You are delusional. You’re fitting your narrative into the situation without the ability (or desire) to step back and observe the reality.

People are learning mandarin because they are so addicted to this form of social media that they are choosing to learn a new language over using other forms of social media.

LOL Good job injecting your narrative into something completely unrelated.

These platforms would not be as successful if they were just about offering a nice place for friends to congregate. If that were the case, Myspace would still be relevant and forums would still be more active than FB and Reddit.

Here we are on Lemmy - free of ads and algorithms and corporate control. If it was all about people searching for means of connection, what aren’t more people here?

Because the corporations have created an algorithm to maintain engagement to show you ads. Engagement is driven by strong emotions. Strong emotions are created by chemical reactions in your brain. What you’re being shown on corporate controlled social media is what they know will keep the chemicals flowing aggressively around in your grey matter.

People have been alienated for millennia. The internet has existed and has been embracing outcasts for over 40 years. I would suggest that you take a step back and consider why people are choosing one platform over another and what differentiates the platforms from one another.

This is a case where people are so occupied with a platform proven to threaten their nation’s national security and their own perception of reality that they would choose to embrace that foreign adversary over their own country. If that’s not an addiction, I don’t know what is.

I hope you find a place of peace to congregate with others who make you feel known. Corporate controlled social media should have never been that place.

And yet people still use what they hate.

The whole social media thing is just bizarre to me. I mean, I was an early adopter on everything from myspace to twitter to instagram. I joined and left these platforms before most people were using them. But then to companies figured out how to manipulate users by using algorithms to increase engagement and addiction - this is what solidified adoption. What I find difficult to digest is the vast number of people who are well aware of the problems around social media and still continue to use it as if they’re addicted to crack.

There’s nothing social about social media anymore. It’s a platform for corporations and billionaires and dictators to host user generated content (AI content pending) for the purpose of extracting personal interests that help them sell ads and user data. It’s first and foremost a manipulation platform. And it’s free to use.

And now that people have had a taste of their drug of choice, they’re stuck. Sure, some people will quit. But, until another just as enticing drug comes along, the majority will stick around and deal with ramifications of corporate controlled manipulation platforms. Where else are people going to get their news? Where are they going to share family trips? Where are they going to do this in a platform designed to maintain engagement and release the drips of dopamine they’ve become addicted to? If your response is Mastodon or Bluesky or Pixelfed, you’re delusional.

It maintained some semblance of a challenge. A mass exodus leaves a welcome vacuum for it to flourish.

Yes. That’s exactly what I said.

Fascism is going to win.

As people leave these platforms - permitting a welcome space for lies, hate speech, bigotry, and zealotry to flourish without consequence - history will recall, this was when the spark of fascism was given the last breathe of oxygen it required.

I don’t mean to excuse Meta for their unforgivable ElonTrump-influenced actions but running away is not going to win the fight you think you’re avoiding. That is, unless you all really commit and make it economically unfeasible for Meta to continue this policy.

Meta is successful because people can promote their small and local businesses. Because money can be made from ‘likes’. Because of the algorithm. Because people can get their news inline with their family photos. It’s everything. The fediverse has a long way to go to offer a seamless migration for users’ addiction to these platforms.

Dude. How do you say “addiction” in mandarin.

I would, again, encourage you to read the article.

I don’t know how you could possibly argue that reducing nicotine in tobacco won’t benefit anyone. I would encourage you to read the statement I linked to.

I fully agree with you that these “gas station products” are potentially even more harmful. What actually scares me about this is the marketing on social media around these products. Over the past few years, people have come to trust influencers (and their feelings) more than science. I just don’t understand how we’ve become so gullible over the years. It’s could suggest that it’s the government’s lack of investment in these important agencies, the public’s lack of trust, and the influence corporations have over them; but people these days seem more in favor of a company or a billionaire telling them what to do rather than the government agency or an academic.

You’re absolutely right. Any president (or former president) claiming to have accomplished something when either someone else did it or because it’s a wholly fabricated lie or something never materialized at all is a danger to democracy.

We need stronger standards for our press (and our DOJ / courts) to hold elected officials accountable. It’s also on the people to be more intelligent and not believe everything they read (especially with the loss of fact checking). The lies and misinformation that have become prevalent in nearly all reporting by all media outlets over the past ~8 years is a threat to our democracy and seeds for the unraveling of the nation.

Being that the efforts to reduce nicotine from tobacco began under the Obama administration and have stalled for a variety of reasons, I would say that it’s not fair for any president to claim success with this matter. This is the FDA doing its job. We should give them the 100% of the credit. And that credit given should reflect on the fact that it has taken far too long for them to reach this conclusion. Government moves too slow. Politics gets in the way of making our lives better. We really have o do a better job of paying attention and rejecting conservative (small “c”) ideologies.

I think you bring up a good point about college and high school classmates. I don’t personally care about this but I imagine millions of others do. IMO, these groups should maintain their own social platforms. If you want to keep in touch with your classmates from Harvard, Harvard (or a private student counsel board) should maintain a forum for you.

