Yeah, when life wasn’t going well I’d sometimes buy a lottery ticket just to indulge in a fantasy of what would happen if I won. But then I’d find myself focusing on what would happen if I died and how I’d write my will…

Totally. And eventually people get to the age where “embarrassing” medical stuff is so common that it doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. Just be matter of fact about it, if you don’t act like it’s embarrassing then they won’t either.

As a casual suggestion, it’s fine by me. I like the broad idea of encouraging people to upvote and encourage stuff they want to see more of, rather than focus on down voting stuff they don’t agree with. But I suspect most people already upvote much more than they downvote so the ratio of 2:1 wouldn’t affect many people’s behaviour (although be interesting to see some stats on that!). And my prejudice is the small number of chronic downvoters would work around any rule, just like the freekarma subs on reddit.

So putting aside the technical difficulties, it seems like a change that wouldn’t substantial modify general behaviour, and wouldn’t prevent bad actors (although it might make their lives a little more hassleful, which isn’t a bad thing). I think that’s why people have been suggesting psychological solutions, because developing a lemmy culture where people don’t care about points is probably less effort and more effective than adding ratios that don’t change much. But it’s not an awful idea, and if it was introduced it wouldn’t bother me. Tbh, I’d be fine with removing all up /down votes and we could go back to forum style of actually writing what you liked or didn’t about a post.

Yeah, as far as I understand it the way that fediverse communities work is that whoever makes and moderate them get to decide what they’re for, what rules, etc. and then there’s a level of emergent culture that arises depending on what users actually engage in the community, even if it doesn’t live up to the name.

I can totally sympathise with frustration about what different communities end up being like, and being told “why don’t you make your own c/globalnews?” isn’t a simple solution. But as others have said, perhaps it’s not as bad as it feels to you right now. If you’ve been the victim of online bullying (which is what someone going through your post history and blanket down voting everything is) of course that’s going to feel awful, but the actual down votes are a very small part of the issue. Lemmy doesn’t have that many posts, so I come across loads of low (and even negative) rated posts. If there’s groupthink that leads to some of your posts being down voted to oblivion, it’s not nice to see, but plenty of folks are still seeing your posts. And when I see something in negative votes I will often check it out just to see what’s up, and sometimes it’s something dumb and awful, and sometimes it’s just a unpopular opinion. So while banning down votes might feel nicer, because it would mask all the people disliking your posts, it probably wouldn’t find lots of people who suddenly agree with you.

I think if someone is sad and obsessive enough to go through a user’s post history to give a hundred down downvotes… Then they’d probably also be fine with scrolling through All and up voting two hundred posts first.

I would imagine my ratio is at least 20 upvotes per downvote, but I still wouldn’t want it throttled. A lot of my down votes are when I think something doesn’t belong in a community, and I feel like I’m contributing positively to lemmy by downvoting inappropriate or dreadful things. If they were rationed I’d be tempted to just avoid contributing to 'save them".

If there was going to be a weird rule about downvotes, I’d be more tempted to limit them to members of the communities. That way people on All don’t downvote some niche post that isn’t to their tastes but is perfect for the little community it was posted to.

As people age their faces sag due to changes in skin elasticity (and also often gaining weight), this can lead to a “resting sad face” compared with perky youngsters. But, as a middle aged person, I’ve also started to notice that I often get absorbed in my thoughts and realise I’m sitting there with a thousand yard stare and a drawn facial expression I associate with being sad or very sick or very hungover.

But inside I’m not sad, I’m just thinking about something I need to do or whatever, but I feel like I need to consciously “inhabit” my body again and “power up” my facial muscles so I look thoughtful, or determined or something rather than a blank “my family has just died in a car crash and I can’t decide whether to call the ambulance or kill myself with a shard of broken windscreen” expression.

The isolated, rural place I grew up did something like that. There was a young guy who had grown up here, but was born in Asia. I can’t remember the exact details, but basically he got a criminal record for something (although it was commonly believed that he’d actually taken the blame for something he hadn’t done to protect his girlfriends brother who was on probation or something) and because of some recent anti-immigration policies from central government, he was going to be deported back to Thailand (or wherever) even though he didn’t speak the language and hadn’t been there since he was a baby.

The local community were outraged and campaigned against it, saying he was a valued and responsible member of their community, then when immigration officers were sent they protested and prevented them from taking him. No idea how they came up with a legal justification in the end, but he was allowed to stay. And it certainly made me respect the place more.

