Posts by brightpuma

Laura Rivera3 said:If you're just looking for hard facts and useful data—if that's really all you care about—then why even bother with a subforum? You can just find a bunch of links collected in one spot or just use Google.

Great idea.

Why don't you tell that to the people running the Legal subforum? 🤷 Tell them everything they post could just be found on Google instead. 🙄

I don't know, sometimes these kinds of threads just feel totally confusing to me.

The thing is, people clearly don't get that—on one hand (the side dealing specifically with the diaspora)—we're talking about folks who came from all sorts of different backgrounds and live in all sorts of different places. Often, they carry these condescending attitudes toward their new homes, and toward Americans too. And honestly, that’s exactly why people end up clashing in these threads so often.
Just recently, you had people jumping from the Australian thread over to the Canadian one and vice versa, leading to massive trolling and insults. What is a moderator even supposed to do then? 🤷 I mean, the damage is already done.
So you end up with the moderator stuck in the middle, which isn't easy. Prevention is always better than trying to fix things after the fact.
Would you guys really prefer it if people were constantly picking fights across different threads just to make the atmosphere feel more "homey"? 🤷

On the flip side, the section tied to emigration should function more like a service and less like a chat room. That's because people go there for information that actually matters to them; we're talking serious stuff. Naturally, there's much less leeway for nonsense there. You only have to look at how much chatting goes on in the Legal forum, which is the subforum closest to what Emigration should probably be (a source of accurate, useful info). Not to mention the mountain of threads opened with stupid questions or people jumping into topics asking, "What do you think, what are the chances someone gets a job at XXX here or there..."

The Diaspora moderators already have a tough enough job managing two subforums with completely different moderation policies, all without being dragged for stupidity or because someone gave them a dirty look on a thread. I mean, a yellow card? Come on... 🙄

rustydrifter10 said:They pretty much overlap. We've already covered this here:

Discussion on the forum

The thread about multi-quoting

A discussion in some other thread where multi-quoting came up

Yeah, true, but even there it wasn't fully resolved... Lately, over on the Defense of Marriage Act thread, I’ve noticed people just firing off five or six posts in a row, replying to every single individual comment one by one... It doesn't make sense, and nobody calls them out on it... 🤷 Not to mention, it looks messy and cluttered... 🤷

Why is learning how to use multi-quote so hard? 🙄

What are the actual rules regarding spamming replies instead of just using the multi-quote tool? Does that actually get you penalized or not? 🤷

Alex Watson said:Look, you clearly don't have a clue about Nazism... 🤔

Maybe. But maybe you just aren't reading with any actual comprehension. Try reading what I wrote a few more times. Maybe then it'll click? 👍

Alex Watson said:..and that premise is built on racial theory.
Which is totally unacceptable to any civilized, educated person...

Why would it be based on racial theory? 🤷
Does the average person think they're better than someone with Downian syndrome? They do. Do people at the top think they're better than those at the bottom? Quite often, they do...

It has nothing to do with race..

Brian Edwards78 said: You two are busy debating the philosophical foundations of a regime instead of pointing out how the administration acts purely on whim—ignoring rules and facts just to act out their own malice, narrow-mindedness, and ignorance.

Dammit. 👍

Look, a question was asked, but a real answer was missing. Basically, the answer was that individuals would be judged separately. As for what happens next? I don't know.
The fact is, avatars from any oppressive, criminal regime shouldn't be allowed—whether it's the Nazi Party or Communism. And the way Communism isn't condemned nearly as much as Nazism? That's a problem too.
So, regarding individuals, I still haven't gotten an answer about Rommel. 🤷

Alex Watson said:Maybe just in your head
or the heads of a specific group of people living here.
Most people I actually know and hang out with believe in equality—regardless of race, religion, nationality, background, or whatever else you want to throw at it...

You missed the point.

Communism assumes certain things about human beings as a species that just aren't reachable (at least for now). It assumes all labor holds equal value, ignoring how complex a task is or how much work was actually put in. The core premise of communism—or socialism, really—is flawed because it implies everyone should be equally wealthy, or equally poor. But isn't it just human nature to try and acquire as much as possible? It's like how a squirrel instinctively stores food for the winter because it doesn't know what's coming next.

On the flip side, Nazism starts with the idea that some people are inherently better than others, which taps into basic human psychology. Almost everyone thinks they're better than at least one other group of people. Of course, Nazism just takes that instinct to a violent extreme.

