Oog - my little brother.

He’s a walking stereotype of a tech libertarian (which is to say, a shallow, bigoted, reactionary, right-wing IT guy who for some inexplicablec reason seems to think that all that’s necessary to count as “libertarian” is to rail against “the woke mob.”)

The first time I heard the term “mansplaining,” I knew exactly what it meant, because it’s his customary mode of communication. I already know that by about the third time I hear him say, " Well, what you have to understand is that…" I’m going to have to leave the room.

He likely won’t bring up politics directly - not surprisingly, he’s generally ignorant of both the philosophical side of it and the practical side of it. Instead, he’ll bloviate about whatever the right-wing/tech media bubble is bloviating about, so essentially political issues without the complication of political context.

It’s invariably awful, and it’s always a matter not of if but merely of when I’m going to have to leave the room because the only alternative is going to be a messy verbal explosion. And I presume it’s going to be worse than ever this year, since he’ll undoubtedly want to mansplain the mindless dogma he’s been fed about Trump and Musk and Ukraine and tariffs and immigrants and trans athletes and so on…

All I know is that Kagi triggered my scam alarms from the start, and moving into the browser market just made them ring even louder.

I’d say more the latter, but people are multifaceted, so it’s likely not quite the case that it’s people being their true inner selves as just indulging a part of their true inner selves.

Identity in general doesn’t matter much on forums (as opposed to microblogs, like Twitter or Mastodon). Forums are focused on topics rather than people, and what is said is generally more important than who says it.

It’s the state of mind caused by simultaneously believing two (or more) things that conflict with each other.

And I guarantee that billionaire Larry Ellison blithely believes that he’ll be exempt - that all of this surveillance will just be used against the little people. And he’s almost certainly right.

I think you have forums confused with microblogs.

I presume I’m supposed to care, but I dont, and I don’t know why anyone would.

Hexbear is sort of like a village of eldritch abomination worshippers in a Lovecraftian horror story - isolated, insular, entirely wrapped up in their own esoteric rituals and ideas and language, and immediately and collectively hostile to outsiders.

So… Meta’s “plan” is to dodge responsibility?

Gee whiz… I sure never saw that coming…

Just be patient.

With all due respect, fuck the normies. The fediverse is better off without them.

Hmm…

I would assume then that the effect is somehow tied in with the fact that the light is diffused and relatively dim, since it’s simply a fact that the blues and greens are the colors that pop. Possibly there isn’t enough light to show up orange or red - effectively, everything is sort of in shadow?

And by contrast, as I write this, it’s very smoky where I am, and yes - the light is notably orange. And I’ve noticed before that when it’s like this, shadows have an obvious blue tint.

Pretty much.

Don’t get too hung up on the name - it’s just a personal bit of shorthand. What I’m talking about is the actual phenomenon. Parrish’s paintings are just the closest popular representation I’ve seen of it.

It seems to happen most often in late summer, when (in my area at least) afternoon thundershowers are relatively common. There are times when the clouds will roll in, but they’re not dense enough to bring rain, and just at dusk, the light through those clouds is diffused but oddly clear, so in spite of the fact that the light level is low overall, colors, and especially blues and greens, really pop.

In HSL terms, it’s essentially 100% saturation but only maybe 30% light, and since the light shifts toward red/orange, the blues and greens are the colors that stand out the most.

What I call Parrish light - the distinctive tone that’s prominent in Maxfield Parrish’s paintings.

It’s a relatively subdued but clear reddish orange that I see most commonly with relatively uniform but thin thunderclouds at dusk. It makes blues and greens much more vivid, in spite of the fact that the overall amount of light is relatively low. And it’s glorious.

If he’s trying to say “Biden wanted this but Trump already started it”

Which “he?”

Zuckerberg blames it exclusively and entirely on the Biden administration.

that tells me BOTH parties requested it. Hence, if you don’t like Biden because of this, you don’t want Trump either. And of course, vice versa. In short, this policy is not unique to either party or administration.

Exactly, but that’s explicitly not what Zuckerberg is saying. He’s saying that it was entirely and exclusively Biden, which is a lie.

Why did Zuckerberg choose now to make this announcement and publicly reveal the inside play?

There’s actually a tidbit that the author notes that points at the obvious reason for it.

In his letter to Congressional investigators, he flat-out said what everyone else has been saying for years now.

In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content…

The author then goes on to say though:

A few clarifications. The censorship began much earlier than that, from March 2020 at the very least if not earlier.

What’s significant about that? Trump was president then.

So Zuckerberg is rather obviously trying to pin entirely on the Biden administration a set of policies that were already in place under Trump.

To what end? Obviously to do the same thing he did in 2016 and 2020 - to overtly promote Trump.

This particular one certainly not coincidentally plays into the whole Republican narrative that the Democrats are oppressive and dishonest, which in turn is meant to provide a context for their intention to dispute the election results when Trump loses. Zuckerberg is simply doing his part to further that narrative.

I think there are two different things at play there, and both have been mentioned, so all I can add is that it’s not one or the other but both. (Well - that and a song)

Partly it’s the common human need to feel that we matter - that our lives are in some way significant.

And partly it’s the fear of death and the resulting desire to believe that we’ll “live on” at least figuratively.

And the song is from Shriekback and is directly on topic - Dust and a Shadow

Broadly because the entire dynamic of left-wing partisanship in the US - both for the politicians and for the voters - is built around the binaristic idea that the only alternative to supporting the Democrats is supporting the Republicans, and that doesn’t work if they admit that there are more possible positions than just those two.

Yes - that’s exactly what it is. Vichy Twitter is to historical Twitter as Vichy France was to historical France.