It's reader mode. Turn it off and the article works. I think it's a big fuck you and I don't follow links to that site any more.

Lemmy doesn't have an algorithm that feeds me just the things I want to see. I have to shape it. I have to block people and subscribe to boards. And I have largely deterministic control over what I see.

But look at Facebook. Look at Twitter. Look at YouTube. Look at ... gestures at everything. It's obvious that personalized services manipulate people to their detriment. They make people hate one another. They make people hate themselves.

But that's not even my personal objection, really I'm an AI enthusiast. I'll have entire conversations just to see how it will react. I've jailbroken them. I've run identical scenarios over and over for countless hours just to tweak prompts to be slightly better. And I want a blank slate when I talk to AI. I want to tell it exactly what it needs to know about me to answer a given question, and no more.

Because as we can see, an algorithm that really understands what we want to see and tweaks every single response to match — is manipulating us. And I don't want to be manipulated. I want my thoughts, such as they are, to be my own.

I do appreciate

I don't want

I can't prove you wrong. If you are happy with a machine picking what you get exposed to, then you'll do that and be happy. But I know how thoughts can be manipulated, and I know I'm not immune, so yeah, I don't want AI that I don't strictly control the context of. I don't want my thoughts shaped by how the AI believes someone like me could most effectively be steered in a desired direction. Because I look around me and I know it can. If not to me then to thousands of others

But you do you. I wouldn't presume to tell anyone my opinion is the only correct one.

I can see that, but also if I don't own the AI, then knowledge it has about me could be used to manipulate me maybe in ways too subtle for me to notice.

If I pick up my phone, I'm up. The question is how long I lay there before I do that or fall back asleep.

I don't have a brand or following or even loyalty to opinions I held yesterday if they no longer serve me today. I've changed my mind on a great many things over the course of my life, and while I do struggle with shame when I've been wrong, the truth must ultimately be served.

Which is just to say, I have my fervent beliefs but when I'm wrong, I accept that and adapt, because the truth won't bend to accommodate me. I don't have that kind of money.

I can't say. It's true that lots of us have guns, but the people who've been itching to use them are largely happy with the government. On the other hand, I was just seeing that Black Panthers are chilling in Philadelphia, heavily armed with serious firepower.

The thing is, if we get into a shootout with the military or ice, that will certainly lead to invocation of the insurgency act and that will effectively end democracy here. Most of us understand Trump would love a shooting war because essentially any opposition to him or his stormtroopers would be sedition.

He's testing the waters even now. How much abuse and violence will protestors endure before they do fight back? We're hanging on by a thread here. Clinging to the faint hope that somehow we will make it to the elections, and that they will result in curbing his power.

Those are some big ifs. And if we fail in November, most of us will look to 2028. I always wondered why the Germans let Hitler continue to do what he did. But now I it see it. If they moved too fast there would be resistance. But as long as they move slowly, people think it's not much worse today than yesterday — that fighting against it would be terrible and we'd probably die because there aren't enough of us.

No, I don't think there will be a moment when we throw down Trump. His presidency will end in 2028 because Democrats win big this year, or he will be a wartime president and that will end only with his natural death and what happens next will be up to... I guess Vance.

But you should know, I'm not very good at predictions. I never thought Trump had a chance in either election. So take all of that with a huge grain of salt.

I'll listen because I like Jon Stewart, but I'm a former soldier and I've been around a while, and I don't think he nor his panel is going to say anything to change my mind. But I'll give it a listen. Who knows. He's a bright guy.

Mates, I'm positively effusive about AI compared to your average Lemmster. But I can't for the life of me figure out why I would want personalized AI any more than I want personalized ads. Which is zero — that's the amount of corporate-personalized shit I want in my life.

This administration is pretty clearly pro-rape of all kinds. Child rape, spouse rape, rape by athletes, war crime rape, detained minority rape, rape of female soldiers by male soldiers... hey have we raped anyone in Okinawa lately? Because that shit is just a matter of time before we do that again at this point.

I don't think we are anywhere near civil war. I believe we might be on the verge of state violence against protestors.

You'll know we're on the brink of civil war when there is open combat between militia or national guard and the military and the military doesn't instantly put them down.

A military coup might be slightly more likely or at least doable. But I'm not sure there is anyone left in charge who might lead that. Plus, it is by definition treason, and no soldier takes that lightly. And the resultant government might not be what one might want.

I hate to say this, but the US isn't going to pull the rest of the world out of this mess. The way forward is through. Or wait for cholesterol to do its job and hold your breath for real elections this fall.

Pretty loaded comment here. Most humans band together to help one another in times of crisis. Other than a few psychopaths who take advantage of the suffering, and I see no reason to think that behavior is less among any religious group than another. If Gaza seems better than other places it's probably because there is little profit in fleecing your neighbor who also has nothing.

I support less fortunate members of my community without regard to religion. I don't care nor do I identify myself as an atheist. We all walk our own path and we all need support from time to time. Faith has nothing to do with it.

I'm not really qualified to respond about creating great discussions because I pretty much just reply. But from the prospective of a participant, yeah I think it's good to upvote any commenter that isn't actively being a jerk. Even disagreeing comments can promote good conversation.

I wouldn't suggest replying to every comment unless it contributes further to the conversation. That's a judgment call, but posts where OP is replying to everything with "Thanks!" or "Yep" rub me the wrong way. Certainly reply to try to sustain conversation when there is more to discuss, and try to frame it in a way that invites not just the person you're replying to but anyone to respond.

I think most topics are near death after about a day, but I browse by new and the only time I see more comments on posts I've already visited is if I get a reply or I'm looking through my comments later and open the topic to see what people said later. Topics that get more engagement live longer because a lot of people browse by hot.

Low effort to me is posting a link without summary or comment. The reality is unless the headline is a good summary or there is another comment or OP giving some context for why the link is interesting, I never click them, and then I have nothing to comment on either (usually).

Cross posting is fine. It's slightly annoying when I'm a member of all five boards something is posted to but I've gotten accustomed, and sometimes the conversation can be different in different boards.

As far as Lemmiquette, I personally like people who stand by their words rather than deleting things that turn out to be unpopular. I don't mind being the lone voice of an unpopular opinion. The threat of downvotes just makes me think harder about whether what I want to say is important to say right then and there and if I have time to back up any pushback. I don't disagree as often as I want to, but I generally don't delete comments unless it turns out I was really misreading something and responding to something in my own head rather than in the post/comment.

Make sure fediverse links are properly formatted so they go to the user's instance cache instead of a direct url to the host server.

I am very quick to block folks I don't think I can have a fruitful conversation with in good faith. I suspect as a poster, one would want to do less blocking than I do, but still I recommend doing it for peace of mind. Negative engagement or returning bad behavior just winds up making you look bad. A block prevents you from being tempted to respond to incendiary comments.

Oh and from personal experience, saying "I agree with 95% of this, but let me respond to this one thing where I disagree" is read as being an absolute refutation and can provoke defensiveness. Try to at least quote some of the stuff that you particularly agree with to take some of the bite out of any disagreement. Some day I'll learn that better.

Good luck!