DisasterTransport, disastertransport@startrek.website

Hahahahahaha FUCK YOU ORACLE!

sorry, needed to get that out of my system

I don’t do deep packet inspection on Lemmy traffic, nor am I a behavioral analyst. I simply think it stands to reason that if there are organizations who are capable of running influence campaigns that Lemmy would be a natural target. Any online forum is potentially at risk of targeted disinformation campaigns. I don’t apply this logic on an individual basis, because witch hunts are just as counterproductive as being overly credulous. But I have a pretty simple razor that if someone is trying to incite me to violence, meet offline, or divulge personally identifying information I should block them whether or not they’re some kind of operative.

I think there’s a motive. If I were the FBI I wouldn’t be too concerned about actual violent outcomes, so long as they were lone wolf attacks or the product of tiny cells of radicals. It’s like a controlled burn in a forest. You get the fire out of the way before it reaches a critical mass. “Voting doesn’t work, burn down a government building” is a real hard sell to someone with a stable job, but the people it does sell to might one day be the types of people to organize and lead a meaningful opposition. So you flush them out early and fast. Some people might die, but Director Patel told me to catch leftists, not to prevent violence. As an added bonus, each violent act turns liberals more and more against what they perceive as an inherently violent ideology. “These are terrible times, and maybe if it prevents another bombing mass surveillance is acceptable even if I don’t like it,” they might think. You don’t have to go back too far to see that mindset in action. In the aftermath of 9/11 Americans saw an unprecedented erosion of their civil liberties. Terror is good for an autocratic regime.

That being said, I will grant that there’s no evidence of this. But then again there wasn’t evidence of COINTELPRO until the FBI field office in Media PA got broken into by a group of concerned citizens. Not that I’m condoning B&E. I also don’t think it would be productive to point fingers even if there were evidence the FBI was doing COINTELPRO 2. “So and so is a fed” is actually one of the tactics used in COINTELPRO to sow discord in infiltrated groups. Just, maybe we should keep in mind that we’re bound to see some discourse here that is trying to get us to play a useful idiot.

The difference between me and a conspiracy theorist is that I can point at past evidence. COINTELPRO is a historical fact, and part of that program involved infiltrating dissident groups and acting as agents provocateur. The Church committee found that the FBI engaged in “covert action designed to disrupt and discredit the activities of groups and individuals deemed a threat to the social order.” The committee also found that the tactics employed by the FBI “would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity.”

I am not saying the FBI is definitely here now. What I am saying is it would be naïve to assume that they would not be willing to run an influence operation on public forums where people skeptical of the US government gather, and it would be foolish to assume that nobody else is carrying out similar operations for their own respective interests, state-level or otherwise.

Mastodon isn’t American either and they still seized a Koliktiva server. Jurisdiction nothing. They can’t arrest you, that doesn’t mean they don’t have an interest in influencing you. And they’re one group of many who has an interest in running influence operations. Fuck dude, it could be Russia, it could be Mossad, it could be GISS. The barrier to entry is so low these days.

Lemmy is big enough to be a psyop target and has been for a while. This place is rife with feds and bots of every persuasion and they will try to influence you from every angle. As Lemmy grows it will only get worse. It’s easy to brush off pushback for criticizing nation states but also be aware that the FBI in particular has a history of trying to push people towards violent radicalism and in person meetups. Do not trust anyone online. Especially if they agree with you politically.

Okay, that makes a lot more sense. Once you bring power into the mix people get touchy lol. Thank you for engaging, my understanding is embiggened on this blessed day.

It is a complete answer, but it also makes a lot of people feel like they don’t know something they should. Repeatedly feeling that way is why they start to get defensive. In my experience. Its the repeated asking of questions they don’t have “good” answers for. And so I try really hard when people share things with me to pay extra attention to how they are reacting to my questions.

The same structure holds true when I’m asking questions about peoples beliefs or any other topic. People really hate feeling caught out in a conversation. My girlfriend almost broke up with me towards the beginning of our relationship for being “too Socratic.” And so now I try to be more conscious about what I ask, and when, where, why, and how I ask them. So far it’s been working pretty well.

Anyway your experiences are your own, my point here was and still is that people don’t react this way because they are stupid or incapable of self reflection but because sometimes we really do come off justly or unjustly as interrogators, and it’s on us to learn to identify when that’s happening and back off.

It is very real. I have experienced it myself. And when it happens I try to recognize that I am not a bad person, and neither are they. Sometimes you trip somebody else’s insecurities. And it’s on them when they let those insecurities get the best of them, and it’s on me when i don’t notice they’re getting uncomfortable because they’ve said “idk man I just started this hobby” three times and instead of taking the hint and high fiving them for their kickass walking artillery robot miniature I ask what brand of paint they used and why. Spoiler: they used it because the dude at the store recommended it and they don’t know anything about paint. Sometimes it is unreasonable to expect someone to be an expert, and repeatedly asking questions beyond the scope of their expertise is incredibly rude because it embarrasses them. That doesn’t make anyone stupid or evil. It just makes us human.

