I could shame OP for falling for the crypto hype but I think the more important lesson here is to never ever mix family and finances.
Even if you know for 100% fact that you have a slam dunk investment, it’s not worth it. Money corrupts.
Never loan money, even if you don’t expect it to get paid back. It creates a power imbalance. Envy and resentment for you having money is better than creating any financial ties.
Never go into business with family.
Don’t mix finances and family. Family is more important than money.
Disclaimer: not financial advice, also the stuff mentioned here is specific to a certain country and to my mom’s situation.
I’ll share a slightly uplifting story I guess? My mom has asked me for advice after she asked me what I was doing with my money and found out I was doing well with it. It wasn’t unsolicited advice so that probably helps. I don’t have some crazy life hack or some crypto scheme. I just presented her the facts that stock market indexes (NASDAQ specifically) tend to avg around 10% YoY and it’s an ok investment if you don’t need the money for the next 5 to 10 years at least. I also disclosed risks and suggested bonds if it’s too risky or at least open a high interest savings account with an insured bank (FDIC or CDIC).
I helped her set up a bank account with a bank that offered competitive high interest savings account and she agreed to the risk so we dumped the rest of her extra money into index funds. She’s up 20% since she started so she’s happy.
Honestly in my other comment I said never give investing advice, but as far as it goes, recommending investment in indexed funds is probably there exception with the caveat that it is a multi-year investment and there are dips.
Lmao. Yeah you have to be careful to make sure they understand the risks. They need to understand 10% average YoY is not the same as 10% every year. I’ve no background in finance so I don’t know if I know enough to make sure I gave her the best advice but it was based on my understanding and prior experience.
Also, I think a friend of hers was trying to get her to sell covered calls. While well intentioned and technically low risk, it’s complex. If you screw anything up setting up the covered calls it can end disastrous. Also it will complicate your taxes.
Right. Which gets us full circle, to never give investment advice, lol. That being said, at some point someone may sincerely look too you for guidance and you need to make a call as to whether you want to take that risk, what advice you give, and are you sure it is good advice.
I used to mentor student employees years ago, and when they wanted advice I always told them to max out workplace matches first, and then after that if they can save more, put it in tax advantaged savings programs that let you buy into indexed funds and never sell. In those cases you usually can't even sell unless certain conditions are met and you sign disclosures, unlike most brokerages. Now, students you are giving them advice for the rest of there life and they likely don't have $40k to panic sell/buy/sell to zero.
Yes, times a thousand. But I would go even further.
Never give investment advice. You might explain what investments you have made and why you made them, but never give advice and never urge or prompt someone to invest. You should also end every conversation with "but that's not advice and I'm not an expert." It is too easy for either the investment to not work out, or for them to do it wrong (wrong timing, panic sale, misunderstood the options, etc).
The last thing you want on your conscience is someone investing a life changing amount of money just for it to go down in flames. I might invest $1000 in something that I think might pay off, tell someone they should invest, and next thing you know they drop in $40k and panic sell on a dip in two weeks, when I was planning to hold for five years. You never know.
Honestly, this kind of goes for everything that’s more complicated than average people can understand. (By “average” I mean “anyone not familiar with this particular knowledge.” I have in depth IT knowledge but very weak automobile maintenance knowledge, for example. This makes me “average” when it comes to automobile maintenance.)
I don’t give out IT advice for the most part, because the number of people who will come hounding you because they misunderstood, did something wrong, or missed several steps, is too damn high. Doesn’t matter that they made the choice to take initiative to do it on their own, now it’s your fault for suggesting it when their PC blows up in their face.
My guess is it’s the cholula, or Taco Bell, or ordering deep fried chimichangas, or other Tex-Mex, most freshly made authentic mexican food is simple ingredients that should definitely not cause someone to have the shits
yeah, but their taco bell kind of sucks major ass because they don’t have access to the same ingredients, or something along those lines, I can’t quite remember.
It wouldn’t surprise me. Japan does rice and beef very well. But tomatoes and lettuce are far less common in Asia. I’m actually traveling to Japan early next year at some point. Will try Taco Bell and report back
Tell me whether or not they have any good black bean tacos. I’m interested in their bean variety, because I’m not sure to what extent they have the same beanage as over here. I have to expect that they have some level, as otherwise you’d get no bean paste pastries, no miso soup bean stock, yadda yadda. I expect a full report on my desk by may 2024.
Some people are sensitive to an enzyme in beans as well, I’m blanking on what it’s called atm. But I’m a vegetarian that eats beans like 3-5 times a week and my poops are legendary the day after eating them. Lentils too, to a lesser degree
I lack that enzyme genetically. I am allergic to alcohol, and so when my stomach can’t digest beans corn, or even eggs, they sit in my intestines, start to ferment, and I am in a world of hurt.
