I don’t do deep packet inspection on Lemmy traffic, nor am I a behavioral analyst. I simply think it stands to reason that if there are organizations who are capable of running influence campaigns that Lemmy would be a natural target. Any online forum is potentially at risk of targeted disinformation campaigns. I don’t apply this logic on an individual basis, because witch hunts are just as counterproductive as being overly credulous. But I have a pretty simple razor that if someone is trying to incite me to violence, meet offline, or divulge personally identifying information I should block them whether or not they’re some kind of operative.

I think there’s a motive. If I were the FBI I wouldn’t be too concerned about actual violent outcomes, so long as they were lone wolf attacks or the product of tiny cells of radicals. It’s like a controlled burn in a forest. You get the fire out of the way before it reaches a critical mass. “Voting doesn’t work, burn down a government building” is a real hard sell to someone with a stable job, but the people it does sell to might one day be the types of people to organize and lead a meaningful opposition. So you flush them out early and fast. Some people might die, but Director Patel told me to catch leftists, not to prevent violence. As an added bonus, each violent act turns liberals more and more against what they perceive as an inherently violent ideology. “These are terrible times, and maybe if it prevents another bombing mass surveillance is acceptable even if I don’t like it,” they might think. You don’t have to go back too far to see that mindset in action. In the aftermath of 9/11 Americans saw an unprecedented erosion of their civil liberties. Terror is good for an autocratic regime.

That being said, I will grant that there’s no evidence of this. But then again there wasn’t evidence of COINTELPRO until the FBI field office in Media PA got broken into by a group of concerned citizens. Not that I’m condoning B&E. I also don’t think it would be productive to point fingers even if there were evidence the FBI was doing COINTELPRO 2. “So and so is a fed” is actually one of the tactics used in COINTELPRO to sow discord in infiltrated groups. Just, maybe we should keep in mind that we’re bound to see some discourse here that is trying to get us to play a useful idiot.

The difference between me and a conspiracy theorist is that I can point at past evidence. COINTELPRO is a historical fact, and part of that program involved infiltrating dissident groups and acting as agents provocateur. The Church committee found that the FBI engaged in “covert action designed to disrupt and discredit the activities of groups and individuals deemed a threat to the social order.” The committee also found that the tactics employed by the FBI “would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity.”

I am not saying the FBI is definitely here now. What I am saying is it would be naïve to assume that they would not be willing to run an influence operation on public forums where people skeptical of the US government gather, and it would be foolish to assume that nobody else is carrying out similar operations for their own respective interests, state-level or otherwise.

Mastodon isn’t American either and they still seized a Koliktiva server. Jurisdiction nothing. They can’t arrest you, that doesn’t mean they don’t have an interest in influencing you. And they’re one group of many who has an interest in running influence operations. Fuck dude, it could be Russia, it could be Mossad, it could be GISS. The barrier to entry is so low these days.

Lemmy is big enough to be a psyop target and has been for a while. This place is rife with feds and bots of every persuasion and they will try to influence you from every angle. As Lemmy grows it will only get worse. It’s easy to brush off pushback for criticizing nation states but also be aware that the FBI in particular has a history of trying to push people towards violent radicalism and in person meetups. Do not trust anyone online. Especially if they agree with you politically.

I think that falls under “back to the drawing board.” Functionally there’s little difference between talking to a model and taking a call. If management is pushing them to dictate and it’s causing a problem they should put them in cubes.

Fuck if I know, all I know is you can sit next to a blender in a busy office full of crying babies and barking dogs while writing a dissertation on an electric typewriter and the person on the other end of the line would never be able to tell. Professional headsets (like in the $300-$500 range) are honestly pretty incredible. If these silicon valley offices are too noisy for a high end EOS to handle, or if they genuinely have that many people constantly talking all day to the point that it’s a problem then they need to go back to the drawing board. Steno masks have their place but for anything a garden variety techbro is doing they’re either performative bullshit or a lazy bandaid. I guaranfuckingtee bossman has no interest in putting one of these on.

high end office headsets already have excellent isolation, wearing a muzzle is just a humiliation ritual.

I have noticed that occasionally the nitpicking collides with poor reading comprehension to create some of the most annoying yet hilarious comments ever.

So like the reply ITT would be something like uh yeah op sounds like a you problem, that’s completely fucking false about lemmy. People take things way too seriously here, and everybody is way too nitpicky and judgemental.

Quick, go get your SUV and say they ran out in front of you!

Interesting how similar this is at first glance to Kerboscript. Neat!

Y’all have a funny definition of guilty. Didn’t read the whole thread but I bet one of you silly sumbitches called a Caesar salad a guilty pleasure. Mine’s pizza. Any variety. I will eat the whole pie. Pizza is love, pizza is life.

not to mention the big bright thing in the ceiling. outside sucks!

my kind of autism

The ones ive had are usually like a semisweet pepper jelly of some kind. There’s a place around here that sells one with bourbon bacon jam. The PB is usually an unsweetened natural-type of peanut butter.

ive also had ones thst just used strawberry preserves. honestly its one of those things thst sound gross until you try it so i understand

wait til you see the pbj burger. it’s so fucking good.

hurk

6’0" here, so not that tall. For me there’s a small component of wishing to be more a little more feminine sometimes, but all things considered being a big strong man rules.

I wish i were slightly shorter because this world is built for average sized people. Flying always winds up being an exercise in quantifying the value of my own suffering. Is 4-8 hours of claustrophobia, leg cramps, and general lack of dignity worth an extra $400? Sometimes, absolutely. Do i have an extra $400? hell no. I don’t even fly that often and i have strong preferences for aircraft. I will cry if i wind up getting tricked into economy class on a 737-800 again. The seats are 16 inches wide and i think the pitch is something like 28".

I also can’t comfortably sit in a miata unless the top is down. I daily drove an AW11 for a couple of years and while it was tons of fun i looked like Mr Incredible driving to work and I hit my head constantly. Kitchen counters are way too short for me, i can’t imagine the back pain for taller people who like to cook.

sure!

https://lovabletools.com/utf-8-counter

thats a 29kb comment right there