lmmarsano

While I would love that, the more moderate republicans who argued to impeach & convict Trump last time were ousted, so that leaves the Trumpiest core to work with. GOP shittiness & general hostility to the government working in any sense for the American people can’t be underestimated. Plus, convicting Trump results in Vance replacing him.

I think some highly guarded optimism is warranted. Blocking hideous legislation and Trump appointments isn’t too bad of a check if they’re unable to pull off anything better.

See? No serious alternative.

What part of what you wrote contradicts anything written about democracy? The destruction & abuses you list could be far worse in governments with unchecked power.

Democracy isn’t a magic salve that instantly cures everything it touches. Liberal democratic institutions permit reforms through a nonviolent, deliberative process to address everything you stated. To check abuses of power that could end democratic, open society, they also limit government capacity to unilaterally impose swift, sweeping changes. The institution trades sweeping state power that’s riskier to abuse for more limited, checked, deliberative state power likelier to sustain the democratic system. You don’t get democratic reforms without that slow, power-constrained work to protect the system.

All that money the obscenely wealthy dumped into the elections didn’t get the results they paid for. Lack of action according to your timetable isn’t legal immunity.

While your criticism gripes about the problems we can observe, no one is discounting them. We are criticizing your failures to consider all the problems we can’t observe (because the system of limited government avoided them) and the strength of nonviolent, popular reform.

Your criticism looks like just griping that doesn’t seriously weigh the tradeoffs, which is fine to commiserate, but not a rational basis to weigh alternative systems of government.

A democracy can change those rules & technicalities, it just takes time & popular will.

As argued by the same person who articulated the paradox of tolerance (widely distorted on social media), an overlooked strength of liberal democracy is the institutional framework (driven by competitive choices of the people open to rational debate) to institute reform without violence. To check abuses of power by the state, the people need to sustain such institutions that allow for open inquiry and grant all citizens extensive rights against their governments. They argued that strict limits on the power of the state limit bad or incompetent rulers from doing too much damage (eg, damage that outright ends a democratic, open society). Those limits on government with Democrats in legislative power are also why MAGA control of the legislature and executive hasn’t yet prevented elections and we don’t have to fight frequent revolutions to take back control.

Democracy can reform itself nonviolently, presidents can be prosecuted when they leave office, and you’re not suggesting a serious alternative, just grief lacking nuance.

Not how that works: without supermajorities in the legislature to override a veto or convict an impeachment, the president can still block all legislation.

This is among one of many techniques presented at the WCAG site you linked. You putting text in a top level comment would seem to me to satisfy this, at least in intent.

Not in the slightest: the guideline falls under Principle 1 – Perceivable

Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.

as Guideline 1.1 – Text Alternatives

Provide text alternatives for any non-text content so that it can be changed into other forms people need, such as large print, braille, speech, symbols or simpler language.

The sight-impaired user is unable to perceive the text content hidden in the image at the post listing level that the sighted user can perceive. Your suggested text alternative is simply not there to display at the post listing level. Your suggested execution of the technique fails its test

1. Remove, hide, or mask the non-text content
2. Display the long description
3. Check that the long description conveys the same information conveyed by the non-text content.

since we can’t display a description absent from the page. Your nonsolution misapplies the technique & is not a credible text alternative.

Imagine opening every post to seek among an unsorted mass of comments a comment we can’t seriously expect to exist providing a text alternative not written by the author & of questionable integrity: the user has no incentive to take that additional effort for a post that already violates web accessibility. They may not even be aware a post needs a text alternative. That is not equivalent to the experience of a user who can read the image.

The best solution is not to use any web accessibility technique: actual text doesn’t need it. Sharing it as an image was gratuitous & unnecessary. The post could have been proper text with the same bolding & line breaks.

to offer and make accomodations to the best extent possible

which your nonsolution here definitely is not: the post remains inaccessible. That is not due to a limitation of possibility: it’s due to a failure of will or execution. As originally stated, posting proper text or setting alt text is possible.

A separate comment only gives the commenter an unfounded sense of accomplishment, when they’re only enabling the posters to continue violating web accessibility without any pressure to correct themselves. Structurally prolonging dysfunction that way is the opposite of helpful.

Because that’s not a solution: the post remains inaccessible. Unless you edit the post, demanding they fix it is the only solution.

I see stating the obvious struck a nerve for the downvoters, so let me dumb it down for the unfortunate ilk unable to grasp the obvious: y’all full of shit. You think someone scrolling through posts the same as you is going to notice a text alternative hidden away in some comment on some other page? You expect them to open every post unlike you for something that likely won’t even be there? That’s not equivalent in the slightest. Shit’s daft as fuck: keep dreaming.

