I’m not in favor of investigating things frivolously when there is no reason to think there’s any wrongdoing.

Saskatchewan is the birthplace of the NDP (Canada’s social democratic party), universal public healthcare (ever heard of Tommy Douglas?), and historically one of the pillars of the labour movement. It’s now the most conservative province, but still has tons of new immigrants, racial and cultural diversity, good education, and well funded government services. The SK NDP ruled almost continuously from 1971 to 2006.

SK is much more like midwestern farm states that were formerly pro-labour pro-union hotbeds but are now more moderate or conservative, like Iowa and Wisconsin.

I don’t think Canada has an Alabama. As conservative as they are, Alberta is wealthy, highly educated, and they frequently vote for women and POC. They like “small government”, but also have some of the highest paid government workers in the country. I just don’t see much similarity.

I think the comparison to Texas is more apt because they’re both conservative petro states with center left suburban sprawl cities.

On The Media - a podcast analyzing the media, giving historical and scientific context to news coverage. In the process, it turns out to be the best in depth news shows. Academics and journalists love this show but it doesn’t seem to be as big of a hit with the greater public. I recommend this show very highly.

Also listen to a bunch of nerdy academic podcasts like The Dissenter and New Books in Science, Psychology, Philosophy, etc in the New Books networks.

Mastodonians, Kbingers, and Fedizens are all superb. I’m not a fan of “feds” because it has another pretty common usage. I feel like whatever term is chosen should unambiguously evoke the fediverse.

Riffing off of another comment, I think it’s ok to have terms specific to each platform, and then a term for all platforms.

Platform specific:

• Lemming
• Kbiner
• Mastadoner

Overall:

• Fediverser

Outside of the US and Canada, electric bikes look to be the future instead of mainly electric cars. E-bikes are not just massively more environmentally friendly, they’re also radically reshaping city design to be more livable. I hope the future isn’t just a different kind of car. I hope, for the sake of the environment and society, it’s a world with fewer cars.

All the best run states, with the highest education, best health, lowest crime, highest wages and strongest economies, are progressive. Inclusivity and taking care of the disadvantaged isn’t just a moral good. It makes us all better off when we give everyone a fair chance. This doctor is one example.

New Orleans used to be the 3rd largest city in the US and the 4th busiest port in the world. There’s no reason that Louisiana couldn’t have been as rich and prosperous as California or New York. But years of conservative policies make you poor.

What are the controversies with DuckDuckGo? I’ve never heard of anything.

The “front page” of lemmy, either the local of the instance you’re on or the “all”, is pretty bad. Low quality, uninteresting, obscure, sometimes vaguely rude. News about small video games, hyper specific gripes, obscure memes, uninteresting articles with no comments. Compare that to reddit when it was good, which reliably emphasized the biggest world news stories, genuinely interesting user anecdotes or personal stories, academic knowledge (especially AskHistorians), videos or images that grip you, etc. I’m not sure what the issue is with lemmy’s front page. Is it an algorithm problem? Something to do with federation? Is the user base merely too small for now and this will improve on its own with more engagement?

It’s too bad because the “front page” is the user’s first taste of lemmy. Most users will browse without making an account for a while before finally making an account and subscribing to specific communities.

In general, I think lemmy is already great. There are starting to be lots of cool communities, and even if the quantity is lower, the quality seems to be higher.