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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • With low-effort crap posts like this (made even easier with GenAI) he is “recruiting” stupid people who believe anything that’s not from reputable sources (mainstream/science is boring and hard to understand, conspiracy myths are easy to "understand " and exciting) into his MAGA cult which is also consisting of right-wing extremists and “conservatives” who are easily dragged to the right and made into extremists as well.

    The wealthiest entities in the economy are then allying with that cult and push more propaganda in the hopes of “recruiting” even more people into the cult.

    The goal of these political and economic elites is to establish an autocracy without any painful regulations of the economy, so the goal is to get even richer at the cost of a functioning society and democracy. It’s the capitalism endgame - merge corporations with politics (going much further than previous lobbying and corruption), establish a fascist ruling class based on wealth and influence, and try to keep the population in line through lies and propaganda. They need stupids, crazies and extremists as supporters of this coup. This works best with right-wing crazies because they are the most gullible and easiest to manipulate. And by pushing propaganda on proprietary platforms, they can convert more people into the cult.

    Inciting a culture war between the cult and the other part of the population protects the elites from a class war occurring. If the population is busy fighting with each other, the elites can sleep easy and continue to extract as much money as possible, for as long as possible.






  • kyub@discuss.tchncs.detoMemes@lemmy.mlAbout Cookies!
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    1 year ago

    So unfortunately websites routinely and carelessly lie about basically everything related to data protection stuff. This already begins with the term “technically necessary cookies”. No cookie is truly technically necessary. What they usually mean by that is “we really really want to put this tracking cookie from our ad partners like Google into your browser, and we don’t care whether you want that or not so we just claim it’s technically necessary”. But even if you refuse a cookie prompt, often your choice isn’t respected at all and cookies are created regardless. In fact, many cookies are already created at the very beginning before you make any choice in any sort of cookie banner. Basically this whole ad/tracking industry is a complete mess and no one really cares and it’s just best to completely ignore what sites claim and use technical means to protect yourself at least a little bit because you cannot trust ANY site’s claims regarding that. Most of the time, even the phrase “we value your privacy” is already the very first and biggest lie. Don’t trust what websites claim. It’s pointless, and nothing happens when they violate their own rules or data protection laws anyway. Which they do almost all of the time anyway. This illegality is routine and almost omni-present. Cookies are also far from the only thing that sites can use to track you. They’re just the most well-known method, which is probably why we have these near-pointless laws requiring sites to put up near-pointless banners to annoy visitors with.

    So as a user, you should just ignore any of that and completely rely on technical means to protect yourself from any or most kinds of shenanigans websites can do to you. Most privacy-respecting browsers have features that limit what sites are able to do with you, such as cookie isolation which prevents other sites from being able to read the contents of cookies belonging to other sites. Or more general, isolation of any website data, not just limited to cookies. But not every browser has these types of protection. If you use very common browsers like Chrome, Edge or Opera, then it’s likely that you have none of that because the developers of those browsers are companies which profit from the user being more easily trackable through the web.

    So the easiest solution as a user is to use a privacy-respecting, well-pre-configured browser like Librewolf or Mullvad Browser, and use uBlock Origin as the only extension with several enabled filter lists. This alone makes you a much harder tracking target. And of course you can safely ignore or block any cookie notices, it doesn’t really matter what you select in them most of the time anyway. Although your IP address is still always a liability with ANY browser, because it can be fairly easily linked to your person and you will expose your IP address with any regular browser, so if you want to browse anonymously you should use the Tor Browser (with mostly default settings and no additional extensions). That means that you won’t have ad blocking protection, but at the same time the site and any ad servers don’t know who you are anyway (you’re just some random person from a random country for them), unless you make a mistake and log into a personally-identifiable account or so. The Tor Browser also contains the most amount of anti-tracking and anti-fingerprinting techniques possible. For casual anonymous browsing you should absolutely use the Tor Browser, because with it it’s highly unlikely that a website is able to identify you. Its main disadvantages are that it’s slower, some sites block that kind of browser, and since you shouldn’t add any other extensions you will see ads with it, but your identity still remains protected unless you make a mistake. Still, it should be your go-to browser for anonymous browsing. Switch to your regular browser for when you want to log in to an account with personal details.