But good shits are the point. Fiber takes on water in your gut which increases the volume of the shit in question and it makes them super soft or lose shape entirely. Pretty much all my shits are like that because of my high fiber intake.
Man, it ain’t the beans, it’s the peppers and/or spices.
Seriously, I’m not fucking with you. Beans are great insoluble fiber, and they reduce the effect of the other ingredients to some degree. This is a widely used way for IBS sufferers to reduce the impact of the effect. Extra beans, as long as you aren’t sensitive to the beans themselves (which is a thing), or added dairy (again, if that isn’t a trigger for you), and doubling up the tortillas all help to some degree.
If the dish is also fatty, that’s going to end in your end not ending well. Since what a lot of people think of as “Mexican” tends to be like what you get at Chipotle or Taco Bell, the fattiness is assumed.
I eat hella hot sauce and peppers and… yeah. They’ll do that to you. My mouth is fine with any amount of spice but when it contacts any other part of my body (or I inhale a tiny bit!) I realize holy shit, this stuff is caustic.
Americans want gun control. That’s not up for discussion. It’s an absurd majority.
However, as long as it is “only” school children and ordinary civilians dying, Republicans will not change their stance on gun control in the slightest. The people who are responsible to fix this are the only group that is not at any risk of getting shot. They are so absurdly protected that they will never be on the receiving end of a barrel, and therefore, do not care.
And to make matters worse, the Republicans dictating the supreme court, who will block anything that could possible address this problem, not only cannot be voted out, no, they literally have to die before they can be replaced.
The only people who could fix the gun murder issue are the ones not dying because of guns.
I dont think you are advocating for violence, but there was a shooting at a Congressional baseball game and it didnt push the Republicanw towards passing legislation to control guns at all. It is extremely disturbing how little of a fuck they give.
Yeah I remember that. Yeah…same with the insurrection: they can only care for about an hour, then it back to business.
That’s kinda the comment that always gets me banned: as long as Republican politicians do not actually die themselves frequently, they will not change.
However, as long as it is “only” school children and ordinary civilians dying, Republicans will not change their stance on gun control in the slightest.
So, you’re saying we should start shooting unborn fetuses?
Hell and that’s a Fox “News” poll, so that would likely have their own flavor of bias trying to make it as much in their own favor as possible.
I don’t see this as advocating for violence, more as pointing out how a specific group of people only care about things that personally affect them so they currently don’t care about the issue.
Hell the NRA cared about gun control when the Black Panthers started advocating for buying guns back in the day. Why? Because they saw it as a personal threat to their well-being.
That’s why I instantly saved it to my phone. This picture has such a high value in “discussions” with gun freaks.
I’m working for a NATO countries’ military, am a frequent poster and avid follower of NonCredibleDefense, own weapons myself, know a lot about their inner workings and history, but even I am not even remotely as crazy as those people.
Then again, I do own several weapons but advocate that my government pass laws to take them away. Guess I’m kind of a paradoxical outlier in this matter.
I used to be an avid gun owner till my father used one of his guns to take his life, he carried one his whole life to protect our family, and it ended up causing more harm than any mugger or home invader ever could imagine. If you ever have suicidal ideations please leave your firearms with a trusted comrade till you get help. I had ideations almost my whole adult life and thought i could resist them till the day I died, which was technically true, but not in the sense I thought. I pawned my guns, shortly after his death, and haven’t had those ideations since. The vast majority of gun deaths are self inflicted and get swept under the rug by families and the news.
I agree whole heartedly that if you have suicidal thoughts you shouldn’t own firearms. It’s a recipe for disaster if you do. And if you have those thoughts you should seek help. There’s people in your life who will miss you dearly when you’re gone, even if you don’t think so.
And I’m sorry for your loss, I know how hard it is when someone you care about commits suicide. I’ve known 4 people who have. Though none of them used firearms to do so I’ll never forget them.
Personally I’ll never own pistols as I’ve had too many bad experiences with pistols. The why is a bit of a doozy.
Trigger warning Child Abuse, Breaking and Entering, and Attempted Murder.On a number of occasions my dad held a pistol to my head screaming at me to tell him where his drugs that he had already done were. He did this a lot to my siblings and I before he finally got clean. I still refuse to speak with him as there’s just too much pain there. My siblings tell me he’s a lot different now, that he’s back to the way he was when they were young, but I’ve only ever known him as the abusive drug addict that he was. Him and some of my other relatives are why I own firearms really as a number of them have said that they “can’t wait to get the order to hunt people like me in the streets.” And one went to prison for kicking my door in to try. That was when that relative found out I was a gun owner. They didn’t get shot, we just patiently waited for the police to arrive while they sat in my entry way.
