i don't think thats a healthy way of looking at things, workers being treated unfairly/badly (even if they are privilege) isn't good because normalization of such treatment just makes it easier to do it to more vulnerable workers elsewhere
The majority of humanity is soul-crushingly poor and abused. That doesn't mean I should be able to punch you in the face without complaint or punishment.
This study seems to conclude that moderate drinking has minimal negative impact. Having a glass of wine with dinner or a cocktail on the weekend trends towards negative but mild long-term effects, but nothing disastrous.
Pretty much what you’d expect, hence my puzzlement.
If you look to figure 5 you will see that moderate drinking has very low impact on relative risk, and figure 4 shows some moderate benefit with respect to ischemic heart disease and diabetes. IF you buy into this kind of high level analysis, drinking 1-3 drinks a day may lower your risk for these diseases ~10-20%.
At the end of the day, the conclusions are much the same as people would intuit. moderate drinking has little impact, may help some conidiations and exacerbate others and will depend on the individual. for the average person, the effect will be slightly negative.
What I find most shocking is that you have to get to 5-6 drinks before relative risk hits 1.5X. 30-40 drinks/week is a lot for non-alcoholics.
> At the end of the day, the conclusions are much the same as people would intuit. moderate drinking has little impact, may help some conidiations and exacerbate others and will depend on the individual. for the average person, the effect will be slightly negative.
You are of course free to interpret facts as you wish. However, the study from 195 countries and over 26 years, literally, and I copy word for word from its conclusion, says :
"Our results show that the safest level of drinking is none."
And in the paragraph where that phrase is, anyone interested can find what they say about the supposed and non-existent benefits of moderate drinking.
As opposed to the other three, you can find a place to stay matching most if not all your requirements in literally a few hours in Tokyo -- which is not a "city" ( it's a prefecture, with a governor, and dozens of cities ), and that's a whole different conversation, but needed to understand the difference.
Housing in the West is a demented horror story at any rate.
I know how Mastodon works. I've had several accounts over the years, always ended up closing them. Mostly because : silence. I see there's a bump in engagement recently because of we all know what.
I was asking why people use a particular server, and why would they recommend it.
I have issues with two points you mention :
> If you want to discuss a specific topic...
I do not. I have many interests, and do not wish to have multiple separate accounts for each. It does not make sense. I engage with others about many unrelated and completely different topics, putting them in isolated silos is one if not the greatest of Mastodon's main problems, in my view.
> You might also want to sign up on a server that has a community that is in your region or speaks your language.
Again, I do not.
I speak several languages natively, and have roots in different countries, where I am at different times.
This attempt to put the user in a box from the start, a tight box, as defined as possible in all respects, is a real problem. I find it hostile, honestly.
Edit : Should I think of Mastodon as if it was IRC ? I never have, I don't think that's what it's supposed to be.
Edit 2 : Thank you for your answer though. I should have mentioned that I am not trying to figure out how to use Mastodon, but was looking for feedback from people using it.
If you want to have just one Mastodon account on a server that doesn't focus on any specific interest, language, or region, then any of the General category servers in https://joinmastodon.org/servers would be a good choice. Personally, I find the experience on highly populated general purpose servers like https://mastodon.social, https://mastodon.online, and https://mstdn.social to be very similar. These servers are pretty much interchangeable, so there isn't a lot to say about them.
When I suggested finding a server with a specific focus, my intention was to highlight what makes Mastodon unique from monolithic single-instance social networks like Twitter. I didn't mean to come across as restrictive or hostile. The reality is that many Mastodon users don't use Mastodon as their only (or even their primary) social network, and that's why I emphasize Mastodon's strengths when I answer questions from people who are interested about Mastodon. I couldn't tell from your HN submission that you were only looking for general purpose servers.
Also, remember that regardless of the server you choose, you can follow accounts from any other server. The only exception is when the target server is suspended by your home server or vice versa. Any Mastodon account can be used to communicate with other users on different servers about different interests even if the account is located on a server that has a specific focus.
I wouldn't directly compare Mastodon (ActivityPub) to IRC, since IRC networks are independent of one another, while Mastodon servers are federated.
I was not saying you were being hostile, on the contrary, your previous answer is friendly, informative, and perfect for someone who is trying to get started and knows nothing about Mastodon. It's what I try to explain to other people myself, and I have to say all I get is blank stares. No one needs to go to a specific Twitter for Javascript discussions, or a specific Twitter for weather bots for their city, or worry if this person or that person are on the same server and how that affects them, they just get a Twitter account, period, then use it for whatever it is they want to use it.
( I don't use Twitter myself. Personally I'd make an account as I have in the past at mstdn.jp -- I don't have one now, and this is also another reason behind my question, what are people doing and where in Mastodon these days, in case I should look at trying other servers. )
By hostile I meant the first friction point anybody coming to Mastodon faces : What are you looking for ? What are your interests, let's see what server fits you better, etc. That's why I compare that way to look at it to IRC; if I want to discuss film photography in English there's a specific channel for that. Or gardening in suburban Paris in French. Or whatever. Reddit comes to mind as well. That's what group chats or public forums are. Should I be thinking Mastodon is that kind of service / tool ?
Because I see Mastodon, and maybe I am wrong, as a content publishing and communication platform, not as a topic-driven group chat / forum. Or pushing it, I would even liken it to e-mail. One shouldn't have to decide if mails will be sent to an Irish programmer for work, or they will be for discussing in Japanese with grandma, when creating an e-mail account, or what servers the mails come from.
Yes, you can use a Mastodon account as you wish, provided it does not break the rules of the server, or what you want to see is not blocked, or roll your own if you can be bothered to set up and maintain your own server, or, or, etc.
And right from the start people are faced with these questions, and server rules, and whatnot, about Mastodon, when getting started should be frictionless, they shouldn't even have to worry about whether this server or that server does this or that -- "but you can transfer your data, it's yours", eh, that's not helping.
This is what I was talking about when saying I find it hostile.
Edit : Do you mean uBlacklist ? I use uBlock Origin and was looking for some sort of "list" option in there I may have missed. But, if something like uBlacklist is needed to use that search engine, why not use a different, better search engine ?
