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“How do y’all like it when Hunter Biden receives justice???? HUH??”

Like I seriously don’t care and if he broke the law send him to jail, lock him up with Hillary Clinton there are no sacred cows, omg, none of you “both-siders” understand this at all.

Back when I spent time arguing with right-wingers, I used to absolutely baffle them with this position. The idea that I really didn’t care if you sent someone on “my side” to prison for a wrongdoing was just incomprehensible to them.

But some libs are irrationally pulled into this trap. “Oh yeah? Well Hillary Clinton never did anything wrong, that was all a setup and–“

If you’re explaining, you’re losing.

Just quip back, “Yeah, you should lock her up. If only she’d been charged with any kind of crime at all.”

Just concede that maybe she deserves to get under criminal investigation, have the investigation already, or shut up.

Oh, finally Hunter Biden sees a courtroom? Pleads guilty?

GREAT.

“How do you libs feel about that, huh?”

Don’t take that bait. That would be silly.

Instead reply, “I feel great that you’re finally getting the investigation you wanted. Good for you. If he’s guilty, I hope they lock him up and throw away the key.”

And then move on to the topic they were trying to distract you away from with Hunter Biden.

Or just…don’t talk to them at all. These are likely not serious people. But if you must, just concede the gulag and move on to the real point you want to make.

—@oliphant

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The state of our federation is strong.

Last week the #Fediverse opened our arms to half a million new users. Many of them migrants from another enshitified corporate dumpsterfire. Together we are building out incredible new applications that realize our amazing collaborative federated infrastructure. We are now engaged in open animated exchange about how to safeguard our precious platform while allowing it to grow to its full potential. These are good and vital discussions. We got this.

—@mastodonmigration

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HOW TO SPOT A DEEP FAKE:

1. You can’t.

Don’t think you can. You can spot clumsy ones, but you’ve already missed a dozen others. We’re past the stage where even _expert_ practitioners can have a 100% success rate.

Instead, think about how to avoid taking action, or trusting someone, because of who they seem to be. Holding onto the fantasy that “I can spot ’em!” is harmful, and moves the onus of responsibility from collective to personal.

This is also true for #genAI, of course.

—@afeinman

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Hug your #FediAdmin today.

There’s a lot of shit flying in the #Fediverse lately and a lot of times perspective seems to get lost. Yes, there are things we need to talk about, and yes there are things we will not agree on. And that’s okay.

But leave the pitchforks and torches out of this.

Fedi admins put in the hours and effort and emotion into making fedi happen. Sometimes they make decisions we might not agree with. We should criticize, but we should not pile-on.

—@rysiek

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Gruber says: “…the idea that administrators of Mastodon/Fediverse instances should pledge to preemptively block Facebook’s imminent Twitter-like ActivityPub service (purportedly named Threads) strikes me as petty and deliberately insular. … to me this feels like convicting Facebook of a pre-crime.”

To me, this take feels obtuse to the point of intention – or at least self-parody. Smells a bit like the whole “paradox of tolerance” folks like to shop around in debates.

Surely you can’t possibly be unaware that Meta (née Facebook) already has a rich history of acting badly, that many folks switched to alternatives like Mastodon as a response to that, and many now express wariness & outright revulsion to that same bad actor wandering into a new party?

My dear sweet summer child, don’t be a doofus.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/06/19/not-that-kind-of-open

—@lmorchard