Planet Earth is currently home to around 8.2 billion living human bodies. Virtually every one of which, when you think about it, is basically a deconstructed meatball in some variation of Birkenstocks and a North Face jacket.

You didn't think about it? Well, four years ago, a math enthusiast on Reddit did, contributing to the majestic library of online content that helps you visualize the sweaty lump of mass traditionally referred to as the human race.

"If you blended all 7.88 billion people on Earth into a fine goo (density of a human = 985 kg/m3, average human body mass = 62 kg), you would end up with a sphere of human goo just under 1 km wide," Reddit contributor kiki2703 wrote in a post I've since bookmarked for sharing at the family barbeques I'm no longer allowed to attend.

NBC New York obtained exclusive video that shows the torture victim running down the street after his escape, 17 days into captivity, and seeking help from a police officer.

What to Know

• An Italian man escaped from a house on Prince Street in New York City last week, where he said he had been held captive for 17 days and allegedly tortured by two business partners
• Two NYPD members, including a detective on Mayor Eric Adams' security detail have been placed on modified desk duty after links surfaced to the two crypto businessmen charged with kidnapping an Italian tourist, sources tell News 4
• The detective allegedly provided security for the Prince Street townhouse where the Italian man was held and it's believed he may have picked up the tourist from the airport and brought him to SoHo, sources tell News 4
• City Hall said it is "disturbed by these allegations" and the investigation into the officer's behavior is ongoing
• John Woeltz, was arrested in his bathrobe outside the scene; he is expected in court on kidnap and torture charges, among others, on Wednesday. A second suspect, William Duplessie, surrendered in connection with the case a day ago

Note: There are two headlines for this, one on the actual article page and a different one in the embed description. The post title is the one from the article. The headline from the embed description is "Crypto king torture investigation takes shocking turn".

“I would not acknowledge reproduction as a human right, but instead as a form of rape,” IndictEvolution wrote on Lemmy.World in July 2023. “I am also not bothered by infanticide as long as it is done humanely...”

Preface: I'm neither equipped nor here to diagnose anyone with body dysphoria or anything like that.

I totally get the appeal of working out, getting a nice summer/beach body, staying fit/healthy and all that. That's all well and good. But the degree to which bodybuilders intentionally overdo it just looks awful to me. Like, to me, they all look like tiny little heads atop roided-out, spray-tanned, lumpy, disproportionate looking bodies.

That just looks gross to me, and I can't see the appeal of wanting to do that to yourself.

Just added rule 6 to the sidebar that reduces some ambiguity between rules 4 and 5. 99% of posts here already do this, so there shouldn't be much change other than it being required now.

Rule 6: Defend your position

This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.

This won't be applied retroactively, but anything from here on out is expected to include some exposition to go along with the opinion itself

Edit 2025-01-13: LW has indicated they will be clarifying these rules soon. In the mean time, the community will remain locked until those are updated and deemed acceptable.

So the LW Team put out an announcement on new, site-wide moderation policy (see post link). I've defended, to many a downvote, pretty much every major decision they've made, but I absolutely cannot defend this one. In short, mods are expected to counter pretty much every batshit claim rather than mod it as misinformation, trolling, attack on groups, etc.

My rebuttal (using my main account) to the announcement: https://dubvee.org/comment/3541322

We're going to allow some "flat earth" comments. We're going to force some moderators to accept some "flat earth" comments. The point of this is that you should be able to counter those comments with words, and not need moderation/admin tools to do so.

(emphases mine)

Me: What if, to use the recent example from Meta, someone comes into a LGBT+ community and says they think being gay is a mental illness and /or link some quack study? Is that an attack on a group or is it "respectful dissent"?

LW: A lot of attacks like that are common and worth refuting once in awhile anyway. It can be valuable to show the response on occasion

I understand what they're trying to address here (highly encourage you to read the linked post), but the way they're going about it is heavy handed and reeks of "both sides"-ing every community, removing agency from the community moderators who work like hell to keep these spaces safe and civil, and opening the floodgates for misinformation and "civil" hate speech. How this new policy fits with their Terms of Service is completely lost to me.

I'll leave the speculation as to whether Musk dropped LW a big check as an exercise to the reader.

For now, this community is going dark in protest and I encourage other communities who may disagree with this new policy to join. Again, I understand the problem that is trying to be addressed, but this new policy, as-written, is not the way to do it.

Voting has concluded on whether the community wants to remove the "Vote the opposite of the norm" voting guidelines.

As you can see in the screenshot below (or in the post), the results are a tie (only upvotes are counted, not the score). I abstained from the vote, leaving it entirely to the community, and I do not wish to cast the tie-breaking vote.

Since it is a tie, I'll treat that as a non-majority vote and, as such, we will keep the voting guidelines as they are.

Since the world is so depressing right now, the mod team has agreed to rebrand this community as "Popular Opinions" to try to lighten the mood.

Instead of than sharing opinions that highlight our differences, share the ones that everyone can agree on.

The voting guidelines remain the same: Upvote if you agree it's a popular opinion, downvote if you think it's an unpopular opinion.

So, let's hear some things we can all get on board with!

In conclusion, happy April Fool's Day!

Note: This is a real rule change and will be enforced, but only for today as a fun change of pace. Normal rules return tomorrow.

Since we're all on differen timezones, we'll be running these rules midnight to 23:59 UTC.