That’s simply unrealistic to implement right away though. The best realistic system I could see would be the Swiss system except online.

There the citizens vote on all major decisions, requiring politicians to either take on issues of importance to the people or to make their policies palatable to the general population if they hope for it to pass.

This seems like a reasonable middle ground to ensure that citizens stay informed and engaged - at least on big issues - and that their leaders are generally required to consider the wishes of the people.

I could see monthly or bimonthly digital voting on a handful of current issues work out well, provided they are presented in a digestible format to the average citizen.

If people have to do hours of research to even understand what the question is they will very likely just vote whatever or ask their friends what they voted. Worst case even sell their votes on issues they don’t care about.

The problem with that is that the average citizen cannot possibly keep up with and stay informed on all issues that the government makes decisions on, and for the most part they don’t want to have to either.

That is why representative systems were created in the first place, so the average person would not have to bother with politics and instead would vote for someone they trust to represent their interests for a while.

Fair, but those were volunteers. Obviously he is referring to Americans deployed by the government in some form, nobody died in the line of duty so to say.

I generally agree, but as long as there is no safe way to prevent malware spam posts (of which I reported plenty whenever I encountered them) I find it a minefield that is uncomfortable to navigate when I just want to browse some content lying in bed.

So you replied to the first sentence and ignored the paragraphs in which I describe why supporting either is misguided to malicious.

I understand the arguments that are constantly being spewed about the evil western imperialists, and they are of course true for the most part. Only that this doesn’t in turn validate or justify the human rights violations, atrocities or even genocides committed by either Russia or China; they cannot be guides or aides on the path to the desired egalitarian utopia.

If either of them had their way, would that do us in the west any good? The answer is no.

China desires a global hegemony under their sino-centric ideology, and to extend its control structures outside its own national borders. They employ the same imperialist strategies and methods to acquire influence and resource access in emerging countries as the west has or is doing. Russia currently displays its own imperial ambitions by its war of aggression on Ukraine. At least they don’t even bother with any greater good pretense, and are straight up about it.

The only real option is to consolidate the west in ethical and ideological opposition to these totalitarian parodies of their former goals, to create a new economic system that works for the people and not the reverse, without sacrificing our freedoms and individuality in the process.

One that truly represents what socialism is about.

Tankies are so fucking weird to me, and I would consider myself a progressive socialist as well.

How can they so unapologetically support Russia and China, when both nations are objectively not socialist in any sense of the word.

China does state capitalism, just because they have a one party state installed by the communist party doesn’t automatically mean they still are. All that is left is intense authoritarianism, with dystopian ambitions on global hegemony.

Russia is a failed state in the grasp of a kleptocratic oligarchy, with an extreme degree of corruption and disturbing moral decay in all levels of society. The only thing communist about it today is the old soviet ordnance they make their conscripts die in at the ukranian front.

Modern China and Russia are antithetical to actual leftist ideals, and any tankie supporting them just screams misinformed idiot or foreign propaganda shill and should be dismissed by default.

One thing I dislike about Lemmy so far is the amount of highly suspicious links no one has ever heard of, that are constantly being shared. Makes me as a user really paranoid to touch any links before examining the url closely, which is good practice I guess, but makes the whole content browsing process a bit stressful.

I don’t know much about it myself, but I would guess it is negligible. Maybe for small propeller machines with a fairly limited amount of fuel capacity; but larger planes, especially commercial ones, have reserve fuel for quite some time.

Situations where landing at the destination is temporarily unavailable, air traffic requires the plane to circle for some time, or they are even rerouted to a different airport can always occur and are accounted for. A minor increase from rainfall shouldn’t make a dent. I would think.

I just yesterday saw a post how disabling downvotes for an instance that still acts as part of the greater fediverse causes issues and unfair advantages with posts being created there that can achieve a high score very easily, even on accident.

I would expect Lemmy to rework that function to avoid these issues so that up- and downvotes are either mandatory or can only be disabled together. I would not recommend trying to find an instance based on if they practice this most likely not here to stay functionality.

Not who you replied to, but I always assumed that she sort of knew about her second personality from previous occasions when this had happened. The terraformer with the god complex (whom i found the real star of this episode, LET THERE BE LIGHT!) tells sisko about it, so it is implied that she is even aware herself whom she mr. Hydes into to some degree. She may not have the memories, but should know about her second personality.