It’s rough right now politically in the US. A lot of people around me seem like they’re ready to give up hope. It makes me incredibly angry seeing Zuck up there with all the other billionaires, and Elon is a parasite that has infected the government.
I often find myself wondering how I can make a difference. How can we regain control of our world?
Idk if I’m being dramatic, but the Fediverse really seems like it could be our response to these fuckers controlling the narrative on social media. It could be more than just an interesting decentralized social media platform. I really think this could be a key step in reclaiming our democracy.
Am I being dramatic lol? Do you all feel the same way? I was kinda getting emotional even. Like we could bring real change. That gives me hope, which is something we are desperately lacking right now.
It’s not just Lemmy. It makes me happy to see all the Fediverse platforms (specifically activity pub based) blowing up.
Friendly reminder if you have the financial means, donate to your instance, donate to the Lemmy devs, donate to Pixelfed or any other social media app fighting big social media. And better than a one-time donation, set up a monthly contribution even if it’s just $2/month. It really helps open-source developers when they have a steady income.
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Nothing gives me hope these are the darkest times ever
It gives me hope. We have an opportunity to level the playing field. So much hope that I’m actually starting a show to try to help folks get to know people behind the Fediverse! I truly believe in it and hope we can claw back the internet from the tech giants.
What kinda show?
Calling it Fireside Fedi, where I just talk to folks around the Fediverse and get to know them. I have Gabe Kangas first tomorrow. He’s the lead Dev of Owncast. Created a community !firesidefedi@lemmy.world if you’re interested. Fully Fedi powered. Livestream, Voss, socials, eventually setting up Fedi audio player as well.
Edit: fixed link to community
Cool idea!
I hope. :-D. I’m no Dev, but I enjoy talking to people and I really believe In the Fediverse so just trying to contribute anyway I can to make it a more welcoming and interesting place.
Having been around since the early days of identica/statusnet: no, not really.
It’s always been small and a generally nice set of communities but it won’t reach a large enough audience to matter. US (and to some degree) global politics are such a clusterfuck that it’ll take more than some little servers with people discussing open source software and art or whatever to create substantial change.
that’s not to say it’s pointless. it’s nice to have these little groups to focus on. it doesn’t give me any hope but it does regulalry lift my spirits.
EDIT: I also dont think it needs to be any kind of agent or tool of change. Why can’t it just be what it is? Groups of people socializing with one another?
Bruh, I’ve been tracking it for years and the fediverse was dead before the Reddit exodus. Now I can have discussions about fantasy football without going on Reddit or X
I don’t live in that country, but while I like Lemmy, no, I don’t have hope any more. I’ve not had that for a long time now.
It’s interesting though, to see the US slowly turn into our enemy, and to consider that Germany will be one of our strongest democratic, antifascist allies against the new axis of evil when the time comes.
Thankfully I’m too old to be forced to fight in the next war against fascism, but I suppose poverty and climate change might kill me before then anyway. There truly is no hope left for me.
I mean it’s really depressing even being in Europe honestly but at the same time it’s a huge opportunity. It’s time to take it :) Let’s show them how decentralization AND open source can be a new standard! I’m seeing the same trend in Linux too and this is so important as well.
Also a lot of new projects to help decentralization are emerging, check https://spritely.institute/ which there’s Christine Lemmer-Webber a co-author of the ActivityPub protocol :)
Yes! A bump for spritely!
Yes but then I realized that unfortunately it will never take off and suffers from most of the issues that centralized sites suffer from. So yea, rip.
I’m just glad to be part of a community that seems to have some shread of human decency left. That’s not all too common here in the States these days.
Hope in what sense? Hope that it’s generally possible to connect online without corporate social media? Sure …
Hope that it’ll become a replacement social media at a large scale? Probably not … I think the way push-federation is implemented makes it inconvenient and hard to grasp, and generally people seem to prefer centralized platforms for the sheer convenience of use, which is hard to beat.
So I guess it’ll remain stable in it’s own little niche … which isn’t bad I suppose …
the Fediverse really seems like it could be our response to these fuckers controlling the narrative on social media. It could be more than just an interesting decentralized social media platform. I really think this could be a key step in reclaiming our democracy.
