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submitted 12 hours ago by wesker@lemmy.sdf.org to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

Any good blocklist will include rules that filter out the complete cancer that is imgur. I can't see your memes. Use something else, or just upload them to your instance.

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It wants to seem smart, so it gives lengthy replies even when it doesn't know what it's talking about.

In attempt to be liked, it agrees with most everything you say, even if it just contradicted your opinion

When it doesn't know something, it makes shit up and presents it as fact instead of admitting to not knowing something

It pulls opinions out of its nonexistent ass about the depths and meaning of a work of fiction based on info it clearly didn't know until you told it

It often forgets what you just said and spouts bullshit you already told it was wrong

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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by XiELEd@lemmy.world to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

I feel like it should be a part of internet etiquette to not start your forum posts with a general question only to clarify in the text post it's about something specific. Like at that point if you want to use a general question as the title you could start a comment thread with your specific situation. I know it would end up with people commenting outside your comment thread with your specific situation in mind but in a better world the OP's problems will get solved and other people with the same general question but specific situation could get help as well in another comment thread.

Can't justify the "hurr durr people are asking the same questions at the same time, just look at the previous posts" mentality when, yes, the post titles are similar, but it's clearly for another's specific situation. People would feel bad for "barging in" on those sort of posts.

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submitted 5 days ago by wesker@lemmy.sdf.org to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org
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I’ve been rewatching Superman & Lois, and the way they handled Jonathan Kent is honestly messed up. The fact that this kid had to grow up in the same house as a brother with powers, who’s literally being trained by Superman, while he had nothing, is wild. It’s not just unfair—it’s straight-up emotional neglect.

Jonathan should have left Smallville and gone to live with Lucy Lane, far away from the Kents. She’s Lois’s sister, she clearly cares in her own way, and even if she’s not perfect, being with her would’ve been a clean break from the constant reminder that he’s “the one without powers.”

What gets me is Clark and Lois never even suggest that Jonathan might need space. They expect him to smile through it, keep being the supportive brother, and act like it’s all fine. That’s selfish. And honestly, it borders on abusive. If a parent lets one kid constantly feel like the lesser one, especially when they’re living in the shadow of Superman, then yeah—they’re part of the problem.

Going no contact would’ve been the healthiest option. Jonathan deserved a shot at his own life, not just being the background character in Jordan’s story.

It could serve as a really cool original story too. Imagine at 13-14 Jonathan justifiably gets fed up with his family, and he goes to live with Lucy Lane. Jonathan hates his father so much he legally changes his name with Lucy's help to Dante Cross. Maybe he's in an accident and gets different superpowers and becomes an original antihero. His story could be extremely R-rated; maybe he kills criminals like the Punisher. In this story, Jonathan becomes a different person; he's an arrogant, brooding bad boy, and he lives with his aunt in a crime-ridden city, so he's basically Spider-Man but if Peter Parker was actually cool.

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Unpopular opinion, but R-rated “teen dramas” like Euphoria should just be set in college.

The characters don’t look or act like teenagers. They’re played by adults, doing adult things—clubbing, drinking, hooking up, and having way too mature relationships for high school. Yeah, some teens experiment, but not like this. If you removed the scenes at school, everyone would assume these characters are 21-25.

Character ages should make sense narratively. Nickelodeon and Disney shows like iCarly or Victorious worked because they were actually about teens, played by teens, written for teens. Even Spider-Man makes sense as a teenage story—he’s a kid juggling real responsibility. But with Euphoria, it feels like they just made everyone “15” for shock value.

If your show’s rated TV-MA and aimed at adults, just make the characters adults. It’d be more believable and way less creepy.

Edit: I honestly don’t know why people don’t make these shows set in college. It seems like an environment more suited for this sort of drama/subject matter/etc.

