Yup. The requirement of “faith” is a sure sign of charlatanism.

It’s a funny thing, when you think about it. If you were truly God, you wouldn’t need to prove it; you could just make it so everyone believes you.

Nicely put!

Reddit at least allowed blocking of trolls, whereas if we want that here, we will need to expend the effort to make that happen.

I don’t so much mind this, at least. It’s just curation, and I’d far rather have it in our hands than the hands of moderators or platform owners. Not that moderation isn’t useful, and hosting admins can still defederate - but giving users the ability to manage their own block lists, at the user, group, and instance levels, makes it less critical to have moderation, and makes moderation a little less prone to abuse.

Completely agree, except that I’d amend that no real conservative politicians exist. I think there are a lot of real conservatives - you named several - but that simply can’t get elected with our current election mechanisms. Primaries need to be eliminated. Progress like adoption of RCV needs to expand. The electoral college needs to be eliminated. If we can make progress in these areas, it’ll let moderate conservatives to regain control of their party. And it’d let people stop arguing and being frustrated with having to vote for the lesser of two evils.

Like most things, there’s a sliding scale. I block two instances (in my client) because of the high noise-to-signal ratio, and a few individuals who I find particularly obnoxious. I’ve never blocked anyone who I thought was trying to have a good-faith argument with me, regardless of their position. But I also don’t feel obligated to stand and listen to the MAGA dipshit shouting obscenities at minorities, either. Is it an echo chamber? No more than me not watching Fox “News”.

Although, Lemmy leans strongly left, and the instances are tankie ones; there isn’t a lot of right-leaning posting IME. I think this is a particularly difficult time for reasonable conservatives because of how their party has been co-opted by fascists. The instances I’m on doesn’t do a lot of defederating, but I know just by virtue of being on Lemmy, I’m getting a left bias.

“Boner” would be a fantastic name for a TV series about a grumpy orthopedist with a drug problem who’s always right. “It’s always osteoporosis” could be the tag line.

I never stopped calling it Twitter. X is a window manager, a letter of the alphabet, or the most algebraic variable name. It’s not a name for a company.

To maximize the number of people who show up at your funeral.

Johnny Appleseed was a real guy, but he was doing his thing in the late 1700’s. Apples from grafting were pretty good eating, by then; trees grown from seed were mostly only good for making cider.

Sounds delicious

I pronounce is Pin-eap-ples, just to avoid this very thing.

But, at least they’re fruit.

The James Nicoll quote is better - use that instead.

Whew. Thanks for the /s. That was a comprehensive list of French stereotypes, though. Bravo.

Potatoes are indeed tasty. Some varieties are even sweet-ish. I can’t say I’ve had potatoes that were as sweet as apples, without the addition of a lot of sugar.

How recent? Like, New World recent, or Christianity recent, or the-invention-of-writing recent?

Oh? Juicy gossip, is it?

Oh. I’ve bitten into a potato before, just not one freshly and cruelly ripped from the warm breast of mother nature. I think they’re more similar to Asian Pears, of we’re making such comparisons, also not neatly as juicy.

I meant great-grandad.

Really? That’s fantastic! I didn’t know that. How awesome!

Which makes more sense, in a weird way.

I have never. Do they taste like apples?