And of that 61%, only a third are directly investing. The rest get it as part of their compensation package for their work, which they can't benefit from without penalty until retirement. Additionally, it skews heavily by race. It's 66% of white families, but only 39% of black families and 28 percent of hispanic families. The amount invested follows similar trends.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/06/a-booming-us-stock-market-doesnt-benefit-all-racial-and-ethnic-groups-equally/

You made one reply to me whining that I attacked the person by pointing out his beliefs, and then made another reply to me about "gender terrorist SJWs". Do you just lack any form of self-awareness?

I attacked his beliefs which is perfectly valid. You should critically examine the motives and biases of people who feed you information.

The only difference between Tumblr and Facebook is size. Facebook isn't uniquely evil; it does exactly what any corporation would do at that scale. The systems that molded Facebook into what it is would also mold Tumblr or anything else into the same abomination.

I would respect principled opposition to megacorps even if I think it's still misguided in this instance, because at least that's overall based. But all of the discourse focuses on the specific wrongdoings of Facebook as if any other corporation wouldn't have done exactly the same thing in their position. It feels very kneejerk.

I want to federate and use it to destroy their platform. The biggest problem with the periodic social media "migrations" that always fail is that it creates a fragmented diaspora. Take Twitter as an example. When the big migration off Twitter was supposed to happen, some went to the Fediverse, some went to Threads, some went to BlueSky.

You know what happened? After a few weeks, most of them went back to Twitter, because that was the only common place between them, where they knew they could all meet and communicate. If Twitter was forced to federate with all other platforms, it would have been snuffed out by now. But if that was even proposed, everybody would have a kneejerk reaction, because Twitter bad. Nobody is thinking of the big picture.

I find it kind of strange that people seem so hesitant about it

I simply want the Fediverse to be a proper alternative option for social media access, not just another secret nerd club. We have enough of those already. That requires not completely closing off access to the things the typical person will want to access. I want all social media to eventually be interoperable like email is, preferably on the ActivityPub standard and not whatever centralized bullshit BlueSky is trying to cook up. That is the only way we're going to break the corporate stranglehold on social media.

Put simply, if you make people choose between our platform and the large corporate-backed platform with orders of magnitude more users, they will choose the corporate platform almost every time. And I think that's a bad outcome for all involved.

If democracy didn't exist, the right wouldn't be trying to prevent us from voting.

Greyzone is an op. We need another source.

It’s interesting that you are digging in on this nonsensical comparison.

You said, "Save the people from themselves. They are too ignorant to have control of their bodies." You then said "And are you really arguing people are still unaware of the dangers of smoking?" Everything I have said has been a direct attack on that line of logic and applies perfectly. We ban asbestos to protect people from buying it and hurting themselves, despite the fact that everybody is supposedly well aware of the harms. The same goes for lead paint and lead pipes; ungrounded outlets, admittedly, most people don't actually fully understand, but the logic still largely applies. If you believe in the idea that we shouldn't need to save people from harming their own bodies, that perfectly applies to these things as well.

If you want to go back and revise what you said to explain why it's acceptable for society to save people from damaging their bodies with known harmful construction materials but not to save people from damaging their bodies with known harmful narcotics, then do that. Draw that distinction yourself if you think there is one instead of expecting me to read the wrinkles of your brain through the internet. You don't get to be mad at me for arguing against the words you used, that's all I have to go on.

So: when is it acceptable for society to save people from themselves, and when isn't it?

Staying informed so you can actually vote effectively is a constant effort too. Especially if you actually participate in the primary process and local elections. You just don't see that as a constant effort because it's something you already do. It's an ingrained part of your routine and habit.

Similarly, I don't see reducing my consumption as a constant effort, because it's something I already do. I eat less meat, I use less plastic, I buy less junk than I used to. It took a bit of adjustment at first, sure. But now it's just something that I do.

You lived in a country that called itself communist, in the same way that North Koreans live in a country that calls itself democratic. There has never been a country that actually achieved communism, because communism requires there be no state. At best these countries would claim that communism was their goal, but honestly most were lying, or at the very least co-opted and turned against their ideals somewhere down the line.

Imagine thinking any large state isn't constantly injecting propaganda into the Internet. Couldn't be me.

The idea that there's only two options, doing nothing or complete pre-emptive defederation, is not accurate. If we can't even acknowledge that, I don't think this conversation will be productive.