You are likely scanning my profile and history because I said something in a tone that made you feel funny or angry. This is called being reactionary. You can overcome it.
But there are several other very important differences between human beings and animals that you should know about.
I frequent a wildlife site called e621 that explains and demonstrates these differences. There’s so much you can learn about the natural world!
This is valuable effort that could be used to get people who are not active to be active
This is not a zero-sum game, you can do fucking both. If you’re too fragile, that’s fine. Don’t. But I will not stand for people on the left saying it’s useless to reach people they don’t agree with, especially since we have minds and brains on our side (usually.)
Not only does this work, I am standing testament to it working. I’m sorry if you’ve had bad experiences but I promise you in real-life conversations you can change people. Like I changed. Like I have changed people. You can’t sit there angrily saying someone is dead-wrong for promoting a proven strategy for reaching people. If there were more people trying to do this, we would be in better shape broadly, but please, if you don’t have it in you, just don’t stand in the way of those who are trying. What are you even hoping to accomplish here other than trying to get recognized for having bad experiences?
You have now shot down TWO of my ideas without offering an alternative towards a better future and better things we can do as individuals.
In my ideal world, it’s not an issue because parents don’t let kids under a certain age or demonstrated maturity level have computers in their room alone, and even better, they teach their kids how to not have problems with predators, porn, and the deluge of online weirdness and have open, honest talks about how some things are dangerous because they prey on you, some things are dangerous because they get you hooked on certain feelings, and some things are dangerous because they give you false impressions of the world and relationships.
We’re about as close to that world as interstellar exploration, I know. Imagine having parents who you don’t feel afraid to talk to about mature topics and personal matters.
And all that aside, why is it such a big deal that kids not see boobs but they can see violence and gore? Why is it magically okay for Timmy Neckbeard to watch strangle-fetish porn night and day as soon as he turns 18? Why do we scream about how porn is ruining kids minds but we’re not taking down the grifting “masculinity influencers” with as much zeal as we’re going after pornhub and other sites that are mostly just consenting adults doing fun biological acts together? Why do we say porn companies are evil and not do anything to make it less evil like better regulations and resources since we know people are going to find ways to make and view it anyway? (These aren’t questions for Lemmy but I would sure love to see communities start asking these questions to their elected representatives.)
Our species’ obsession with clear lines and labels is making us ignore where the actual problems are, we build fences around the outcomes not the sources. We create solutions to problems we don’t even want to look at directly. It’s like the government handing out umbrellas to combat the issue with the massive water main leak flooding the street.
That still creates a chain that can be followed. If the site you’re trying to enter is ever compromised, there will be record of your government code and whatever tracking is used to verify that you have entered your code.
I would be happy if the government was not involved in my online activities at all but I guess that ship is about to sail.
Shrek 5: The Voyage to Save Donkey
Well then I guess our only solution is genocide/mass murder.
We have the same basic axioms, it’s just that for some people having an “enemy” makes it easier for them to cope with problems in their own life.
It’s true they thrive in fear, but it’s reductive. We can do a better job changing people and getting better outcomes if we stop being reductive and start being the smarter person who understands how the country’s strongest political capital functions and start getting them pointed towards our actual enemies.
this weird jumble of beliefs that often clash with each-other
Honestly, this is most of the US right now. Maybe much of the world broadly. The information/media age has not been kind to people with simple views and simple minds.
But yes, the huge challenge, and it is a real challenge, is setting aside that need to correct so, so many things that are going to be wrong or utterly batshit and just listen like you’re an alien visiting Earth and you have no idea how anything works so you’re getting it all from this first person you meet.
its a world view with more basis on how they feel inside their own heads than whats hitting them in the face in real life.
Absolutely correct, which is why it’s challenging to engage but also, if you just accept that they live in a world of narratives and feel-stories, you can engage with them on that level, you can make a narrative out of how much they’re paying for childcare, a story of how hard it’s going to be to get a job when wealthy assholes turn over everyone’s [unprotected labor] to AI. You can make a narrative about the rich assholes who are sneaking their tax money out the back door and distracting people with social “identity politics.” You can spin your own conspiracy story, with them at the center of a grand plot.
Except this grand plot is how rich oligarchs are covering up sex crimes and tax evasion among the world’s most elite… wait, that is exactly Q-anon isn’t it? Well that’s why Q-anon worked. It started to almost move people towards realizing they’re being played. Keep that up. Just ground it in reality.
Again, the idea of asking them questions is to get them out of stories about other people in other places. FOX and friends does this on purpose, they spin stories about far-away problems for simple minds to latch onto. Change the story. Make it about them and their home and their savings and their healthcare and their retirement. Bring them back to a present story and peel back their feelings about it.
it’s still worth trying to understand how they see the world.
I am screaming from the rooftops that we need to do this. We need to stop avoiding confrontation and start getting all up in each other’s business again. Leaving people to stew in their atomized world-views is why we have flat earthers and nazis marching around.
