I feel a bit less odd about Ian than you, but I can’t deny I’ve had a little trouble after seeing some of his interviews and his fireside chats about YouTube policy.

Forgotten Weapons and also C&Rsenal are such wonderful sources of historical information, but their total avoidance of any direct stance leaves me assuming the worst when I get those potential dog whistles you mentioned.

I still watch them occasionally, but not near as much as before, and not anything off topic. I hope they’re not shitty people, but if they leave me guessing, it’s realistic to not trust them in certain areas.

Karl from InRange is more openly liberal and was just on again with the Behind the Bastards crew talking about do’s and dont’s about arming yourself if you are worried about the next few years. His channel seems to be more quirky stuff and less historical though, so not as much of what I’m looking for.

Learning about weaponry and some of these less talked about wars can definitely attract a lot of people I don’t want to deal with. I don’t need a liberal twist on it, but I definitely don’t want conservative opinions on the side.

Another Kiwi user here. Used it since it was the only real option to adblock on Android and haven’t found a need to switch yet.

I still feel grateful for being in the right place to help out some people many years ago.

I was headed to meet some friends down at the shore and right when I got to town , I stopped by McDonald’s to grab something to eat. It was pretty empty, just the employees and 2 groups of kids.

There were 4 young teen girls and 3 or 4 older teen boys, and from the second I walked in, I saw the girls were very uncomfortable and the guys kept trying to get them to leave with them. They were trying to call someone to pick them up but nobody could come get them from what I could tell.

It was very dark out and the town was deserted, so I assumed they were not locals either so they didn’t have many options.

I asked them if they wanted a ride and they quickly said yes and literally jumped in my car as fast as they could. They were a decent number of blocks away, and they were very happy to be back at their rental.

I assume nothing serious would have happened, but it probably would have made the rest of their trip shitty if they had to worry if those guys knew where they were staying. I couldn’t have just ignored them without offering to help though, they all seemed on the verge of tears.

It was a little mind blowing how they’d just jump in a stranger’s car, but I was at least a neutral party when the other guys were already verified creeps. I wasn’t much older, about 20, so not in creepy old man territory yet, so that probably helped. As I said, I still think about how I got to be someone’s champion that day, and it makes me feel good to know I helped out.

I imagine you’re an adult, so you should have a decent radar for picking out some non-creep stranger. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I didn’t have much time to process the situation until after the girls had left, but seeing someone desperate for help I’d think would have most people willing to accommodate getting you to your car or a better public place. Most people are good and would help out if asked.

I won’t argue anything you say too much. You seem to be very firm in your opinions, and overall I feel we’d agree on things more than we’d disagree.

With that said, one of the bigger issues I have is what country is currently doing what you feel would be a better path for the US to follow? Europe has often provided a calmer voice to many issues, but it no longer feels to be the case. I’m no expert on world politics, but I can’t think of any country moving leftward as a whole right now. Europe seems to be in the middle of an anti-immigrant shift of its own, and they are helping with Ukraine in what feels on par with the US but not exceeding that aid, and it feels no one is doing much about Palestine.

If there is someone you feel is doing better, I’d like to learn about how it works, but I feel the US is still in one of the top positions to do something. Perhaps not for a few years now, but we all seem to be on the same sinking ship right now. We may have a bigger slice of the responsibility for that, but I’m not seeing anyone else giving a better example.

Things are going to go to shit, compared to the last 4 years, but I think it’s important we keep our heads and continue to make improvements where we can, even if that is much more local than nationally or globally. More blue states already seem to be preparing to fight some of the incoming changes, and we still have the quagmire of a court system to drag down the speed of what the new government can accomplish. A lot of nominees for cabinet roles are also outsiders and have no idea how to mobilize their workforce, and competent people will leave behind the less capable to accomplish their goals.

It is no more time to give up than it was a month ago. Those of us that want change still have the same things to try and accomplish. We might have to figure out new ways to do it, but we’ll still keep trying.

Most people outside political forums aren’t near as knowledgeable or informed as we tend to be, so we still need to educate people on facts and to undo disinformation when they’re ready to be receptive to it. Unless you want to go revolutionary and start hurting people physically, being engaged with your fellow countrymen is still the way forward.

We’re allowed to be angry right now. It’s good we’re angry to an extent. But I’m not here to promote anger. I’m mostly concerned with the environment and human rights, and hate and violence I don’t think are going to help either of those causes.

