History is repeating and the results will stay the same. There's no option that the fascists are going to be on the right side this time. There's also no option that anyone gets away with "I didn't know" or "I was part of the resistance" or some other shit. We are all watching it live on our devices and everything's on record. Look closely at the opportunists and those who switch sides. We'll need this for later.
When you spent half your time in the German school system learning and wondering about how the third reich could have happened, it’s quite annoying when it’s on replay today in a matter of a few months.
God, I'm so disgusted by this country sometimes. There's already an open political discussion about sending refugees back to Syria. WTF.
I had a long conversation with a mother from Ukraine after German politicans discussed sending people back to Ukraine earlier this year. Her child is in my son's class. You have to be an absolute monster to not see what those discussions do to people who try to build a new life here after the entire family has been brutally traumatized.
TIL that Mastodon enforces "noreferrer" on all external links. It never appears in your stats and maybe that's one of the reasons why it didn't catch on with people & orgs who actually rely on such stats.
I can't get over the feeling that we are currently seeing a libertarian showdown. It's a race to the top to save your ass with enough money and let nature do the rest with the annoying, dirty poor people.
Most important: this does not invalidate the Fediverse. There’s no such thing as winning and I feel bad for my own past thoughts. The only thing that matters is that we finally get away from algo based social media that collectively fries our brains. Bluesky feels pretty healthy right now despite the questionable background. Be happy that lots of people find a healthier place in really dark times.
Maybe I’ve turned too soft and pragmatic, but I think that millions of people finally leave Twitter and don’t end up on Threads is a good thing. I wanted the Fediverse “to win” for a long time. I think the crypto VC money behind Bluesky is a huge red flag and will very like backfire. But I also think that it’s not in my control what people prefer and there are valid reasons why they prefer Bluesky, no matter if we like it or not.
For the last two days, a helicopter is flying around, throwing lime on the forest to improve the soil. I don't know, maybe this is totally normal in modern forestry and I simply have no clue, but it feels like some pretty dystopian shit that this is needed.
Since I'm following the climate science field, the reactions to climate science went from full denial to denial of human influence to greenwashing to adaption and recently back to "drill baby drill" and geoengineering. It's going great.
This is remarkable. The local energy provider in Mannheim – my former home town as a student – is giving their customers a clear roadmap for the future:
- district heating will be fully renewable by 2030 - gas network is being deprecated by 2035 - heatpumps are the No.1 replacement - gas is going to get expensive because of CO2 prices and shrinking demand for the network - biogas and hydrogene are no alternative to heat private homes
I had a lot of points on my "This is how dictatorships start" bingo cart. But I completely missed the "I'm a left-wing voter and I'd rather enable the right-wing dictator than accept someone I don't agree with 100%" one.