• 3 Posts
  • 14 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • For now reddit seems fine (even though I feel a noticable deterioration of multiple communities). Though the important change is that alternatives have established themselves. Lemmy might not be big right now but from now on reddit has to be extra careful not to upset redditors. Every new step they take that worsens the experience will drive a new wave of users away from their site and now more of them will find communities elsewhere that have been established during the first exodus this year.

    At the same time I’m unfortunately quite certain that the enshittification of reddit will continue as investors demand higher profits. So we will see more waves of redditors leaving. Such a migration in waves could also be observed with Twitter, after every new step that Elon took to ruin the site.


  • Xenon@lemmy.worldtoEurope@feddit.deDraghi: EU must become a state
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    11 months ago

    Can we please stop this eternal debate about the EU becoming a state? I feel like it’s besides the point and only evokes harmful reflexes on all sides. The question should be how to streamline and organize decision making. Who decides on which level about what. As Draghi points out correctly, certain stategic decisions should be made at an EU level. That would be more efficient, more impactful and help Europeans as a whole but it’s not really about “turning the EU into a country”. I get that “the sovereign nation state” has been the single one all-encompassing, all-powerful entity at the heart of political thinking since at least the 17th century but I just feel like it’s no longer necessarily a helpful frame of reference for many developments in the 21st century.



  • Xenon@lemmy.worldtoMemes@sopuli.xyzProperty Values > Everything
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    11 months ago

    That’s exactly the point many people don’t seem to get. Yes, zoning more land for construction or lowering building cost might help but the key issue is that housing has become a major asset for the rich and especially institutional investors globally. There’s just so much money out there in search of investment opportunities but unlike stocks or Bitcoin housing is a core human need. Coupled with increasing wealth inequality and stagnant wages this is a major problem. When crypto or Nasdaq celebrate new records that’s nice for investors but when the property market goes up and up many people can no longer afford rent.

    Privat property investors are part of the problem whether they like it or not. Given these circumstances I find it hard to imagine a solution that doesn’t include massive state intervention in the housing market.


  • As far as I know the fact that slave trade was already a well established business in western Sub-Saharan Africa, mostly with Muslim nations played a huge role. European colonizers were in desperate need for workforce in their new American territories. Plagues from the old world had absolutely decimated most of the indigenous population plus many Europeans also struggled severely with tropical diseases that they weren’t used to.

    Originally, African slaves were mostly used out of economic convenience and not for specific ideological reasons. It’s quite disturbing to consider how this particular anti black racism that is still very prevalent today developed directly as a result of and as an instrument to maintain the institution of slavery. The economic circumstances of the 16th or 17th century still have enormous implications for our moral landscape in the 21st century.




  • You have to be delusional if you think that a military coup orchestrated by Russia benefits anyone but a few corrupt elites. Your kneejerk reaction is nothing but cutting of your nose to spite your face. The French are certainly no saints but between military dictators, jihadist terrorists and Russian warlords they are one of the better actors in the region. If you unironically call the current state a French colony you must be lost deep in the Russian propaganda rabbit hole.






  • Absolutely, I not some anarchist type who hates corporations out of principle but at this point the enshittification of platforms by large corporations has basically proven to be a natural law of the internet.

    I’m somewhat in doubt though whether a decentralized platform run by its users can really keep up with all ongoing developments. Let’s say bots become a problem what about bot detection and banning or what about legal regulatory changes? That being said, reddit devs appear utterly incompetent and somehow they manage. Perhaps in the long run some non-profit organization, something like the Wikimedia Foundation is necessary, at least for individual parts of the network.

    Maybe someone with more insights into these topics can share their opinion.