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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 8th, 2023

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  • Ik heb het wel eens geprobeerd, maar sommige mensen vinden het heel moeilijk/vervelend om iets anders dan WhatsApp te gebruiken blijkbaar. Ik prefereer veiligere services zoals Signal ook, maar ik heb inmiddels wel geleerd dat het ook heel vervelend is om absoluut te weigeren WhatsApp te gebruiken. Ik heb op de studie meerdere keren gehad dat mensen absoluut voet bij stuk houden, de één wilde absoluut geen WhatsApp en de andere weigerde Signal of Telegram te gebruiken omdat hij niet “al die apps op z’n telefoon wilde”. Toen konden we dus gewoon niet efficiënt communiceren. Ik wilde ook liever geen WhatsApp, maar het is tenminste nog end2end encrypted.




  • Yeah I agree with this as well. It’s not a binary view: either for or against capitalism. You can disapprove of everything happening in the US right now and still be for some form of capitalism.

    Most people I know think that the US has gone way too far with their strand of capitalism, and yet they almost range from the complete left-to-right in terms of Dutch politics. Only the very right wing people here think that the US is doing something good right now. The rest, from center-right (or even proper neoliberal) all the way to the commies see a system that is failing in some way.

    Yet on Lemmy this nuance seems completely lost sometimes. You’re either a part of the capitalists/liberals and therefore approve of the oligarchy and dystopian capitalism in the US, or you join the radical “destroy capitalism” views. It’s gotten better after the insane people from Hexbear left tho


  • I don’t have much time and energy for long discussions, but I just wanna share my feelings.

    I feel like people here see capitalism as a very black and white thing. Either it’s there and corrupting everything or it’s gone and everything is awesome. Personally I don’t think that’s the case. In my opinion there are some cases where the market can solve things more efficiently than a government institution, granted that this market is regulated and controlled by the government. I’m against unbounded capitalism like we see way too often nowadays.

    But here in western Europe, while certainly not perfect, the situation is way better than in the US. The government controls companies, gives them a slap on the wrist if they get too greedy. And while it still poisons a lot that it touches, the competitive aspect of it also makes sure that many inefficiencies are cut. In my opinion even we are not regulating it enough, and I do consider myself left-wing. But completely abolishing capitalism doesn’t make sense to me either.

    I think some things are better left to the government, stuff like healthcare, public transport, utilities like water or maybe even energy. Other things are better left private (but regulated): restaurants, barbers, supermarkets, most product development like phones, cameras, cars, computers, etc. There’s a huge grey area there that I don’t really have an opinion on.

    But I don’t see how a society without capitalism can provide stuff like decent smartphones, game consoles, restaurants, festivals, etc. These more “luxury” goods rely on competition to innovate and provide decent experiences, and here capitalism works better in my view.








  • They’re conservative. The whole name is based on the principle that they want to maintain the old way rather than progress. I think it stems from fear of a changing world. The old world with the old rules provided safety, it was understandable, the rules were clear, and the rules didn’t hurt them. Now some people are “attacking” their world, their rules, everything that offers them safety and understanding. So they feel attacked.

    It’s the same thing, but with another subject every time. Whether it is women getting rights, which threatens their safe world with clear gender roles. Or gay people, who threaten the simple rules like “boys love girls”, “in order to be successful, get a job, marry, and get kids”. Or non-white people getting rights. What if they vote for things that “we” don’t want? What if “they” ruin the world that “we” got so used to.

    Trans and especially non-binary people are just the next group in line that threatens their simple world. When men are people born as men and women are people born as women, it’s way easier to force people into the traditional roles. The old rules still work, “boy marries girl, gets kids”. And when they speak out about their "concerns* they are (rightfully) called out for it. So they become defensive and start doing whatever they’re doing now.



  • Same. At some point I became friends with pretty religious people who were also some of the most intelligent and nice people I had met. My beliefs that religious people are just dumb people who cannot understand the complexity of the real world kinda fell apart then.

    I returned back to my pre-teen opinion, still an atheist but with compassion for other people’s beliefs. No need to constantly force my opinion into it or needlessly be a dick because we disagree. I’ve had many interesting discussions since then with very religious people. I still don’t fully get it, and to me it still reeks of indoctrination, but I’ve accepted that it’s fine to disagree.



  • I’m not American, and I don’t agree with these people either, but I don’t think that calling them lazy and ignorant makes any sense. In the fucked up democracy of the US it’s clear that the only way to get what you want for the coming 4 years is to vote for the least bad candidate. At the same time I can definitely understand that if you view both candidates was horrible, though one way more horrible than the other, you would feel conflicted about voting for either of them.

    Let’s do a thought experiment. Assuming both candidates are still roughly equally “popular”. If both candidates wanted to start a genocide, but one would want to kill only 50% of the amount of innocents that the other would kill, how would you vote? Would you vote for the one who is overall the less bad option, which will in turn make you give your vote for something horrible. Or would you abstain and signal that the democracy as it currently stands has lost your confidence entirely, even if it means that on the short term the consequences might be way worse?

    Not voting actually costs the democrats something, and should (if they want to win next time) force them to think how to better represent you next time.

    It’s fucked up that your democracy came to this. It has become an annoying game theory dilemma instead of voting for the candidate that you actually believe in. Our system here in the Netherlands is certainly also not perfect, since we have too many parties and too long coalition negotiations, but at least I feel like it represents people way better. Anyone can start a party and capture seat if they represent a large enough niche.


  • Yeah this is kinda a point. People like this colleague seem to have gotten stuck in a highschool bully mindset ans never moved on. All of their jokes are about people who are different, their whole status seems to be based on their “masculinity”. In my experience this is the largest portion of homo/transphobes here in the Netherlands. People who aren’t violent or outright hateful, but rather just pushing outdated jokes and viewpoints and then getting annoyed by all the “woke bullshit” when they get called out.

    My tactic so far is to not fully attack back, but rather staying friendly while showing my disappointment with this behaviour unless it goes too far. Most of these people are otherwise decent, and in my opinion may be swayed by someone “woke” who doesn’t go “full crazy sjw” but does call them out. Making a joke about minorities is way easier of you don’t know anyone well from those groups. They’re not crazy Trump voters, so they may still be steered in the right direction



  • Oh yeah absolutely. I’m a programmer and I see so many companies and recruiters etc use Cyber instead of Cybersecurity. It drives me absolutely mad, but these type of people drive me mad anyways. It’s probably the same crowd who ruined AI by overhyping it into its grave, the same crowd who were hyped by web 3.0 and the whole Blockchain craze, and probably all those other dumb crazes before it.

    Still, this cyber thing seems to permeate everything, and I’ve heard people using the term who I otherwise respect. For me it’s a quick way to instantly become very sceptical of whatever follows the term