That their local representative was anti-gun control before this shooting affected his own local area, only proves your point more. That he changed his opinion is a good thing, but too little too late.
Very impressed that he publicly came out to accept responsibility for the Maine shooting with his previous opposition to gun control though, and is now advocating for it.
Unfortunately, it may take several shootings in all the representatives’ and senators’ home towns that are in opposition to actually flip them (even then, it wouldn’t change many of their minds, unless it actually personally affected them), and the country shouldn’t have to suffer that. It likely will literally take a constitutional amendment to prevent the supreme court from overturning any legislation enacted (or at least stripping it down to become fluff legislation with little meaning, or effect).
Mental health is a squishier standard. Let’s say I had depression and decided to talk to someone about it, get the help I needed to become mentally healthy again. Should that necessarily be penalized if I want to go buy a gun to go out to the range or hunting with my buddies? Should seeking help disqualify someone entirely? Does that prevent people from getting help they think they might need, stigmatizing an already stigmatized practice?
Meanwhile, if Dave down the hill has a record, he’s already shown he was willing to do an illegal thing, whether or not the record is fair. If he already has reports against him for domestic disturbances, that’s pretty cut and dry violent behavior that ought not be allowed to intensify.
I’m not saying mental checks aren’t a good idea or aren’t worth it. I’m saying that they’re a harder sell because a) they take more nuance to formulate well and b) the propaganda machine will have an easier time telling people how those checks are overreach.
Also, it probably weighs over 3500 kg, so you’ll need a C license to drive it. Fun fact, if you have one of those, you can also drive a huge lorry. Why would you choose an eyesore like that, when you could be a badass rock hauler.
Some dude drives on of those where i live. I've never seen it move, it's always parked on the same spot where it doesn't fit. Completely with aouthern state flag and stickers that say that only gay cops pull him over and how every car that is not a v8 is for girls. I'd be so embarrassed to drive that thing.
And a dodge challenger, Chevy Camaro, all of the Nissan Z series and all of the skyline series, the delorean dmc-12, most mustangs, Acura nsx, Subaru wrx sti, the list is literally hundreds of cars long.
All of these cars are definitely too much car for that dude I can guarantee it.
where i live, which is in the south, every 3 cars is one of these, they lift suvs too, so that increases the odds. when cops clock out they also drive one of these, even the gay ones. driving it is no big deal, its how they drive and what they do with it, usually road raging other road users, intimidating them, and trying to run them off the road, in other words bullying and intimidation, which is likely why they own one in the first place. why do they feel a strong desire to bully or intimidate anyone? that’s a great question. why do you have to knock out the biggest guy in jail to get any respect? …
There is a dealership here called lifted trucks(I know very straight forward. straight to the main selling point) they have more lots here than other dealerships.It is very clear the amount of lifted trucks here went up significantly. The whole city screams that I’m only doing it to get women because I’m insecure about myself. Which is the reason why I wish to move to Europe’s walkable cities or just move to a place with no one around.
I didnt say I owned a truck. I have a electric bike that I built. I said either go to a walkable city OR go to the middle of nowhere “living off the land.”
I enjoyed the first couple books. The next few were okay, although all the misogyny and rape and torture fetishizing was bothering me. The Temple of the Winds was unintelligible nonsense. I had to stop in disgust and never touch another one of his books again. That is one of maybe 3-4 books I stopped and never finished in the last 20 years. Man it was awful. Plus, most of his ideas were just plagiarized from Robert Jordan. He did have a couple of unique ideas that were cool though.
I literally asked my wife to marry me on the first date and she said yes. Getting right to the point is a woman after my own heart. Neither of us have ever dated before or, naturally, since.
We’ve been together for ten years.
We are also on the spectrum so that may have been a factor.
Why marriage? Can’t you just start living together first?
Asking someone to marry you on the first is just stupid. Many things could not work out and marriage is a big thing. Imagine spending time and money and then find out that you are not fit together. Then you live a miserable life or fill for a divorce.
No kidding. My employer has top quality health insurance too, and in the USA that’s a seriously big deal when your prospective partner has a health condition.
We did–After we agreed to get married, because we were quite sure, but at the same time we didn’t want to impose such a stark change right away in case the change would exceed one’s ability to cope with change which could lead to panic, meltdowns, etc. Neither of us handle change very well. We didn’t actually get married immediately of course. She packed up a pod and moved in next. It was months before.
