Aside from the hashtag hypothesis, there are multiple timelines on Mastodon: trending, local, and global for example. I’m assuming you didn’t suddenly accidentally start looking at a different timeline but still worth mentioning.

They… are … the same?

Are you looking at the drop-down for your comment? I’m taking about your account settings. Go to https://lemmy.zip/settings and there should be a list view for Languages that you can multi-select.

Posts and comments where the author doesn’t select a language use undetermined. So you need to also select that to see all those posts.

The language selection on a post/comment doesn’t alter how the content of the post or comment is published. It works in conjunction with the user-level language setting to filter what content other people see. So if you set the language to on your post to Spanish, then the only users who will see it are those who have added either Spanish or Undetermined to the Languages list in their user settings. For everyone who doesn’t have one of those two languages enabled in their settings your post/comment will simply not be displayed.

Just by keeping at it. Lots of posts don’t get a lot of comments, seems like a lot of lurkers. My front page only has one post with >10 comments and the rest are at 3 or fewer. But Reddit is still in the top ten more-visited web sites in the world. So can’t expect the same number of comments compared to the bigger subs there.

Because the Nazi’s were all in on trying to portray themselves as descendants of the Vikings, upon whom they attributed a white supremacist philosophy that never existed. Going so far as inventing their own runes to mix in with Futhark, and also various icons that aren’t found in any Viking-age artifacts or described in the surviving writings. Modern-day white supremacists have continued this appropriation. So for certain kinds of imagery, a lot of people will just automatically assume you might be a white supremacist. A good tattoo shop should double-check requested elements, to make sure something doesn’t slip through, but as a client you definitely want to research everything you’re getting regardless of the shop.

I learned to make straw yule bocks and got a non-Nazi Nordic-themed tattoo. I have Norwegian ancestry from both parents.

This is the one thing I really think Fediverse needs. I shouldn’t have to have a separate identity for each of Lemmy/Mastodon/Pixelfed/Mbin/Piefed/blahblahblah. In theory, ATproto has the PDS which holds your identity and posts and you can host independent from the rest of the platform. In practice, shenanigans on Bluesky over the last few days are showing that even with Blacksky, they are still centrally dependent on the main instance. There’s been quite a few Bsky users picking up on Mastodon, either new accounts or reviving old ones.

I don’t think I’ve tried a client that doesn’t. I just assumed they all do at this point.

This makes as much sense to me as complaining about people who “choose” to become gambling addicts or who “choose” to become homeless or who “choose” to engage in self harm, it just doesn’t work like that.

I can’t think of a single person I know who was disenfranchised out of voting. But I know multiple people who simply choose not to. The two most common reasons are “my vote doesn’t matter” and “none of the candidates represent my principles.” That is why I emphasize things like AOC and Mamdani, where the established campaigned hard against them but the voters turned up and beat the establishment. And why I point out that people can turn in a ballot with races left unselected as a way to protest the candidates while still being counted. And I emphasize doing so in the primaries, because that is when we are most able to take such a principled vote just to select the best candidate to nominate. Seriously, 2024 primaries, no state reached 40% turnout.

https://statesunited.org/resources/voter-turnout-since-2000/

So 60% of the eligible voters sat out and didn’t bother with any of the downstream races for US Senators, US House Representatives, State legislators, Governors, Lieutenant Governors, Attorneys General, judges (in Texas), city councils, school boards, etc. And then they say they’re not voting in the election because the candidates suck. Well fuck me my dudes, you had a chance to speak and you didn’t!

But even with that low turnout, like 4% of the Democratic ballots cast had “Uncommitted” for the presidential race. and that received massive news coverage, leading to [I believe] the first time a sitting President dropped out of the election after winning the primary (yes I know, no real challengers ran in the primaries). So it’s an excellent talking point to slap down in front of people who say their vote doesn’t matter or they don’t like the candidates. If we could get primaries up to the same turnout as the actual election, and all those previously non-voting ballots were “Uncommitted.” There’s no way that wouldn’t have a massive response in the candidates.

