@moderation I'm sorry if this is not the proper channel, I'm a bit of a newbie on the fediverse! I wanted to join pixelfed, and use my account with kolectiva to have it all under this safe and awesome instance, but pixelfed says "This server is blocked by admins and cannot be used, please try another server!"

Do you know about this? Is there something that we can do about it?

Alternatively, and assuming I can't use this instance there, is there any you recommend? And will I be the same "me", if I use another instance? (I'm not sure I'm explaining this correctly, sorry).

Thank you!

This is a long read but an essential one if you want to understand what's happening to democracy in the US (and its ramifications everywhere) :

"The danger lies not just in what these operatives are doing, but in how their actions systemically dismantle their capacity for democratic resistance. What we are seeing is an exact implementation of Curtis Yarvin’s “RAGE” doctrine—Retire All Government Employees—that he first proposed in 2012. But what makes this moment particularly significant is how it combines multiple strands of neoreactionary thought into coordinated action. When Yarvin wrote about replacing democratic institutions with corporate governance structures, when he argues that technical competence should override democratic process, he is describing precisely what we’re now watching unfold.

Consider how this maps to Yarvin’s blueprint: First, remove career officials who might resist on legal or constitutional grounds. Then, install private technical infrastructure that makes oversight impossible.

The goal isn’t just to change who runs government agencies—it’s to fundamentally transform how power operates, shifting it from democratic institutions to technical systems controlled by a small elite.

But what makes this implementation particularly dangerous is how it combines Yarvin’s institutional critique with Balaji Srinivasan’s technological vision. Where Yarvin provided the theoretical framework for dismantling the democratic institutions, Srinivasan’s “network state” concept provided practical tools and training. Many of these young operatives came through programs explicitly designed to build parallel governance structures outside of democratic control, operated by Srinivasan.

What we’re witnessing isn’t just a power grab—it’s the culmination of an ideology that has been incubated, tested, and refined for over a decade.

First, these thinkers argued that democracy was inefficient. Then, they created technological tools—cryptocurrency, blockchain governance, and AI-driven decision-making—to bypass democratic institutions entirely. Now, they’re no longer experimenting. They are seizing control of government infrastructure itself, reprogramming it in real-time to function according to their vision."

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-plot-against-america?utm_campaign=post

I wrote a small text (in English) about a recent scandal in Portuguese academia related to alleged cases of sexual abuse by a well-know scholar. You may find it interesting, I don't know.

https://pedrohomero.com/2023/04/14/A-question-of-power.html

A ride as absurd as life itself; I was never more than 3 km away from home, but rode 83 km ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I wanted to ride on all possible roads, streets and passage ways in Barreiro. Turns out that would be A LOT but still, I think I was able to cover a good chunk of the city.

https://strava.app.link/C8SKX0altxb

"The consequences are that these companies will continue to invest in things that grow the overall revenue of the company over all else. They will mass-hire and mass-fire, because there are no consequences when the markets don’t really care as long as the company itself stays valuable. Venture capitalists certainly don’t mind - after all, it’s “less burn” to “get you through” tough climates that were arguably created by the poor hiring decisions of a company that was never incentivized to hire sustainably or operate profitably.

Until we see a seismic shift in how major investors treat the companies they invest in, this cycle will continue. I guarantee that we will see each and every one of the companies doing mass layoffs do mass-hirings in the next few years, and then do another mass layoff not long after, because they are simply treating human capital as assets to be manipulated to increase the value of a stock. They are not structured to evaluate whether the business is “sustainable,” because their only interest is seeing their current profits grow by multiples that please Wall Street.

“Good companies” should not have to repeatedly lay people off. They should not be mass-hiring for fear that the demand they are capturing is temporary, and those new employees will soon find themselves at the receiving end of a pink slip.

The lens through which we evaluate businesses is cracked, and until we fix it, we will continue to experience these punishing cycles of binging and purging on human capital."
https://ez.substack.com/p/the-rot-economy?utm_source=substack&publication_id=8982&post_id=101697392