It also says they are deplatforming third party sellers from Walmart.com that are selling LGBT merch, which does seem to affect actual people promoting equality. The anti-LGBT activists already pushed the stores to stop carrying merch at physical retail locations, and now they are booting them off the web as well.

Interestingly, the linked CNBC article in OP’s link says this is mainly the work of one anti-gay/trans activist, Robby Starbuck. He seems to single out a company and attack their equality programs publicly to take them out one by one. Never heard of him before. It’s crazy to think one loudmouth can have so much pull over such huge companies.

I second this. I don’t want my government to hurt anyone, even people who are ignorant or hateful.

I certainly didn’t vote for what’s coming, and millions of others didn’t either. Countries that rely on us didn’t vote for it. Our environment didn’t vote for it. And I’m sure most of the people that were duped into voting for it didn’t really want what we’re going to get either. Some dirtbags probably did, but I think they’re still a minority, and I’d still rather those people have a chance to become good people than for them to suffer. I’d still want them to have access to free education and universal healthcare and a full social safety net if I had the power to give it to them.

We won’t be able to walk back a lot of what might happen. We could lose millions of acres of public land to private interest. Untold destruction could destroy our remaining ecosystems irreparably. We’ve got anti-vaxxers that could kill thousands to millions. We’ve got people that want to let Palestinians, Ukrainians, and Kurds die. That stuff can’t be undone, and those people and our planet don’t deserve it because some con artists did a great job on propaganda this last half century.

My pleasure!

Snuka likely killed his girlfriend in 1983, but was never charged until shortly before he died. They dropped the case due to his failing health, not due to lack of evidence or anything like that. He died about 2 weeks after that in Jan 2017.

I was able to find it!

It is Planet Money - The Trade Fraud Protective 23 AUG 2024

Audio and transcript at that link, or you should be able to find it on your podcast app of choice.

It’s also power steering hoses in Thailand, not fan belts in Vietnam, so I hope that’s still ok. 😉

I heard about this a few months back on a podcast about auto parts. China just shipped the fan belts they were making to a warehouse in Vietnam, rebranded them, and shipped them to the US, tariff free.

They did some sort of chemical analysis on the Made in China and Made in Vietnam belts and the formulation of the rubbers was identical.

Enforcement to counter this would likely eat up too much of the tariff money, so it just won’t be done. China will still get paid the same, and at minimum we’ll eat China’s additional shipping costs.

Yup, my questions in the Maori article have been up for 24 hours now, so time for people in that part of the world with direct knowledge had time to see it. My comments and questions got 7 upvotes, so other people seem interested in some more elaboration, but the thread is probably dead.

Someone’s leaving an audience that wants more hanging, and nobody even gave a yes or no saying if my understanding of the article was right. 😮‍💨

Oh for sure. It’s going to be what ultimately makes or breaks this as a platform. You can’t force a userbase to interact, but as OP states, like many before them, for some people there’s not going to be much going on here. For people that want to at least be mildly active participants though, I haven’t had this much fun since forums were the big thing. I just imagine since that was a decent while ago now that either those of us old enough to have enjoyed them are rusty at it, and the yoots are too young to have seen how it used to work.

not a lot of people even bother opening posts

I’m a bit inclined to agree with this. I try to do the equivalent of the XKCD hover text, where you have to click through to get some of the good stuff. If you aren’t clicking through to the comments, you’re going to miss a lot of good stuff. Photo sets, photography tips, stories, fun facts. I try not to have the pic and title be the whole thing. But I’ll have 100 upvotes on the post pic, and maybe 10 on any bonus pics inside.

With some news posts, they feel like a RSS feed. Just a link to an article and nothing else. I may read it or I may not. There’s no initial comment or question to interact with. I don’t even know if it’s a bot posting or not that way. If all you offer is a Reuters link, I could have just gone to Reuters and gotten the headline myself. I feel these posts have little value until they start collecting comments.

“Yes I agree, nothing to add”

This is a common response I get when I try to get people to comment more. There can still be value to add to something like this though. Why do you agree? Did you agree before you read the post/comment? Do you have any caveats to your agreement? If you haven’t always agreed, what changed your mind? What part of what they said, or the chart/pic/stat they shared really stood out or was unexpected? You may agree, but you’re still a different person with a different background and different adjacent ideas.