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It's not that I hate teen superheroes. I grew up loving Spider-Man, Teen Titans, Iron Man: Armoured Adventures, etc., but now that I'm older, I'm really tired of teen superheroes, mainly because in comics characters never really age, and when they get rebooted in cartoons, movies or TV shows, they usually just start the story around their origin story or after, so whenever Spider-Man gets rebooted, he's always in high school despite him graduating high school in issue #28 and then graduating college in issue #185. So he wasn't a teenager for really that long, but at the time he got powers and became a superhero at 15 years old, and that wasn't very common back then; most teen heroes were just sidekicks. And because Spider-Man is mostly marketed to kids (at least the TV shows and movies), they make him a teenager to appeal to kids.

Despite the fact that a lot of good, the best and mature Spider-Man stories come from when he's in college or at least graduated from his first 4 years of college, even in cartoons he's only been in his early 20s for two shows: Spider-Man: The Animated Series and Spider-Man: The New Animated Series – that's it. And Spider-Man has had at least 12 distinct animated TV series based on Spider-Man, and he's only been an adult in two of them.

Basically, I'm tired of teen superheroes because I feel like it limits the storylines you can do, and because of comic book logic, the characters never age, so any time they are rebooted, they will be a teenager because that's their starting point. It's the same with Ms Marvel; she's still a teenager despite the fact that she should be 28 years old now because she was 16 in 2013. But also it's like there's no middle ground: if you are a "young" superhero, you are a literal child, and if you are an "adult" superhero, you are in your 30s or 40s. People in their 20s do exist.

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Whenever a 21-23-year-old is dating or is having sex with men or women. 10, 15, or 20 years older than them, people on Reddit, TikTok, and X will claim the 21-23-year-olds are automatically “victims” of abuse or “paedophilia”, but that’s just not true for the record. I think big age gaps are weird and inappropriate; however, just because a 23-year-old chose to have sex with a 50-year-old doesn’t mean that 23-year-old is a “victim”. I have a problem with people on social media (or people in general) who treat 21-, 22-, 23- or 24-year-olds who are in relationships or sexual relationships with adults much older than them as the same as adults dating minors.

First of all, actual pedophile and actual statutory rape are horrible; they’re horrible evil things, and when people compare a 33-year-old dating a 23-year-old to a 30-year-old taking advantage of a 14-15-year-old, you automatically lose the argument. A 23-year-old is an adult, and when you call a 21-23-year-old a “victim” for dating men or women older than them, you are taking away their autonomy and comparing these men and women (yes, young men and women, but still men and women) to little boys and girls. You are comparing them to children, and this is literally the opposite of freedom.

While I think it’s weird that a 21-23-year-old dating an older person is really weird and inappropriate, I can’t compare an older adult dating a 23-year-old to a literal pedo who goes after literal children; they aren’t the same. One person deserves to die, and the other doesn’t. The one dating a 23-year-old is a little weird and deserves a side eye; the other deserves to be locked up in prison forever.

Claiming 21-23-year-olds who date older people are “victims” insults actual victims who are actual victims of abuse and pedo, and when you compare a 23-year-old adult consenting to sex with an older adult to an adult r-working a child, you are basically saying that statutory (insert r-word) isn’t that bad.

A 21-23-year-old dating men in their 30s or 40s is weird and gross, but it is not the same as adults R-wording children. A 23-year-old might be young, but they are old enough to consent to this if they want, and claiming they don’t have that right is wrong. Even if their choice is weird to you, it is still their right as an adult in their 20s to do so.

Stop comparing this to a paedophile; one is very weird and gross (but the two people consenting have the right to choose to be weird and gross), the other truly evil.

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submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by themeatbridge@lemmy.world to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

If you have a video that autoplays at the top of your article, and I have to scroll past it to read the article, I don't want it to pop out and scroll down along with me. It blocks the top third of the screen. Who even thinks of that? Why would a person in charge of making decisions say "Oh, yeah, neat. I like the way that works, let's not change anything." I don't want any videos to autoplay at all ever for any reason. If I scroll past it, it should autostop.

