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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 15th, 2023

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  • It is good and reasonable to be continually skeptical of the people and organizations we get involved with, and I appreciate your warning and looking out for bad organizations.

    On the other hand, my experience in politics leads me to believe that if you sit around waiting for the perfect allies, you will usually be waiting alone for a very long time.

    Looking at this group, it looks like in my state (Utah) they have been key support for a couple of well respected local nonprofits that have done great work on RCV and anti gerrymandering. That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing to me.

    I think it’s a mistake generally to view Republicans as the enemy. Even if they are in a leadership role like in the RNC. For example, in Utah, nothing gets done without Republican approval. So saying “I won’t work with you because you’re Republican” here is a losing strategy to make changes. And we now have the beginnings of progress on RCV.

    So I think we should continue to be vigilant and watch out for the first signs that people are acting in bad faith. But if we want our ideas to be popular, we are going to need to learn to (without compromising our own values) build a bigger tent.





  • Dempf@lemmy.ziptoGreentext@sh.itjust.worksAnon challenges a fine
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    8 days ago

    My understanding is usually you can go before the judge and explain that the higher insurance rates will be a burden for you. Usually you don’t necessarily need a lawyer to go and ask for that. The judge will often add some stipulations like double the fine you pay now, and you can’t get another ticket for a certain amount of time.

    When I lived in Illinois they had formalized the process and called it “court supervision” which is an option you can check on the ticket, but you do have to appear in court. Can’t get another speeding ticket for a year, and they won’t report it to insurance.

    When I got a second speeding ticket though after 11 months, I did hire a lawyer. He requested continuance for me, so that by the time they heard the case, it had been 12 months, and I could do a second court supervision. Since then I decided to try to avoid getting more tickets.






  • That is correct. People will typically get loans for larger purchases like solar panels so that they don’t need to pay everything upfront, but for smaller purchases like maybe $1,000 a loan isn’t really worth it, and you’ll need funds set aside to pay the contractor now and expect to see the money back when you file.

    Also worth checking state/local incentives. In my state our gas company has weatherization rebates. They did air sealing and added insulation to our attic (up to a certain R value) all for free - they billed it directly to the gas company. When they were out here, I paid for a bit of extra insulation because I thought we needed it, but the base amount was completely free.








  • Just going to address your first paragraph: I sincerely doubt that the devs are receiving money from a fascist government. I simply don’t think Lemmy is big enough yet to be on the radar of e.g., the Chinese government. Yes, maybe there are some Wumaos on here. My understanding is they get better training and autonomy these days, so it’s certainly possible. But most of the comments look more homegrown. I just doubt the Chinese government (or any similar government) would care to the point of trying to pay off devs, and it’s not their MO anyways.


  • The sad part is that this situation was entirely predictable a year ago.

    The Lemmy devs (who also run lemmy.ml) made no secret of who they are and what they believe. Especially dessalines.

    I do think they have made a very good piece of software. And I think we’re better off here than on Reddit. At least it is more difficult for one asshole to ruin everything. We have tools to block people and instances, so it doesn’t matter as much even if they’re in charge.

    I worry that if lemmy.ml continues to be run the way that it is, then it will bleed over into the software side, and we would be forced to fork Lemmy. So far though, despite running lemmy.ml like assholes, the actual development seems fine – not too different from any other open source project (I only remember that one issue where dessalines completely failed to understand why a user would want to block an instance).

    The irony is that, despite creating a tool with what seems like very socialist principles (it gives users & communities a lot of power, and doesn’t centralize that power with one person), those principles are often lost on the devs in favor of authoritarianism. Hence the term: “tankie”.