See, this is why I lean left. I’m not far left or alt left, I have some right leaning tendencies too, and I’m not gonna get into that because that’s neither here nor there, but all told I do lean left. And the reason is, generally speaking people on the left have their morals too (and it’s odd that the right says we don’t) and if someone on our side, even if we think he’s a saint (how people see Keanu Reeves, because he doesn’t play villains and they never played Cyberpunk, I guess) or maybe the best chance of beating an alt-right candidate in a high stakes election… we will bring him down, with facts. We hold ours accountable. The right? They say it’s fine for them to do bad things but for poor people? Stiff penalties because they gotta appear tough on crime… as long as it’s poor, dark skinned, or LGBTQ+ people doing the crime. If it’s them and theirs it’s fine. Never forget, they nominated and elected a convicted felon, an insurrectionist, a rioter, a traitor… and oh yes, a pedophile. They had plenty of cleaner guys they could have ran but they didn’t.

Now, there’s a rule in law, or a rule of thumb, I’m not sure if it has a name. It basically says if you destroy or hide evidence, that evidence is whatever we say it is. I don’t think it’s an actual law, it’s more of a philosophy of sorts. So everyone opposed to releasing the Epstein files, we can assume that either they are in them, or someone they owe favors to is, and it’s worse than we think. Like, I’m inclined to think maybe Trump fooled around with some 15-16 year old girls who could pass for 18-20. Lot of rich people probably do. Grass green, water wet, news at six, etc. He knows his base doesn’t judge him for the stuff we know he’s done. So what’s he afraid of?

Here’s my theory: we all know Trump is in the Epstein files. It’s a sure bet. I think that Trump doesn’t care about his name being smeared. How much worse could his reputation get now? Nah, I think the GOP has a short list of younger men (guys in their 40s and 50s, say) who could carry the torch for the next 8 years. I don’t doubt Trump would try for a third term if he had the health and youth for it. He has neither. I honestly think we need to stop worrying about his third term and start worrying about the two terms his successor is going for. Anyway, I think one or more of these successors are in the files, and they probably messed with some obviously underage and very young looking girls. Like 13 but can pass for 10, young. Underdeveloped, partly malnourished, that kind of thing. And these guys, after another 4 years of Trump, are going to come up and say they’re going to fix things. They’re going to fight hard for the middle and some of the left, but they’re going to be just as bad. And I think Trump is trying to protect these guys more so than himself.

Thanks! I went and followed the discussion link the other guy posted. I saw one concern — the handling of voting. But someone/some people are going behind a lot of those comments and saying they fixed it based on user feedback. So that’s good. I also feel I understand the two (Lemmy and Piefed) and their relationship a bit more.

If it sounds like I’m a bit eager to learn, it’s because I like to help others, but to do that I have to understand things first.

So let me see if I understand you correctly. The “one I’m on now” you refer to in the third paragraph, meaning dbzer0, is an instance of Lemmy (along with others) that are federated (loosely united) together in the same feed.

You’re on piefed.social, so you’re federated with dbzer0 and the other Lemmy feeds. So it’s not like you’re on a whole other federated social network like Bluesky (which is more like Twitter whereas Lemmy is more like Reddit). But it has different programming, so you can access more/different features from your end than I can on mine, but we still have access to the same communities?

Still kinda struggling to understand how fediverse stuff works.

Thank you! Subscribed to both and found a few things to sub to in the second one.

Thank you! I’m mostly treating it like “Reddit but for left leaning people” and enjoying learning the differences.

I’m doing my part! Just joined a couple days ago. Thought I could stick with Reddit but it got too far to the right for me. They crossed a line I can’t ignore, but I like the format, so I’m here. I knew Reddit was going to be winding down soon so I didn’t put as much effort in. I’d like to start a couple communities here, whereas I wouldn’t have tried over there. I just hope the toxic people who run the communities there don’t see what I’m doing and try to invade. I mean we could use the numbers but not the toxicity — though I feel that that comes with any influx of new users.

I’m sure some are, but I stand by my assertion that I’ve met flat-earthers who were simply sceptical and pushing that particular point of view.

This was also when they were new. I’m not sure if those people represent the whole or if I just met an outlier (and online, at that, where anyone can say/claim anything). I certainly don’t mean to speak about all of them.

Yeah, I don’t know why this is a debate. LGBTQ+ ally my whole life, though I’m cis/straight myself.

I almost get it. Like the fear that you hook up with a girl and she has boy parts. It’s not really reasonable but it’s a common male fear, I guess. Like she’s gonna be so convincingly female, so perfectly female presenting but she hasn’t had the bottom surgery. I think that’s kind of a fantasy, because pass as the sex a trans person feels isn’t as easy as cisgendered people think it is. I have trans (MTF) friends, and they do not pass well. Oh, I fully accept that they are women; what I don’t do is assume I’m entitled to every female body, or for the female bodies I have access to, to fit into my potentially narrow view (it’s not narrow, but if it were) of what makes a woman attractive. At the end of the day, she’s a person and her body is what it is, take her — as a complete person — or don’t, but don’t waste her time and definitely don’t think you can shame her for it. And it absolutely don’t mean she’s any less a woman. That, I do feel strongly about.

Also, I’ve known a couple tomboys, girls I grew up around who weren’t conventionally pretty, who liked to play and fight with the boys (and they’d kick your ass, too), and the older adults said “oh yeah that’s a baby butch right there” and later, when trans people became more visible to us (I’d say late 90s early 00s), the assumption that she’s gonna transition. Going on like 30 years later, they’re still girls and they’re still straight (and the one I’m thinking of, definitely wears the pants in the relationship, her guys tend to be kinda meek) but that doesn’t mean she’s gay or trans. Oh, plenty of LGBTQ+ in the family, but you can’t say because a girl doesn’t like pink and doesn’t like dresses that she’s lesbian or trans. It doesn’t work that way. But as her peer, as her playmate, and often as one whose ass she’d kick, I didn’t care. I love her for the person she is, not for the box society puts her in, or checks for her. And if she did bring home a girlfriend, or if she did tell me she never felt like a girl and was going to transition… my sister (not really but like a sister to me) would be my brother or whatever and that would be okay with me, whatever the case, and I’d have their back regardless.

Yeah but look at flat-earthers, how do you justify that?

I remember when the flat-earther movement was new, there were some people in it who claimed to be smart. They said they don’t really believe it, they just like to be sceptical… and contrarian. Basically they like to argue, for the sake of making people question what they’ve been taught and what they don’t know from their own personal observations. Like “are you really any better than us because you trust people who are more trustworthy?” I can almost see the point. But yes, that’s kind of how it works… I don’t need to be smart about some broad or niche category if people certified and well read on that thing who are accredited by reputable institutions tell me what it is and around the world, they agree, in different languages, it’s not a conspiracy. But I guess some healthy scepticism is good.

Now, these alt-right guys? Yeah, I don’t get it. They aren’t fulfilling promises on anything but making things harder for minorities. They are doing what they said there. You knew he was going to go after brown-skinned people and the gays, so no surprise there. Tearing down institutions, this hyper militant shit, yeah maybe he didn’t campaign on that but I feel like, if you didn’t go out and vote against him last November, you kinda did cosign on all this.