The thing is, they’re all just as insecure and scared as you. It’s just like a dog though, in that a dog who’s scared will bark at strangers and bare their fangs. Your racist uncle will say “libtard woke etc etc” and beat his chest and talk about guns and freedom.
But he also wants to not be scared. He also wants to be understood and accepted. He’s just too fucking dumb to get there the same way you did.
You listen. You ask questions. You JUST ask questions, and not because you’re leading towards a huge “GOTCHA” because gotcha’s don’t actually work. They’re self-serving and only make division worse and make your target double down on their insular, atomized world-view.
Instead, you do everything you can to build a personality and history profile of the person by asking them questions about their life, about their fears, about what’s changed in their life, and about what their political leaders have done to help them. Do not get sidetracked, do not get baited. They LOVE to bait you with tangental nonsense, they learned it from FOX. Just repeat yourself “Okay that’s fine, trans people are indeed trying to steal the statue of liberty to send it back to France, but I want to know Jed, what are you going to do if grocery prices don’t go down? What are you going to do if aunt Gertie’s operation isn’t covered?”
A lot of the time, just this act of isolating and highlighting where the biggest concerns are, where the heart of the fear is, that can break people by itself. I have heard it so many times. “I dunno man, I just don’t know… maybe they are all just scummy politicians, I just don’t know who else to believe in.” This is your victory, this is what it sounds like. Not concessions, not regret, not anger or steamed silence. But genuine feelings about something.
This is the way that people like Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani focus on issues and change people. It’s focus on one thing, and attacking that one thing and not the person. I know a lot of progressives have a hard time with this because there’s SO MUCH SHIT we want to fix and address, but you have to learn to lower yourself a few pegs and just tackle one thing at a time.
The stars used to tell the company if you thought the video quality was good.
The stars now tell the company how to tailor a version of reality specifically to what you want to see and feel.
People can easily trace out your profile.
I’m no longer convinced that universal privacy is necessarily a good thing when there are so many people deliberately working to sabotage nations, subvert social issues and create havoc and chaos for political purposes, as advance tactics for military invasions, and as ways to further the goals of corporations.
I think we should have privacy in our own spaces and an ability to not be hassled by others for being an individual with a real need to share information, but I cannot square that against the massive harm being done by people who are trying to make $10 a month creating arguments to make people hate each other in a country they will never have stake in.
I don’t have a better alternative or solution, but I know that it’s not so simple as anonymity is a universe good in the world. And it exists on a spectrum. I am far more concerned about a kid trying to get help understanding sexual health in private than some troglodyte on reddit who has 72 different accounts to argue with feminists to create the impression that he has a huge community behind him.
How are sites like lemmy or reddit or even social media less anonymous if you simply don’t publish your personal information? Granted anonymity is not and has never been a guaranteed “thing” but I’ve seen this sentiment echoed a couple times in this post and it’s confusing.
Is this in reference to how 4chan handled usernames or lack thereof?
Maybe related, maybe not.
But I was sorely shocked and disappointed how many people struggle with uncertainty and conflict about “being good.” Like, I get maybe meeting someone in your life who has this issue and finds religion or something as a coping tool for an absolute mental crashout, but I’ve known a handful of people I couldn’t talk to anymore because every fucking topic finds a way to loop back around to their spiritual affirmations about how [remotely negative topic or concept] is okay and fine because [insert echoed gospel about letting deity/parental supplement figure into your heart] and then the only people they can be comfortable around are members of that group as well who won’t challenge them or argue against the narrative. It’s like losing people to disease.
I don’t get how you can worry so much about if you’re “good” or be so terrified of dying that you have to believe in something outside of yourself. Like, why? Isn’t it profound enough that you’re at the center of a completely massive and awesome subjective experience that evolves through time and space?
You’re it. All there is. This is is all you baby. Yeah, you specifically reading this.
The discomfort you feel is accountability, it’s knowing your actions impact others by choice or not. It’s fine. Let it marinate. You stop despairing eventually and start finding new experiences and joy and every moment feels a little more special because you know how unique in all the infinite universe that one particular moment is. It starts to feel better to make other people’s moments better and then you understand what “good” is.
you could not pick worse time to write all that.
This isn’t a “me” problem. I’ve already moved on.
I love how many anime recommendations begin with “It’s really hard to get through the first episodes/season/series, but it really picks up about 140 hours in!”
Guys. You can learn a new language in the time it takes to get to the “good parts.” You can learn to draw. You can take a hike every day for a week. You can write a short story. You can call someone and have a conversation. You can make a paper-mache volcano for your nephew’s science project. You can take a box of food and socks to your local food bank.
Let’s stop grinding slop for desperate distraction from the anxiety in our heads.
This is every generic anime.
You probably should have your emergency flash drive on your house keys with the big red label “ANIMAL EROTICA FOR EMERGENCIES” because that’s just an amateur mistake.