I think you’re making a valid point about fleeing persecution, which is a perfectly rational decision for one’s self-preservation, but the keyboard warriors will downvote you because it sounds like you’re advocating for relinquishing Palestinian lands to Israel.

You weren’t alone in this

In the meantime, the most damaging act of sabotage that we know of on European ground was perpetrated (it seems) by Ukrainians. Many were pointing the finger in Russia’s direction when that happened, even if it didn’t make much sense. Just saying, we shouldn’t take spooks at their word, you never quite know who is really behind covert attacks on infrastructure. At best we, the general public, can speculate. It usually takes a hell of a long time for any serious investigation to take place, if that is even going to be conclusive.

That is what the Chinese leadership likes to claim. That it’s cultural, and their culture is one of trade and cooperation, not expansion. And I don’t doubt that they are earnest in saying that. I mean they truly believe themselves to be different. But we know that once a power becomes global, i.e. when its interests and investments extend well beyond its borders, its military presence will also expand, and it will engage in conflict to protect said global interests. Whether it’s the US, Russia, or China, the dynamic at a certain level is the same. China is already growing a more formidable army and expanding into the South China Sea. This is only the beginning.

Probably because many local women would outright reject the Taliban, as partners and as masters, if they had a say. Educated women especially would run circles around them.

Respectfully, I do not see how this falls under trolling. Trolling would assume that the poster is disingenuous. But nothing that I have seen suggests that he was. And I do not think that moderators should make such calls. You may feel that something is “nonsense” but that does not mean you should exercise what little power you have to silence people, unless they clearly violate commonly agreed upon rules. Anyway, I don’t have a horse in this race, only reason I’m speaking up is because I see more and more forums that could host lively debate turn into circlejerks.

Ok but my question was did he break any rules? Is all propaganda forbidden on here, only Chinese propaganda, how do we decide? Or is it up to the mod’s discretion to decide what propaganda is undesirable and remove it?

I don’t know what was said, but is that a rule on here now? That you can just remove anything you deem to be CCP propaganda? I have noticed that nearly anything that can be construed as pro Russia or pro China is downvoted to hell on here. But so far I hadn’t noticed posts outright removed by mods. This feels wrong on so many levels. Why not let people express their opinion so long as they do not do it in an offensive manner?

No not really, if you read more about unions you will see that they aren’t always working in their members’ best interests and sometimes union leadership will ally with employers to secure their futures above those of union members. Not all unions are created equal. From what little I know and have read in the past about unions. Not that I have first hand experience.

Huh, hadn’t seen that before. But does that necessarily mean it is a strong union? Couldn’t it also mean it’s an employer-controlled union that is not really going to do anything for you?

Indeed, why would they? I never said they should, so not sure what you’re upset about.

Good on you for trying. I gave up a while ago. A consensus has formed, at least on here and on most of the English-speaking internet and lines have been drawn. Contrary opinions are rarely tolerated. Thankfully the rest of the world isn’t as gung-ho on isolating Russia and is actually helping restore some balance, because at the end of the day whether Ukraine is a NATO country or a Russian protectorate in ten years time matters little in the grand scheme of things.

What matters more is that the global pecking order between great powers is disturbed and this will likely lead to frequent local and perhaps generalized conflict in the future. It would be helpful for more countries to remain neutral, so as to help maintain balance and independence, while limiting the reach of great powers, but under such intense competition for global dominance most countries have to pick a sponsor for better or worse. And Ukraine’s leadership has chosen NATO, naturally. Whether they could have remained neutral or not is for historians to debate. Right now, as the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Do the US, Russia, and China have to be enemies? Yes, unfortunately they do. They have competing interests and the decline of the US is leaving space open for others. Hence also the focus on getting Europe more heavily militarized again. So that it can hold its own in the uncertain times to come. That is my understanding.

Thanks for the link. Some big parties seem to have hundreds of thousands of members. Didn’t see much for 2024 other than:

Zu Beginn des Jahres 2024 meldeten mehrere Parteien einen starken Mitgliederzuwachs. Bündnis 90/Die Grünen berichteten von 8.000 Neumitgliedern in den ersten beiden Monaten des Jahres.

In any case, considering the political context of our times, AfD’s growth is nothing to scoff at.

Since not everyone is expected to become member of a political party, a more apt comparison would be to membership numbers (and changes in those) for other German parties.

It is a very good game and makes an admirable job of showing you the branching paths and impact of your decisions. Presumably creating incentives to replay, but personally I was just satisfied to get my own story and knowing how it could have gone different in many ways. Also well written, they tend to get flak for their writing, but compared to most video game writing it’s pretty good.

Although I disagree that the main problem is politicization, a lot of what you said otherwise concurs with my experience. The depth just isn’t there. Maybe it’s a numbers thing. You’d see many simplistic takes left and right on Reddit too, but given the sheer volume of contributors, more often than not someone would have some true insight to share, a well thought out rebuttal, a reasoned argument, or just some humor to lighten up the conversation, and that would rise to the top. So top comments were usually guaranteed to be worthwhile and low effort comments would become easier to ignore. At least in the better subreddits. Not so much the case on Lemmy. A lot of low effort sarcasm, political slogans, and tribalism in the comments. I do like Lemmy on the whole though, so sticking with it for the time being.

So there is no evidence, just speculation. Nothing to see here then.

You may be forgetting that Kaliningrad is another Russian harbor in close proximity. Don’t know if there’s any credence to assertion that Gotland is in danger, but just saying.

Yeah I always thought ‘quiet quitters’ referred to people checking out of their jobs emotionally and doing just barely enough to not get fired, so actually underperforming, not because they couldn’t do better but because they stopped caring at some point. In that sense they have already quit, quietly. But now it seems that anyone who doesn’t go above and beyond can be a ‘quiet quitter’? Doesn’t make much sense to me.

The amount of anti-Russia comments on account of a known issue in competitive sports is disturbing. Does everything nowadays have to be about either “Russia bad” or “China bad”? Can’t it be about how exceptionally talented young people are pressured into doping because of ever increasing and often impossible to reach performance standards? I feel we have collectively lost a sense of measure in our response and have replaced a global outlook seeing global solutions to global problems with a nationalistic and sectarian us vs them attitude. And shudder to think that inside those countries it is exactly the same in reverse, possibly worse even.