the YouTuber example. We would obviously consider it more appropriate to share if the Reddit account showed they were bigoted or fraudulent somehow; or if it was boring and not notable. Less so if it contained highly vulnerable, personal stories, or (and pardon me if this is a bush you were beating around in your post) nude photos or videos.

Drewfro66 , 1 month ago

Political affiliation is not a protected class, nor should it be.

Drewfro66 , 1 month ago

Someone please think of the rights of the landowners!

Drewfro66 , 1 month ago

Taiwan is in China.

Drewfro66 , 1 month ago

The government of the Taiwan Authority does not want to become part of China. Wherever you are from, I hope you realize that governments in Capitalist states rarely represent their people adequately.

Most people in the province of Chinese Taipei support reunification with the mainland. It is the U.S.-backed government that stands in the way.

Drewfro66 , 1 month ago

Remind me of the approval rates for the governments in Communist countries?

Drewfro66 , 1 month ago

One thing that people seem to take for granted is that these government-hosted instances would be open to the public for account creation, while this doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Not everyone can get a statedepartment.gov email address. Not everyone needs to be able to get a @statedepartment.mastodon.gov handle. Just leave it to public officials only.

Drewfro66 , 1 month ago

Simply dangle several vertical road segments by a rope. It's the strongest, most efficient design

Drewfro66 , 2 months ago

Joseph Stalin

Drewfro66 , 2 months ago

Stalin was not perfect; for instance, he stopped at Berlin. But he also defeated Hitler and built the Soviet Union into an industrial superpower.

Drewfro66 , 2 months ago

You're right, the millions of Nazis and Trotskyites killed by Stalin probably would not agree that he had a positive impact on humanity. Thankfully I am neither a Nazi nor a Trotskyite. Which are you?

Drewfro66 , 2 months ago

Stalin is definitely not "Arguably as bad as Hitler". The only major WWII leaders who were actually "Arguably as bad as Hitler" were Mussolini, Hirohito, Churchill, and Truman.

Drewfro66 , 2 months ago

The channel Technology Connections had a great video on dishwashers. It depends on how you run your washer. Powder detergent in both the pre-wash and main wash compartments is the recommended option. If you skip the pre-wash (such as by using an "Eco" or Energy/Water-saving setting), then it makes no difference between putting the detergent in the compartments vs. the bottom of the dishwasher as long as your compartment is working correctly. If it isn't, then indeed putting it on the bottom of the dishwasher is better.

Drewfro66 , 2 months ago

I don't know Lawful Neutral or Neutral Evil

Drewfro66 , 2 months ago

Blocking imports of Chinese EVs while American manufacturers keep their EVs as luxury products and prioritize CE vehicles is not only blatant protectionism, but another way to kill the planet for the sole purpose of enriching a small minority of very wealthy people.

Drewfro66 , 2 months ago

One additional suggestion I might make is to allow you to report the post to your own instance admins but not the host admins. This would be useful for when you want a post to be hidden or an instance defederated and you don't want to also send your identity to the instance you're reporting.

This might be used for:

Reporting spam coming from an instance that is unlikely to delete it.

Reporting CSAM on an instance that supports it.

Reporting hate speech on instances that believe hate speech is covered by free speech.

Etc.

Drewfro66 , 3 months ago

Ivan Guiadovsky

Drewfro66 , 3 months ago

Bad take.

Putin is not good, but he also isn't Hitler. He is not an absolute evil. And regardless of the unknowable legitimacy of Russia's elections, he's more popular in Russia than most American Presidents are in the U.S. And at least to me, popularity is a better metric for Democracy than anything else.

Navalny is worse than Putin. Regardless of anything else, Putin believes in Multiculturalism and Ethnopluralism (his nationalism is a Civic nationalism, not an Ethnic nationalism). Navalny has significantly less support in Russia than Putin; him being put in charge would be inherently undemocratic. Navalny would also be a Dictator; he would just be a Pro-Democracy Dictator.

And this isn't even touching on Geopolitics. Navalny is an opportunist who seeks to sell out Russia to the West. Putin is aligned with other anti-Imperialist global forces, such as China and Iran.

Putin is the pragmatic choice, not Navalny.

Drewfro66 , 3 months ago

No, because the Taiwanese Nationalists are ethnically Chinese and want Taiwan to be an ethnically Chinese country.

You can compare it to how more Native American groups supported the British than the Americans in the Revolutionary War: they understood that they would have more autonomy as a minority in a large, multi-ethnic state than a smaller ethnostate.

Drewfro66 , 3 months ago

All occupiers are legitimate targets

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

I think it's just a growing pain of the contradictions of Federation resolving themselves, mostly in the political sphere.