Anyway, we're way off topic now...

Jack Ward82 said:I don't see it that way. It probably started out criminal, sure, but it became more liberal and lenient over time.
How can you even compare two ideologies when one claims everyone is equal—even if they don't act like it—and the other is all about that Aryan Ubermensch concept? 🙂

Honestly, I don't know... In the grand scheme, does it even matter for this debate? Besides, we're drifting off-topic here. All I'll say is that Nazism feels more baked into human nature than communism is, so it's all pretty relative... 😉

Kate Harris50 said:So you're asking if we could just view the Nazi Party as some ordinary political movement and only condemn their specific crimes? In theory, sure. But if you strip away all those atrocities, what’s actually left? Probably nothing. The whole thing is built on ideas that are completely unacceptable in modern society. Compare that to communism—it has some great core principles, even if the way they were actually put into practice was sometimes criminal. That's the difference.

Great principles? Communism never had "great principles." It had an ideology that was impossible to implement in the real world. That's exactly why it ended up becoming a criminal movement in the first place.

mellowlynx68 said:No, because Nazism was inherently criminal from the very beginning. You only need to look at those racist laws to see it.

Technically speaking, given how communism views religion and believers, there isn't much of a difference here... 🤷

And Nazism is based on Nietzschean works (specifically the idea of the Ubermensch, since Nietzsche had nothing to do with antisemitism) just as much as communism is based on the works of Marx and Engels.

Kate Harris50 said:Look, just get it through your head once: it wasn't communism itself being judged, but rather the CRIMES committed under it.

Couldn't you make that exact same argument for Nazism? 🤷

Following up on that debate with brightpuma over at the German Reichsbahn that caught my eye, I’ve got a question for the mods:

What's the official word on Rommel?

The guy was an officer in the German military, but according to every source out there, he wasn't a Nazi.
Not to mention he was considered one of the finest tacticians of his era—so much so that even his allies respected him, maybe even feared him. 🤷

It shouldn't be any big deal if someone admires him enough to want his picture as an avatar or a quote in their signature... 🤷

Michelle Phillips54 said:If you actually read the whole thing, you'll see Know Thyself didn't call the user an idiotically retarded idiot. They were just saying their communication was at that level.
The post where the insult happened was deleted anyway.

Was there really no other way to handle it? 🤷

I mean, surely Know Thyself knows how to do better than that... 🤷

Brian Edwards6 said:For everyone else—maybe take a second to actually read the rest of the thread? Especially everything leading up to that last post.🤔

I don't know about everyone else, but I've read a few pages since that post went up, and Google has been acting incredibly condescending toward the group. That’s just the vibe they bring to the conversation. Look, this specific post is ugly and totally out of context, but the reality remains: they really did say all that stuff, and somehow they still managed to get along with that one idiot... 🤷

Man, if he picks up one more yellow card, he might actually end up getting banned...

Same goes for the trolling; there should be a dedicated spot for that, like a chat or trash sub. This isn't really what Amtrak is about. But hey, since some people are more equal than others, oh well... 🤷

btw, darkić, I see the debate over names in the trash section actually caused a move... 😬

Maybe the moderators could take a breather until the admins actually weigh in, instead of swarming everyone like piranhas. ☕

hollowtrucker77 said:if the boss wasn't such a cheapskate
i'd be handing everyone $60 an hour right now

Bare minimum... ☕

Drew Carter10 said:There are endless examples of this happening, and more every day. Some of you even got direct messages about it. It would be fair if you actually responded, even if you don't agree with me.

I know filing a report doesn't mean an automatic penalty. I honestly didn't think there'd even be a warning, let alone anything major—especially since we're talking about VIP users who keep doing the exact same thing.

Is it really necessary to bully people and mistreat users just to earn such "privileged" status? 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

Also, it wouldn't hurt to change how you respond to our feedback. After all, you're here for us, not the other way around. You get paid to do this job, which is something regular users remind you of pretty often.

Wait, is this news? 🤷

As far as I knew, the mods work pro bono... ☕

Rebecca Peterson54 said:🤔 Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It doesn't really matter. Is it just me, or are "diaspora" and "emigration" basically the exact same thing? Perhaps 🤷

They aren't. 😉

jadedrifter2 put it perfectly.