I feel a bit less odd about Ian than you, but I can’t deny I’ve had a little trouble after seeing some of his interviews and his fireside chats about YouTube policy.

Forgotten Weapons and also C&Rsenal are such wonderful sources of historical information, but their total avoidance of any direct stance leaves me assuming the worst when I get those potential dog whistles you mentioned.

I still watch them occasionally, but not near as much as before, and not anything off topic. I hope they’re not shitty people, but if they leave me guessing, it’s realistic to not trust them in certain areas.

Karl from InRange is more openly liberal and was just on again with the Behind the Bastards crew talking about do’s and dont’s about arming yourself if you are worried about the next few years. His channel seems to be more quirky stuff and less historical though, so not as much of what I’m looking for.

Learning about weaponry and some of these less talked about wars can definitely attract a lot of people I don’t want to deal with. I don’t need a liberal twist on it, but I definitely don’t want conservative opinions on the side.

Another Kiwi user here. Used it since it was the only real option to adblock on Android and haven’t found a need to switch yet.

I still feel grateful for being in the right place to help out some people many years ago.

I was headed to meet some friends down at the shore and right when I got to town , I stopped by McDonald’s to grab something to eat. It was pretty empty, just the employees and 2 groups of kids.

There were 4 young teen girls and 3 or 4 older teen boys, and from the second I walked in, I saw the girls were very uncomfortable and the guys kept trying to get them to leave with them. They were trying to call someone to pick them up but nobody could come get them from what I could tell.

It was very dark out and the town was deserted, so I assumed they were not locals either so they didn’t have many options.

I asked them if they wanted a ride and they quickly said yes and literally jumped in my car as fast as they could. They were a decent number of blocks away, and they were very happy to be back at their rental.

I assume nothing serious would have happened, but it probably would have made the rest of their trip shitty if they had to worry if those guys knew where they were staying. I couldn’t have just ignored them without offering to help though, they all seemed on the verge of tears.

It was a little mind blowing how they’d just jump in a stranger’s car, but I was at least a neutral party when the other guys were already verified creeps. I wasn’t much older, about 20, so not in creepy old man territory yet, so that probably helped. As I said, I still think about how I got to be someone’s champion that day, and it makes me feel good to know I helped out.

I imagine you’re an adult, so you should have a decent radar for picking out some non-creep stranger. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I didn’t have much time to process the situation until after the girls had left, but seeing someone desperate for help I’d think would have most people willing to accommodate getting you to your car or a better public place. Most people are good and would help out if asked.

I won’t argue anything you say too much. You seem to be very firm in your opinions, and overall I feel we’d agree on things more than we’d disagree.

With that said, one of the bigger issues I have is what country is currently doing what you feel would be a better path for the US to follow? Europe has often provided a calmer voice to many issues, but it no longer feels to be the case. I’m no expert on world politics, but I can’t think of any country moving leftward as a whole right now. Europe seems to be in the middle of an anti-immigrant shift of its own, and they are helping with Ukraine in what feels on par with the US but not exceeding that aid, and it feels no one is doing much about Palestine.

If there is someone you feel is doing better, I’d like to learn about how it works, but I feel the US is still in one of the top positions to do something. Perhaps not for a few years now, but we all seem to be on the same sinking ship right now. We may have a bigger slice of the responsibility for that, but I’m not seeing anyone else giving a better example.

Things are going to go to shit, compared to the last 4 years, but I think it’s important we keep our heads and continue to make improvements where we can, even if that is much more local than nationally or globally. More blue states already seem to be preparing to fight some of the incoming changes, and we still have the quagmire of a court system to drag down the speed of what the new government can accomplish. A lot of nominees for cabinet roles are also outsiders and have no idea how to mobilize their workforce, and competent people will leave behind the less capable to accomplish their goals.

It is no more time to give up than it was a month ago. Those of us that want change still have the same things to try and accomplish. We might have to figure out new ways to do it, but we’ll still keep trying.

