Yes, somehow the barrier to actually engaging with others is lost in the fediverse. The guilt of posting on Reddit has been swapped by some strange feeling of obligation and/or pride when posting on here.

I made an effort to interact with one community in particular to get it going and it actually started getting a tad more lively recently. So maybe there's hope if we play our parts.

Hat nur so halb was hiermit zu tun, aber mir war selten jemand so unsympathisch nach einem Interview wie Schreiner nach ihrem Auftritt im FAZ Podcast für Deutschland mit ihrem wiesligen Politiker-Ausweichen.

That was a strange final with all those inaccuracies. Very unlike a normal Carlsen match. And still he's winning, the beast that he is.

Weir's characters are always so 'alive' somehow!

Weir! Though I am currently reading Martine myself.

I'm not sure you are arguing in good faith because you seem to construct some strawmen there, like claiming I was only judging one side while I clearly called the draftee a "stupid asshole" and didn't even judge the original commenter's character but just said his wording was bad.

Anyhow, to the general point: I think it is almost always the wrong take to call out the little guys. Which country hasn't committed atrocities at some point? Is every US-American who didn't do everything to prevent the war in Afghanistan a maggot? Every Chinese who did not revolt because of Tiananmen? And yes, every German who did not die fighting Hitler? I think, no. The ones that did might be heroes, but I think those that did not are definitely not all "maggots" but just normal folks who didn't know what was going on, were afraid for themselves and their loved ones and so on. Which seems pretty human to me.

If you answer yes to the questions above, that is probably a defensible position, but I think the mindset that 95% of your fellow humans are potential maggots rather than just humans that have their weaknesses, like you and I probably do as well, is not very healthy. To me, it is mostly only the people in powerful positions who are pressuring 'their' people into committing atrocities who are the maggots. And yes, that would include Putin.

And lastly, to the concrete case: The guy did leave Russia and is not fighting anymore, so he might be a particularly bad example for you. I guess he mainly did it to save himself but from the article it does seem to me that his opposition to the war is at least a partial motivation as well. To use your line of argument: I think one should rather focus criticism on the political apparatus and the men on the front who are ardent supporters of the war rather than this guy.

There is still a line between criticizing someone for being an asshole and dehumanizing them.

From reading the article it seems pretty clear to me that this guy is not a "maggot" but an idiot and someone who puts his own well-being over some principles that might be somewhere in the back of his head. So yeah, maybe a stupid asshole but probably not much more than many other people in any given society.

Yeah, that's what I haven't figured out yet either. How do you make it a fair amount between a content creator and an email client developer, between one person, a corporation and a non-profit?

I have settled on not trying to make it a science. I can only give what I have, so always when I feel that I have financial breathing room (paycheck comes in and no urgent payments due) I am going to the relevant places and donate what I feel I can afford. While not perfect, I feel I should be proud about doing what I can rather than beat myself up over whether I could spend more, which a lot of free users will never think about in the first place. Otherwise I'd only go crazy.

The donations will go to what/who I feel like I have used/appreciated most since the last donations. So it's mainly donations, not subscriptions which also helps not losing track and giving more than you can afford. Come to think of it, I also do not donate to the big creators whose content I consume as I guess they are rich enough. If you want a number, my last donation was 20€ to a small ASMR content creator. And for stuff that I use regularly like programs and apps (e.g. NewPipe 4€/month and KeePass 0.5€), my OS (3€), the hoster of the Piped instance I use (4€) etc. I have set up regular payments on Liberapay and such according to their tier system. I cannot afford all that much, so I am going for the small/medium tier according to my amount of usage (and I guess you should think about if they have running costs or not). If you are not constrained by money I guess you can just go for their higher tiers and vary them according to usage.

I realise it does sound like a pretty bad science now as it's both complicated and does not sound fair at all (e.g. OS gets too little, no?), but well… This write-up actually helped me understand my own 'system' better, so thanks for asking! :)

If you want the chess24 live boards to check the games, here you go. I always find their (otherwise terrible) UI to be the best for that.

Also, very happy for Svidler!

Yes! For some reasons it is very hard to find, even through the search feature, but https://kbin.social/m/mma is where it's at. They even have active discussion threads for the big events like r/mma did.

Was sind denn die Theorien, wie heute gedopt wird? In der MMA-Community, wo ich mich etwas besser auskenne als im Radsport, geht es neben Microdosing vor allem um individuell entwickelte Designer-Dopingmittel. Oder stellt man im Allgemeinen auf natürliche Anlagen ab, auch wenn die individuellen Unterschiede plötzlich so groß sind und eine Handvoll Leute allen anderen davon fahren? Die verbesserten Trainingsmethoden und Ausrüstung müssten sich ja auf alle mehr oder minder gleich auswirken.