We also talked about having kids right away. Not having them right away! But we talked about it immediately, I think like five minutes in, because isn’t it important to know?
As a counterpoint: nothing in life is without risk. I’ve seen friends take it slow and end up divorced, too.
Many guys don’t realize but a spectrum lady is perfect. They get to the point, tell you when something is wrong, and are excellent listeners. They also have incredibly complex hobbies that seem really simple, like knitting or baking, that can pay off for helpers around them as snacks and gifts. If you ever felt you didn’t find the person who speaks to you, think different.
Those attributes are an important part of what I like about her! Very direct, very plain to a fault. She has never and probably will never have an interest in playing interpersonal games. Zero drama. Loyal, because she doesn’t like change. She’s obsessive in her interests meaning we both easily get sufficient time to be our own person.
Sure, she’s exceptionally sensitive about certain textures and sounds, but I understand because I’m the same way. Meeting her was like living a life where everyone speaks this language that I just wasn’t born with, and finding someone else who is just as confused as I am was really validating.
So yes, I suggested that we marry, and she says yes you will suffice… which is perhaps the highest compliment she has ever paid me.
Haha, well, I told my family that a person has to get to know her. She seems bitter at first but that’s just how she is. Besides, they don’t have to live with her. I do.
Not using her outward appearance, countenance, or facial expressions as indicative of her true feelings is part of the package. It takes getting used to, and it’s not right for everyone.
The steel that I cut has thickness measured in millimeters, the program wants it in fraction inches, and the torch spacing is in decimal inches. It’s a catastrophe but Im getting pretty good at in/mm conversion
There’s this concept under socialism called “development” where you make small steps towards your desired outcome. Naturally, capitalists hate this which is why they spend so much money pushing for all-or-nothing “solutions” and encouraging people to quit when it doesn’t work. Whatever it takes to make sure that people don’t fundamentally challenge their illegitimate rule as they burn the planet for profit.
There’s a lot wrong with this video as most videos on EVs from 2016. The data is sources for electricity production is actually over a decade old now (Sep 2013) and it rationalizes that the electric cars will break down before the grid ever moves towards greener sources. This is a very silly notion considering solar is straining the grid with too much power at times, times where EVs could charge. They can also charge over night encouraging nuclear power to be more financially feasible as nuclear relies on a base load as they don’t like to turn off.
They’re not a silver bullet and in some cases like the Hummer EV they are worse than an old car but if you have to drive a lot it is completely less carbon intensive than an ICE for most EVs.
Every car on the road being converted to electric with magic wouldn’t fix climate change. If you didn’t also get trucks and SUVs it may not even move the needle Personal car use is not a major cause of climate change. It just doesn’t matter compared to industrial and commercial emissions.
Of course it won’t fix climate change in one go, but doing so would remove a major fossil fuel dependency for your average Joe and make them much more likely to vote against fossil fuels.
Put another way, how many people driving gas cars would vote in favor of heavy taxes on fossil fuel use?
Now, how many would vote that way if they personally didn’t have any dependencies on fossil fuels?
Also, highway vehicles account for 1.5 billion tons of GHGs being emitted each year, that’s 11% of the global yearly GHG emissions, so yeah, it definetely would “move the needle”. In the US specifically it’s as much as 20% of our nations emissions.
And yeah I already know the next argument “bUt YoUr JuSt UsInG fOsSiL fUeLs To ChArGe It” - except you’re not necessarily, in my area (part of CA), you can choose to have 100% of your electricity provided by renewable sources for a small monthly premium ($18/month). Additionally in CA, all new homes are being built with solar power, which further increases your ability to charge without fossil fuels.
And in the areas that isn’t true, it’s at least getting groundwork laid down to make it true. An electric car can be powered by renewable energy, a fossil fuel car must be powered by fossil fuels.
There are a lot of steps to solving climate change beyond “buy an electric car”, and you’re right that industrial and commercial pollution accounts for the majority, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be pushing on all fronts.
We’ve already waited way too long to act, we can’t afford as a species to say “well, I’m not going to change my car until the industrial polluters get their shit together”, we have to push in Every possible direction, all at the same time to make progress, and electric cars overtaking fossil fuel cars is a big part of that.
There’s a lot of work to be done globally until electric cars are 100% green, both in terms of power infrastructure and the processes to create them, but there’s no way forward with gas cars, so we need to start moving over as a society now, phasing out the production of gas cars with electric
This is the exact kind of fucking bullshit that i hate.