My objection here is that the linked tweet avoids any accountability. “I’m just curious and therefore virtuous, and they are triggered because they lack self reflection” is beyond insufferable, it is corrosive. When you think like that it feels like self acceptance, but it’s also complacency. Conversation is hard, especially for autistic people, but that doesn’t give us license to act like jerks and refuse to learn from the experience.

I think it’s a little unfair to brand the other person as avoidant of self-reflection, as if that’s just a core personality trait and not something that varies contextually. This kind of therapy-speak in inappropriate venues is such a huge red flag. No, you did not “trigger” the other person. You hurt their feelings on accident. That happens, but your measure lies in how you respond to having unintentionally hurt someone. This tweet reeks of “I acted like a shitty person, and now to soothe the feeling of my superego poking my ego I will go online and paint the person I was a dick to as an unreasonable person through oversimplified vagueposting.”

edit: With half an hour of distance between me and this comment it now feels important that I point out that I’m not calling out anyone ITT. Just the original poster on Twitter. Weaponized therapyspeak really, ahem, triggers me. I’ve been on both sides of this dynamic, and both sides can really ruin my day. I just really hate it when people try to avoid accountability for their behavior by using detached and clinical language. Ironically, the author of the linked tweet is avoiding self-reflection in real time. It’s just… goddamn, dude. This shit is serious. You can really hurt somebody when you start talking like unregistered therapy tiktokers. Don’t ask me how I know, that part’s private.

why is everyone commenting on a blank post

because the number of likes you get is proportional to the number of people who see it, not how amazing the thing you posted is

Also 1998: Olestra

Bad Lieutenant II. If you dont like it we can still be friends, but the harder you judge me for liking it the funnier it gets.

The past:

• contains valuable information
• may be used to evaluate the present
• helps make informed predictions about the future

I think that falls under “back to the drawing board.” Functionally there’s little difference between talking to a model and taking a call. If management is pushing them to dictate and it’s causing a problem they should put them in cubes.

For anyone else who resents this site’s desperate attempts to get you to download their app:

A new report confirms that Halo Studios’ upcoming Halo multiplayer title, Project Ekur, has been canceled.

There have been many news reports and rumors circulating about the Halo franchise recently, particularly concerning remakes. After the successful remake of the first game, it appears that remakes for Halo 2 and Halo 3 are also in development. Players have been eager to learn about new installments in the series, but it seems that a new multiplayer-focused game will not be released.

The initial report regarding the cancellation of Halo’s Project Ekur came from a well-known member of the community, Rebs Gaming. This report was then confirmed by Jez Corden, who, in his latest article for WindowsCentral, stated, “Halo Studios was working on a multiplayer title known as Project Ekur, which has been canceled. I’ve verified that as 100% true.” No further details about the nature of the canceled project were disclosed.

Recent reports from Rebs Gaming revealed that Project Ekur was one of the new projects from the Halo franchise. It seems that after the cancellation of battle royale mode for Halo Infinite, Certain Affinity, the developer of Project Tatanka, was given the go-ahead to prototype Project Ekur to see how Halo would unfold in Unreal Engine 5. There were two goals in mind: whether Slipspace and Blam assets can be moved to UE 5 and whether the engine can provide the Halo feel.

The game seemingly had extraction elements, but Halo 5 Warzone was looked at as a ‘conceptual foundation’. Certain Affinity was also offering playable Spartans and Elites with full customization. However, additional information from another source raised the question of whether Project Ekur was a traditional multiplayer game, a new experience, or both.

Nobody takes light pollution seriously but it’s as serious as a heart attack.

And I’m not saying we should shut off all the streetlights either. Although rigging them to motion sensors would be cool. Just that we should pretty please use full cutoff fixtures, ban uplights, and for the love of God use 3000k or warmer. 6000k for dusk-dawn lighting is insane especially in residential areas.

they are OK with anything that make line go up.

Fuck if I know, all I know is you can sit next to a blender in a busy office full of crying babies and barking dogs while writing a dissertation on an electric typewriter and the person on the other end of the line would never be able to tell. Professional headsets (like in the $300-$500 range) are honestly pretty incredible. If these silicon valley offices are too noisy for a high end EOS to handle, or if they genuinely have that many people constantly talking all day to the point that it’s a problem then they need to go back to the drawing board. Steno masks have their place but for anything a garden variety techbro is doing they’re either performative bullshit or a lazy bandaid. I guaranfuckingtee bossman has no interest in putting one of these on.