Abandoned this profile due to lemmy.world’s federation with Threads. I have moved onto feddit.de as they are the only instance I could find defederated from Threads, hexbear, and lemmygrad.

I’m happy with my new home.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • I disagree that they aren’t selling out.

    I consider it to be as such when this move isn’t supported by most of their userbase, they misframe that blocking Threads is a viable solution for the rampant issues with hate/extremism, and the decision puts their users at risk (both in the form of extremism/harassment and exploitation by Meta).

    It’s an inch towards becoming mainstream, but the costs outweigh the benefits IMO. I believe it’s hypocritical to defederate from exploding heads and then turn around and federate with Threads.

    I think misleading users into believing they can block Threads (only the posts), making a decision against the majority of their community’s wishes, and instead subjecting them to potential harassment, misinformation and exploitation is selling out.



  • Edit: Since so many people are misinformed: No, blocking Threads on an individual basis is not a solution. This only blocks posts from Threads showing up in your feed. It does not block Threads users’ comments from spreading hate and extremism throughout federated instances, and lemmy users will still be subject to potential harassment from Threads users. (See the harassment of the LGBTQ+ community on Threads for examples…)

    Here’s a comment of mine that states my argument against federating with Threads.

    Also, I was not trying to debate the issue here. I was looking for recommendations for alternative instances… I’d appreciate anyone actually responding to my comment.

    Original comment: Anybody have recommendations on a decent instance that won’t be federating with Threads? Maybe one that allows community creation but isn’t full of tankies?

    I’m jumping ship from .world if they go through with federating with Threads. Such a shame to see the effort put into building this great instance come undone.

    This place decided to disregard what the majority of their users want and turn the neighborhood to shit way faster than reddit. I thought we’d at least have a couple years before instance admins started selling out to such a shitty company that’s going to make the fediverse a less safe place for their users.

    Meta will also do anything they can to EEE and I’m not convinced the fediverse is as invulnerable to such exploitation as some users seem to be.


  • There’s no hypocrisy; you’re just stating a false equivalence. Not to mention totally ignoring the entire argument about radicalization on threads/inability to moderate it on lemmy.

    And you keep stating that my points establishing character in regard to Meta/Threads are irrelevant, but you aren’t making a good argument as to why. You fixate on that as a strawman argument while ignoring my point that lack of moderation on threads will negatively affect fediverse communities with toxic/extremist content.

    You’re arguing like a petulant middle schooler with ad hominem and strawman tactics. Get back to me if you can speak like a grown-up. Otherwise I’m not going to engage with you. (Before you “no u” me with another false equivalence, my remarks were not on the same personal attack level.)


  • Okay but, we all know that already. This discussion is about federating with Lemmy/Fedi.

    Tell that to the astroturfers simping for FB/Threads…

    And do you understand how you reinforce an argument with supporting evidence? I wanted to establish factual information supporting a clear history of the company’s bad practices. That was/is relevant to consideration of federating with a platform.

    In fact, lemmy.world has already defederated with instances due to failure to moderate far-right extremism. So why would they federate with Threads when far-right extremism is already a systemic issue and they have admitted lemmy lacks the necessary moderation tools to manage Threads federation?

    It seems obvious to me that is a bad idea and it would cultivate a more toxic user experience with more recruitment for radicalism/extremism.


  • The examples I listed were to demonstrate the fact that meta/FB is a bad actor, not that all are applicable to lemmy.

    Also, the lemmy.world team admitted that lemmy lacks the moderation tools required for federation with threads.

    This doesn’t pair well with the extremist content popular and promoted on threads. And I’m tired of hearing about the false solution people keep pretending exists in the form of personally blocking instances.

    That may solve me not seeing the content, but what about my fellow users? What about people browsing without a profile/not signed in?

    I care about more than myself. I care about the health of fellow human beings on this site, and I don’t want Threads to increase the amount of radicalization and extremism on this site. I don’t want more people to fall victim to radicalization. I have lost family to qanon/maga cults and I think we need to protect the integrity of the fediverse.

    When players like threads/meta try to join in, I believe it is the responsibility of admins of the large instances to protect their users and refuse to federate with them. Period.