  • Well, they massively expanded jail space everywhere, as well as funding for ICE. Of course they’re going after much more people than just “illegal immigrants”. That’s just the low-hanging fruit for them (still anti-constitutional). Fascists will always move on to other groups of people because they constantly need to find new enemies, not realizing that they themselves are the only ones causing actual harm. They will also turn on each other if someone blames another one of “treason” or “aiding the enemy” or whatever. It’s a purely destructive cult-like force and if you can’t stop it it will cost millions of lives over a couple of years.


  • Well, the point in time where it was maybe possible to defend against Trump and his cronies normally or legally is already over. Now they have gathered too much power and also already pretty much operate above the law. The Supreme Court is on their side I guess, not on the side of the constitution or the laws anymore. So it’ll only get worse from now on, and quickly. Only regime-approved media will soon be left over, i.e. media distributing the regime’s propaganda even further. And they will soon throw all of their opponents into concentration camps, not just “illegal immigrants”. That’s just the low-hanging fruit they needed for initially starting building concentration camps and expanding other jail space and their ICE army massively. Technically they would only need jail space for themselves and all supporters of this fascist regime, but they will jail all others they can get their hands on instead.

    You will have an actual fight on your hands if you want to revert all this. Either just from the inside, or both from the inside and the outside once they start waging war on former allies like Canada or Denmark (Greenland). You should probably create local communities of people who are ready to help each other vs. ICE raids. Create logistical and resource problems for them. Make it hard and costly for them to destroy people’s lives. If you let them kidnap too many people, you will not have enough people for resistance anymore.



  • It’s going to get a lot worse because now they know that they are able to deport/jail literally anyone without facing any resistance. If a case gets too big on the media, they can shift responsibility around in a circle, e.g. USA says it can’t do anything, El Salvador has to do something. And El Salvador says sorry can’t do anything. And so nothing is done, both USA and El Salvador get what they want and the justice system and the victims can’t do anything.

    This will soon become routine because they will expand their list of “unwanted” persons constantly. First “gang members” and “criminals”, then sexual and other non-criminal minorities, then non-criminal political opposition, then potentially everyone who’s not super loyal to the fascist administration (aka cult).

    What worries me is how fast it descends into madness. Any innocent American citizen should probably sooner, rather than later, be prepared to fight for themselves and their loved ones against injustice, because there might be no one left in the system doing it for them when the system itself has become unjust and/or dysfunctional. I hope that you somehow manage to turn the wheel around but when looking at the speed of Project 2025 and the Trump administration becoming increasingly more vile, I don’t think there’s much time left. Fascism is growing at insane speed, fueled by disinformation/propaganda and fake news on the web and social media, and backed by obscenely rich oligarchs who never really liked the previous government and laws anyway.

    And this is all happening in a time when humanity should work together, rather than continue fighting among themselves. Instead, humanity chose the worst path forward possible, the path which accelerates the problems and has no solutions at all. So now we don’t have anything against climate change and this will cause massive problems and completely new wars world-wide over land, food, water. And it’s not far out. If you’re young today, you’ll probably live to experience it. It’s probably the right time to prepare for the worst and adjust to a pre-apocalyptic mindset. Because we’re definitely not solving this if we can’t even solve fascism in Western democracies in 2025.


  • It’s the other way around.

    The mental illness is not “paranoia about Trump’s doings”, paranoia about Trump is normal when you’re a decent human being who is thinking clearly and fact-based, because then you should absolutely be paranoid about an unhinged, mentally unstable, dangerous fascist taking power in the US. If that doesn’t bother you, I’m sorry, but you’re probably simply uneducated. See old Nazi Germany for “prior art” on this one.

