Out of a reflex of distrust, I refuse to participate in any kind of loyalty program of the outlet of the large retail store around the corner.

I tell myself that by refusing to join the loyalty program (which basically comes down to scanning an anonymous loyalty card every time I make a purchase), I prevent them from adding my correlations (what products I buy, in what combos, at what time) to their data.

But since I normally pay by card, I guess they can (and do) already do that with my bank account information?

If I would pay with cash, they can still see those correlations per purchase, but they can't track my purchases over time?

Does anyone know if there are any companies/organizations that offer the possibility to sail the Atlantic by boat as a passenger (so not as a (more or less) experienced crew member). Are there any? Or announced plans or something like that?

(I'm not talking about being a passenger on a large cargo ship. I'm curious about the possibility to cross the Atlantic with a low carbon footprint).

After watching this video I am left with this question.

The video ultimately claims that humans will not disappear, but doesn't do a great job explaining why.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but for the (or a) population to be and remain stable, the total fertility rate needs to be equal to the global replacement rate (which recently was 2.3).

And since the total average fertility rate appears to be currently at this 2.3, any drop in the fertility rate in place A would have to be compensated with a rise in the fertility rate in place B (assuming that, at some point, we would like to stop population decline)?

I guess one way for a population to remain stable, while women are having fewer than 2.3 children, would be to have fewer men? If a population has 100 women and 10 men, each woman would only have to have on average (a bit more than) 1.1 child? (Which would of course also require a collective form of prenatal sex selection.)

I realize that would be bonkers and unethical. Just wondering out loud.

Argentina's team is such a bunch of actors and lying cry babies (Messi). Winning like this is shameful. They didn't deserve the world cup and they don't deserve the Copa América.

This is a great way to travel through space and time, and get to know our planet better in a fun and beautifully designed way.

What could be reasons for my rsync, which is syncing two remote servers through ssh, to slow down over time like this? It keeps happening. How to check what is the bottleneck?

If banks would not be allowed to lend out more than what they have in terms of deposits, or if they would only be allowed to lend out twice that amount, what would be the most significant difference with the current fractional reserve system (in which the cash-reserve ratio can be as high as 1:9)?

I'm reading that the current system increases the availability of credit, which in turn helps the economy to grow. But if banks would only be allowed to lend out half of what they are currently lending out, wouldn't the supply of money simply go down, and thus the value of money up, effectively leaving banks with the same lending power?

Current system:

• Total amount of money in circulation: central bank money x money multiplier. Most money is created by commercial banks.

Alternative system:

• Total amount of money in circulation: central bank money. All money is created by central banks.

I'm not asking what would happen if this would change over night (e.g. sudden decrease of money, monster deflation etc.). I'm asking what is the benefit (and to whom) of doing it the way it is currently done.

Hi all, sorry if this has been asked/discussed before (I couldn't find any directly overlapping posts):

I have been running the Nextcloud snap now for quite some time, and although things have run quite smoothly, I never really managed to properly back things up.

I make weekly backups of the database, config and data, but it's very hard and time consuming to glue these elements back together. And as they say: when you can't check whether a backup works, it's not really a backup.

I have been experimenting with KVM/qemu lately and things look pretty great. The idea of simply backing up the entire OS that runs Nextcloud (a backup that you can easily deploy/run somewhere else to test if it's working) sounds very attractive.

Reading around, however, tells me that some of you recommend running the Nextcloud docker (instead of a VM).

My questions:

1. What would be the advantage of running Nextcloud as a docker, instead of within a VM?
2. What would be a sensible way to have an incremental/differential backup of the VM/Docker?
3. The storage usage of my Nextcloud instance exceeds 1TB. If I run it within a VM, I will have to connect it to a 2TB SSD. Does it make sense to add the external storage space to the VM? How does that affect the ease of backing the full VM up? Or (as I have read here and there) should I simply put the entire VM on the external SSD?

I have seen great memes and posts about the fact that Lemmy doesn't have any Karma to pursue. But surely it keeps track of points? At least in Connect I can see mine and those of others?

Often political leaders at the top need to maintain some diplomatic composure and have the privilege to leave their dirty fights to subordinates. As a result we often don’t realize how much of an asshole these leaders actually are. A good test is to check what they allow (or encourage) their lower ranked allies to get away with.

When it comes to spreading disinformation about climate change or the risks of smoking, I can clearly see how it protects economic interests (e.g. the value of the assets of the fossil fuel industry or the tobacco industry). I therefore understand that these lies are (have been) regularly pushed by people who do not necessarily believe in them.

But what are the strategic considerations behind the active spread of anti-vax theories? Who gains from this? Is it just an effective topic to rile up a political base? Because it hits people right in the feels? Is it just a way to bring people together on one topic, in order to use that political base for other purposes?

Or is anti-vax disinformation really only pushed by people who believe it?

I think there are good reasons to not let corporate interests join the space we built to escape them, but I guess every instance is free to (de)federate with whomever they want.

So let's say my instance (mander.xyz) defederates from Meta but another Lemmy instance that meander.xyz federates with (let's say "misguided.ml") does not. What happens when someone from Meta comments on a post from misguided.ml and others from misguided.ml comment on that comment? Will I see the comments on the meta comment, but not the original meta comment itself? Or will I not see the entire thread?