The grapes of wrath aren’t usually so literal.

Dismissive dickwad behavior is good, actually - if you’re dismissing Nazis. Or anyone else who deserves a blunt rejection. It is fine and valid to deny people civility, when their rhetoric is inherently abusive. Respect and patience have limits.

Swearing at people absofuckinglutely has its place in online discourse. If not for the assholes themselves - then for the people they’re trying to fool.

Anyway.

Discworld has a few parallel threads. Release order starts with The Colour Of Magic, which is fun and short, but not exactly top-notch material. See explanatory flowchart. Those first few novels have a real Season One vibe.

The traditional introduction seems to be whichever book catches your eye. Or whichever you happened to find first, if you’d heard good things about the series. That’s how I wound up reading Ringworld by Larry Niven, because cultivating your interests in the 90s was a much fuzzier experience.

Apropos of little - how long ago did Sean Hannity say he’d get waterboarded?

Good old ethical Microsoft.

Honestly I miss reddit circa 2015. Obviously before The Idiot and half the world lurching toward fascism - but also back when “fuck off, Nazi” was treated better than being a goddamn Nazi.

The proliferation of “civility” is poisonous to online discourse. It is always the wrong metric. Trolls love being polite monsters. r/Politics even went a step further and demanded all opinions be taken in good faith. Do those idiots know what trolling is? Do they not understand bad faith… as a concept? It only works because people mistake it for good faith. Demanding everyone do that is a gift to trolls.

Moderation requires common-sense identification of who’s being an asshole. It’s never about no-no words. If a script could handle the job, we would let it.

Lemmy has far too many communities with rules going ‘never be rude to anyone ever!!!’ and then zero enforcement when someone calls you a cunt for gently correcting their grammar. That is the worst of both worlds. Anyone sincerely trying is going to hold back from just dealing with assholes appropriately, like an adult, but those people are then left with no recourse against pointlessly toxic shitheads. I don’t want a screaming match. I want words to matter.

Also if you enjoy Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett has a similar deep snark. Discworld’s a whole mess of books but you can kinda jump in anywhere. I recommend Guards! Guards! or Going Postal. He did Good Omens with baby Neal Gaiman, and they’d write chapters separately, then throw out every joke they’d bought thought of.

It is a right bitch that the reason to leave is 100% the bastards in charge. The community was fine. (Okay, giant asterisks all over that, but you know what I mean. The community was not the cause for masses walking away with a sea of middle fingers lit by burning bridges.)

I’m not here because it’s better. I’m here because fuck Spez. And fuck enshittification. Fifteen years and these greedy incompetents made it impossible to come back without feeling like betrayal. The only reason I’m not deleting anything is that I don’t do that shit. Nothing any human being put effort into deserves to be lost forever.

Elmo did us the favor of turning his stolen harassment engine into an all-stick-no-carrot experience in a fucking hurry.

In fact it shows up from u/@ on c/@.

This reply has been pinned at the top of my inbox for a month.

Does he have a watch up his ass?

Yeah it’s only a creeping error that’s making English harder and search engines worse. Fuck me sideways for politely highlighting the difference in a thread about language.

“Why are words” is a question.

“Why words are” is an explanation.

Yeah this thread is 70% sad-sack life stories, 10% Sports Almanac financial advice, and 20% popping around the corner with a rainbow flag yelling SURPRISE!

You ain’t straight.

You’re going to wonder why it’s so quiet when everyone’s blocked you, and you’re never going to figure out it’s you.

Even as you admit - you’re not giving anyone what they’re giving you, you’re making it ten times worse.

If this sub has mods this will be the last help you ever receive here. We will never speak again.

I’m not surprised. You did your worst immediately and learned approximately nothing. You escalated to a tantrum over getting what you asked for, alongside - again - gentle offhand criticism.

And you’re still doing edgelord bullshit like you really flexed on someone by calling them the n-word.

Nevermind the irony of your complete inability to wonder - were you called “prickly” on account of your own actions? Does your back-of-a-Big-Dogs-t-shirt philosophy apply to you?

… do you maybe think “prickly” means someone called you a prick?

Yes. You immature font of toxicity. I linked to a page specifically about how a short script, from scratch, can convince Linux you have a joystick attached. Is it a trivial turn-key solution? No. Does that justify the screeching slurs you’ve spat? Not at all, you fucking gremlin.

edit: Saw your contrary follow-up, doesn’t change anything. Be better in the first place. And I don’t mean your grammar.

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You meet polite suggestions with the worst insults you know, after the bare minimum of searching about a niche issue.

You will not be missed here.

Child.