A contrarian isn’t one who always objects - that’s a confirmist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently, from the ground up, and resists pressure to conform.

  • Naval Ravikant
  • 3 Posts
  • 80 Comments
Joined 1 month ago
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Cake day: January 30th, 2025

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  • Lemmy doesn’t have a recommendation algorithm, yet our feeds are just as bad - if not worse. If your daily interest revolves around reading about U.S. politics, this might not be obvious to you, but for the rest of us, it’s painfully clear. And before you suggest “just avoid political communities” or “stick to your subscription feed,” let me assure you that doesn’t work. It’s not just political communities - it’s everywhere. I can’t even read articles about space without people injecting their opinions on the CEO of a certain rocket company. Even communities like microblogmemes are beyond salvation. If you limit yourself exclusively to communities where the “no politics” rule is actually enforced, you’ll exhaust new content within about two minutes each day.

    My point is that the algorithm itself isn’t the sole issue. Algorithms can actually be helpful, provided you invest even minimal effort into training them. YouTube doesn’t bombard me with politics because it knows I’m not interested. Lemmy’s user base, however, seems so addicted to outrage that outrage inevitably dominates everyone’s experience here. If we measure the quality of social media by counting the “regrettable minutes” we’ve spent there, Lemmy would rank at the absolute bottom. Even Twitter doesn’t irritate me as consistently as Lemmy does. I’ve gone to great lengths setting up content filters to block politics, but even when half my feed is blocked, the majority of what’s left is still U.S. politics.






  • Probably so, but that still doesn’t justify it in my view. There are better ways to handle this. For example, they could inform the customer that the issue needs to be addressed before they proceed, offer to mask the control panel themselves for an extra charge, or simply ask if the customer really wants them to paint over it - which they almost certainly don’t.

    Doing subpar work under a “not my job” mentality isn’t just unprofessional - it displays poor character.


  • As a contractor who takes pride in my work, seeing things like this baffles me - and honestly, it’s not that uncommon either. I just don’t get it. Even if they somehow manage to get the client to pay for this, there’s no way they’ll be hired again. Meanwhile, about half of my clients are repeat customers. No wonder it’s so easy to stand out when the bar is this low.