Not just America - all Western countries did.
We made it expensive to manufacture goods due to labour costs and well-meaning but crippling environmental protections and couldn't compete on price.
digdilem
joined 2 years ago
bleddy 'ell
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People change, and with bigotry, they've often been changed by others.
He may not always have been like that, so it's okay to like someone once and not at other times. Best advice I can give is listen to your inner moral compass. If something sounds wrong, it probably is.
(very) Late diagnosed autistic guy here.
Thank you for writing that.
One of the revealing things about realising this is what I am is looking back at a long life and realising a lot of people thought of me as rude, or that I was being deliberately awkward. I've certainly lost one job because of it, lived a life that's largely friendless (IRL anyway) and doubtless missed a thousand opportunities through not being aware of them. There's also an element of cause and effect - sometimes you know pretty quickly that someone's not going to warm to you, so you just shut them out mentally. It's expensive for me to make the effort to be normal and as I've got older I'm less willing to waste this time and energy.
I see it as very positive that so many people are aware of neurodiversity now, especially younger generations, and their first thought when someone behaves differently isn't always that they're deliberately being an assehole. Sometimes they are, of course, especially those with particularly bigoted views, but not always.
My point is that you don't know the actual truth. Nor do I. We can't.
Bots and paid agents are not a new technique - in ancient times, countries would send spies undercover into enemy territory to sow discord. To rabble rouse and change public opinion. It's the same now, just the tools have changed. No news source is entirely unbiased, even word of mouth is influenced. The only way you can determine the truth is by seeing it with your own, naked eyes. And even then, your own personal bias can change the context.
Reddit is a platform where its' easy to get the ears of a lot of people, so it's a big target. It's not Reddit's fault, and Lemmy would suffer exactly the same if we had the numbers they do.
What is different now on the world stage, mostly thanks to Trump, is that there's no longer even any pretence to truth. The most powerful person in the world lies constantly, and his example proves that works. No shame, no integrity, no honesty - just lies and crude manipulation.
"Truth is the first casualty of war"
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