Right - you want to post a picture of your kid for family, classmates, friends, coworkers to see all at once. Well, that’s (supposedly) where the fediverse comes in.

The fediverse, of what I know of it, is still lacking a lot of these tools that would be useful to people. People are pushing it really hard but it is not ready for the masses.

STAR and RCV is growing among some states and counties. Have hope.

I recently watched this Thoughty2 video on YouTube that touched on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRN2p7sSL_Y

He essentially concludes that, at this point, technology has been able to mitigate the overpopulation fears that have existed up until now.

I full agree with you. Just because we can exist on the planet does not mean we’re better off. We’re already living with the consequences of over population.

The first thing we need to do is change our eating habits. The over-farming of land is increasing the need for chemicals to grow food - not to mention climate change. Bird flu is coming. The manner in which we have to raise animals is atrocious and leading to pandemics. Everything is full of antibiotics so farmers and ranchers don’t have to throw away “bad stock”. Which of course is due to the increasing need to produce more food.

I think the worst part is that when this is brought up people blame the corporations and the governments. They’re right that legislators should do more about this but, in America at least, the people are the one’s who are supposed to have the power. We’re supposed to make choices and cast votes for the world we want to live in. Instead, we keep making the same choices that give corporations more and more power.

America is torn between wanting all the freedom to make their own choices while complaining that government isn’t doing enough.

I fully agree with this. Someone else rightly pointed out that access to UPF doesn’t equate consumption. Why are people consuming UPFs? I would argue because of economic hardship (being overworked), lack of prioritizing healthy activities and social encounters, ignorance, misinformation, and habit and/or addiction.

I think eating good foods should be every humans number one priority. “You are what you eat” may be cliche but it’s true. Above all else, I think, people should be making time in their day to eat properly. Not enough people know how to cook using fresh ingredients. I constantly see claims that processed foods are so much cheaper than fresh foods. In my experience, it’s the opposite. I mean, I just made a whole stock pot full of vegetable soup for less than fifteen bucks and it’ll feed me for a week.

To your point, I think it’s true that adding exercise to your daily routine contributes to a more positive mindset. I don’t know if this is universal but when I’m depressed I eat more poorly. When I’m in a good mood, I eat more healthy. This would seem to be backed by biology and our innate need to consume sugars and fats for long term storage.

One of us is confused.

I’m saying that ultra processed foods - food that have had their nutrients stripped and replaced with sugars and fats and chemicals - are more readily available. We have an ancient instinct to store fats and sugars due to food shortages. Ultra processed foods are pleasurable to eat and our biology specifically deals with them by storing them as fat.

I have never heard anyone say it’s a mystery that we can’t eat like our ancestors. On the contrary, there are a hundred fad diets specifically designed to do just this. If you look into “blue zones”, you’ll find people living long healthy lifestyles free of ultra processed foods and eating and exercising more similarly to our ancient ancestors.

Personally, as someone who hasn’t had a FB account for well over five years, it’s super weird to me that you need it to “keep up with family and friends”. You’re using a data harvesting, advertising, and propaganda platform to conduct personal communications. There was a time when this was done using nothing more than the United States Post Office and the telephone. So, we probably have the technology to keep in touch today while excluding Facebook.

In response to your concern with privacy controls: it’s not federated and I can only assume they’re being honest about privacy, you might consider looking at Vero. It has up-front tools to control who sees what.

Still, I would encourage people to minimize their reliance on any platform owned by someone else to maintain relationships. At someone point, something will break, will be hacked, will go out of business. Do you think Facebook will exist for 25 to 50 years from now? When it goes, all your photos and videos and conversations go with it. When someone dies, all the memories they’ve captured are gone. Hashtag: bring back photo albums.

You’re trying to find a problem for your solution.

The obesity epidemic actually due to the increased availability of ultra processed foods.

Yeah - I don’t think a durable sneaker exists. I live in the city and do a lot of walking. I can get about 18 months from a better pair of running shoes. I really hate finding a pair I really like then a year or two later they no longer make anything like that shoe and the replacement is either lower quality or doesn’t fit as well.

Will definitely give Xeroshoes a close look. That turns out to be something like 50 miles a week over two years which is almost double what I would walk. Thanks!

I simply suggested that you use the resources available to you before calling people out. The appropriate response would be, “Oops. Sorry, I confused empathy and grief.” It’s an easy mistake and an easy apology that would have been respectfully accepted.

Instead, you’ve chosen to double down on your attack and have continued to treat me as an aggressor.

It’s apparent that you’ve been indoctrinated by modern internet / “Karen” culture. I offered to help you but you’ve been unwilling to acknowledge your mistake. You’ve made it my fault that you misread, misinterpreted, and misquoted what I wrote. This is something that could transcend your own real life and affect the relationships you have with people. The next person you misquote may not be as generous.

It’s become a common and accepted practice to twist the words of others to drive a narrative, to misinform, to bully, and to gain power. Given the opportunity, I will call it out.

It’s also a sad and common practice to reject the meaning of words. We have the world’s information at our fingertips yet people often prefer righteousness over facts.

Be mindful of the words you chose to use.