Most people outside political forums aren’t near as knowledgeable or informed as we tend to be, so we still need to educate people on facts and to undo disinformation when they’re ready to be receptive to it. Unless you want to go revolutionary and start hurting people physically, being engaged with your fellow countrymen is still the way forward.

We’re allowed to be angry right now. It’s good we’re angry to an extent. But I’m not here to promote anger. I’m mostly concerned with the environment and human rights, and hate and violence I don’t think are going to help either of those causes.

It also says they are deplatforming third party sellers from Walmart.com that are selling LGBT merch, which does seem to affect actual people promoting equality. The anti-LGBT activists already pushed the stores to stop carrying merch at physical retail locations, and now they are booting them off the web as well.

Interestingly, the linked CNBC article in OP’s link says this is mainly the work of one anti-gay/trans activist, Robby Starbuck. He seems to single out a company and attack their equality programs publicly to take them out one by one. Never heard of him before. It’s crazy to think one loudmouth can have so much pull over such huge companies.

I second this. I don’t want my government to hurt anyone, even people who are ignorant or hateful.

I certainly didn’t vote for what’s coming, and millions of others didn’t either. Countries that rely on us didn’t vote for it. Our environment didn’t vote for it. And I’m sure most of the people that were duped into voting for it didn’t really want what we’re going to get either. Some dirtbags probably did, but I think they’re still a minority, and I’d still rather those people have a chance to become good people than for them to suffer. I’d still want them to have access to free education and universal healthcare and a full social safety net if I had the power to give it to them.

We won’t be able to walk back a lot of what might happen. We could lose millions of acres of public land to private interest. Untold destruction could destroy our remaining ecosystems irreparably. We’ve got anti-vaxxers that could kill thousands to millions. We’ve got people that want to let Palestinians, Ukrainians, and Kurds die. That stuff can’t be undone, and those people and our planet don’t deserve it because some con artists did a great job on propaganda this last half century.

My pleasure!

Snuka likely killed his girlfriend in 1983, but was never charged until shortly before he died. They dropped the case due to his failing health, not due to lack of evidence or anything like that. He died about 2 weeks after that in Jan 2017.

I was able to find it!

It is Planet Money - The Trade Fraud Protective 23 AUG 2024

Audio and transcript at that link, or you should be able to find it on your podcast app of choice.

It’s also power steering hoses in Thailand, not fan belts in Vietnam, so I hope that’s still ok. 😉

I heard about this a few months back on a podcast about auto parts. China just shipped the fan belts they were making to a warehouse in Vietnam, rebranded them, and shipped them to the US, tariff free.

They did some sort of chemical analysis on the Made in China and Made in Vietnam belts and the formulation of the rubbers was identical.

Enforcement to counter this would likely eat up too much of the tariff money, so it just won’t be done. China will still get paid the same, and at minimum we’ll eat China’s additional shipping costs.

It’s interesting when you can find articles from some of these walking contradictions. I read a few articles by an anti-woke, pro-timber industry environmentalist a few weeks back and made a post about them. Reading them ticked me off so much, I revised my opinions on a lot of things I had been feeling mixed about. Hearing some pretty icky things in support of one side of the argument solidified that wasn’t the choice for me.

The guy who wrote them has credentials that are legit. He’s been in the job and related ones forever, and he has lots of awards and commendations. I don’t think there’s any one of us though that hasn’t worked with someone that we wonder why they’re or how they’ve been promoted to where they are over the years. Just because someone has a job doesn’t always mean they’re good at it or that they should be doing it.

The articles I shared are pretty thought provoking, for what I felt were bad reasons though, but if you’d like to read a conservative expert’s opinion on logging and what should be done with Spotted owls, it will really give you some things to think about.

Thank you for taking the time to write that out for me. Between this and absGeekNZ’s reply to another person, I feel I really learned a lot.

