I disagree that “their humiliating defeat on November 5 was due largely to their undeniable role in the Israeli war and genocide in Gaza.” I definitely think it played a role and Dems would have won more voters with concrete promises to halt Israel’s genocide and enforce US laws like the Leahy Law. People are justifiably upset with Israel crossing lines without Biden enforcing consequences, and the huge amounts of money going to fund genocide as opposed to being used domestically.

Was it really THE major issue affecting votes though? IMO the more significant issues were things like a feeling of “more of the same” when people are struggling and focusing on trying to win “moderate” Republicans instead of motivating a base they thought was guaranteed. Still, it’s an article with valid points.

Reminds me of a quote from a Warhammer 40k book. “When the stars fell, when the seas boiled and the earth burned, my faith didn’t die. That is when I began to believe. God was real, and he hated us.”

My mistake, deleting it.

deleted by creator

Biden has talked about ceasefires for a year now, and proven it’s just talk. Israel has crossed so many red lines it’s impossible to keep count, all with no consequences. Harris said she wouldn’t change a thing and her campaign made sure people knew she didn’t support an arms embargo on Israel. You can gaslight yourself all you want about her intentions, but her actual words -promised- more of the same.

Trump is awful, but telling people the Dems presented any meaningful opposition to ethnic cleansing or that Harris made it clear she’d be better is propagating a convenient lie.

I loathe the comments saying some version of “I hope everyone who didn’t vote for Harris gets what they deserve”. Dem bullying and refusal to stop 100% support of war crimes (including domestic protest suppression/condemnation) alienated a crucial part of their base, but apparently it’s still not their fault. Now there’s bitter folks here taking a sick satisfaction telling people they’re going to suffer and consoling themselves by viciously insulting everyone who didn’t fall in line.

Apparently when the horrors happen it’s not because Harris ran a shit campaign courting conservatives, didn’t listen, and promised more of the same (or even a slide right) as Biden, a president with an approval rating in the 30-40% range. It’s not because she refused to promise an immediate stop to support of war crimes as per America’s own laws. It’s the fault of everyone who refused to vote against their conscience because a “lesser evil” platform didn’t convince them to support a party of unrepentant war criminals.

Downvote me all you want and tell me how idiotic I am. I told people urgently to vote Harris right up until the election, but I also always spoke out against bullying on Lemmy and it’s only gotten worse post-election. The people in this thread talking about how others are going to get what they deserve are abusive people and I don’t want to be associated with them anyways. Their disapproval is something I’m proud of.

A lot of people did in fact set aside Gaza until Trump was stopped. As for those that didn’t, they should have listened to Bernie Sanders. I did months ago and went all-in on Dem support. There were multiple times when I wrote up an angry post about US support of Israel and then didn’t post it because I didn’t want to turn a voter into a non-voter or worse a Trump supporter.

I understand their position of never rewarding ethnic cleansing and war crimes though. They chose to make sure the Dems know they would never “settle” for the illegal killing of civilians. The support for Israel made it especially hard for Arab Americans to vote Dem. It’s difficult to support a party that has been in power during the whole conflict yet gives unconditional support for the internationally condemned murder of Arabs.

I’m sure a lot also felt disenfranchised by the bipartisan protest suppression and condemnation. Even in Dem states peaceful protesters were punished, and sometimes pro-Israeli protesters who attacked got away with it. Then there was the whole “vote with us or else” pressure that went on for months. Dissenters like the “uncommitted” voters were insulted by the party that wanted their unconditional support.

So it’s not like it’s completely insane. But as Sanders points out that position only makes things worse and has done so.

Policies should be passed at a governmental/institutional level to reduce inequality as it’s identified by data. No one should be at a societal disadvantage because of how they were born or choices that are their personal right to make.

That said, I think some problems to avoid are:

• On case-by-case scenarios, assuming that broad trends apply to every individual. I don’t like automatically assuming everyone of a certain demographic is a victim. Also, some people in disadvantaged groups will use very real discrimination to excuse bad decisions and behaviors. Everyone is fallible, and sometimes justice requires punishment even for these folks.

• Gatekeeping suffering. It’s hazardous to society and individual mental health to tell people of “advantaged” demographics that their suffering/problems aren’t valid because of who they are. I’m talking about “what do you have to complain about, you’re not X or Y”. We can acknowledge discrimination and work to reduce it without dismissing the concerns of other groups.

