Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org
Retired Analytical Chemist
League of Women Voters -voting methods, election security
Board Member Colorado Citizens for Science
Joined Oct 2022
Gaythia Weis
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@ypc_bunsen What policy of free speech are you talking about? Our ToC is here, it doesnt say anything about free speech.
We have very specific rules, and that includes this part of our ToC:
> ... hate-based speech such as sexist, racist, or homophobic speech will not be tolerated, be kind to each other.
>
> QOTO aims to provide a community where our users do not fear being punished for their personal opinions. We do not allow people to disseminate ideologies that are abusive or violent towards others. Demonstrating support for or defending ideologies known to be violent or hateful is a bannable offense. This includes, but is not limited to: racial supremacy, anti-LGBTQ or anti-cis-gender/anti-straight, pro-genocide, child abuse or child pornography, etc. While we recognize questions and conversation regarding these topics are essential for a STEM community, in general, doing so in bad faith will result in immediate expulsion.
Gaythia Weis
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The profits of ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and Shell have skyrocketed by 169% so far this year to $125 billion.
While you were paying through the nose at the gas pump, Big Oil companies were using the cover of inflation to line their pockets.
It's time for a windfall profits tax.
Gaythia Weis
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Future Americans will look back on this as the era when billionaires ruled U.S. elections. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/billionaires-provided-15-percent-funding-midterms
Gaythia Weis
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Would you send money to support a company engaged in years of world-wide bribery and corruption, that was just fined over a billion dollars for this?
I did! You probably do too - via your bank or pension.
My pension fund (#USS) has £161m in Glencore and supported them all this time.
The highly-paid execs running USS saw no red flags!
Glencore is a huge trading and mining company, including #fossilfuels. Most pension funds and many banks support them.
#climate
#climateemergency
#divest
Gaythia Weis
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“A whole way of life has disappeared for my people and culturally modified trees are part of demonstrating that we have been here for thousands of years, using different resources in our forests.”
- hiwus Calvin Craigan, Hereditary Chief, shíshálh Nation
Story from The Narwhal: https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-logging-culturally-modified-trees/
Gaythia Weis
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@georgetakei so glad to see you here. And I’ve been meaning to tell you that hearing you talk about your childhood helped embolden me to write about my father’s painful childhood in Jim Crow Mississippi.
Gaythia Weis
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Your reminder that Amazon warehouse workers suffer serious injuries at twice the rate of competitors.
This worker safety crisis is at its very worst during the holidays.
Don't let the Black Friday deals cloud your thinking.
Gaythia Weis
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You know, the thing that gets my attention concerning how safety concerns have become a sticking point as more and more people join the fedi is how white people are defiantly defending what is rather than envisioning what could be.
The refusal to see outside of what they see is best is one of the most defining characteristics of white people in the fedi and one of the main obstacles to progress, as we are clearly seeing the need for an improved fedi experience across the board.
This is a microcosm of what Martin Luther King Jr. said about how the white moderate is the greatest obstacle to progress because they continuously side with order over justice.
Any thinking person can see we need better adaptable experiences in the fedi and platforms that better serve the safety concerns of the people.
The way I see white people bitterly fighting to keep a status quo that no one agreed on is the main driver of conflict as the fediverse grows, underscoring yet again the challenge of this space is not technology.
It's culture. And whiteness, as Du Bois identified years ago, is committed to fighting to assert itself in yet another new space.
Gaythia Weis
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Americans should name mass shootings the way they do hurricanes but after Republicans who accept payments from the NRA.
@freemo @bonifartius @Vivernu Actually I think that the most secure sorts of facilities are secure small stalls arranged along a very open public hallway. No danger of going inside only later to find someone lurking there. Also in public venues this solves the problem of women having to spend much more time in waiting lines than men. Or having to have a separate unisex or family facility for those needing someone to accompany them. Gender is no longer an issue.
Many decades ago, I worked in an industrial facility where my chemistry lab was located in the tanks and piping lower level of the facility. They failed to anticipate that a woman would ever be there. The company simply secured the toilets and showers of the formally male facility. I had no issues sharing this with other workers. It even became known to upstairs workers as a comfortably gender neutral place. It did occasionally blow the minds of a few unsuspecting outside contractors though.
@druid Similar actions are taking place in the US. In my home state of Colorado, names are being changed because they were racist and/or sexist slurs and because they fail to recognize that the lands were populated long before white American settlers arrived. https://coloradosun.com/2022/04/11/colorado-geographic-naming-board-scrubs-slur-squaw/.
Changes to Mt. Evens, named after an early governor before Colorado became a state who was discredited by his role in the Sand Creek massacre, has met with resistance by his decedents and admires of many of the actions he took in leading Colorado to statehood. I think that the cause of renaming is helped by the new choice being the very simple minded "Blue Sky". https://www.denverpost.com/2022/11/18/mount-evans-mount-blue-sky-name-change/
The southern half of Colorado was once part of Mexico, and use of Spanish is common. This has led to some cross cultural twists, like relabeling mountains named "negro" because many don't see it as simply the color black. Some of the relabeled "squaw" features are meeting with resistance and part of that seems to be laziness around learning to pronounce and remember the new names. Welsh probably faces that same issue with English speakers.
Gaythia Weis
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I just dipped into Twitter to read the fantastic news that the Snowdonia National Park Authority has voted to use the original Welsh names Yr Wyddfa #YrWyddfa and #Eryri rather than the imposed English #Snowdon and #Snowdonia. It's a massive win for reclaiming our #Welsh cultural heritage. I honestly can't believe the amount of hatred, abuse and racism in the Twitter comments from English people. I've no idea why they are so angry that another country wants to use its own language. #Cymraeg 🏴
Gaythia Weis
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The guy who promised Twitter will be the most reliable source of information and not tolerate false information…is currently leading the way on tweeting unreliable and false information.
@derickflorian I think controversies about "CRT" really have to do with how uncomfortable some people are with actual history. Not always the way we'd like to think of some of our ancestors. And much of it has ties to actions in modern times, about which we should be taking action.
@richardmiller Ooo nice! I do sourdough too. Today's loaf is whole wheat, baked in a bread pan.
Gaythia Weis
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There is no Thanksgiving without farm workers. Thank you & Solidarity! 
Gaythia Weis
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QOTTO has been ttaken off the malware list we were mistakenly added to... yay!
https://safeweb.norton.com/report/show?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.qoto.org
Gaythia Weis
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Really awoken to the possibility of teaching/learning more about the actual history Thanksgiving based on posts I saw today. I will try using this guide with my son tomorrow.
Which I found through this article:
https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-thanksgiving-thoughtfully
I know at least some of the massacres, land theft and genocide that we as Americans have committed against Native Americans but oddly I never really saw how badly I was taught/learned about Thanksgiving as a child. Hopefully I will build a stronger foundation for my children in understanding and reconciling with the past.
Gaythia Weis
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It's ripe for abuse. The intention is good, but there's no way to shield it from abuse and money.
Check the thread, some even suggested:
1. a scoring system for accounts (a.k.a. China's National Social Credit system) (federated or local)
2. labels (federated or local)
3. If a server doesn't block a user, the server should defederate, or the other admins will block the entire server
4. Algorithms
Etc.
Someone should set up a third-party tool that mastodon/fediverse users can report abuse to. It should be staffed by people who are skilled at evalu...
Retired Analytical Chemist
League of Women Voters -voting methods, election security
Board Member Colorado Citizens for Science
Joined Oct 2022