  • I’m pasting an old comment of mine from the official lemmy.world post discussing potential future federation with threads/meta:

    I would like to start by expressing my sincere gratitude and appreciation for the hard work you’ve done with lemmy.world. But I am strongly opposed to federating with Threads. Please read this comment in full, as I believe it outlines the sentiment and reservations held by many within our community.

    I think it might be helpful to use an analogy that I think will help express the feelings of many of those within our community regarding the problem with the “wait and see” approach.

    What’s to say Threads won’t follow in their very well-established footprints under Meta as a company?

    If I go to a friend’s house and their child spits in my face every time, I don’t want to go to my friend’s house. I tell them this. The friend again says, “Well this time just might be different, let’s just wait and see!” Meanwhile, this kid spits in my face without fail, every chance they get. There is a very consistent and pervasive pattern of this.

    Why should I believe this kid won’t spit in my face all of a sudden, when they’ve taken every single chance they could repeatedly, knowing that it was wrong and not caring what repercussions would befall them? Do you really think this kid is going to refrain from spitting in my face this time?

    The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein -someone.

    Meta/FB have continually demonstrated their core business practices are unethical and that they will continue carrying them out without regard for laws or their users’ well-being. There’s no reason to wait and see. It’s not logical to believe this time will be different.

    Threads would bring such a large influx of hateful, racist, violent, bigoted political extremists to the fediverse. They will also do whatever they can to exploit users on this site for their own gain. Their modus operandi has been to exploit their users.

    Instead of just conjecture and analogies, I will now provide factual information regarding Meta’s practices as a company.

    This really should be obvious by now… but Meta mines and sells their user’s information. Just look at the permissions you have to grant them for Threads… That alone should tell you there’s no reason to “wait and see.” Just look right now. They haven’t changed…

    FB users have to agree to all sorts of unethical things in the TOS, including giving Meta permission to run unethical experiments on their users without informed consent. Their first published research was where they manipulated users’ feeds with positive or negative information, in order to see if it affected their mood. It did, and they successfully induced depression in many of their users!

    Meta has played a very key role in spreading misinformation, perpetuating dangerous conspiracy theories, and radicalizing the alt right. This is present across nations, but it certainly contributed heavily to the climate of political extremism that led to a mass of insurrectionists to attempt to overthrow my duly elected government…

    I will now turn to an article that surmises well the core practices of Meta as a company:

    • Elevates disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories from the extremist fringes into the mainstream, fostering, among other effects, the resurgent anti-vaccination movement, broad-based questioning of basic public health measures in response to COVID-19, and the proliferation of the Big Lie of 2020—that the presidential election was stolen through voter fraud [16];

    • Empowers bullies of every size, from cyber-bullying in schools, to dictators who use the platform to spread disinformation, censor their critics, perpetuate violence, and instigate genocide;

    • Defrauds both advertisers and newsrooms, systematically and globally, with falsified video engagement and user activity statistics;

    • Reflects an apparent political agenda espoused by a small core of corporate leaders, who actively impede or overrule the adoption of good governance;

    • Brandishes its monopolistic power to preserve a social media landscape absent meaningful regulatory oversight, privacy protections, safety measures, or corporate citizenship; and

    • Disrupts intellectual and civil discourse, at scale and by design.

    I ask you now if you truly believe this is the sort of player you want on the Fediverse? Do you really want to federate lemmy.world with such a blatantly immoral and detrimental corporation?

    I have really enjoyed my time here on Lemmy.world and have so greatly appreciated the hard work of you and your team. I have been donating to you to help with the costs of running this instance.

    However, federating with Threads contradicts my philosophy and ethical principles, and I will be sadly canceling my donations and finding a new home should we federate with Threads in the future. I firmly believe that most users on lemmy.world share this sentiment. I hope this comment helped express the resistance and fears of our community.

    Once again, I appreciate all the work you guys have done. But I respectfully and severely dissent on this issue.


  • How to pass/invalidate a lie-detector test.

    They are not considered admissible evidence in court (but the criminal justice system still use them to a degree…), and they can be interpreted with intentional bias, so I think it’s fine to share.