Fucking web developers.

Edit: Yes, you're right, it's not the fault of web developers. At least, it's mostly not their fault. They still came up with this shit, but it's executives and middle managers who demand it.

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by wesker@lemmy.sdf.org to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

That's it. I'd never say don't shitpost, but confine it to the appropriate channels. Or at the very least shoot your shot better.

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/27222607

After my bicycle was stolen, the police could not be bothered to look at video surveillance recordings around the scene of the crime. Yet surveillance remains a form of oppression against everyone as police fixate on victimless crimes (drugs, undocumented people, traffic violations, etc).

So new rule:

If police refuse to review surveillance video at the request of a victim, the video camera must be removed.

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submitted 1 month ago by FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org
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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

The argument people are using is that Snape shouldn't be black because Harry will be racist for suspecting him of a crime.

I'm trying to understand the psychology of the people making this type of argument.

Are they simply racist and lying about why Snape can't be black?

Did they interpret Harry's dislike and suspicion of Snape as being for literally no reason, so now if he's black that will be the reason? Pretty sure Harry disliked and suspected Snape because of Snape's actions. Snape is an abusive prick. Maybe they've only seen the film, which shows less of Snape's asshole behaviour than the book did.but the film also showed that Harry suspected Snape because of evidence, like Snape being bitten by Fluffy made it seem like he tried to sneak past him.

Are these people so simple minded that if there are clear reasons Harry dislikes Snape, they won't see it if Snape is black?

Is it because they themselves hate black people, they can't comprehend the difference between hating a black person and hating them BECAUSE they're black? Is there no distinction between these concepts in their minds? If they hate a black person for legitimate reasons, they also hate them for being black?

Is it that these people got called racist for calling a bad black person a racial slur? If a black person is being an asshole, you can call them an asshole, but if you call them a racial slur, I will think you're racist. Perhaps these idiots call black people they dislike slurs and don't understand why they're called racist for it, so they think anyone who hates a black person, even if it's for good reason, will be viewed as racist.

Perhaps they assume the writing of the show will be different because Snape is black. They think it automatically means the show will try to make it part of an anti-racist message. They think the actual script will call Harry racist and make him learn a lesson about suspecting black people of crimes.

I've seen it claimed that the complexity of Snape's character will be ruined because now they hatred towards him from other characters will solely be about race. So regardless of Snape's actions, if he's black then that will be the only possible reason people dislike him?

I've seen it claimed Neville will look racist now for fearing Snape. Do they think the show won't show Snape bullying Neville?

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Look man, I don't know your story, and I don't assume to. I'm perfectly aware no one owes me a explanation. That's why I'm asking. I'm fine with you not explaining. Be miserable somewhere else. My question is not for you.

Hope you have better days ahead of you

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cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/32830968

I stopped distributing Linux Mint to the low-tech users who I support roughly ~10 years ago when the project jailed their docs in tor-hostile Cloudflare websites (e.g. readthedocs.io, IIRC).

A recent general search for info on getting a piece of hardware working on linux led to forums.linuxmint.com (the query had no relevance to Mint specifically). This website uses #Sucuri for elitist tor-hostile gatekeeping. There is no action for me to take since I already quit supporting Mint, other than perhaps to ask others in my local linux support group to also drop Mint support because our users should not face a choice between software freedom and privacy. Certainly when I am asked to install Mint for someone, I will refuse and try to steer them to Debian, perhaps with Cinnamon.

Screenshot attached. Not sure how long linuxmint has been using Sucuri for crude IP reputation discrimination, but note that the Debian project that feeds the Mint project demonstrates respect for people’s privacy. Mint adds value in some ways, but at the same time worsens a good distro by jailing information.

This is not a “something is better than nothing” scenario. It’s actually destructive. When you host a discriminatory access-restricted forum, you create an attraction for useful info and simultaneously become an obstacle to the information that would otherwise find a better host. If forums.linuxmint.com did not exist, the discussion would still occur somewhere and it would have a chance at occurring in an open access venue.