You have left-wing instances (lemmygrad.ml), center-right instances (lemmy.world), and right-wing instances (sh.itjust.works). Even if different instances defederate with each other, there will always be overlap instances (lemmy.ml being the biggest, but also lemm.ee, startrek.website, mander.xyz, programming.dev, etc.). And while individual users can block specific instances, this doesn't prevent them from seeing and responding to their posts. Communists and Liberals and Libertarians, who each believe the others are literally as bad as the Nazis (and I'm not making a value judgement here - maybe some of them are right), are forced to interact with each other on occasionally political topics.

The hard right, unlike in Reddit, isn't really a figure here - and moderators on Lemmy don't know how to handle political disagreements where both sides are within the sphere of acceptable discourse.

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

I know this is a bit account (nothing against you btw I think the bit is great) but honestly this is 100% correct.

Lemmy was nice when it was just FOSS enthusiasts trying to build a better social media. Now new people have joined who are using it for its intended purpose, instead of just trying to roll a snowball.

All of those FOSS enthusiasts have the same horrible opinions and attitudes that everyone else does, once you get them talking about something actually important and contentious rather than their treats and toys.

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

So long as the West does not intervene, this is the beginning of Afghanistan's slow transition into a functioning industrial state.

Industrialism is the first step towards Socialism, and is vastly preferable to medievalism. This is good for both the people and government of Afghanistan and it's good for both the people and government of China. The only people who lose are the West.

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

This is very sad - the DPRK and it's government have made every good-faith attempt to pursue reunification and reconciliation but the occupation government, controlled by Capitalist interests, has never stopped its aggression towards the North or considered reunification through any means but subjugation seriously.

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

Any American ship within firing distance of Yemen deserves to be bombed. They could simply leave yet choose not to.

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

The "No Fly Zone is a declaration of war" truism only works when you're declaring one over another nation's sovereign territory. Oman has every right to determine what military aircraft can enter their airspace, and if another country's military violates that airspace, they will have declared war, not Oman.

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

Who cares if it's "Legal" or not under U.S. law?

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

I main Lemmygrad and you've been defederated from us since the beginning, so I don't think I would notice nor care. Good riddance lib safe space.

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

Fake news, thinking about baseball would make Sisko misfire instantly

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

I also almost exclusively listen to political podcasts. Citations Needed, TrueAnon, and Chapo Traphouse are my main rotation.

Drewfro66 , 5 months ago

Stalin and Mao were glorious and the tankies are correct.

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

Gommunism is when no food, iPhone vuvuzela

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

Yes

Drewfro66 , 4 months ago

I am an Authoritarian. "Authoritarianism" as a pejorative is a liberal buzzword, and I am not a Liberal. Any Marxist who has actually read a book will say the same.

What system do you believe in, oh politically enlightened Redditor? Or are you just a South Park Libertarian who believes that caring about things and having opinions is cringe?

Drewfro66 , 5 months ago

I believe that Hamas should eliminate Israel through whatever means necessary. But I do not "support" Hamas, at least not uncritically.

Drewfro66 , 5 months ago

It was disputed before the oil was found, but the ownership wasn't pushed much because the land was not particularly valuable.

In colonial times, first, both were owned by Spain. Then the Dutch colonized Guyana, but a definite border was never set between Guyana and Venezuela. Then the British conquered Guyana from the Dutch. The border dispute was inherited by Venezuela and Guyana.

It's not as simple as "Guyana has oil, Venezuela wants oil, Venezuela is invading Guyana for their oil." Instead, oil has been found mostly offshore of land Venezuela has always claimed as its own. On top of this, the oil is mostly being extracted by countries that officially consider Venezuela an enemy state, and those countries are deploying their military forces much closer to Venezuela's undisputed territory than their own (though this is, of course, nothing new to the United States, who don't even hesitate to conduct patrols in the South China Sea, let alone the South Caribbean).

It's impossible to say for sure, but if Guyana wasn't solidly aligning itself with the United States and its corporations, it's unlikely that tensions would be as high as they are.

Drewfro66 , 5 months ago

The other comments here do not mention the most important part: the fiscal recession cycles caused by publicly traded, unregulated markets. In other words, the predictable 8-year pattern of booms and busts - the creation of a speculative bubble of growth followed by that bubble popping - that defines modern Capitalist economies.

No recession or depression in recent memory has truly been caused by a mismatch of supply and demand. Instead, they are caused by our complex financial investment apparatus; they have nothing to do with the “producing and buying things” side of Capitalism and everything to do with the “Moving money around” side of it. A thing - real estate, tech startups, comic books, whatever - begins to grow in value not because it is actually worth more but because people are speculating on its future value.

This is why Uber keeps growing in valuation despite never making a profit: the people buying Uber stock are not betting on Uber making a profit, but that other people will buy Uber stock in the future, further increasing the price of the shares. This is a bubble that will eventually burst, when they run out of potential investors to keep propping up the share price - but you maximize return on investment if you jump ship at the very last moment.

The '08 housing crisis is a great example. It followed an almost identical speculative bubble, except with mortgage-backed securities.

While these things will happen to some extent in Socialist countries with market economies, there are two reasons why they hit Capitalist countries extremely hard.

