Driving someone to chicago and dropping them off isn’t trafficking, but there is most definitely a slew of child-labor happening in this country, and the majority of the children involved are migrants who illegally crossed the border. There’s a lot of coverage about this if you look for it. I imagine that Texas might be involved in some part of that process if they’re the ones handling these people.

Edit: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173697113/immigrant-child-labor-crisis

So far it does feel like a re-imagining of traditional internet forum of the early 00s, but Reddit inspired. I actually had no idea about the whole “Fediverse” thing until today, but so far it seems really promising that there isn’t any one central agency in control of the platform. Maybe that’s a misunderstanding though.

Am I correct in thinking that Fediverse operates somewhat like the internet? Is it just a collection of end-points sharing data through a single protocol and if one shuts down, the rest aren’t affected? Or is there a host that is technically in control of Lemmy as a whole?

Late to this thread, but wanted to add to it:

Going out, and going out regularly. Go to places you enjoy, partake in activities that interest you, be consistent about it, and you will meet people. It can be as little as going to the same mom and pop shop every week for a sandwich or coffee, or as big as going out to some kind of club weekly. I actually made a few friends by going to this coffee shop pretty regularly, even hooked up with someone who worked there. Nearby to that same shop was a little occult shop that I liked to frequent and made acquaintances there as well. At one time I was involving myself in a HEMA club and that was super fun and you engaged with a lot of cool people.

Now with that said, there’s another part to this. In addition to putting yourself out there to be met, so to say, you also need to know how to converse and listen to other people. Frankly it doesn’t matter if you surround yourself with people, because if you are annoying or incapable of holding a conversation, or always come off too strongly, you’ll inevitably be ignored.

your business sucks

This is the exact problem and hardly anyone is talking about it. These sorts of restaurants had real simple recipes and food back when they started. You didn’t need the same kind of supply chain then that you need now, and when you throw the franchise services fees and royalties, what you end up with is exactly this.

Contrasting this, there’s this hamburger wagon near where I live. It’s literally a wagon, serving slider style burgers and the dude refuses to give you anything but pickles, onion, salt, and pepper. He’s got a few drinks, some chip options, and that’s it. He has zero condiments or other toppings and serves nothing else. And you know what? He makes a fucking killing. Rain or shine, this wagon has a line of 10-15 people come lunch time and has plenty more come throughout the day. Only hires two people to work it.

I’m sure he’s raised them before, but he hasn’t raised his prices once since I’ve been going there. 1.50 for a single or 3.00 for a double. Even crazier is the fact that it’s been there for over 100 years. Never turned it into a storefront, never tried to make it a franchise, never added to the menu really. Just always did what it did best, and its still insanely popular.

Food for thought I guess.

That’s the nature of entropy in any system, especially one where anyone can freely engage with it. I think it should be recognized that anything good will inevitably change, and by being aware of it, we can take steps to slow down the inevitable descent into chaos.

If anything, I do think the fediverse itself is a good set-up for preventing the sort of issues that Reddit eventually faced. It’s almost like the internet itself. There’s no centralization, only various participating end-points sharing and receiving data.

I agree. The economy is shit right now and I would be amazed that anyone in their right mind would invest in a company whose already lost half their value in just a few years (at least, that’s what I’ve heard. They supposedly went from 10B to 5.5B or something like that). And like you said, interest rates are a factor as well.

The mods are jumping ship or just straight up abandoning the site, and the slew of NSFW content, real or not, is damaging its advertisement potential. It’s a lemon.

Just abandoned ship myself. Saw a post on there this morning that they were headed for IPO. Decided it was time to finally start looking elsewhere.