I recently asked an admittedly controversial question about the veracity of a Mastodon account. Some people understandably took offense, while others were willing to exchange thoughts. It was a conversation of about 13 comments.

I now find the post is gone. I can't find any message in my inbox about any removal. Now I understand that we cannot expect mods to provide elaborate justifications for all their decisions, and I understand that they (and admins?) are the final arbiters (although in this case I think it was a bit drastic, also considering that I there was a diversity of perspectives). But shouldn't participants in a post be notified or something? With an automatic notification? When a post is deleted?

I have seen great memes and posts about the fact that Lemmy doesn't have any Karma to pursue. But surely it keeps track of points? At least in Connect I can see mine and those of others?

Often political leaders at the top need to maintain some diplomatic composure and have the privilege to leave their dirty fights to subordinates. As a result we often don’t realize how much of an asshole these leaders actually are. A good test is to check what they allow (or encourage) their lower ranked allies to get away with.

I would like to be able to use the command line (curl) to get a list of communities I am currently subscribed to.

I know that there is a full-blown API, but it only briefly covers what it is possible with simple a curl request, and most of it seems to refer to an API that runs in javascript (which seems excessively complex for what I want to do?)

A simple curl request like this seems to work,

curl "https://mander.xyz/api/v3/community/list" | jq

But I wouldn't know how to make it list only communities that I subscribe to? Does anyone know more?

What is happening here? Spanish not allowed?

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/986772

Let's see how many interesting facts about beans we can bring together.

Pythagoras’s aversion to beans, though, always got a lot of attention, even from ancient writers. According to Pliny, Pythagoreans believed that fava beans could contain the souls of the dead, since they were flesh-like. Due to their black-spotted flowers and hollow stems, some believers thought the plants connected earth and Hades, providing ladders for human souls. The beans’ association with reincarnation and the soul made eating fava beans close to cannibalism. Aristotle, writing earlier, went much further. One possible reason for the ban, he wrote, was that the bulbous shape of beans represented the entire universe. Nevertheless, other Greeks ate plenty of fava beans, and Pythagorean beliefs were mocked. The poet Horace tauntingly called beans “relations of Pythagoras.”

Let's see how many interesting facts about beans we can bring together.

Testing testing.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/933697

When it comes to spreading disinformation about climate change or the risks of smoking, I can clearly see how it protects economic interests (e.g. the value of the assets of the fossil fuel industry or the tobacco industry). I therefore understand that these lies are (have been) regularly pushed by people who do not necessarily believe in them.

But what are the strategic considerations behind the active spread of anti-vax theories? Who gains from this? Is it just an effective topic to rile up a political base? Because it hits people right in the feels? Is it just a way to bring people together on one topic, in order to use that political base for other purposes?

Or is anti-vax disinformation really only pushed by people who believe it?

When it comes to spreading disinformation about climate change or the risks of smoking, I can clearly see how it protects economic interests (e.g. the value of the assets of the fossil fuel industry or the tobacco industry). I therefore understand that these lies are (have been) regularly pushed by people who do not necessarily believe in them.

But what are the strategic considerations behind the active spread of anti-vax theories? Who gains from this? Is it just an effective topic to rile up a political base? Because it hits people right in the feels? Is it just a way to bring people together on one topic, in order to use that political base for other purposes?

Or is anti-vax disinformation really only pushed by people who believe it?

Does mander.xyz block sh.itjust.works? I don't see it in this list: https://mander.xyz/instances