Lots of reasons. Left-leaning Canadian’s take on Kamala’s loss:

• Biden/Kamala have acted against the American majority for months now in Gaza. This isn’t a sabotage take, it’s as close to fact as can be determined of national attitude. Look at my post history before you accuse me of “both sides”. A lot of Dems and especially young people are very vocal about hating support of the ethnic cleansing of Occupied Palestinian Territory. Millions of people chose to stomach it, but I think other millions felt unrepresented and betrayed by protest suppression/bipartisan condemnation.

• I don’t want to insult anyone, but even moderately detailed political plans may not work in America. Trump’s campaign was run on vague promises and angry rhetoric that was emotionally engaging. Clearly people don’t know how much Trump’s policies like tariffs are going to hurt them personally, but like “America for Americans”. Kamala ran on a detailed platform that took effort to understand and clearly it failed to motivate enough voters.

• “Try to please everyone and you will please no one.” Instead of solidifying support and inspiring hope among the Dem base, Kamala’s campaign assumed their support due to fear of Trump and went after undecideds and Republicans. Republicans aren’t going to switch and many undecideds are that way due to apathy.

• No Dem primary meant people couldn’t choose the candidate they might actually want to support. They were given Biden then Harris without being asked for input.

• Related to that: Biden’s campaign soured voters, and Kamala wasn’t able to climb out of the hole left to her. His low approval rating didn’t help given Kamala felt like a younger version of more of the same.

• Misinformation and propaganda by foreign and domestic right-wingers kept a lot of people from switching sides.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz, known for his hawkish stance, is set to replace Gallant.

If Katz is even worse, that’s bad news. It’s not like Gallant was a kind or just man. Gallant is the one who announced a “complete siege” on Oct. 9th, 2023 with no electricity, food, or fuel allowed into Gaza. He said the Gazans were “human animals” and would be treated as such. He set the stage and attitude for many of the Israeli war crimes of the last year.

• If you’re the owner of the home, know what bylaws there are regarding snow removal near your home. Where I live you can get a fine + snow removal costs if you aren’t reasonably prompt getting snow off the sidewalk.

• Snowy surfaces (sidewalks, driveways, roads) are often icy surfaces = slip and fall hazard. This is especially serious for older folks but it can hurt/injure at any age. This gets worse if it snows then melts then refreezes. Don’t run if you don’t have to. Sand/grit on these surfaces can help, and in my area you can get sand for free at certain town facilities.

• Frostbite on exposed skin is a genuine hazard. Look up the weather forecast when it’s cold and take time-to-frostbite warnings seriously.

Reddit:

• It has a much larger user base and many heavily specialized boards that nevertheless stay reasonably active.
• It’s a collection of echo chambers. Dissent is usually stomped out by mass downvoting and heavy moderation/bans. It’s rare to find a board that allows arguments for a long period of time. Agree with the board’s users/mods or get silenced. Posted rules do not matter, and you can definitely be hateful in ways that violate posted rules so long as that type of hate is acceptable on that board.
• So many users mean that getting content to succeed is a crapshoot. Often posts become lost in the noise, especially on busy boards.
• I left about a year ago, but apparently there’s a lot of bot/AI slop on boards now.

Lemmy:

• Much smaller user base. Heavily specialized boards move slowly if they exist at all. It’s not unusual to see boards where it’s just one/a few people posting with days in between new content.
• More ability to have disagreements. Whether it’s because moderating a smaller # of users is easier, the mods are less authoritarian, or whatever you are more likely to be able to disagree. Don’t be blatantly racist, celebrating violence, clearly trolling, etc. and you’ll probably remain able to participate. I’m sure this isn’t universal on all boards, but it’s my experience on many boards.
• For all that I believe the above point, there are still “echo chamber” moments on Lemmy. Sometimes it seems people may be downvoted simply because they are already downvoted. It’s still way less egregious than on Reddit, and such is human nature I suppose.
• Fewer users means you are more likely to get some engagement on your post, at least in my experience. I never sorted my feed by new posts on Reddit because it was an avalanche of posts of questionable quality, so I only saw whatever content had already succeeded. On Lemmy I can look for new posts and see most if not all content on the boards I enjoy.

I’m surprised it’s that low. In the first several weeks alone Israel dropped hundreds of 2,000lb bombs. “The heavy munitions, mostly manufactured by the US, can cause high casualty events and can have a lethal fragmentation radius – an area of exposure to injury or death around the target – of up to 365 meters (about 1,198 feet), or the equivalent of 58 soccer fields in area.” That doesn’t even count all the other munitions used.

