Oh don't be so childish.

Maybe you should read slower, since what they said was:

Let us look at the entire thing that was said, without removing context, shall we? What was said was:

What’s your country? Google up some atrocities made by someone of the same citizenship and suddenly we can tell the world “look this country sucks, and if terrorists attack it, we should blame it for any response, because they are terrorists themselves”.

I do not wish to insult your intelligence, but here we are. The rhetorical question above very clearly is: What is your country? Because anyone can google for atrocities on any country, and whatever your country is they will find it, because every country has skeletons in the closet, and then use this to accuse you of being a terrible person. Ok. Anyone with an ounce of good faith understands that this is what is being said here, not: "I have to google historical facts about my own country". Which, by the way, would be fine. I don't know everything about the history of my country. it is a perfectly normal thing, unless you are childishly trying to throw feces in the face of someone you disagree with.

I would be willing to engage in a good faith discussion if one was occurring.

No you would not. You keep misinterpreting your interlocutor on purpose. You say obnoxious shit like: "ohhhh, I guess investigating atrocities makes everything ok then". As if anyone suggested this. You already decided who the good guys and bad guys are, and you will only care about the facts that confirm your cozy beliefs and your mind is absolutely closed to any debate on this topic and you know it.

You happen to be in an echo chamber where most people agree with your a priori position, that is all.

imagine being so ignorant that you need to Google your own country’s history, lol)

I know it is hard when you are seething, but maybe try reading slower. The person you are replying to is not even suggesting googling the history of one's own country, but that of the person you are attacking. This is an attempt to make a point, but you are so full of self-righteousness that you can't bring yourself to engage in a good faith discussion.

It is true that some drugs are very dangerous and can ruin people's lives. One of the most dangerous ones is alcohol, which is legal. One of the least dangerous ones is cannabis, which is still illegal in most places and at a federal level in the USA.

So maybe (just maybe) this is not about protecting people at all and never was?

Are all merchants who sell alcohol bastards?

"Virtue-signaling" is just another though-terminating cliché of the current culture wars. It implies that the action has no cost to the person and provides some social credit. These people are risking their lives, violence, prison time, etc. Everyone hates them. Nobody knows their names. They keep doing it. Your hypothesis doesn't hold. If we all decided that we don't give a shit about this civilization-ending event, might as well through some soup at a van Gogh painting. Why not? It won't matter anyway.

Even if these people were horrible "virtue-signaling" vandals, it is a microscopic problem in comparison to the real one: clime change. And yet the media focus on the former. Why? You do the math.

Voting matters, but unfortunately it appears to be an incredibly sub-optimal solution for dealing with climate change for the following reasons:

• Just because you can vote, doesn't mean that the option you need is even on the menu. It often isn't.
• Through hard work you can get the option on the menu, but that doesn't mean your politician won't do "deals" after they are in power.
• Lobbyists get access to politicians 24/7 and have a lot of influence, you have one vote every 4 years;
• Even if politicians do what you want, it is unlikely that your country by itself will make a difference, this is a global problem.

Meanwhile we are all fucked. It is likely too late already for preventing severe climate change. Our only hope now is geoengineering. The USA and EU are already considering blocking the sun.

The people who (rightly) have a sense of urgency about this are taking more radical action. They are blocking roads and throwing soup at famous paintings. These are desperate acts that seem rational in the face of the horror that we should strive to avoid, but the majority opinion of our species seems to be that these people are "too radical" and that common folks just trying to get by should not be inconvenienced, and that these radical eco-terrorists should be thrown in a cage.

To be honest, I'm not sure that our species deserves to survive.

Lemmy is a completely different thing. It is a grassroots movement of geeks motivated by an ideal. It has some chance of having enough people "fueling the fire" while it grows slowly and, also importantly, it does not need to grow like crazy to survive. This contrasts with threads, which is an attempt by a big tech company to capture mainstream audience. The mainstream has the attention span of 5 seconds, forms an opinion and never goes back. Either it is immediately fun or it is a flop. Threads had the best possible shot, riding on the enormous unpopularity of Musk and being able to piggy back on the huge user base of Instagram. They took the shot, it didn't work. The only way they can get a second shot is if another extraordinary event happens. I will admit that given the current tech leadership (and specifically Musk) this is not impossible, but otherwise I'm pretty confident in declaring Threads' stillbirth.

Social networks that end up being successful have a long initial growth phase. Interest waning after a couple of days is a terrible sign. Threads is already dead.

You are correct, and it is indeed good to make this clear. I meant to argue that it is a bit of an exaggeration to say the the EU has nothing to do with universal healthcare. Arguably, I have more rights to health care as a EU citizen visiting another member state than a US citizen who can't afford health insurance. Furthermore, it is unlikely that a state without socialized healthcare such as the US would be able to join the EU without reforming its public health policies.

I'm an EU citizen and I strongly approve of GDPR. Out of curiosity: are you an EU citizen?

I do have a card in my wallet issued by the EU that gives me the right to receive healthcare in any EU member state I visit, and I struggle to think of a EU member state that does not have universal healthcare in one form or another.

Same. European here, I have lived in several different EU countries and everyone I know uses either WhatsApp or Signal.