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The very idea that a bunch of rag tag untrained gun toters would stand up to a disciplined and hardened fighting force is ridiculous. The authors of the constitution fully intended for the rights of the people to form regulated militias with amrs shall not be infringed, not just any loonatic off the street.

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submitted 1 month ago by wesker@lemmy.sdf.org to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/40709622

Getting burnt by repair-hostile makers of washing machines who refuse to share documentation inspired this form letter (in LaTeX):

\documentclass[DIV=16]{scrlttr2}

%\LoadLetterOption{NF}              % uncomment for French standard windowed envelope
%\LoadLetterOption{DIN}             % uncomment for German standard windowed envelope
%\LoadLetterOption{UScommercial9DW} % uncomment for US standard double-windowed envelope

\usepackage{ragged2e} % needed to restore the loss of paragraph indents when \raggedright is used
\usepackage{hyperref}

\setlength{\RaggedRightParindent}{\parindent} % restore the loss of paragraph indents when \raggedright is used
\RaggedRight

\newcommand{\appliance}{washing machine} % replace with whatever you need to buy
\newcommand{\mfr}{Machine Maker} % replace with Whirlpool, or whatever
\newcommand{\mfrAddress}{123 sesame street\\90210} % replace with mfr address

\begin{letter}{%
  \mfr\\
  \mfrAddress}

  \opening{Dear \mfr,}

I am in the market for a \appliance.
When I asked the local retailer (whose profession is to sell your products)
which \mfr\ models include service manuals, they were helpless.
Could not find a single machine that respects consumers and thus their right to repair.
Zero. Every product by \mfr\ in their showroom was anti-consumer.

There are no service manuals published on your website either. 
When looking at various second-hand models, many basic user guides were missing as well,
apparently depending on the age of the unit.

I will not buy a disposable anti-consumer \appliance.
Those are for stupid consumers.
A \emph{\bfseries good} \appliance\ meets this criteria:

  \begin{enumerate}
  \item has a \emph{good} service manual which is available to anyone, free of charge
  \item has no cloud-dependency (\emph{all} functionality accessible without Internet)
  \item has no app, OR has a \emph{good} app
  \end{enumerate}

  A \emph{good} app satisfies this criteria:
  \begin{itemize}
  \item open source
  \item requires no patronisation of Google or Apple to obtain
  \item has an APK file directly on your website or on f-droid.org
  \end{itemize}

  A \emph{good} service manual meets this criteria:
  \begin{itemize}
  \item wiring diagram
  \item parts diagram with part numbers
  \item inventory of components including the manuafacturers and models, and functional resistence ranges (Ω)
  \item error codes and their meanings
  \item steps to reach diagnostic mode and steps to use it
  \end{itemize}

Do you make any \emph{good} pro-consumer \appliance s with a good service manual, with no bad apps?
If yes, please send me the service manual and I will take your product seriously.
If not, you are sure to lose the competition.
If everyone else loses the competition as well, then I will continue washing my clothes by hand
-- perhaps with this repairable machine: \url{www.thewashingmachineproject.org}.


  \closing{Sincerely,}
\end{letter}

I suggest sending that letter to every manufacturer making machines for your region. It will get no results but it will send the message they don’t hear enough of.

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submitted 2 months ago by cloudless@piefed.social to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org
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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

I noticed two communities where centralised concentration of power is antithetical to the purpose and topic of the community, despite side-bar promotion of the imperial Cloudflare empire:
https://slrpnk.net/post/25302329
https://slrpnk.net/post/25302230

background triviaThat was 2 posts. An asshole comes along and says “Shut up and stop spamming everywhere”. I don’t give a shit about the naïve dick move to call posts “spam” (which people now understand to mean any ideas that a person dislikes), but to say that two posts (without cross-posts) are “everywhere” as their thesis is a Trump-ian¹ lie. Ignorance exists and so do assholes -- often simultaneously in one person who slings lies. We have to accept that and it’s not what this rant is about. That’s just the background. Dicks will be dicks.