    What could be considered a “mental illness” is what causes people to believe or support Trump, or the current Republicans, or the MAGA movement, or the current right-wing extremism in general. This is likely an issue of either low education, low intelligence or naive belief in various forms of internet propaganda. Or multiple of those issues combined. So it’s not really “illness” but rather a misinformed and/or radicalized person. Similar to what cultists become in real cults. Fascism is very cult-like in general. There’s usually a supreme leader and a doctrine (usually based on falsehoods) to live by, and everyone who doesn’t do that is considered an “enemy” or at least inferior. What you read on the internet and especially social media or “alternative news sites” is already often weaponized and might be able to radicalize you or lead you away from the fact-based truth. There’s TONS of disinformation, sometimes harmless, sometimes funny, but sometimes not. Sometimes it’s dangerous, especially if you’re not able to spot what’s likely true or not. If you aren’t able to filter out disinformation, propaganda, lies, half-truths, weird memes, i.e. if you are unable to stick to reputable sources, peer-reviewed science, and so on, then you WILL fall for at least some amounts of misinformation and you MIGHT even become part of a cult (e.g. MAGA movement, conspiracy believers, anti-vaxxers, QAnon, radical right-wing extremism, …). And again, it’s all weaponized and that is useful for various involved parties for various reasons. For example, Putin wants misinformation on social media because with it he can destabilize Western democracies, because common citizens fall for this stuff and lose faith in their own governments. The end result helps Russia, because Western democracies will then do less and be less united against Russian attacks. Billionaires like Musk or Zuckerberg want misinformation on social media because with it they can better control the narrative and extract more money from the users because polarizing and extreme content gives them more interactions and thus money. Billionaires also want less governmental regulation, which is why Musk already demolished several regulating bodies in the US. Autocratic fascists like Trump also want misinformation on social media because with it they can control the narrative better. What these involved parties all don’t want is the actual truth, so they are usually anti-science, anti-education, anti independent journalism, and so on. It’s better for them if the common people are uneducated and uninformed, and follow the newly created doctrine. It’s easy to tell that they want to create their own fake version of the truth, and control the narrative in that way.


  • Basically yes. There is nothing really new or different from the modern right-wing extremist ideology to the old Nazi ideology. The fundamentals are the same, always. They always go after minorities (first demonizing them, then jailing, deporting or killing them), they always strive for authoritarian leadership, they always combat science and education because science/education (or rather the universally accepted truth/facts) is kind of fundamentally incompatible with right-wing extremist beliefs (which are based on fear, feeling, outdated traditionalist values, fundamentalist Christian religious values, and a big load of plain bullsh!t). And of course they’re going after everything that’s inclusive or social because all they know is fear, hate, division and destruction. It’s basically a cult which eventually wages war on everyone who thinks differently. They will always start with the ones who can defend themselves the least well and then move on to bigger targets (e.g. first illegal immigrants, then all immigrants, then people of color, then religious minorities, then political minorities, and so on). Eventually, they will demonize everyone who doesn’t think their exact way or is in the political opposition etc…, in an effort to divide people.

    It’s like a cult and it needs to be stopped. Don’t fall for the trap that it’s somehow different today. The only thing different is that they now have the internet to rapidly spread propaganda and misinformation everywhere (and all lesser educated or young parts of the population are likely to at least partially fall for this stuff), and that Western countries have stronger constitutions which will not crumble as easily as e.g. the Weimar Republic before Nazi Germany happened, because that constitution had a big loophole to exploit. But they might still find exploits or fill enough key positions with loyal fascists that they might be able to effectively sidestep the constitution, in effect installing a fascist, authoritarian government that can do what it wants, hunt who it wants, and be immune to legal repercussions. Don’t underestimate them, they are very good at manipulation, lies, division and in general causing mayhem. They thrive from chaos, because from chaos they can then also create a powerful executive force to “restore law and order”. Also they do not care about what you think about them or their actions. They will move quickly and mercilessly to achieve their goals, and so any opposition to them must also be quick, decisive and resolute, and not hesitate.

    They also currently gather immense wealth behind them currently because super-rich people/companies like riding on that bandwagon because it will grant them even more power and influence in the short to medium term (this was also true in old Nazi Germany btw), because there are no pesky or costly regulations limiting them anymore, so they will gain short-term economic benefits from siding with the extremists, and as we all know, in capitalism, money is everything, and morals don’t matter. Elon Musk in particular is particularly clever and ruthless because he essentially managed to buy parts of the government, meaning he will make the government favor his own companies and plans. It’s kind of unprecedented corruption I think, but of course it’s a dream for any super-rich commercial entity. No regulations, no fines, do what they want, even direct taxpayer money into their own pocket. As much as you can, stop using, buying from or otherwise supporting big companies who openly side with fascists. You can vote with your wallet. In capitalism, voting with your wallet (what you buy, where you buy from and most importantly what you don’t buy and where you don’t buy from) is a very effective secondary vote option. Also stop using Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and so on. In those platforms, you are the product, and when you use them less, they can generate less money from your data, behavior and interactions.