Of course it won’t fix climate change in one go
Be honest: It won’t fix it at all. It won’t significantly impact climate change. It won’t insignificantly impact climate change.
so yeah, it definetely would “move the needle”
First of all: emissions are not the target. Climate change is the target. Even if all human related greenhouse gas emissions ceased tomorrow we would still be facing catastrophic climate change and then an effectively indefinite period (on a human scale) before things settled down again. We cannot not-pollute our way out of this mess.
Let me reiterate: We can no longer change the outcome by reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and consumer car usage is a small slice of overall carbon dioxide emissions. Of course, we could make it worse. So how much do consumer cars contribute to making it worse?
I don’t know if your figure of billions of tons is worldwide or not, the worldwide number i found here is about 3 billion metric tons. (It dropped for 2020! Yay we did it!) In contrast, Wikipedia (who I believe are taking their numbers from the IPCC) lists about 35 billion tons (about 32 billion metric tons) of co2 from fossil fuel burning, with total greenhouse gas emissions of about 50 billion tons (about 45 billion metric).
Then there’s also reduction in the Earth’s ability to extract co2 due to land use (chopping down forests). This is difficult to model because it’s not a direct emission but it is undeniably a result of human activity that unbalances the Earth’s climate. That Wikipedia article earlier says that total emissions from 1870 to 2017 were about 1.5 trillion tons from fossil fuels and 660 billion tons from land use change which works out to be about 31% of the total. Note that this is total and cumulative so again: Ceasing all emissions would not change this number. No longer cutting down forests (etc) would not change this number a single gram.
Then there are other factors that are making climate change worse but they’re not that important in comparison. I’m going to ignore them because i am not a scientist and i’m not writing a scientific paper here.
I am going to be harsh, however. If you take that 3 billion number and you divide it into the 32 billion number you get about 10%, as you say.
That’s not correct if you want to make a difference for climate change.
If you take that 3 billion number and you divide it into the 1.5 trillion tons number you get about 0.2%.
So to answer the question above: how much worse do consumer cars make climate change? Well, they worsen the situation with carbon dioxide by about 0.2% per year, coming from about 10% of our overall emissions, and carbon dioxide is only one of the factors contributing to climate change. So overall? Not much.
And yeah I already know the next argument “bUt YoUr JuSt UsInG fOsSiL fUeLs To ChArGe It”…
That is not my argument.
…except you’re not necessarily, in my area (part of CA), you can choose to have 100% of your electricity provided by renewable sources for a small monthly premium ($18/month).
Oh my god, of course you couldn’t help it. The smug liberal (derogatory) virtue signalling had to come out. Jesus fucking Christ.
You understand, right, that if you pay $18 and go from a 50/50 split of fossil fuel and renewable energy (about where CA is) and your neighbor does not what ends up happening is you go 0% fossil fuel and your neighbor goes to 100% fossil fuel and nothing changes, right?
Like, you’re paying $18 not to change anything, you’re paying $18 so you can go on the internet and complain about how everyone else isn’t fixing climate change like you are.
The corporate response to climate change has been to try to convince everyone to take shorter showers, switch to an electric car, and install solar panels. That is, for individual people to do things (that don’t matter) and for corporations to continue doing things (that do matter, negatively). You unironically listed two of the three elements of a fucking climate change denial meme.
Also current renewable energy isn’t actually that great. I guess this is the right time for my pitch for nuclear power.
If you want to actually have an impact (in the “stop making things worse” direction not the “fix climate change” direction) then let me suggest nuclear power. Nuclear power is great. It’s a proven technology. Even nuclear power at its worst is still better than coal, even if you ignore the greenhouse gas emissions difference. I’d argue nuclear power is better than modern renewables too but this post is long enough so i won’t.
Right now, coal fired power plants account for 20% of fossil fuel emissions and are the single largest source of emissions. and… well… let me direct quote:
Notably, just 5% of the world’s power plants account for almost three-quarters of carbon emissions from electricity generation, based on an inventory of more than 29,000 fossil-fuel power plants across 221 countries.
Putting it a different way, almost 15% of all fossil fuel emissions come from 5% of the world’s power plants.
So it’s great that California is doing better than average, but if you want to make a difference in emissions you don’t try to change every single car on the planet over to electric, which is a tremendous task to undertake. You kill that 5% of power plants and replace them with nuclear. (Or okay if it really makes you feel better i’d be on board with renewables too but nuclear is still the better and more practical solution.)
There are a lot of steps to solving climate change beyond “buy an electric car”, and you’re right that industrial and commercial pollution accounts for the majority, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be pushing on all fronts.
If you want to make a difference right now, probably the best thing you can possibly do is advocate against coal power plants. It’s both easier to do than replacing all cars and it would have a bigger impact.
