For me I get prompted with a captcha on redeeming a free game, almost every time

How would it get past the captcha? EGS always has a complicated captcha

I use a script I wrote that plays music from Bandcamp with probabilities based on liking/disliking songs and the albums Bandcamp recommends in association with the rated song. Wary about sharing it anywhere though as it’s definitely against the tos.

Thanks for the info, I’m on linux mint and after checking these out it isn’t immediately apparent from their websites whether or how I could install them. Still think etcher occupies a niche that alternatives don’t fill, its website directs you straight to installing it, it’s cross platform, and using it is very easy, so it’s something that could reasonably be linked to in various install tutorials.

Rufus seems to be just for Windows and dd does not have a gui

I’m skeptical the market is ever going to have principles, for every person that has gotten burned and become personally aware of shady practices, there are many more that aren’t aware and don’t have the incentive or ability to do research to find out. Seems like the sort of thing where the system is rigged in favor of scammers if consumer choice is the only regulation.

The way I think of it is, I don’t live in China, so regardless of my objections to their values or human rights abuses, why would CCP or an affiliated company care about me or ruin my life on the basis of or by abusing my data? A big part of why I care about privacy is I don’t want to be filtering my every thought through consideration of whether the powers that be would approve, and US companies are way more relevant to that.

Crazy how the response is to completely gaslight you about what the real issue is

I upvoted because I’m generally excited by the idea of software that lets you interact with different social media via one interface. Idk if the project itself is good but it seems like a neat idea.

and that’s the only way it’s ever used.

Kind of an extreme claim which is definitely not true.

It’s the best example of what it’s trying to describe. It’s a hypocrite of a phrase, engaging in what it condemns.

So phrases are by themselves guilty of word crimes? A cliche isn’t just an often repeated series of words, it’s a tired idea. “Thought terminating cliche” is itself a thought terminating cliche if it’s being used that way (such as to shut down someone who was engaging in good faith and happened to use a common expression as part of that), but that doesn’t mean this category of expression doesn’t exist. Of course it exists, the modern internet is plagued with it because it’s full of propagandists with an interest in pulling people’s levers with minimal effort and no interest in argument.

This is for sure an unpopular opinion lol

I bet it was something like the hardware id instead but she misspoke

I support and agree with the concept of free speech and the 1st (though this topic isn’t really specifically about the US). But a culture of tolerance is important for free expression, which isn’t really about overwhelming the “wrong” perspectives with mob rule. Downvoting all the vegan memes to make sure they don’t forget people disagree with them isn’t what I would describe as truth and leadership.

It sounds as if you’re describing something like a low moderation politics focused imageboard. I would say you are getting it backwards; untrue racist conspiracy theories win out in such an environment, which mostly does not select for good ideas, because the “marketplace” isn’t about which arguments are good or anything like that, it’s about shaming and demoralizing those who disagree, appealing to people’s emotions, and projecting an impression of community consensus through high volume shitposting. Despite that there may not be direct removal of comments, such an environment effectively selects against minority (at least within that space) viewpoints by making it extremely unpleasant for anyone trying to express them, and by making sure it will at least seem like there are a larger number of people mocking them.

Needless to say, there are some problems with this way of doing it, and it’s worth considering ways to not be like that.

Do you think the “cost” of “being in a society” is accommodating the mainstream consensus view? I’m not vegan but I figure if they want to have an echo chamber that isn’t all about reacting to my objections and the objections of most other non-vegans to their ideology, that’s fine, it’s not a “cost”, I am not entitled to or being “paid” through such reactions, and I have zero tangible stake (pun intended) in their dietary choices. That abstraction doesn’t work, it’s not about paying your dues, rather it is an organizational question about how much Lemmy should function to homogenize opinions or to shield minority opinions from adversarial social proof.

While I personally value space for debate and disagreement, I also think spaces for minority views can’t really exist if they are just going to be overwhelmed by volume, and they should be enabled to exist lest everyone devolve into regurgitating a reddit hivemind sort of mentality.

Because what they want is more likely to stop people with values incompatible with their group interacting with it, while still being visible enough that people who may have compatible values could become aware of it.

Maybe the way they go about pursuing that causes a mild annoyance for many other people, but I think it’s a legitimate thing to want.

IMO this is mainly only a problem because Lemmy is small enough that everyone is browsing all and there’s no realistic natural separation of users. Going private is an extreme solution with high likelihood of it just dying as a result.

Also recently got banned from c/imageai for downvoting “too much”?

My guess is it’s because there are a bunch of people who hate AI in general, and they want votes to instead reflect which images people like or don’t like for what they are instead of every post having a negative score.

I wonder if part of the reason for supporting this is that they like the secondary effect that all this information is now also available to governments

Sometimes you just have something to say but have high confidence that continuing the conversation beyond that isn’t going to be productive. I like having the option to not be tempted.