    Long-term, Nazi ideology always leads to societal division, hate, crimes, bad living conditions, lots of deaths, and eventually wars. Because once they’ve taken control of the inner political systems, and jailed or killed enough minorities they think are “harmful”, they will always look for the next minority, and then the next, and the next, and then they’ll be after you. And there will be very few if any legal ways of stopping them. After that (or even before), they will turn on their neighboring countries and start wars with them. Because they always need a new common enemy to hunt, they live based on the belief that they’re more superior than others and that kind of grants them the right to take what they want and oppress those they deem “inferior” (Nazi ideology in a nutshell). When they don’t have any easy targets anymore, they will look at other countries to invade. Any neighboring country in particular needs to be constantly aware of that.

    Slightly longer term, if the USA fall to the right-wing extremism, it will lead to its weakening and downfall (allies will also turn away), and China will become the undisputed global super power in the world.

    Longer term still, climate change will cause massive mayhem planet-wide. Since fascists are anti-science and pro-economy, and economy is pro environmental exploitation, they are accelerating the problem even further. They will deny the problem exists until it hits everyone, including them, in the face. Hard.

    Unfortunately I don’t think there’s a way to save us from climate change regardless, unless the whole economic system drastically changes, which will probably not happen until the catastrophe is there, but we can absolutely fight fascism and extremism, and in doing so this will also delay climate change slightly, granting us a few more years of “quality” time on this planet, before it all goes to universal sh!t.


  • Generally, the one is right who builds his argument on verifiable facts coming from trustworthy sources, or at least tries to as best as possible. There are police statistics about crime rates. In Germany for example, crime is actually going down. It’s very likely that Harris is right and Trump is not. This is usually the case, without even looking at anything specific. Trump lies and does baseless/unverifiable claims about pretty much anything, all the time. His followers then think he’s somehow right because he’s anti-establishment or they think that it’s all a giant conspiracy and Trump is the only one who knows the truth, again without any kind of verifiable facts behind it. This can then spiral into pure fact-free lunacy or high fantasy thinking, or cult-like thinking.

    That crime is going down, is of course a fact that doesn’t fit at all into the right-wing world view or rhetoric of blaming and demonizing immigrants. So they usually then claim that those facts come from untrustworthy sources or are generally fake news or whatever, again without any verifiable evidence. Because they don’t want facts but easy solutions to complex problems, like minorities to blame for whatever problems they currently believe in. If they radicalize themselves enough, and this can happen fast on today’s internet within their own echo chambers, they might become so far removed that they become lunatic and/or violent, and then they become dangerous. Fascism is very similar to a cult.


  • It’s probably related to the phenomenon called “gish gallop”. It’s when someone outputs a ton of falsehoods and other junk very frequently, and other more rational individuals have to refute all those claims and pseudo arguments, look up sources, look up what’s true and what’s false, and so on. There’s an asymmetry in effort - it’s much easier and way faster for the trolls to spit out junk, falsehoods, misleading content, misleading memes, false claims, and so on, than it is to refute those and gather facts, and to do that, you also have to be very careful to make it accurate or else the listeners might go “boo that’s wrong as well, they both suck!”

    And then there’s the phenomenon that even bad advertisement is advertisement. Someone whose name keeps coming up, such as Trump, because that name is constantly all over the news, each and every day, must be very important since the name is repeated so much. This automatically “elevates” that person in the minds of some voters, even though the reason for his constant mention is purely negative. So the more reports about Trump’s weird ramblings, the more he is automatically advertised.

    I think it’s like a combination of such unfortunate phenomenons. The result is that real politicians have to be accurate, careful, constantly maintain a professional attitude, and carefully counter Trump’s weird claims, while Trump can just continue to spit out hostile nonsense all the time, which is so much easier.

    I’m not sure what can be done against such strategies other than education and media literacy, which is probably becoming weaker over time in society. You don’t vote for proven anti-constitutional fascists, ever. If you do, you’ll always be much worse off than if you hadn’t. Even when the alternatives might also not look great overall… it should be your moral duty to always vote for the least-worst option, which means NOT Trump.

    ~1930ish Germany made such mistakes. Don’t repeat them. You’re now at ~100 years later and are supposed to learn from grave historic mistakes. So please show that you are actually wiser than the people ~100 years ago and don’t vote for proven fascists.



  • Winter is on its way out due to climate change. In around the year 2100, it’s estimated that there will only be 3 seasons left, no winter. And summer will be much longer and much hotter. So the 3 seasons will be spring, then a 2-season long summer basically, then fall. That’s it.

    But you can already see the disappearance of winter today because there’s much less snow and it’s much warmer than like 30 years ago. (Speaking for Germany)