In 2035, 12 years from now, Europe plans to mandate all new cars to be electric. Europe is not responsible for the majority of passenger vehicle emissions. Most countries do not have plans that are anywhere near as ambitious. The US is only aiming at 50%, and that 50% of vehicles that get switched over won’t be the ones emitting the most greenhouse gases. (Hybrids being switched to full electrics have little impact when Ford F150s are the most popular vehicle in America.)
Meanwhile, that 5% of power plants is still out there. Industrial and agricultural emissions are still out there. Land use changes are still out there. The vast majority of everything that brought us to this point is still out there, untouched. And when will you get your 100% electric cars worldwide? In 2045? 2060? How deep underwater will Miami and New York City be by the time that happens? How many people will die in the meantime? How much further will the ecosystems of the world be destabilized?
This isn’t about “pushing on all fronts”. This is about moralizing at individual people about their personal decisions, which did not cause this problem and cannot fix it. Paying $18 to California power companies isn’t about improving the world it’s about making you, personally, feel better. Like you’ve “done your part”. Meanwhile, the planet is burning. In the coming years, it will burn more and more.
Capitalism wants to pretend that everyone acting individually can solve problems but capitalism created this problem and it cannot and will not solve it.
So what do you suggest that can actually be done, besides removed about it on Lemmy?
I somehow fucking knew this was coming, Everyone has the same response regardless of what you say.
I suggested targeting the most heavily polluting power plants for conversion to clean energy. This suggestion is:
Practical from a cost standpoint
Could be accomplished with current technology
Easier to implement politically than "make all cars electric"
Would have a bigger impact on the environment than “make all cars electric”.
You: “Well if you don’t have any ideas…”
I know my comment was long but you aren’t really arguing with me, you’re arguing with the shadows that live inside your head. This was true of your previous post, too. See:
And yeah I already know the next argument “bUt YoUr JuSt UsInG fOsSiL fUeLs To ChArGe It”…
(Which is still not and never has been my argument.)
For the record it’s my belief that we could currently not only halt but fully reverse climate change (though it would take maybe 100 years) at our current technological level. I believe it’s possible. However, i do not know of any way to do it that does not require major change to the political and economic systems of the West (the ones that brought us to this point, in other words: Capitalism). Back in the '70s it would have been way easier to address this but now we’re on hard mode.
You talk a lot about moralizing without actually making a difference, but that’s exactly what you’re doing in your comment.
I’m critiquing a moralizing argument, it’s somewhat inevitable that my critique will also adopt the form of a moral argument. Unless you want me to argue that all morals, all ideas of “good” and “bad”, are phantasms that are propagated by the powerful as a form of social control or something. Which i also could do, but it seems a little abstract given the current conversation.
Even granting you that point there’s still a difference:
My arguments are concerned about outcomes, about material conditions in people’s lives, they include the concept of collective and corporate action.
Your arguments are superficial, concerned about appearances, do not acknowledge the context or history of how we came to where we are, and are primarily concerned with individual actions that wealthy Westerners can take without regard to the practicality of implementation across the rest of the world.
I’m going to throw out one more thing:
Even if cars were the biggest source of carbon dioxide, going to all electric cars is not the best solution. Building electric cars still has a significant environmental impact, including greenhouse gas emissions. Better still would be mass transit. Trains and buses are more environmentally friendly still and would allow us to make other changes to society that would further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, that option is not favored by our capitalist overlords…
Electric cars are certainly preferable to gas cars, but the whole car industry I’m general that are needed for both gas and electric cars are bad. Roads, parking lots, highways, the lights needed to keep them lit, the process of mining enough materials to make electric cars. The issue in my opinion is that cars in general are awful for the environment and just quality of life, they’re better but I hope we can shoot for higher.
They’re not identical, but they have similarities. What Russia is trying to do to Ukraine is not dissimilar to what Israel did to Palestine half a century ago.
I’ll say it again and again, decentralization needs to be something the end user doesn’t notice, signing up to Lemmy should be like signing up to a centralized service with the servers running things being decentralized and the info redundant so servers can go down without having any effect on the service.
Let the admins decide if they don’t want to host content from certain communities, let the users decide if they want to block communities and users.
You’re still dependent on a single point of failure, what I’m talking about is doing like any other website but instead of using a provider like AWS, you’ve got a bunch of people all over the world providing storage space and bandwidth and all data is stored on three servers in different locations at all times so there’s basically no reason for the website to ever crash.
If you were to access Lemmy from a web browser you would need to remember what server you’re signed up to because that’s the website you would need to go to, you wouldn’t be going to “Lemmy.com” or whatever.
You’re right, but there’s more to appreciate about needing to choose an instance.