The first voter bias

The problem that emerges is a 2nd asshole kid comes along and up-votes the first asshole without doing a quick and simple check of the facts (whether the msg was sent all over the place). Then the next up-voter thinks: the post got up-voted, so it’s probably true that it was sent all over the place. So they cast their up-vote because there is another up-vote (or simply because they are just like the 1st asshole). And in little time, you have ½ dozen up-votes from people who assume other up-votes signal that the lie must have been verified by someone. So the up-votes influenced by other votes pile on and make the voice of a fool louder than the more civil discourse -- And we have garbage floating to the top.

It’s the same with down votes. If the first voter down votes, the 2nd voter is pulled in that direction. They think if someone votes to suppress, there must be something wrong with the msg so before they even start reading the bias already has inertia. It only takes 1 or 2 downvotes before some readers lose interest in even entering the thread. I know this because I have the same tendency myself, as I am managing my time and I don’t have time for garbage and have to make snap auto-pilot decisions.

Remedy to 1st voter bias

Lemmy servers can be configured to wholly disallow down votes. Some wise admins like that of beehaw (and a few others²) are aware of the problems under the status quo, so they disable down votes. It’s crude but it’s the best result with the blunt tools we have.

It could have a smarter implementation. E.g. The first ~6 or so down-votes could be hidden and only revealed all at once after 7th is cast. Or revealed sooner, one at a time only to offset up-votes.

The bias of demographics

The philosophy of decentralisation drove early engineers to focus on the nuts and bolts of implementing federated networks. The optimism of the Lemmy experiment drove the idea that if hosters simply have ability to control which nodes they federate with, a power balance will sort itself out. It was deployed without the foresight that network effect is still in play because countless users don’t have the insight, principles, or discpline required to do their part in maintaining balance. Fair enough, but it’s a design defect to neglect human factors.

We now have a massive flood of Internet newcomers registering on Lemmy.World like another Facebook, without philosophical insight. Comparable to AOL users in the 1990s. The same lack of insight that eludes them on why concentrated power is a bad idea culminates with their loyalty toward their choice of centralised fiefdoms. So they bring a flood of down votes onto anything putting a negative light on their fiefdom. It’s not just loyalty to their fiefdom. This demographic brings with it a mentality that does not value digital rights in general apart from very basic concepts of speech suppression. The nuances of the anti-big tech culture, digital sovereignty, self determinism and autonomy are lost. This demographic brings votes that do not reflect the principles of the locals.

And votes have consequences. It’s not just an unmerited ego tool. Threadiverse votes have a suppressive effect meant for suppressing actual garbage.

For this reason, Lemmy.World votes on a slrpnk.net thread have relevance to other loyal patrons of Lemmy.World but to locals they just bring distortion. The example shows this clearly, where an anarchist community actually appears to be favoring centralised power contrary to an anarchist code of conduct that rightfully condemns it. From there, I’m not exactly proposing a fix for that aspect, just raising the issue in a rant.

¹ I made up the term “Trump-ian lie”, as it’s inspired by the variety of extreme exaggeration that the orange man routinely conveys despite being superficially instantly detected for what it is.
² va11halla.bar, discover.deltanauten.de, lemmy.casasnow.noho.st, links.nadia.moe, hexbear.net, crazypeople.online, lemminielettrici.it, level-up.zone, lemmy.thefloatinglab.world, lemmy.mods4ever.com, redlemmy.com, pridehaven.social, lem.ph3j.com, chachara.club, lemmy.snoot.tube, linux.community, nsfwaiclub.com, lemmy.balamb.fr, lt.harding.dev, lemmy.blahaj.zone, wolf3d.space, lemmy.curiana.net, discuss.hadan.social, libretechni.ca, beehaw.org, timeperiods.fr

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submitted 2 months ago by FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

I've been seeing a bunch of video ads on Facebook of games that are similar to Tetris. I find them mesmerizing and oddly satisfying to watch. But when I tried downloading a few of these games, they are nothing like what was shown in the ad.

