Aww, don’t start being coy, tell us what happens next. Explain how our problems are solved after following your advice. I’ve given you the best possible setup I could, assuming a level of success unquestionably beyond what you’re able to achieve.

Unless you’re willing to give us even a token explanation of the second half of your plan, it really does look like “Republicans win the election” is where your plan ends.

Okay sure, let’s have this discussion.

The first massive favor I’ll do is give you the benefit of the doubt and accept you’re saying this in good faith and not as a right-wing sock puppet.

The next massive favor I’ll do is accept your (ostensible) plan is wildly successful, far beyond what you could reasonably hope for. Everybody is so moved by your comment that you convince 80% of Democrat voters to vote independent and every single one votes for the same independent party. Hell, I’ll even throw in 10% of Republican voters.

The only thing we won’t give you is the ranked choice voting needed to stop your idea being dumb as fuck. We’ll stick to reality for that one.

So tell us how the next 4 years play out in your head. Polls close, votes are counted. Democrats 9.8%, Toothfairy Party 44.1%, Republicans 45.9%.

Then what?

Most people who aren’t conservative psychopaths actually like their families and want to help them when they can.

You inherently claimed to be a victim by claiming that people were attacking you. You’ve done an embarrassingly bad job of damage control today.

“Said” is past tense. Yesterday, when you were pretending to be an authority on historic rocks, you said it wouldn’t wash off. I didn’t see that thread and immediately understood what they meant.

They weren’t being even slightly dishonest, but it’s clear you are. Would you have admitted you were wrong if you weren’t called out by name? My gut feeling is “not a chance”.

Because it’s made by volunteers, in their free time, who either don’t have the time or skill or goal to make it competitive

Didn’t stop Blender. Didn’t stop Firefox. Didn’t stop Linux itself.

If someone is not able or willing to learn their way around something new, that’s literally their problem

I’ve already covered in this comment chain. Krita and Affinity Photo do things differently and nobody complains because they can see actual value in the change. Being “different” isn’t the source of GIMPs reputation, being shit is.

Why would it need to be similar? If you want Photoshop, well then use Photoshop.

I moved to Affinity Photo over a year ago, despite it being different. I don’t even keep a token pirated version of Photoshop around for compatibility anymore.

Sometimes doing something different might also end up being the better idea. Won’t know until you tried.

I tried multiple times and it simply isn’t. That’s been their most common feedback for 20 years but people like you still refuse to acknowledge that people might have a point.

And yes, good software is good code. That’s just a fact.

Yet somehow, no matter how good the code might be, ugly software with shit UX just never seems to gain widespread popularity. Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s not because “good software” is holistic, it’s because the entire world is wrong about GIMP except for you.

It is the next best completely free alternative.

And if that was how people actually presented it, I wouldn’t be objecting. Instead, people pretend it’s as good as Photoshop and anyone who disagrees is blamed for not programming it themselves and attacked for suggesting that commercial tools are far better.

How is that an argument? How do you get the idea that GIMP is basically required to be competitive, just because it’s old?

Looks like you’re more interested in defending Linux software than actually seeing my point.

So why isn’t it competitive? It’s not because it’s new and hasn’t had time to mature. It’s not because developers haven’t put time into it (despite the ridiculous “fix it yourself” bullshit that people keep pushing). It’s not because the problem it aimed to solve has been solved.

It’s because the people involved with GIMP have the usual Linux community resentment about what “good software” actually is. It’s fuck ugly, but they don’t think that should matter, so it doesn’t get addressed. It doesn’t follow patterns that similar software follows, because they’re used to it, so everyone else should be too.

It’s the same pervasive “good software is good code and nothing else” mentality the plagues the OSS community.

But who cares? Use your shit software. Defend it to your dying breath. It’s not going to fix systemic problems with the project nor fool anyone who actually tries it.

Nobody is acting shocked. Least the people who learned to use GIMP.

So the people who learn GIMP are fully aware why it gets zero industry use? Thanks, that was my point.

The problem is people like you who are outraged, when asking for a free Photoshop alternative, that the next best thing is not to their likening.

I’m not outraged in the slightest, nor am I asking for a free Photoshop alternative. But I’ve seen people claiming GIMP is a viable alternative to Photoshop for 20 years and for anything past the most basic use cases, it isn’t. You may as well be telling people to use Nano instead of Visual Studio and when they complain about the experience, tell them to code the features themselves.

GIMP has had literally decades of development and even with Photoshop in the worst state it’s ever been in, it isn’t competitive. There are clearly systemic issues with the project and I’m certain this “head in the sand” mentality is at least partly to blame.

No, but “fix it yourself” is apparently a completely acceptable response if someone criticizes GIMP.

Anyway, I don’t care how bad the tools you use are, but it’s time to stop acting shocked when industry professionals have no interest in GIMP and don’t take anyone who advocates it as a Photoshop alternative seriously.

To add to this, it’s not like other apps have just blindly copied Photoshop. Affinity Photo has shape tools that are far less convoluted than Photoshop but they still feel instantly familiar.

Even when they couldn’t stick to common patterns (such as the eyedropper tool) they still manage to communicate how the feature works just by designing intelligently, no Googling required.

But every time I’ve used gimp, common tasks feels like a collection of workarounds for missing features. Someone elsewhere in this thread asked how to place an ellipse and got told that wasn’t something commonly needed but to make a selection and fill it using the paint bucket tool (and a modifier key).