Example from today: Pic of flying owl. Comment was basically I like all these recent pics of flying owls. On the surface, not the deepest comment ever. Buuuuuut, someone took the time to respond to a post, so I know they liked it enough to make effort. Makes me feel good knowing I motivated someone enough to respond, keeps me motivated to post again. I also learned that a specific type of content really got them interested. I know to look for more of it. Then I took the time to respond in kind, because their effort deserves recognition. I said I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I also said that even though I see hundreds of owl pics every week, that I was still surprised by something I saw in one of the recent photos, so that gives them or anyone else reading the response something to go back and look at. They might not have noticed the unique thing about the photo the first time.

Example going the other way: Maori rights in New Zealand. You can’t get much further from NZ than where I am. I know basically nothing about it. This topic really caught my attention though. I read the article to see what was going on, and I thought I understood the basics of it. I commented and said, hey, I read this, and this is my understanding. Am I correct in my understanding or am I missing some significant parts of the story not in this article? If so, can someone explain it or point me in the direction of some more reading? So I know nothing, but I showed them the story was making me interested in something they shared. Anyone familiar with NZ can chime in to talk to me. I hopefully get more things to talk about from that, and we have some conversation. I don’t have to know anything, I just show interest in the topic, and in interacting with someone.

Not every interaction is going to result in more upvotes, comments, or conversation, but if nobody is going to be willing to make the first move, it’s gonna be boring. We’re not big enough for the 1% rule (1% creators, 9% commenters, 90% lurkers) to carry us. It kills the creators having to force the momentum all the time, and if you disagree/agree too much with the small pool of comments, you’re going to say this place is boring. We need to participate, we need to show our individual personalities, and we need to interact. That’s the “social” part of social media. Have fun with it!

For me, the upvotes are ok. I use them more to gauge overall traffic. I have an idea the typical number of votes things will get, and I can see what deviates to see what is a hit, what’s typical, and what isn’t resonating. But without comments, there’s no “why” anything is good or bad. I’m not really any better off than before to give you what you want. I can take a guess, but you could have also taken a moment to tell me. It doesn’t tell me everyone’s opinion, but it gives another things for the people that do vote to either add upvotes to that comment or ignore it.

Also, as someone providing the content, it’s nice to have an interaction, even if it’s minimal. Creating posts can eat up a lot of time, and I’m doing it to talk to you all. If nobody stops by to even say, yo, nice work, or whatever, even if I have a lot of upvotes, it still feels like I’m not talking to anyone. It feels like a chore. But if I get one person that says, hey, seeing this really made my morning, now I feel awesome and I want to post more.

A lot of focus is put onto posting, but I like to encourage commenters. I’ll post and respond all day, but if nobody is interacting, it’s going to stay quiet. Put the quiet to your advantage by doing things like:

If you like an image, say what you like about it. Lately, I’ve been having people talk about how they really have been enjoying dawn/dusk pictures, so I’ve been collecting more of that so I can post what people are in the mood for. It gives me good feedback, it gives people a chance to agree or disagree with you, and you got to participate.

Do you ask anyone any question? Take advantage of the relative quiet. With not having a million comments on every post, I have plenty of time to give you really detailed answers. I got asked how to differentiate between 2 animals yesterday, and I had time to make a nice visual guide, highlighting key differences and giving multiple visual examples of potential variations while still simplifying the process of identification. If there’s a million people talking like on Reddit, it’s hard to give people that much attention, but here it’s easy. I pretty much take time to respond to every comment.

Don’t be afraid to go off topic. Rules seem to be looser in many communities because of the low post count. This week, I posted something from a country with a different language, and I ended up having 3 days of conversation with a native speaker who filled me in on tons of subtleties of the language pertaining to our niche topic. I got to learn so much, and they got to learn a few things about English.

I feel you have to do something to have a good time here, but it needn’t be to post multiple things every day, but it’s more than just up or downvoting something like you can get away with on Reddit. We’re too small for you to have a free ride. But make someone laugh. Let them know that you liked their post with a short comment. If you don’t like it, say hey, do you have any content on such and such instead. Make a post saying, hey, what’s your thoughts on this? It doesn’t need to be something groundbreaking or insightful, you just need to give a sign of life so we know you’re here, and one of us will probably talk back to you.