It’s like email. All email services work with all others, but the end user still needs to choose a good one. There are more than one "good one"s, and part of the decision is about personal taste.
And sometimes you have to leave a bad provider for a better one. Look at my account, it’s brand new. Because lemm.ee has had one too many federation issues for my taste.
Ok, so your argument is basically “Look at this unrelated service, that’s how it works too, so nothing wrong with the current service except that I had to do the thing that proves that what you’re talking about would be better.”
Eliminate the central authorities altogether, let people curate their feed so they don’t have to worry about someone else making choices about their experience.
Someone could join Lemmy today and have no idea they’re missing out on a big part of the available content because they joined the wrong instance, they would then turn around and just go back to Reddit where they know everything is available and they’re in control of what they’re subscribed to and what users they want to block.
I don’t think that’d work, with Lemmy being a federated model, not a fully decentralized one.
How do you handle the actual login? Does that mean every server has access to your password hash? Or do you overhaul the account system to use something like a private and public key, with the user needing to store and transfer the private key to every device they use?
And what happens if two people register with the same username on two instances that aren’t federating? Do they somehow need to still communicate with all other instances in the network they operate in, to prevent that from happening? Because the alternative I see is the login being random in some way or tied to the instance, in which case you still lose the impression of a single service.
If I’m not mistaken, right now anybody could host a non-federating Lemmy instance, if they just wanted a small private community in this style. To my understanding, that’s the idea behind federation, and a founding concept of Lemmy - it’s not a giant service distributed across trusted servers, but a network of smaller communities that communicate with limited trust.
There are no instances anymore with this system, it’s the data hosting that’s decentralized, the front-end looks like a centralized website so you would go to Lemmy.com instead of whatever instance you signed up on.
Imagine Reddit but there’s no central authority and instead of using a service like AWS it’s just people providing storage space and bandwidth and they can decide not to host content from certain communities on their server, but from the user’s point of view they wouldn’t know where they’re pulling the data from.
So no, you couldn’t have two users with the same username. The user database could easily be shared by all storage providers or the database could be randomly split and you would have to mention what part of the database your info is stored on when logging in. When creating your account (where it checks for doubles on the whole username list hosted on all servers) you’re given a random third credential that you need to mention when logging in so the service knows which servers host that part of the user database (all info including the database would have triple redundancy).
Right now a website’s data might not be stored on a single server so that’s already how things work, the difference is that all the different servers are owned by the same company (like Amazon or Google). In the backend the servers communicate together to provide the data to the users so it feels like everything is hosted in the same place.
TL;DR: The best way to fix things is to make it work like it does for any other websites but to only decentralize the hosting instead of also decentralizing the communities.
It also raises some pretty big issues, like who gets to moderate communities? Right now you make a community on a specific instance, you follow that instance’s rules, so the instance host has authority over the community. If you disagree with the instance’s rules, or with the way the community is ran, you can make a community on another instance, or even make your own instance with your own rules.
And from the other side, there need to be people with the authority to remove communities, and remove people/posts across different communities. Right now that’s the responsibility of the instance hosts, to my understanding - content is hosted on a primary instance, and stored through federating instances, so the primary instance has a responsibility to keep it clean of illegal material. Who would have this power and responsibility if instances aren’t differentiated? Sounds like the best case is giving trustworthy people an excessive amount of power, and the worst case is the entire network being shut down due to distributing illegal content and being effectively impossible to moderate.
You also didn’t address the issue of passwords - currently it’s a pretty big deal when hashed+salted passwords leak, considering those passwords compromised… The comparison with AWS is flawed - when using AWS, you’re trusting them, because it’s a big company with a reputation to keep. The situation seems very different when it’s random enthusiasts with highly differing views, and without a central authority to verify them (though there are probably too many to verify anyways)
And you propose that anybody can join the network and receive users’ passwords? On top of that, you’re proposing that you need to also know the “server” your data is stored on and supply that with logging in? Sounds like a really annoying friction point for the user.
I really feel like you’re approaching this from the wrong direction, suggesting Lemmy should abolish the very structure it’s built on for one you’d like more, but I think it could be possible to make the experience nicer without going to those extremes.
Maybe it’d be possible to let multiple instances have authority over an account, without changing its home instance, so that if your original instance goes down, you can keep the same account. And to reduce friction from communities being made across multiple instances, some way for communities themselves to federate/combine would be nice, and is probably being considered by people smarter than me.
I know it’s not how Lemmy works, what I’m saying is “There’s a big issue with how Lemmy works, here’s how I think decentralization should be approached instead.” Having terabytes of information possibly disappearing because one person gets in a car accident on their way to work isn’t an improvement vs a centralized system hosted on AWS.
