There are also users on .ml that aren’t tankies. There are even tankies on other instances(!)

That’s the kind of content instance admins are and need to be concerned with on the topic of defederating instances. However most of the time it’s over whether some user in a shitposting thread was unfairly moderated.

Instances are servers that host communities.

Instances are servers that host user accounts.

Federated instances allow users from one instance to view and post in communities on other (federated) instances. If the instances are defederated there is no connection whatsoever being made between the users and communities.

Now, there are communities that have very strict and often very political moderation policies. Technically only the instance administrator has the power/authority to override communities, but only on the instance they administrate.

This can become an issue, especially when people who get moderated run to the admin demanding to talk with who is in charge. The netKarens get really mad if the admins back up the community, so they’ll start these instance crusades demanding defederation and such.

So as a result there are some natural divisions across the major instances based on how the admins tend to back up community rules.

So for a rough examples: .ml communities have zero tolerance for American Liberalism. Lemmy.world allows communities to be heavy handed against criticism of NATO or Israel. Blahaj.zone has zero tolerance for transphobes gatekeeping. My instance, sh.itjust.works, allows for combat footage and communities dedicated to documenting(harassing) the .ml instance, their admins and the lemmy devs (who admin .ml).

The average user need only pay attention to the communities they post in. The instance of the user is mostly irrelevant, nevermind the butthurt individuals who want a worse and fragmented Fediverse.

I get you. For me after my grandparents passed I realized I wanted to be a grandparent. So I gotta play by some of society’s stupid rules to see if I can see that through.

Careerwise: biggest thing for me was jumping into public service and working in local government–in America, no less. Now I work remotely and have a well-compensated union-represented government job with a pension that doesn’t require me to do management or have a medical or law degree.

I knew to steer clear of the Fed too, and that’s paid off in spades.

All in all though as a former kid and current parent: kids need their cool aunts and uncles, related or not, out there having fun not making them cousins. So there’s zero shame in having no rush or desire for trying to strike that balance.

I did a lot of the fun in my teens and twenties, and then realized I wanted a family and was lucky to find a career that fit.

It’s definitely a challenge to find a balance though so it can often feel like a trade-in. But if you’re honest with yourself it doesn’t have to be nor an unwanted change.

Similar. I had a community from 2001 onward where I was variously an admin and a mod over the decades. A lot of us drifted apart from being kids exploring the internet to adults with families and careers.

But mainly the guy that took over the code maintenance became the sole admin in 2018 and he just chased everyone off the site debatebroing with increasingly racist and misogynistic rants. Dude I played games with and talked with online for 20 years started calling me a genocidal enslaver for trying to explain CRT and want solar power in America.