Interact enough like that, and you may find what you enjoy doing, if that turns out to be posting, or you become the resident expert on a topic even if you’re not an expert, being a serial commenter, or whatever it may be. It’s a great opportunity if you make it one because it is so easy to get attention here if you try.

I’m not typically a social person, but being here has let me talk about what I want, when I want, and somebody will listen to it, and I can ask about things I want to know and get answers. There’s much less shouting into the void like at Reddit. Play Lemmy to its strengths and you will find enjoyment. And if you don’t like it, go to where you’re happy. Nobody’s going to hate you if you split time between here and Reddit.

I’m not very familiar with how things work in NZ, but I started reading about this story in another post yesterday and found it very intriguing.

The Treaty Principles bill isn’t expected to pass in the current Parliament, although it could eventually head to a referendum. But it’s just one part of a broader right-wing backlash against the significant gains that Māori have made in recent decades to win back stolen land and secure better representation and co-governance of government agencies.

Smith sees the measure as an effort to play upon the fears of the non-Māori population and make it easier for private interests to profit. “It’s an indicator that they want to stomp on Māori rights and philosophies and worldviews. It’s an indicator that they just are refusing to fight the challenge that climate change and the global biodiversity crisis demands of us,” he said.

“This is not just about Māori interests and rights. This is about the protection of all that we hold dear,” said Māori activist Tina Ngata, who has been hosting online education sessions about the bill. “Indigenous rights have been one of the strongest roadblocks to corporate exploitation.”

This article seemed to make it sound like the set up for a big cash grab by the NZ gov to tap into natural resources and nationalize things like water rights. With Maori being around 1/5 of the population, that sounds like it still gives them strong voices in a parliamentary system. The existing balance in how the terms of the treaty are being applied, while not ideal for Maori, still gives them some additional leverage in a government they’re not necessarily thrilled with being there at all as they still see themselves as the true people/leaders/government (not sure on what descriptor is appropriate here).

While this parliamentary vote is likely to bomb, this is still building momentum for a referendum. To pass that, does that simply require a majority vote, or is there more to it? Can they just sell this to the majority non-Maori population as a get rich quick scheme to get them to pass it?

Forgive my ignorance on anything I may have gotten wrong, I know there is a lot more complexity to this issue, I just don’t know which direction to go to get deeper into learning about this. If anyone wants to explain any of it better or point me to some accurate resources to read more, I’d appreciate whatever you have to share!

It’s interesting when you can find articles from some of these walking contradictions. I read a few articles by an anti-woke, pro-timber industry environmentalist a few weeks back and made a post about them. Reading them ticked me off so much, I revised my opinions on a lot of things I had been feeling mixed about. Hearing some pretty icky things in support of one side of the argument solidified that wasn’t the choice for me.

The guy who wrote them has credentials that are legit. He’s been in the job and related ones forever, and he has lots of awards and commendations. I don’t think there’s any one of us though that hasn’t worked with someone that we wonder why they’re or how they’ve been promoted to where they are over the years. Just because someone has a job doesn’t always mean they’re good at it or that they should be doing it.

The articles I shared are pretty thought provoking, for what I felt were bad reasons though, but if you’d like to read a conservative expert’s opinion on logging and what should be done with Spotted owls, it will really give you some things to think about.

Thank you for taking the time to write that out for me. Between this and absGeekNZ’s reply to another person, I feel I really learned a lot.

As someone who basically knows nothing about this but what is in the article, the Maori sound like they have the right idea to me.

The Maori version of the original treaty seems very generous and would make sense to most people how it was written. How anyone would believe the British version was legitimate unless it was signed under coercion or misrepresentation makes zero sense.

Despite the bill being highly likely to fail, many believe that just by allowing the bill to be tabled in Parliament, the coalition government has ignited dangerous social division.

That they are protesting even though the new bill is unlikely to pass seems very smart, given what is going on in other parts of the world and how manipulation by governments works in history. By entertaining it as any form of reasonable proposal, it gives it credence, no matter how small, and each time it is suggested, it will be normalized a bit more, and they will pick up another supporter here and there until they can pass it.

It’s just frustrating in the same way as when you see someone doing any risky behavior. I don’t want them to be hurt, and maybe they’ll be fine, but I worry because I care about them.

Recent events have really shown me I must be more left than most people I know, because the amount of people recently that I’ve thought were liberal are talking anti-immigrant and anti-minority group things much more than I would have thought.