Communities would be moderated by their creator, server admins could decide not to host content from any communities they don’t want to host, if no server admin wants to host your community then you’re free to host it on your own server or to fix the problems with it.
There’s illegal content on Lemmy right now, even instances that don’t want to host it need to clean up their images folder because of it, so it’s not as if the way it works right now is any better for that and it’s not as if there’s no instance admin ready to host that content.
User credentials can be stored securely. Do you think your instance admin has a text file with your password written in plain characters?
The third credential I was suggesting is just one solution so not all servers have to have a “master database” with all user info stored, split the database and let the users know they need to remember they confirm their login through database X or Y. I’m sure much more intelligent people could come up with another solution.
“There’s a big issue with how Lemmy works, here’s how I think decentralization should be approached instead.”
Again, I feel like you’re making the wrong point in the wrong place. My understanding is that you came to a project designed with the ideals of federation, and you complain that it shouldn’t be federated. That should probably be done as a fork of Lemmy, or an independent competitor.
It seems to me like you’re in ideological conflict with Lemmy’s developers, where you see no value in what Lemmy seeks to create. That’s completely fine, of course, but I really feel like you’re making your case in the wrong place.
Having terabytes of information possibly disappearing because one person gets in a car accident on their way to work isn’t an improvement vs a centralized system hosted on AWS.
Federation does not mean terabytes of information disappearing - to my understanding, posts, comments and votes are already duplicated across the instances. What would be lost is ownership of communities/posts, and accounts created on that instance, as well as things like image posts where the images are stored on one instance.
However, if images weren’t stored as links in those posts, accounts could be fully migrated, and communities could be migrated or even just federated with other communities, nothing would have to be lost.
Communities would be moderated by their creator, server admins could decide not to host content from any communities they don’t want to host, if no server admin wants to host your community then you’re free to host it on your own server or to fix the problems with it.
I feel like that structure wouldn’t work, just looking at how much defederation is happening, server owners wouldn’t want to be affiliated with certain content at all. It did also remind me of the fact that ActivityPub is not just Lemmy - you can also interact with mastodon and kbin on Lemmy, which is rooted in the federated approach.
There’s illegal content on Lemmy right now, even instances that don’t want to host it need to clean up their images folder because of it, so it’s not as if the way it works right now is any better for that and it’s not as if there’s no instance admin ready to host that content.
True, I feel like the issue only gets worse as you blur the line between different instances more, but I have no data to back that up.
User credentials can be stored securely. Do you think your instance admin has a text file with your password written in plain characters?
I feel like you failed to address my point, that with the current security standard, data leaks are still considered a threat to your password security. Even in the best case, getting access to hashed passwords means being able to brute force it without any rate limits. Maybe I’m wrong, but you’d need to either prove that password hashes leaking are not an issue at all, or figure out a way to provide trusted decentralized authentication server architecture, or figure out a way to store the passwords where leaks are not an issue… Or give up on using passwords and require a different authentication method, like public key authentication.
The third credential I was suggesting is just one solution […]. I’m sure much more intelligent people could come up with another solution.
It’s a bit hypocritical of me, since I mentioned smarter people than me working on something, but I feel like if you’re strongly suggesting Lemmy should be majorly reworked in this way, there’s some expectation for you to provide a solution, not just say that somebody will figure it out.
How does what I’m talking about prevents federation? Lemmy is federated with kbin and mastodon even though they don’t work the same way…
I never said I see no value in what Lemmy created, I’m saying that the way they went about it might not have been the right one because now that there’s a lot of users and many instances were created, we can see that one major flaw in the system is that the instance’s admin can just decide they’re done with Lemmy and all content hosted on their instance just vanishes.
If your instance crashed I wouldn’t be able to see your messages until your instance was back online, that’s why when you copy a permalink to a comment it’s the address of their instance that you see, instances host the content posted by their own user no matter where it’s posted, instances communicate between themselves to share that info so their users see what other instances users post, that’s also why you might still see posts on communities of instances you’re defederated from, they’re posts by people from your own instance.
On the password thing, it’s no worse than what’s going with the current system, you’re trusting the instance admins not to leak anything… Heck, splitting up the lists could be even more secure since it could be equally divided between hosts instead of having a couple of instances hosting what amounts to over 50% of all credentials… What happens if lemmy.world’s admin leaks everything?
And I’m suggesting solutions, I don’t have the expertise to implement them. Do you believe that all tech is developed by the person who came up with an idea? Because I sure would love to meet the person that developed my cars seats, computer, engine and suspension, that single person must be one hell of a genius!
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