If people are “choosing” not to participate in your democracy either there’s a problem with your democracy

There is definitely many things wrong with our democracy.

they’re in some kind of self destructive pattern that is almost certainly not going to be improved by criticism.

That is why I try to be clear that I am only taking issue with people who are eligible to vote and are freely and deliberately choosing not to. Minorities who are being disenfrachised, people who have health issues (mental or physical), they need the rest of us to step up and defend their rights.

Moreover, how we define our problems leads directly to the sorts of solutions we end up with. If the problem is bad leaders, we can replace those leaders, and if it’s a bad system we fix that system, but if the problem is that many of our voters are bad people that starts suggesting the best solution is we just stop trying to involve them in the process and just ditch the whole democracy thing altogether, and that’s something I oppose almost as much as I oppose fascism/supremacist movements/genocide.

I don’t think they’re bad people for not voting. I think they’ve been conditioned and/or propagandized (like that Boomer Doomer guy) and they need to be convinced that their votes do matter, can make a difference, and they can simultaneously protest vote and be counted.___

Ah. I’m not attacking voters. I’m talking about people who are eligible to vote and simply choosing not to. I want them to vote instead of not vote. Then they will be voters instead of non-voters and I won’t have anything to complain about them for.

edit: PS - I also want the fascists to lose.

Well I agree it should be easier. Mail-in ballots should be universally available, for starters. And, as I have stated, I’m complaining about people who are choosing not to vote. I’m not complaining about people for whom oppressive tactics are being actively engaged to prevent them from voting even though they are trying to. Those of us who aren’t being targeted have even more responsibility to show up and vote, to get more representatives who will fight to protect voting rights.

All I’m saying is giving up and doing nothing has less chance of working.

That’s why I advocate for submitting a blank ballot instead of simply not voting.

I do acknowledge the apparent contradiction. However, I was referring to my original post to which you had replied.

Please do that while voicing support for Republicans

Not really sure what you’re saying here. I don’t think I’ve ever voiced support for the Republicans. I’m not even voicing support for the Democratic party. I’m just saying to vote for better candidates in the primaries.

I’ve been turning up to vote.

Awesome! If you can, next time bring someone who never has before.

It isn’t working.

As regular voters, you and I aren’t what I’m encouraging needs to change. We still have pitiful turnout, particularly in the primaries.

https://statesunited.org/resources/voter-turnout-since-2000/

Not one state reached 40% turnout in the 2024 primaries. Some states had better primary turnout in 2022! With all the state and federal Representatives and 1/3 of Senators, so many people said “the Democratic party won’t hold a real primary for President so I’m going to ignore all the rest of the offices that effect me and then complain about all the candidates in the general.”

We can’t vote extra hard to make up for the people who don’t vote at all. We have to try and get them to vote.

Bernie didn’t win the nomination, but he inspired a new generation of Democratic Socialists to run and a lot of them won. I know it’s oversimplified … but they just need to run and we need to turn up and vote. It has to start with smaller, local districts. And those are the races who are hurt the most by this defeatism that we can’t win the presidency on this ticket today, so I may as well not vote at all.

Kat’s great, I’d be stumping for her if I lived there. Unfortunately I’m in Texas and gerrymandered to hell. Close to a major metro area though, so there’s hope I’ll have an option to vote for in the primaries. But I’ll still put my ballot in either way.

History shows that quietly kowtowing to the fascists only emboldens them to go further. We have to collectively rise up against them.

Instead of joining the defeatists (whatever percentage of the the 1/3 of eligible voters who don’t vote because “my vote doesn’t matter”), why not try and get them to vote. For the folks who don’t vote because they don’t like any of the candidates, just start turning in an empty ballot. Higher turnout leads to more representative government. Imagine if we suddenly had >90% turnout and 20% of the voters cast a ballot saying “all the candidates suck.” That would reported on so heavily there’s no way campaign strategies won’t change the next election cycle. More diverse candidates will run because “look at how many active voters want something different!” We’ve never tried that before and we can do it with literally no electoral reform needing to be passed.