As someone who basically knows nothing about this but what is in the article, the Maori sound like they have the right idea to me.

The Maori version of the original treaty seems very generous and would make sense to most people how it was written. How anyone would believe the British version was legitimate unless it was signed under coercion or misrepresentation makes zero sense.

Despite the bill being highly likely to fail, many believe that just by allowing the bill to be tabled in Parliament, the coalition government has ignited dangerous social division.

That they are protesting even though the new bill is unlikely to pass seems very smart, given what is going on in other parts of the world and how manipulation by governments works in history. By entertaining it as any form of reasonable proposal, it gives it credence, no matter how small, and each time it is suggested, it will be normalized a bit more, and they will pick up another supporter here and there until they can pass it.

That was my initial gripe with the other commenters. Nobody ever likes the one-size-fits-all software platforms. It’s always got too much of what you dont want and not enough what you do. All these social platforms are free., why mix them when we can use the ones we want. Installing Lemmy and Bluesky apps is easy, but if you later decide you dont want Bluesky, you just uninstall. If all those people would come here, you’d have to get people to defederate or you have to pack up and leave for another instance. That seems a lot more hassle to me than just using a second app.

Lemmy is great as-is. Let’s be proud of it. It gives me a day’s worth of content as it stands now…probably more than I actually should use it already!

Yup, I just replied to another comment, what’s so bad about having a place that’s just regular people? I enjoy having my comments actually read here and getting to know some of you to some level. I’d lose interest in this place if it turned into new Twitter. I can’t compete with Taylor or Beyonce or whoever the flavor of the week is. We can have both platforms if we so choose, so why wreck one for the sake of another?

Exactly. For all the things that typically get complained about: one product trying to do everything, people coming in to monetize things, feeling like your voice gets lost in oceans of comments, it seems like people forget that when it comes to the Fediverse.

The same guys that spent all that time being mad about potential federation with Threads are mad that this place isn’t going to be Twitter 2.0? It doesn’t make sense to me. If you want ads and celebs, go see them at their place. Keeping this just place us regular people doesn’t need to be a negative. There’s room for both.

I saw the mention of it protecting abortion rights, but I was confused about that because as far as I know, nowhere requires someone to be married for abortions or any type of healthcare.

The quotes and comments I saw made it sound like the stance was this doesnt happen enough we should risk losing any rights unnecessarily, but I feel there should have been some specifics mentions what those rights they’re protecting actually were. The stats seem all over the place too, from as low as IIRC around 50 child marriages since 2019 to an estimated 1600.

This all seems like something people should have some real facts and figures on, but that I cant find them is really raising my eyebrows for a number of reasons.

I don’t disagree that what you’re saying shouldn’t be controversial, but after the crying they’ve had about athletes taking a knee, a one-off promotional beer can, and whatever other snowflake stuff I’ve repressed memories of, it just sounds extremely risky.

Lethal response training as a whole definitely needs work, but it’s something beyond the abilities of volunteer vets and animal handler. It feels like a psychological issue more than an educational one I obviously care about the animals, but shooting people is a greater priority, and reducing that should in turn help the doggos also.

We’re here for fun. Celebs are on social media as part of their brand. It’s them doing business, and they’re going to use what the feel will reach the largest audience with the least effort on their part, and something with corporate backing likely has customer support for moderation, hacking, and whatever else. They’re not here for a digital revolution, they’re here to keep their name and income stream out there.

I imagine it’s the same reasoning why a business will pay for Red Hat when they could run Linux for free. It may or may not be the best option, but they feel it offers tangible benefits.

Rescues have no guaranteed funding. I have not encountered one anywhere in the world that gets a single cent of public money. They also get free help rescuing animals on occasion from police. Even the hint of going after them politically I can guarantee would get them a Bud Light style boycott and nobody wants to be the private business or donor that supports the shelter that hates cops. They don’t have time or resources to deal with that. Drama is the last thing a rescue needs.