That solution is jankier than MS Paint, which at least offers you an actual tool and a short period where you can make non-destructive modifications to the stroke, fill, size and position.

But since you’ve technically got the circle you asked for, it’s treated as “people who don’t like GIMP are just haters” rather than “people don’t want to use bad tools for their job”

Have you thought about applying for a job at Adobe and fixing it?

GIMP is bad. If the problem was simply that it was “different to PS” then other apps like Krita and Affinity Photo would have the same reputation.

If a user goes looking for a tool or feature and it’s not in the first place they look, that’s a problem of “didn’t really practice that much”. If experienced people need to look up how to do basic operations and their reaction is “that’s fucking stupid”, then the software is bad.

To then say “well why don’t you help the Dev team then” is insane. I’m not spending hundreds of hours digging GIMP out of bad design decisions when I could just use better software and I haven’t seen any evidence that my PR would even be accepted.

Nobody needs excuses and apologism, they need Blender for image editing and GIMP just isn’t that.

Charismatic, intelligent people don’t need fascism nearly as much as dumbfucks do but even for the few who get sucked in anyway, there’s easier and more self-serving ways to express it than a grueling, always-on position in the Republican party.

But ultimately the answer to both “why don’t they run someone actually good” questions is “because it would be a threat to neoliberals and their record profits”.

Did anybody say admins aren’t entitled to block stuff

His “defederation bad (except pedos)” isn’t exactly wet with support for blocking instances for spam and extremism.

User just wanted a system to see everything and block what they didn’t want.

That system exists. It’s the “run your own server” that I explicitly mentioned. But let’s be honest, he doesn’t want that system (which again, he already has) for himself, he wants it for everyone else.

It’s the same bullshit that “free speech absolutists” push in every single thread about defederation – admins should be hands off and users should dig through through slurs, racism, homophobia looking for content worth engaging with.

It benefits exactly one group of people but apparently doesn’t set off your “bad-faith” radar.

If you want to see far-right content and spam, join a far-right server or run your own, rather than trying to shame server owners into doing what you want.

Admins are entitled to decide what they platform and what they don’t. On top of that, the user experience of “just block 100 servers of Nazis and incels to get to the content you want to see” is complete dogshit.

This “it should all be user level” is just apologist bullshit.

If you don’t have preferential voting, the only party worth voting for is the one pledging to introduce it. It would solve this bullshit overnight.

Instead, people are fighting over which neoliberal to elect; the slightly more progressive one or the significantly more fascist one. Both of them are going to put the profits of wealthy donors ahead of human lives and neither is a true solution to mounting problems.

Fuck, not only will this not stop the genocide (because Israel doesn’t actually need the weapons in the first place), you won’t even solve the bots and propaganda. Israel has an extremely sophisticated cyberware unit and they’ll just join the Russians trying to get Trump elected.

Didn’t read.

Same story for me. Whoever wrote it got a few details wrong but the idea of editing the page myself feels incredibly awkward.

Way to victim blame

“This woman scratched and bit me while I was raping her, so I’m the real victim”

I remember you now. You’re not worth my time and it doesn’t look like there’s anyone left in the thread who is. I didn’t read most of your comment but laughed when I saw you’ve lifted my insults to use as your own. Looks like you have made space for me in your head.

Safe storage penalizes victims for being stolen from

Good. If you didn’t take reasonable steps to secure your firearms, your negligence armed criminals. Guns are already an exception to “dangerous things must be properly secured” thanks to crybaby gun owners.

Oh and don’t waste your breath with a “B-B-B-But LockPickingLawyer opened this gun safe with his flaccid cock” because that’s not even close to an insurmountable problem.

a tax to stop those dirty poors from having guns

You’re using poor people as a human shield. You’ve never advocated giving people guns as a form of welfare and realistically a gun is one of the last things those “dirty poors” need.

You’re a simp for a multi-billion industry that funds the very worst Republicans and puts profits before lives. You don’t have a leg to stand on.

glove compartments are necessary

Sounds like we know where you leave your gun. It’s grossly negligent and absolutely your fault. Either leave your gun at home (where I’m guessing it’s just as poorly secured) or don’t go to places that don’t want you.

Well it is if they’ve been charged with something. Oh so “no criminal record,” shocker Illegal

Laws that are a complete failure, which the pro-gun community opposes all changes to, including better enforcement.

Illegal if you’re a prohibited possessor

Consequences for other people. The “responsible gun owner” making the private sale gets away with selling a gun to a dangerous person. If we only charged underage people for buying alcohol (and not the person who supplied them), there would be zero expectation of those laws working.

And even with all that, publishing a list is still stupid

Yet again, not actually a thing I advocated, just something I mocked your reaction to. Let’s hope for your families sake you’re not so easily confused when you hear a bump in the night.

I put nobody in danger

Another worthless promise from a gun owner. Whatever minimal vetting you’ve been through is demonstrably not enough to ensure gun owners aren’t a danger. You cleared the same low bar as the people shooting at children who rang their doorbell or used their driveway to turn around.

If we reduce you to a statistic, it’s even more bullshitty. Every person in your household is at a greater risk of domestic homicide and suicide.

it’s your stupid ideas on guns

Are you still throwing a tantrum about an idea I didn’t suggest or supoort, or are you just assuming all of my opinions based on what the gun lobby have told you I believe?

Your laws have failed America. It’s 20 years past when “responsible gun owners” should have actually taken some responsibility.