Now examine critically the substance of the other commenter’s actions. While the comment is effective at drawing upvotes, is it actually effective at the main outcome of doing anything meaningful for accessibility as they purport? No, the comment doesn’t appear to anyone scrolling through posts. Tellingly, the community is simply rewarding self-indulgent ploys to gain upvotes that do nothing for accessibility while condemning meaningful answers to actually solve it. That’s quite damning.

It indicates a toxic community that cares more about indulging community narcissism than acting on their purpose directly within their capacity right here to address an issue in their control. A real progressive would care enough about equal access to look up & determine the truth on the matter, so they can pursue and promote real answers instead of empty gestures that don’t meaningfully address inaccessible content. The placebo they pretend works stops them from developing real cures.

In sum, some lemmy communities in particular are toxic & hostile to web accessibility in ways we don’t find in bluesky and other parts of the fediverse such as mastodon where web accessibility is common practice.

Back to the point, here’s an introduction to web accessibility that you seem to sorely need. You can also read the technical guideline while you’re at it. However, your nonsolution is an unhelpful illusion that diverts people from pursuing credible solutions.

checks alt text

(nothing)

The message is good, but it’s an image of pure text unreadable to anyone who can’t see images.
It’s very un-progressive to exclude others, and the lack of proper text makes it unsearchable.
OP needs to update the post to proper text or redundantly set a text alternative.

Kind of wild how it’s always radio silence from the “Vote Blue No Matter Who” brigade in comment sections like this, where you have a centrist Dem using their platform to bash a progressive or leftist candidate just a couple days prior to elections

Starting from a counterfactual isn’t a strong argument. El-Sayed won the primary for a reason and gets massive support in similar comment sections from Democrats overwhelmingly agreeing that Stevens can go fuck herself.

How you divine who is & isn’t “the Vote Blue No Matter Who brigade” is the real mystery. Supporting commentary looks the same no matter who writes it, and it’s hardly needed when an upvote will do. Are you a mindreader? Do you consort with a higher power? Please show us your mystical, sagely ways.

It’s especially comical because Vote Blue No Matter Who unsurprisingly means doing that regardless of whom blue is. It doesn’t necessarily imply broadcasting commentary everywhere about it to your satisfaction.

It seems you’re agitating for some poorly articulated conflict in your deluded fantasy when the “Blue No Matter Who” crowd is embracing your candidate.

Charitably, it means the incorrect perceptions cause damage regardless of the truth. Do you dispute that position?

See how much harder it is to dismiss a position when we don’t shortchange it?

I myself don’t care what happens to Proton as a privately held company, and I don’t buy their services. I just don’t like cheap shots. The level of discourse at the fediverse doesn’t need to devolve into another reddit.

That just seems like more classic patriarchy.
Calling it psychopatriarchy makes it seem badass and gives it subversive appeal.
I could easily imagine right-wing social media running with it and squawking “pSyChOpAtRiArChY!!” with gusto like dumbass Beavises going “fire! fire! FIRE!”.
Not sure what that’ll do for public discourse.
Calling it before it happens.

Anytime someone brings up paradox of intolerance in the fediverse, the chance is very high they’re completely wrong about it and are regurgitating shit they read from some dumbass on social media.

1. The paradox of intolerance is a paradox, not a conclusion.
2. The reductive conclusion social media dumbasses insinuate by invoking it is entirely wrong according to the philosopher who articulated the paradox.
3. Intolerant carries a more technical meaning in philosophy (at least to that philosopher) than a mere disagreement with other ways: it includes the element of imposing (by unjustified force) on society to literally prohibit other ways. People who do not force us to comply with their position are tolerant.

From the article (you didn’t read or understand) quoting Karl Popper (extended with the rest of the passage)

[Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.] But we should claim the right to suppress them [intolerant ideologies] if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

The type of intolerance they refer to is the kind that uses force and refuses debate. They even explicitly reject that we should in general “suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies” as long as rational argument & public opinion still govern public choice.

They were absolutely arguing in favor of more open discourse & deliberation, not less of it, to reform government without violence and restrict its potential damage. That means tolerating opinions we disagree with from people who don’t try to impose them with force.

Their discussion on public policy has no bearing on the democratic consequences accepting code that “solves the problem” from people we disagree with. It’s pretty much accepting charity and doesn’t imply you promote or agree with their views at all. Philosophers generally scoff at purity policing bullshit and genetic fallacies, especially those who emphasize free, open inquiry and rational argument as crucial to an open society.