The first is that modern Capitalism has made every person into their own little Capitalist. Retirement funds are tied to the stock market, rent and housing prices aren’t fixed. Ephemeral financial-sector bullshit affects ordinary people when it has no reason to.

The second is that strong regulation can prevent the worst effects on ordinary people. Socialist governments can fix prices and forgive debts in order to minimize the effects of a fiscal downturn.

Drewfro66 , 5 months ago

I thought it was the dentist scene from Little Shop of Horrors, but I think that one has another actor that looks kind of similar

Drewfro66 , 5 months ago

In my opinion, it’s far more likely for people to use AI as a weapon to kill people than for AI to “go rogue” and destroy humanity.

While humans are doing a fairly good job on their own of people psychopathic freaks, imagine a world where police robots are laying siege to neighborhoods, where corporations use AI to maximize efficiency without regard for human suffering.

The real danger of AI is the lack of liability. If a cop kills an innocent person, you can put him on trial. If a robot kills an innocent person, this will get written off as the unfortunate collateral of technological progress (and maybe the department will have to pay the family a fine, a fine that is just coming out of tax dollars anyways).

Drewfro66 , 5 months ago

Others have answered your question, but I think you’re coming at the problem from the wrong angle.

I used to think about politics and economics how you are now: that there are different systems, and different people disagree on which is the best system, either because of their internal values (liberty, security, equality, prosperity, etc.) or because they believe that one system inherently performs better than another (efficiency, robustness, fairness, etc.).

Becoming a Marxist is realizing that while we, the working people, are sitting around bickering over whether command or market economies are more efficient, whether parliamentary or Presidential systems are better, whether our voting system should be Ranked Choice or Proportional or FPTP, the wealthy - the owning classes, the Capitalists, the ruling class - are stealing from us, are extracting our labor.

Politics is not about different people having different ideas about how to best organize society. Politics is about different groups acting in their material interests. The rich support policies which give them more power in society, while the poor, by all rights, should be doing the same.

I support a system where working people hold all power in society. I don’t care how that society is organized aside from that - I have some ideas, but there are smarter people than me for organizing logistics. Power and material interests are the only things that matter; and no system is incorruptible. Society needs to be lead by explicitly and wholly ideological organizations who will resist any attempt to undermine the power and supremacy of the working class, even if it is “legal” or “fair”, and they are justified in using whatever means necessary to do so.

Drewfro66 , 5 months ago

The problem isn’t as simple as “Spotify Bad”, you’re right.

It’s that the default contracts for artists are outdated, written for the world of cd and record sales. In the new world of streaming, artists need to bargain for greater rights to streaming proceeds in their contacts - and they’re working on it, but god knows the publishers don’t want to give anything up.

Spotify as a company barely makes money; I’ve heard they’re actually in the red. The villains are the labels, and Spotify and other streaming services are the weapon they are using to rip off their artists.

Drewfro66 , 5 months ago

They’re not talking about swearing. Call someone a fucking shit-eating worm is fine. But on the other hand are words used to insult marginalized groups (women, homosexuals, the mentally disabled, etc.). B/*itch, wh/*ore, c/*nt; c/*cksucker, f/*g; r/*tard, a/*tist, etc.

These are the words being blocked. Not swears, slurs. You can say fuck, shit, damn, and hell all you want.

For what it’s worth, I tend to fall on the side of a little bit being fine. I don’t use those words (except the slurs against w/*men), but if there’s one thing I fucking hate, it’s Scolds. If Felix Biederman wants to call people r/*tards and c/*cksuckers, I think he should be allowed to, and I’m not going to try to cancel him for it.

Drewfro66 , 5 months ago

Well, the Italian half of Belgium, anyways

Drewfro66 , 6 months ago

Mao Zedong; his quote was “Political power flows out of the barrel of a gun.”

The quote is not a moral statement or a call to action, but a scientific analysis of Historical Materialism: the Chinese civil war was not fought with ballots or debates, it was fought with guns, on both sides.

Ultimately, the people with the guns hold all political power in society.

Drewfro66 , 6 months ago

I think you’re being overly simplistic - sure, ideas and debates have a place in politics. And “political power flows out of the barrel of a gun” doesn’t mean “Whoever has the most guns wins” (though this is the case most of the time) - but it does mean that a group with no guns has no power.

Like the other commenter said, the quote is partially metaphorical - it just means that force is the basis of political power. The people willing and able to apply the most force will almost always win in the end.

Think about in America. If, tomorrow, 75% of Americans were in favor of abolishing the police, would it happen? Maybe, but probably not - because the people with political power, the people with guns and the will to use them (cops, troops, fascists, small business tyrants) support the police.

History is shaped by material conditions; ideas play a part in this, but material interest is the primary driving force.

Drewfro66 , 6 months ago

Warrior Cats. Talked about it with a friend the other day, I think an animated show would work best