I like that it’s moderated fairly lightly but reasonably. Often I can have an actual discussion with someone who doesn’t agree with me without either of us getting banned by a mod who likes one side or the other. From what I see generally a user needs to be very obviously abusive/racist/violent before a mod steps in, even if the content is controversial.

I dislike that I’ve needed to heavily restrict my use for my mental health until after the election. A lot of people (not all by any means) believe it’s ok to bully and abuse other users because their cause is righteous - it’s already shown up in this thread. E.g. the daily posts and comments, with a lot of upvotes/support, that label anyone who disagrees with or criticizes Kamala (used to be Biden)/Democrats a bot, idiot, worse than useless, foreign agent and so on. I’m not talking about downvoting which is just expressing disagreement - I’m talking about outright insults and upvoting those. The attitude of “vote with/support me or else” has no place in a democracy founded on free voting without persecution, even if the bully is sure they’re right. If I didn’t mention it, perhaps even though I have, we might see a version of “but it is actually ok this time” and reasons why. It’s happened before.

Guess what? Very few “policy bullies” think they are evil - they’re positive it’s justified. Christians demand abortion bans, Muslim deportation, religion in schools/government and so on because they truly believe they are saving eternal souls. I was raised in that environment. That a sizable amount of Lemmy users believe it’s correct/admirable to insult others into “proper” behavior makes them very similar in character to those religious extremists IMO. Apparently when the issue is really important abuse is ok.

I’ll end by saying Gaza/Palestine is incredibly important to me - I am legitimately very upset frequently by the stories and media. However, Bernie Sanders convinced me to support Biden and then Kamala. Bernie laid out his argument with logic and facts and did not once insult my position. I also doubt the aggressive posts/comments are winning over undecideds. “I wasn’t sure if I should vote Democrat until I was called a harmful idiot and had my concerns dismissed as being in bad faith”.

yttrium aluminum garnet

Making me look up obscure gems first thing in the morning… and now I know it’s used in optics and lasers which is knowledge I’ll never, ever need. #Grumble #ComeOnIt’sJustAColorlessRock

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert, just an interested amateur wanting to chat and drawing comparisons from past leaps in tech and other conversations/videos.

For a time expert analysis will probably work. For instance, the “click here to prove your not a robot” boxes can definitely be clicked by robots, but for now the robot moves in detectably different ways. My guess is that, for at least a while, AI content will be different from actual video in ways like code. There will probably be an arms race of sorts between AI and methods to detect AI.

Other forms of evidence like DNA, eyewitness accounts, cell phone tracking etc. will likely help mitigate deceitful AI somewhat. My guess is that soon video/audio will no longer be considered as ironclad as it was even a few years ago. Especially if it comes from an unverified source.

There are discussions about making AI tools have a digital “watermark” than can be used to identify AI-generated content. Of course this won’t help with black market-type programs, but it will keep most people out of the “deep fake for trials” game.

When it comes to misinformation on social media though, well…it’s probably going to get crazy. The last decade or so has been a race at an unprecedented scale to try and keep up with BS “proof”, psuedoscience, etc. Sadly those on the side of truth haven’t always won. The only answer I have for that is making sure people are educated about how to deal with misinformation and deepfakes - eg. awareness they exist, identifying reputable sources and expert consensus, and so on.

“Hang loose” is what you tell someone who needs to chill out and let the waves carry them away from their problems man. Align your chakras with the Earth and so on.

Seriously though, the reason I wrote like that is I’m using the slang of roughly 90s/2000s-ish California surfer culture, which is where the hand signal was used to tell people to relax and be happy. Or say hi and let them know you are relaxed and happy. If you imagine it as a gang sign for surfer hippies you aren’t far off.

Dude, radical emoji. That’s just a gnarly way of tell someone to hang loose, bro. I’ve usually seen it done left-to-right instead of up-and-down, but the universe is infinite so if you wanna flip it that’s totally copacetic.

Edit: I started thinking about surfers and it dragged up memories of this legend on Tosh.0

How dare Israel do this immediately after receiving a strongly worded letter from the US administration about letting aid into Gaza? Don’t they realize they’re on track to get another stern warning, or maybe even a disapproving phone call?

Strawman much? Care to explain how you arrived at that accusation of dehumanization based on what was written about the technical details of missiles?