I think the description starts off too technical - "link aggregator" is correct, but not a term that many people know about. "Selfhosted" might even be lost on most people.
Perhaps something more simple would help as a first introduction, there's plenty of opportunity for the more technical-minded to learn more. Maybe calling it a "network of content-sharing and discussion forums"? I'd love to put "decentralized" at the front, although I'm not sure how obvious that term is.
On no level do most accusations of “sealioning” seem to hold up to scrutiny, in my opinion.
Agreed. While I haven't seen many accusations of it, all the ones I've seen have been false. And like you said, Lemmy has sufficient moderation that I've never seen it happen here.
As for the title question:
Do we need more users ?
We don't need more users. It might be nice, there are benefits, but we don't need it. I agree with you on not caring much about growth-as-a-target, "growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell". I was here years before the first big reddit exodus with the third-party API changes and I was having a good time back then too.
Since the micronation is unrecognized, within the territorial claim of the UK and easily within reach of their law enforcement, I wonder what the Principality of Sealand would have to do before the UK attempt to enforce their laws on them. Would the huge pressure of recording and film industries have enough power to compel them? Sealand have gotten into serious armed shenanigans before, which if one chooses not to interpret their governance as valid, would effectively be ransom.
Their wiki page mentions HavenCo, a data haven which apparently was operational for a few years.
Good example, with the caveat that one would still be subject to the intellectual property rights of Russians, and I'd assume of their allies. (I know I used Hollywood in my example, that's on me)
Thanks for adding the source.
I'm not a soulist like the user you replied to, but for another perspective, mine is that rights are imaginary constructs which mean nothing if unenforceable.
People have some rights to not be murdered; that's not an opinion if we have a compatible definition of 'rights', it's written in law, it's ingrained into mainstream liberalist social norms and ethics. So the right exists as a social idea which sometimes manifests in real consequences. However:
The sealion in the comic overheard someone being racist against them, and stepped in to say, “Hey, why are you being racist?” And for some reason is wrong because… they’re persistent? Or because they’re annoying? How is that not literally just every “anti-woke” argument?
I think the point is that the sea lion is feigning civility while harassing someone over a casual opinion.
My response would be that if we extend the metaphor, like you did, and substitute the absurd 'sea lions' for a race, then harassing the racist doesn't bother me. Bigots don't deserve peace. It's absolutely harassment to stalk and interrogate someone who doesn't want to talk, I just wouldn't care that they're being harassed for airing such bigotry.
(On the other hand, if we assume the original opinion is not a metaphor and replace it with a similarly absurd statement, like enjoying pineapple on pizza, then the sea lion would be acting unreasonably. If someone followed you around online and kept bringing up how you prefer pizza to be prepared, demanding a calm discussion and insisting on peer-reviewed proof that pizza tastes better a certain way, while you ask them to stop, that harassment would obviously be uncalled for. For what it's worth, the author made a comment that it wasn't meant to be "analogous to a prejudice based on race, species, or other immutable characteristics." - but I say it's a though-provoking interpretation to explore regardless)
Yep. "Hmm, 'unknown?', let's assume they're all Linux!".
Linux is doing well, no need to lie about it!
I've come across some people who have no idea what "sealioning" even means. There used to be a hb user "Ulysses" or something, like three years ago, who accused me of doing it after I replied to their reply to my reply, and that's the only conversation we'd ever had. I pulled up the definition of sealioning and the comic which the word originated from, and they just say "no that's not true, stop sealioning".
I feel like some people just think sealioning means "this person keeps replying to my posts", as if conversations on a public forum are somehow uncalled for, or unusual.
Good to know! Hope I won't need it.
Blame culture isn't a way forward, both the con and the conned hold partial responsibility. Power doesn't come from thin air, and those who voted for this regime helped empower it.
We want to DIY some unique marker inspired artwork. The "DNA art" from companies online involves sending a DNA sample, and we have privacy concerns about that, and we'd rather not fork out thousands of dollars for DNA sequencing devices just for this. We can resort to a fingerprint for inspiration if there's nothing more interesting available and affordable to us, but we'd like to explore our options first.
The DNA sequence artworks they're talking about are ones like this, but it doesn't necessarily have to look anything like these:
It would explain a lot.
There are plenty of great reasons to act privately, but I admit, it's also a hobby for me.
(it's also a good answer if there was a specific reason)
Today (a couple of days after your post), ICE now has a verified account on Bluesky.
https://mstdn.social/@Grutjes/115907687819628134