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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: February 23rd, 2024

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  • somewhat. early reddit was a lot more mainstream. it was mostly a link aggregator for news stories in its early days and subreddits were not really a thing until later. i started using it in 2007 and it was much different by 2010.

    the dominant ideology was also libertarian and auti-authoritarian, not extreme leftism of various flavors that are pro authoritarian. there was very much a lack of controlling the narrative and language policing… that didn’t take hold until mid 2010s as the reddit ‘scandals’ caused the admins to start cracking down.






  • most small business in my city are vanity businesses supported by a wealthy consumer base who will pay 6 bucks for a lb of flour to virtue signal their status and wealth. or stuff like the lesbian book store, the knitting/fabric store, the ‘gift’ store full of useless trinkets like a paper weight that’s $200, etc. these shops are empty 90% of the time, but they aren’t being run for a profit, they are run because some bored rich person wants to run a business for funsies.

    outside of that, very little legit small business left. very few mom and pop operations and the ones that are left are closing up, or use political corruption/bribery to keep competition out such that they are a monopoly. the closet is probably hardware stores, salons, and dry cleaners, other ‘i need this today’ type of businesses.

    most ‘small business’ is stores/retaurants that are run by corporations but pretend they aren’t. like in the square by me there are 7 different bars… they are all owned by the same corporation. they just have different decorations and some different items on the menus but are 70% the same.




  • because the interface is archiac, and the majority of topics are extremist.

    normal people see the front page of lemmy and they see a bunch of weirdos going on about linux, communism, and trans stuff.

    any of the big threads with 100s of comments are full of crazies going off about violence and hate towards mainstream political positions and lifestyles.

    i am ‘mainstream’ and i have to block multiple users per day because i get constantly harassed by nutcases telling me how evil i am for using windows/mac, being a socialist democrat, and driving a car to work. if you disagree with the militant doomer wannabe revolutionaries you’re not going to have a good time here.











  • statistics are a tool. you can misuse them and abuse them. i can use a hammer to build houses, or bash people in the skull.

    in and of themselves if used properly, as in contextualised and verified, they are great. I’m talking about actual statistics themselves, not the bullshit cherry picked interpretation of them.

    but yes, stupid people will freak out murders went up 400% because this year 4 people were murdered and last year it was one.

    the quote you are references is from politician figures distorting statistics to push their agendas. just like they make scandals over sex in video games and media and other non-issues to rile up and lie to their voters. just like trump is going on about this wave of criminality that doesn’t exist.