I disagree with this. Definitely there are many examples of organised religion being perfect case studies of the adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But there are also many ways that religious communities support each other and their wider communities, outside just providing a doctrinal “granule of truth”.

Sikhism I think is most famous for this, and I feel like at least where I live whenever something bad happens in the background on the news I see Sikh communities mobilising to render assistance.

Similarly, the denomination I was brought up in (church of christ) has always been oriented, both in theory and practice, around doing community work first and debating doctrine a fairly distant second (also, each church of christ congregation is an independent entity, which I think has probably contributed to it being able to maintain its strong community-first focus over time).

Re: the specific argument about a coverup being impossible, there have been plenty of people over the years with claims like this. The idea that this guy is talking about what “a friend of a friend” said is also a very ungenerous and inaccurate claim, given the Grush’s established credentials.

Otherwise, I agree it’s hard to believe, but I don’t think this guy has actually “debunked” it as he claims in his hashtag. The options are that he’s lying or crazy, and he doesn’t seem crazy, and if he’s lying he’s going to jail. The most plausible explanation for it not being true is that it’s part of some complex psy-op, but that also is a fairly outlandish theory (albeit not as difficult to accept on its face).

To be fair I don’t think it’s that he’s not ending of a “legitimate businessman”, I think that’s the way that all large corporations are and if anything he’s learned too well how to think like CEO.

But yeah otherwise I agree with you.

Oh wow, this is so cool! Thank you for posting.

I really like that raising the rates for columns and reviews are part of their stretch goals. Thanks for posting. :)

Oh wow this is so cool! Thank you for sharing!

I mean, you can create two accounts. I have my Beehaw account as well as my startrek.website account, for example. I use them both for different things, and they both have different vibes. I quite like it tbh.

I agree, at first my knee-jerk reaction was against defederation, but I think actually this is one of the cool things about Lemmy and the way it works; you can have relatively isolated pockets and very open spaces, and users can move between them freely. It’s not like leaving Reddit and coming to Lemmy, for example. You can use Beehaw and other instances, and both can serve a specific purpose. I really appreciate this write up because without it I would not have felt good about this decision, but after having read it I get it and I appreciate it.

I agree with the general consensus in this thread that, though regrettable, I appreciate what you are trying to do with this. It is fairly straightforward to create an account on another instance to see other content if we want to, and I appreciate Beehaw being its own, special thing.

Ahhh, ty. It did seem even worse than expected for him to have been actively running that sub.

Wow I didn’t know he ran r/jailbait. Gross.

Hopefully it will help people realise that a profit motive being attached to everything is actually counterproductive societally.