Of course. That’s easy.

Only one person in those examples intended to kill someone, and then followed through with the plan. Murder is worse than unintentionally killing and hurting people through negligence.

It’s really easy to explain.

until the market adapts on how to recuperate that money since it can expect every citizen to get that every month, I don’t trust a free market not to ruin that.

Simple: Make UBI is inflation adjusted. Problem solved.

Of course! How could I miss it. The argument: “User numbers are an indicator of quality”, is not valid, unless in context of the fediverse. Because…

Wait, I don’t think me, being the dumb asshat I am, understand that: Why? Why do you think user numbers indicate that something “can’t be as bad as you make it out to be” in the fediverse, but not anywhere else?

Reddit has more users than lemmy. Can’t be that bad then!

I see! Thank you for clarifying!

So let me see if I understand you correctly. I asked what Mastodon is for. You answered that Mastodon is for having meaningful conversations with people one on one about subjects important to you.

That would mean Mastodon is not in any way comparable to twitter, or any other social media platform of the like. To me it seems that, by this description you provide, it is best compared to a chat room, where you are together with a hand full of friends you already know, and can have a conversation. Just in a timeline that is a bit slower, and a bit more permanent than a chat room, but not quite as bloated as a classical internet forum.

That means Mastodon is not “social media”. The purpose of you being there is not to easily discover new stuff which might interest you. And likewise you also can’t easily reach out to new people with stuff that interests you, and which you think might interest other people. Mastodon doesn’t want you to be able to do that easily. Because Mastodon is an internet forum with people you already know, just with an added word limit.

So it seems I have misunderstood Mastodon. It doesn’t intend to be social media. It intends to be an early 2010s internet forum with a word limit. Now that I know what it is, and that this is what it is supposed to be, it makes a lot more sense to me.

And there are small independent artists who want to display their latest artwork to an audience of followers on a social media platform, with the potential of broader reach and impact. And there are activists, who aim to raise awareness by doing the same thing.

What you seem to be saying, is that social networks like Mastodon are not for that. No artists. No activism.

So, what’s Mastodon for?

people who support Russia/Stalin/China regimes.

Congratulations: That, and only that, is a tankie. It is a good practical defintion for the term.

Are tankies people who are economically left but socially and politically right

As I see it, tankies are just the same as the Trumpers. You can’t really say where they stand socially and politically, because they do not have a coherent opinion or ideology. Everyone who opposes their favorite regime is WRONG, and everything their favorite regime does is RIGHT. Bonus points for every action and opinion that hurts “woke lefties”, because the favorite regimes of tankies are all inevitably incompatible with progressive ideas and ideologies.

without knowing anything about the corrupt oligarchies in Russia or CCP China?

Imagine the answer a Trumper would give when you ask them if they don’t know about Trump’s corruption and character. The tankies answer just the same in response to allegations in regard to corruption and character of their favorite regimes:

First of all, none of that is true, because the woke lefties, the media, and everyone are all corrupt, and lying. And what is true, is all a well played move of brilliant 5D chess which will save us all, because the supposed “corruption” is actually all part of a very smart and deliberate system of ploys and strategems which the woke lefties just don’t understand.

Now, do the tankies and Trumpers truly believe that? Who knows. Doesn’t really matter anyway. What is clear is that both of those “ideologies” are dumb idiots.

I think all an individual entity can do to push a protocol into irrelevancy, is not using it…

Yes? Have you ever tried shoving something back from being on the internet?

I don’t see the problem. I don’t have a right to my screen name. Anyone can use variations of that name to post anything they want on any platforms they want. I can’t stop them. And I should not be able to stop them.

If my precious online identity gets hit in the confusion… Well, that’s the risk I take if I have tied my online identity to nothing else but a meaningless pseudonym, easily faked, copied, and impersonated.

For me, this is just a simple demonstration that you can’t trust the name “goat”, and a picture of a goat, as a reliable identifyer. Now that I type it out, this is just stupidly obvious. Anyone who thinks that a goat picture and a nickname reliably identify someone on the internet, is just being very, very stupid in this instance.

I find it dangerous to allow someone to impersonate someone else on the fediverse (an admin too) and begin starting trouble.

I don’t find that dangerous at all. I find it very disturbing that anyone would be stupid enough to believe that the nickname “goat” and a goat picture is enough to reliably identify them as the same person.

All in all, that seems like a non problem to me. A misunderstanding among a stupid minority, easily cleared up, whenever it is desired.

I don’t know if the fediverse is robust enough to fight them off as the pot of gold they see begins to overflow. It’s hard balance to find.

By now I think it’s not a balance which can be found. I think “migration to the next thing” is just part of the nature of online identity, if it’s important to you.

After some time the weaknesses of certain systems and platforms will start to show, especially if they start becoming “mainstream”. And then chances are good that pressure will mount, as a new platform will bring up which aims to adress at least some of the weaknesses of the previous platform. Rinse. Repeat.