@thelucky8@beehaw.org, when you’re posting obvious satire as genuine news, you might need to take a step back and do some self evaluation. You’ve been posting a lot of articles with a pretty clear point of view, and if you’re not concerned about veracity or quality then you might want to slow down and think a bit more, no?

I actually also think it’s probably both, to a degree, that’s just not what the author of the article is arguing. I think there’s probably a certain amount of persuasion that is pulling people deeper into a belief system that they might only be partially invested in at first, and then they are sucked into ecosystems that reinforce those beliefs and pull them further in. I don’t have anything but vibes and lots of half-remembered reading about online radicalization, though.

You’re right, but I think they are using the term “brainwashing” in a colloquial sense. There’s a perception that misinformation on the internet is persuading people into more extreme views, but what the author of this article is arguing is that what is happening more is that online misinformation is allowing people to easily justify beliefs that they have already formed, and quickly and easily get rid of cognitive dissonance associated with encountering information that contradicts their beliefs. This is something that people have always done, but it’s become so easy on the modern internet that more and more people are embracing fringe worldviews who might previously have been unable to cognitively support those views.

It’s a small difference in the way we think about misinformation online, but I think it’s important that we understand what is likely happening. It’s not so much that misinformation is changing people’s beliefs, but that it’s allowing people to hang onto beliefs that contradict reality more easily.

So I’m not an expert in nuclear weaponry. However, more modern warheads don’t somehow magically vaporize everything within a certain radius and then not cause effects outside that radius - that’s not how things work. They may have a larger fireball, which is the area within which things (and people) are going to be vaporized, but they still have very large areas where people will receive burns decreasing in severity depending on distance, and (if the warhead is detonated at ground level) radiation doses that will kill within 5 days to 1 month. Check out Nukemap to see those areas in different scenarios. Here’s one that I did for a ground burst of a 800 kt Topol warhead. You can see that the areas for radiation are larger than the fireball itself, and the areas for 2nd and 3rd degree burns are quite large. Setting one of these off anywhere populated would cause an immense amount of human suffering even if the folks in the ~220m fireball never saw it coming.

I dunno, I’ve read some downright horrific accounts from Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Sure, if you’re right at the hypocenter you’re immediately dead, but lots of folks didn’t die right away, but were horribly burned or got lethal doses of radiation and died slowly and horribly.

Go touch grass.

There’s no need for this, seriously. I get that it’s a gaming community but we’re trying to be better than the usual toxic mess, right?

It’s fine. Decent lore and environments, but the gameplay was pretty mid. It was decent fun to play for a couple of weeks with some friends who like LotR. Certainly no reason not to check it out if it’s free

Thanks for the thought - we did a little of this over the last few years but it wasn’t working for us. One of the more important parts of religious practice for both of us is the communal aspect, and as we live in a mid-size city in the Southern U.S. there aren’t very many opportunities outside of a church setting for strong, long-term community building. Not saying there aren’t any, but it’s difficult to build a strong network when third places have essentially disappeared. The Episcopal Church is working for us, at least right now, as a place to build those networks and practice our faith without having to compromise on moral stances that are critical to us.

I’m always a little reluctant to post about religious topics on Beehaw because there’s a pretty strong anti-christian sentiment on Lemmy in general which is, to be fair, entirely understandable.

I grew up in the “Church of Christ” and my wife and I stayed part of our CoC congregation for a long time mostly because of the support network and personal connections we had built up there, even though we had a lot of problems with evangelical theology and the increasing conservatism. A few years ago we wound up in the crosshairs of a group of deeply unpleasant people because of some comments we made in support of LGBTQ folks, and ended up spiritually homeless for a while. We eventually ended up at a local Episcopal church and while it’s been a big adjustment for us in some ways - we definitely weren’t used to high church liturgy - we’ve really come to love it there. It’s not without problems, but we feel like we’re able to wrestle with our beliefs and still have the support of the community, and we’ve made some close connections there as well.

Theologically I’m all over the place, so don’t ask me for a firm stance on anything - I’m just making this shit up as I go 😅

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not intending to make this assertion, but as a warning: transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny are not nice, and are not tolerated on Beehaw.

I’ve wondered before if my perception of headlights being so much brighter was them really getting brighter, cars getting taller, my eyes getting older, or a combination of all those (and other) factors. It seems like there might be a few things going on, but it does definitely look like lights are getting a lot brighter, and I’m obviously not the only one to be frustrated by it…

If you’re genuinely interested and not just sealioning, I’d recommend this essay by Judith Thompson in 1971. For the sake of argument, she grants that a fetus might have a right to life, but argues (I think) very convincingly that a person’s right to bodily autonomy outweighs that potential right, and that we naturally recognize that in other cases.

If I recall correctly, the main reason we defederated from those instances at the time was the sheer volume of spam we were getting from users of those instances. While we do sometimes have a need to moderate users from larger instances like Lemm.ee, it’s not currently at a volume that we can’t handle, from what I’ve seen.

As always, as a moderator of several Beehaw communities, I would encourage you to report any comment or post you see that isn’t up to the standards of Beehaw.org. Don’t assume someone else is going to do it, and don’t assume that moderators are always watching every interactions closely - we’re all doing this in our free time and have other responsibilities. We may not take action on every report - sometimes things are borderline or the community has already pushed back and we feel like things are in hand - but I guarantee someone is looking at and considering every one.

If I recall correctly, the main reason we defederated from those instances at the time was the sheer volume of spam we were getting from users of those instances. While we do sometimes have a need to moderate users from larger instances like Lemm.ee, it’s not currently at a volume that we can’t handle, from what I’ve seen.

As always, as a moderator of several Beehaw communities, I would encourage you to report any comment or post you see that isn’t up to the standards of Beehaw.org. Don’t assume someone else is going to do it, and don’t assume that moderators are always watching every interactions closely - we’re all doing this in our free time and have other responsibilities. We may not take action on every report - sometimes things are borderline or the community has already pushed back and we feel like things are in hand - but I guarantee someone is looking at and considering every one.

It was very early on, the first week or so after it released. I’m sure they’ve fixed a lot of the bugs but honestly I just haven’t really been motivated to try it out again.

I tried to play London and it crashed constantly. Now, that’s not all that different an experience from playing any Bethesda game, but it did kind of kill any interest I had in the mod.

For what it’s worth, I appreciate this. I’m not in the right headspace for the usual circular firing squad right now.

Hey @UngodlyAudrey@beehaw.org, I know we don’t really know each other and I’m just a random dude on the internet but I’m shattered for you and other folks like you that are rightly scared by this outcome. I’m raising kids in this nightmare and I’m terrified of what they’re going to face growing up. I don’t know what to do either. I know this is all empty words but it’s what I’ve got right now.

Yeah Firefox on Android is extremely so for me at times. I’ve never noticed it specifically being on the first page load after a while, but I haven’t been paying that much attention. I use firefox on mobile so that I can install ublock, because when I’ve tried to use a DNS-based solution in the pass I ran into all kinds of issues with battery drain, but the experience does leave a little to be desired at times.

I saw this headline and expected something very different than what I got, and I’m really glad. I think the last decade has made me really cynical about technology and the internet, for some good reasons, to the point where a story like this is almost surprising. I found myself a little caught off guard by how emotional I got while reading it. Thank you for posting this.