ada

@thoughtfuldragon @princessnorah Yep. But it's not opened up to everyone at the moment. Not happy enough with friendicas scalability, and don't really want to have to moderate another space.

But I love the way it handles timelines, and the way it integrates microblogging and threadiverse fedi content

@princessnorah @ada v-coding

@Lofi_Haze

> transitioning children via pharmaceuticals is that great

Good thing it doesn't happen then hey?

But still, people want to "just talk about it" as if it does.

And you know, when you're the target of endless bullshit and lies spread about you, so much so that people who don't know any better parrot and perpetuate the bullshit, whilst crying out how hard done by they are when people push back against them for repeating the harmful bullshit they don't understand... You know, when that happens enough, you kinda get sick of it...

The issue is, there are a large amount of people "JAQ"ing off (Just Asking Questions), sealioning and trolling. And no amount of engagement and discussion with those folk will change their minds, because they're not open to that. And worse than that, it also normalises the idea that trans rights, trans identities etc are up for debate. So these sorts of engagements do harm, by making folk more comfortable airing "mild" anti trans opinions.

And of course, not everyone engaging in these discussions and topics is doing so in bad faith. Some people can be turned around. But research has shown that even when folk are acting in good faith, they still have a tendency to double down on harmful opinions when challenged, because facts don't change minds. Emotions do. So until we can know the outcome before engagement, we're more likely to make things worse than better.

And that's why on blahaj.zone, it's a non starter. Blahaj zone communities are intended to be safe spaces, where folk can get away from discussions about whether we deserve the same rights as other folk, and whether our identities are real, and whether it's ok to exclude us from parts of society. We explicitly do not have the goal of educating people, because that is a huge emotional burden, that doesn't really pay off most of the time.

If you want to change minds, the ways to do it are in the immediate social circles around you. The people that know you are the most likely to be "brought around" and they will be brought around by you simply existing on their radar, and making emotional space for you. The other way to do it is social friction. Protests, shutdowns, pushbacks etc. These are especially effective when they come from allies. Basically, when you make a social context in which trans discriminatory positions have negative repercussions, people are less likely to voice those opinions, and the opinions are less likely to be normalised.

The goal of blahaj.zone spaces is to create exactly that social context. And honestly, I think that banning someone who holds misinformed, but harmful opinions is more likely to change their mind, than a civil debate. It's a low chance either way, but at least banning them sends a clear message.

@A_Union_of_Kobolds I mean, it depends

The Great Egret is from the genus Ardea, which is a genus of herons...

But, the White Faced Heron is from the genus Egretta, which are egrets...

Egrets resist the boxes we want to put them in :P

Specifically, it's a Little Blue Heron

Wait until you encounter the folk that call them egrets!

@lambda I had been using arch for a while, and didn't want to leave the rolling distro format, but I wanted to try something new. Initially, it was mostly their pre optimised repositories (and the fact they include some popular AUR packages in their optimised repos). But I also came to appreciate their reconfiguration of things like fish and snapper as really good starting points.

@lambda Yep, it's been my daily driver for close to two years now.

It's arch, but with optimised binaries, pre bundled apps, and pre configured gaming, performance and aesthetic configs for common apps and DEs

Or just one?