Agreed, and I would add that finding ways to get nonprofit news organizations (e.g. ProPublica) and public media (e.g. NPR, PBS, etc.) to host and administer their own instances and to start directing their readers/listeners to those services would be a great way to advance this goal
I’m not in the US (thinking of you guys everyday), but when I found myself feeling depressed by the direction of big tech, I realized that open-source and the Fediverse was the healthy and exciting way forwards. It was the one thing that felt like I remember the internet feeling like in the late 90s. I think you are spot on. It is the only way that democracy can survive in tech.
I think that’s what I’m feeling actually. Technology stopped being fun, and although I’m too young for tech in the 90s, Fediverse and open source do make me enjoy tech again!
It’s nice, but it doesn’t really give me hope. Lemmy is good because it’s not mainstream. Once it got relevant, it would turn into today’s reddit. And if it, by chance, evolved into relevant opposition, I believe it would be easy for billionaires to destroy, despite the decenzralized character. It could also be used for curbing the opposition by gathering information about it. There’s no way to hide from people with enough money.
What’s wrong with being the next Reddit
In my opinion reddit was bad because of the closing of the source, and centralization and administration by a single corporation interested in profits, which results in the cesspool we know reddit as today. it wasn’t bad because of the format that lemmy replicates as a link aggregator, so I agree with you on this point.
It gives me hope yeah, alot of my family and coworkers are extremely conservative and it’s given me hope that they’re not the default for cis people. I’ve since gotten away from alot of them and met irl friends who’re more accepting but the presence of people online who didn’t begrudgingly tolerate me before then has given me hope and the courage I would need to advocate for myself and not accept the bare minimum
The response is to tune-in, turn-on, and drop-out.
Start making things from scratch. Stop buying shit.
Opt-out.
Frankly, it’s stressing me out. The non-stop barrage of Trump, Musk and other bullshit is just a bit too much on here. I get how the platform in generally is very left leaning, but it really does feel like the sky is falling every five minutes, you know?
@FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
@moseschrute@lemmy.world sometimes it takes letting it play out for people to remember the leason that history could have thaught them. Do your best now to prepare for some tough times. If you own your home outright, get that basement ready for a renter. If you’ve already leveraged 80% of your home, get out from under that NOW and look for a basement to rent.
Read some Steinbeck. Watch Idocracy. Strike up a conversation with the oldest people you cross paths with about what they remember their parents telling them about the great depression. It’s going to suck, but when someone can convince this many Americans to vote against their own interests their is a more fundamental problem.
I personally take a little joy from the interveiws with people laid off who didn’t realize the company they worked for was producing products for federally subsidized clean energy initiatives.
No, the Fediverse is full of conservatives. The technology is great, but the people here suck.
No one is forcing you to be around all of us “conservatives” who suck.
As drag said, the technology is great. Drag believes in the mission of the Fediverse. It’s just that a lot of it is infested with power mods and transphobes. If we could get rid of that sort of person, this space would be much better, wouldn’t you agree?
If I were surrounded by a bunch of people I thought were horrible, I would leave. I hear there are other Fediverse servers out there.
If you’re into masochism, you should really get people’s consent first.
If it’s true that you avoid people you don’t like, then perhaps drag was wrong to think you didn’t like drag. Drag has in the past advised you to block drag, and it seems you’ve decided not to. Drag is flattered. Perhaps you’ve decided to respect the “they” part of your child’s she/they pronouns. If so, you’re very welcome for the push. Drag has always believed that hearing the experiences of trans people makes others more likely to respect differences in gender presentation.
Cool, you didn’t actually read what I wrote in an effort to make a very poor attempt at a witty retort.
If I were surrounded by a bunch of people I thought were horrible, I would leave. I hear there are other Fediverse servers out there.
I know you have a lot of sockpuppets, but you’re just one person.
Well it’s only fair, since drag asked if you’d like power mods and transphobes to be removed from Lemmy, and you didn’t answer.
You saying something stupid in order to get a witty retort has nothing to do with fairness, and I am no more obligated to answer your questions than you are obligated to stay on Lemmy.world just because you like the technology. Because, again, there are plenty of servers.
But you’ve loved trolling, especially the queer community here, since you were doing the Attack Helicopter thing, so why would you leave?