    One of my psychology professors told me that if you hide something like a sewing needle in your shoe’s insole, you can ever so slightly apply pressure so that the poke causes a physiological spike. They monitor for movement, so it has to be very minute. The goal is to do this on every control question so that they cannot establish a baseline and have to give up.



  • It’s more prevalent in the industry than you’d like to think… Burnout is often linked with lack of empathy.

    I worked exclusively with adults whose illness was severe enough that they were residing in various residential care facilities (RCFs) and assisted living facilities (ALFs) in my region.

    I was a 3rd party and a mandated reporter and I can’t tell you how many times I hotlined facilities and did internal/DMH/DHSS reporting/assistance with investigations. Misallocation of Client funds was a common problem (especially at specific RCFs), medication errors/stealing Residents’ meds, neglect of facilities/cleaning, improper nutrition, and abuse and neglect were all too common…

    At first I thought the same thing when I started that position, wondering why someone like that would even take those positions. But people are complicated and often shitty. Some people like to power trip, some people want to take advantage of the disadvantaged, some people’s self-care is so neglected by being over-worked that they no longer have the capacity, and some people are just assholes…



  • This pertains to the US:

    A lot of people are unaware of cancelation lists, and a lot of providers don’t really advertise that. When I was a casemanager for adults with severe mental illness, I would always ask to have my clients added to the cancelation list, and this would often get them in much sooner.

    Also butted heads with a receptionist last year when my client was literally experiencing congestive heartfailure and she wanted to schedule him like 1.5 months out to see his specialist about having a defibrillator implanted. I said it was unacceptable and said he needed to be added to the emergency openings I know the providers reserve. She got a look on her face and said “But I need to get provider approval for that…” I told her “I think you better talk to the doctor then.”

    Specialist eventually came over to scheduling and asked what was going on. The receptionist said what we wanted and asked if she would approve it, with a real dismissing inflection. The specialist said “Oh my god, yeah of course he’s approved for the emergency list…”

    Some of these things are just so overlooked/unknown by the general public. And sometimes you’ve got to be assertive and stick with your guns to be treated fairly and get the attention you deserve. Especially now more than ever. Our healthcare system was bad before, but it’s been so strained ever since covid…

    The healthcare system can be a nightmare for average people functioning well. It is so much worse for the population experiencing severe mental illness/with cognitive disability. This barrier for care plays a significant role in the reduced life expectancy in the disadvantaged population I worked with.

    Patients suffering from severe mental disorders, including schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorders, have a reduced life expectancy compared to the general population of up to 10–25 years. This mortality gap requires urgent actions from a public health perspective in order to be reduced. Source

    If anyone reading this has family or friends with severe mental illness or trouble with intellectual functioning, you may want to offer some support for doctors appointments. Honestly, everyone would benefit from having another person in their appointments for support and as a second set of ears.

    Anyone reading this with severe mental illness, don’t be afraid to reach out for support. If you don’t have a social support system, there are services out there to help. Try to find social services in your area to get some help navigating thru all the bullshit. And don’t give up hope.

    Always like to share this website with free evidence-based resources that I used all the time with my clients. I personally benefitted from the material as well.





  • If you haven’t tried it yet, I’d recommend CBG bud over CBD. It’s heat treated to make it have stronger effects (like decarbing weed to make edibles).

    I was using CBD/CBG to alleviate stress and chronic pain until my state turned medical/rec. There was a very significant difference between CBD and CBG for me.

    I never tried it with CBD/CBG, but I keep all my already vaped bud (AVB) to make edibles. Running it thru the vape decarbs weed the same way baking it in the oven does. I do a few water baths and then strain it, and mix it with butter or oil in a slow cooker on warm for 8 - 10 hours, then strain it thru a cheese cloth. Since it’s been vaped and lost most of the THC, it’s more a pain relief/anti-inflammatory/relaxing rather than intoxicating. Could be worth trying with your already vaped CBD bud.

    I love getting a second use out of my bud to make edibles. One of the best parts about dry herb vaping, along with health, efficiency and taste.