I think they are linked. Democracy can only work and thrive with an educated and/or informed population who is willing and able to have public and civil discourse. The fact that the political climate is the way it is now, so divided and only engaging to act on petty revenges, allows for fascism to take root. We saw this in Germany prior to the second World War. When NSDAP began beating people up in the street who opposed their ideology, with little repercussions for such behavior, led to the beer hall putsch, and eventually the rise of Herr Hitler. I can see parallels with the modern day political climate of America. The issue is that we voted them into the white house; I think that might even be more jarring than them being in there itself. Democratically voting a fascist in power is a tell tale sign that our democracy is not working.

It is so surreal to see so many attack books. It’s like we are regressing into the dark ages again.

The local versions I’ve tested out today are absolutely garbage. It frustrated me over simple questions.

I somewhat disagree. They don’t want to forget, they want to finish the job. They have immense pride in something they should feel shame for. That, I think, is the issue. The unwillingness to feel shame, so they replace that feeling with over-zealous pride.

I can agree with that; but I also think that the average person has not the attention span for long form “macro-blogging” to use it as much as something like twitter or bluesky or microblogging platforms. I think this is why things like vine, tiktok, and twitter are so popular; its because they are all short form content. Things like tumblr, which I’m sure has declined for other reasons, but I’m also sure it is because no one wants to read a whole blog of someone they don’t know, but they might read a few words or sentences and if they agree or find it funny or like it for whatever reason, they would be inclined to follow and keep up with that person and may be more inclined to read or give a chance to their content that is of longer form.

Fair enough, I just figured that as a social network, part of the goal is to connect new people together. You can look at Facebook in the same way you described it. That’s what its original purpose was. To just connect with people you already know, but I feel like social networking in general has since evolved from this. We can look at things like Facebook groups for example where it is more on the lines of what I’m thinking, people join groups that interest them and interact with like minded people that they have likely never met before.

I find the idea of using hashtags as the same.

Not sure; I guess as a new person, I’d like to find micro blogs about topics and things that I might agree with? I was never really into twitter or micro-blogging; I don’t really understand the appeal but I figure since it is a social media, you might want to find similar people with like-minded blogs or whatever? Like I found a new up-coming political streamer that I like from another. Maybe that isn’t what micro-blogging is for and I’m off base.

That and finding relevant things or anything at all sometimes; also I hear that people want to see everything like a friendica environment but don’t like the differences from the social medias they know already. I’m not sure if it is all valid or relevant because I am extremely new to the fediverse in general myself.

I think it is because Bluesky is simpler and easier to understand, as well as more familiar to use than mastodon. My favorite streamer said he is reluctant to move to the fediverse because of how different it is and the learning curve it has to it. I’m also, like, EXTREMELY new here and understand but once you start to get used to it, its easy to see how the fediverse and this “New Social” wave is far superior; the only hard part is getting “normies” to try it long enough to build enough familiarity to see that.