I just don't get why game developers do this. You went to the trouble of making a program to do a certain thing so you could create an ad to trick people into downloading a completely different program. Why not just create the game you figure people want to play? If you're able to create the program to show in the ad, why not make that the game?

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submitted 2 months ago by ciferecaNinjo@fedia.io to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

I caught one of those motherfuckers who needlessly park shared e-scooters in bicycle racks. He seemed to be taking a picture of his sabotage of the space cyclists need to lock their bicycle to.

Why is this plague of Google-boot-licking shared e-scooter people attacking our bicycle racks (I have been wondering)?

There are laws banning those scooters from blocking sidewalks and doorways. I assume the e-scooter company would get the fine for illegal parking, which they would need to pass on. So (I’m guessing) users photograph their parking job for self-defense from a fine. Is that correct?

Are they just keeping a personal copy of those photos, or does the app require users to transmit the photos? If they are being transmitted, does that mean the e-scooter companies are complicit in a limited resource (bicycle racks) getting clusterfucked?

What is the recourse for individual action? Ideas:

  • stack the scooters in a pile in the bushes whenever the racks are fully packed by shared scooters.
  • put stickers with a red prohibited sign over a scooter on the racks. But of course the problem with that is that it’s fair enough if a personal scooter is locked to a rack. And also unlocked/shared bicycles are the same problem. What is a graphical symbol that represents shared micromobiles but not personal ones? We could list them out (Lime, Bolt, Dott, Volt, etc) but there are too many and they keep changing. Would an e-scooter with a wi-fi symbol be clear?
  • lock the shared vehicles to the racks where they sit. It’s sacraficial, but sends a msg that costs them money (thus a msg that will not be ignored). Not cheap for the activist.
  • pile the shared machines together and lock them together, perhaps using the built-in lock from one of the shared e-bikes.
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submitted 2 months ago by athairmor@lemmy.world to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

There’s a search engine called Kagi and I’ve noticed Lemmy users trying to verbify it by using ‘kagis’ like people use ‘googles’ to mean they used a search engine to try to find some information.

Just stop. It’s dumb. Just say ‘I searched the Internet’ or something. ‘Kagis’ is not going to catch on. It’s not going to be a thing and it doesn’t need to be.

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There.
I said it.
68 years old and that's it. That's all I got.

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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by eecobb@lemmy.sdf.org to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

Look, I know there's all kinds of drama going on, especially after the YouTube livestream etc, but this woman is so cool:

  • she's a helicopter pilot, and a really good one. Landing a helicopter on a boat? That's gotta be tricky stuff.
  • she speaks four languages.
  • CEO of a environmental ocean protection nonprofit.

She's super educated, of course; Oxford, preparatory schools, the works. All high marks. Brilliant girl. Computer programmer since her teens, in what, the seventies? Brilliant.
Her dad died suddenly, which really must've affected her, and she always suspected he'd been murdered. She overcame anorexia as a girl; one of eight kids.
She dumped a Count, was friends with a prince, but despite being basically royalty, she chooses to protect the oceans and teach (and fly her helicopter!).

So, when this woman is being compared to the devil, when they're saying she's harvesting blood from children – they actually believe that – when she's getting doxxed, when court proceedings were illegally taped by cultists who believed she was a witch with literal magic powers, I just think we should recognize what a rad Lady she is. It takes guts to go through all that.
So, when the régime kidnapped her, it's no surprise that they're torturing her— lights on all the time, being kept awake in a tiny room, given a number instead of a name... terrible.

Anyway, everyone seems to be against her, but she's actually a really strong, smart, resilient girlboss.

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Rant

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