Well compare the proportion of natives living in Canada/United States versus the proportion of natives living in India or Nigeria or South Africa and I think you'll agree I'm mostly right when I say that the British succeeded in displacing the indigenous population of North America.

They tried doing that to the native people living in North America too. The only difference is that they largely succeeded.

I heard somewhere that in Italy, this hand gesture has a meaning akin to "What the fuck do you want?".

Maybe someone from Italy can confirm whether this is true

The Americans built their empire by forcibly taking over the lands of other peoples, extinguishing their cultures and languages, and forcing them to adopt the cultural traditions of the empire in the name of patriotism!

Meanwhile, China and Russia got that big by... uh...

Hmm.

If you really like socialism this is the place to be

Lost, yes. Ready to risk everything trying to overthrow the Government, not so much. There's a reason we remember 6th January 2021 and not 6th January 2017.

I don't know what country you're referring to but you're probably correct.

Sure, it's interesting, but maybe people like to talk about something else? Not every conversation about someone needs to be about the top most notorious thing about them.

That being said...

Well, the first two (replacing first-past-the-post and eliminating the Electoral College) can be done on a state-by-state basis. There were ballot initiatives in a few states on the ballot in 2024 regarding instant-runoff voting. All of them failed, including one in Alaska that would have repealed instant-runoff voting and replaced it with first-past-the-post.

The Electoral College can be defeated using the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Napoleon wasn't "appointed" as dictator by any legitimate government or by the people. He overthrew the Directory and the Constitution of Year III and made himself the dictator.

I don't think so.

For one, the revolutionary sentiment isn't nearly as widespread as it was in 18th century France. Yes, it's true that many people are discontent with the current economic and political situation but the difference is that 250 years ago, the only outlet for discontent available to common people was to revolt, whereas in the United States and other Western democracies, a second option exists: the democratic political institutions. What this really means is that the right of suffrage and of elections has really sucked a lot of the will to revolt from the populace; it's easier to get what you want by participating in the democratic process than by revolting, or at least that's what a lot of people think.

In order for a revolution to start, you need to hit a critical mass of angry people motivated enough to risk everything to overthrow the system. The presence of democratic institutions like elections and referendums changes the maths and it makes it harder to convince people that they need to revolt in order to get what they want. In turn, it tends to mean that well-established democracies really aren't prone to violent revolutions from the bottom of the sort that topple totalitarian governments. Rather, the primary threat to democratic states actually comes from the top—that the people in charge will try to exceed their mandate of power and take over the government.

Are you talking about the Paris Commune?

I don't know much about it but I know they put back the French republican calendar while they had control over the city, which I think was pretty cool.

Businesses are bound to Microsoft Office products which only reliably work on Windows and Mac. Windows is the cheaper of the two, by far, and there are way more IT professionals that are able to work comfortably managing Windows systems than Mac ones.

I want to point out that this is already the standard for conviction. The finder of fact must find the accused to be guilty beyond all reasonable doubt before convicting them. So from a legal perspective, everyone convicted of a crime already has been proven guilty to the highest possible standard. If there is any shred of doubt at all about the guilt of the accused, they're supposed to be acquitted. It's only possible in retrospect when new evidence emerges that exonerates the accused that it can be determined that the original guilty verdict was incorrect. You can't really "force" this evidence to emerge with any amount of policy changes. It just happens over time.

For example, witnesses lie. Maybe five years after the fact they feel bad about lying and retract their testimony. Maybe some of the investigators assigned to the case just made up some evidence to get the accused convicted in court because they just thought there was no way he could be innocent and they just needed to cook up the evidence to get them declared guilty, and they can only admit that when the statute of limitation passes. Or maybe, three years later, a convenience store manager deleting old footage happens upon a CCTV tape giving the accused an alibi. Or maybe still, the accused was actually framed and their framers only got caught ten years later doing some other crime, and it turned out that they forged the accused's signatures on those documents and used their computer to send those e-mails without their knowledge. I could go on.

So if your proposed standard is applied, it would not actually exclude anyone from execution because everyone who's been convicted has already been proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

The state ending someone's life for breaking its laws and then having people here who would normally condemn the use of capital punishment compare it to a revolution and call it justified just because the state in question claims to be socialist is just so uniquely Lemmy.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Epic's main selling point was it's lower storefront fee (15% vs 30%, if I recall). It didn't offer any other benefits for consumers and I think Epic realised rather quickly that the people who are actually supposed to be paying money for all of this are the buyers and not the sellers, and thus they've resorted to strategies like making games "exclusive" or trying to bribe players with free games.

Microsoft has realised they have a captive market and are milking it for every dollar (euro, pound, yen, rupee...) they can get.

He was not executed by the US federal government. He was executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

You would certainly lose a lot of money masturbating in a bus. You'll be kicked off the bus, arrested for indecent exposure, and have to pay a fine and court costs plus community service.

What do you mean by "keep fighting"? How are you fighting?

I'll tell you what I've been doing these past months. I signed the petition to bring forth a ballot measure to institute instant-runoff voting in Oregon. When it was placed on the ballot, I was actively talking to everyone I knew to convince them to vote yes (the ballot measure did not pass). I donated $50 to the campaign of Janelle Bynum, who unseated Republican Lorie Chavez-Deremer in the extremely competitive Oregon 5 constituency where I live. I helped my grandparents read through the voter's guide and mail in their ballots.

This isn't intended to be a competition, I just want to know what your idea of "fighting" is.