That’s an interesting point, because in terms of wealth inequality and unbridled exploitative capitalism stuff was pretty fucking dreadful back then too. But I don’t think there was as much interest in the super rich taking control of the government, because the government didn’t do that much and had never really been a problem for the wealthy (apart from that time they tried to abolish slavery…)

I’m normally a “folks need to work together, big problems need big solutions” European lefty, but seeing the horror of what a powerful central government can do when it’s in the hands of crazy dipshits… It certainly highlights the benefits of small governments and localised power. Maybe this will lead to growth of some forces of progress that aren’t the federal government? The question is whether after the inevitable crash and burn, the next government will be willing to introduce the actual constraints, checks and balances to not let this happen again?

Thanks for the info! But honestly, I’m not looking to watch anyone. I just remember it being a thing people talked about in the past, and wondering if people still did it or if social media had replaced it. As a piece of culture, I find it intriguing - but I’m the sort to watch YouTube at double speed because of impatience, no way I’m sitting through any sort of stream, let alone a pointless one.

Uh huh, forgot. :p

Good to know webcams are still a thing! Although mostly that site seems to be outdoor cameras and a ‘adult’ section, not someone turning their life into the Truman Show.

And just for clarity, this isn’t something I’m searching for (I’m way on the other end of the attention spectrum from people who want to watch someone do nothing). I’m more just curious about if it’s a thing, and why people would want to stream or watch something like that

Do they just stream their day to day life though? I’ve never really used twitch, but I thought it was mostly folks doing specific sessions of playing a game or drawing a picture or something, not just streaming 24/7 as they live life.

Ah! That would make more sense!

Edit: did a bit of research, and there were defintely some intentional live streamers, but maybe aiside from those couple of people, the rest were just a reminder of the importance of ip security.

I love Boost, no idea if it’s ios

There’s a difference between ‘faking’ / trying to become something you’re not and improving your communication style /skills. You’re meeting women, not flirting, and not progressing into the kinds of relationships you want. You don’t need to start ‘flirting’ (whatever that means to you), but maybe you can change what’s happening after meeting people. I assume your speaking with people you find attractive? How do you build a connection with them? How are you letting them know you’re interested in taking things further?

There’s a big difference from A) meeting women, being pleasant, and hoping that one of them asks you out, and B) meeting women, having some friendly conversations, then asking if they want to start dating. Those are extremes, but the space in the middle can all be considered forms of flirting.

Flirting doesnt need to be some special way of making eye contact, or lame pick up lines. Having fun, making jokes and being silly can be flirting. Asking someone politely if they’d like to get coffee some time can be flirting. Flirting is just the process of letting the other person know that you’re interested in them in a romantic / sexual way, and good flirting is letting them know that in a way that doesn’t make them uncomfortable and makes it easy for them to respond without making things awkward for either of you.

One one level, obviously you can never experience everything, the world is fricking massive and ever-changing. But you can feel like you’ve seen and done everything that interests you, and find it hard to remain curious and develop new interests. There have been times that I think the only interests and goals that will ever feel relevant to me are ones that I’ve had since I was a kid. But even “eating yummy food, playing games and reading fantasy books” is more than enough to fill my entire life.

When I’ve been lucky enough to have the time, I’ve filled many hours, day after day, cooking delicious meals and trying new things in the kitchen, and the list of things I want to try expands just as fast as I tick them off. Similarly, although I’ve read countless fantasy novels over the decades I’ve only just got round to reading classics like Conan and Elric, and there’s so much more out there - and people write more books every year!

But there are times when I can’t face new challenges, and I retreat to the easy comfort of things I know. This can be reassuring and restful, but if I get to the stage where I’m sick of watching the same show I’ve seen so many times, then I know it’s time for me to start pushing myself to try new things and develop new tastes (even if it’s just subvarieties of things I already like). And if I don’t feel up to that, it means I need to get some support and help to improve my mood and clear my thinking.

If drinking less isn’t actually your priority at the moment, it shouldnt be the focus of your therapy sessions. And if your therapist doesn’t follow your lead, then you should get a different one.

If you find opening up and admitting shit in therapy hard, then make that your new focus in sessions. As someone who’s seen my fair share of therapists, most of them are very thankful if you start with “I almost didn’t come to therapy, because I kinda don’t belive it works” (but maybe it’s also that I feel hopeless about changing my life in general) or “I often lie in therapy because I want you to like me” (does that pattern appear in other parts of your life?)

Start with first obstacle, not the biggest or even the most harmful. Then you can work on those things first, rather than waste time, money and frustration pretending to be doing something else.

I think he’s suggesting that if someone doesn’t know their world ranking, then they might be quite good, but not seriously good. And if they are world ranked, they wouldn’t claim “they could beat anyone” unless they were the world champion. In which case they would know.

Bur he can’t really know anything about your skills from a comment, so who cares. Either way, you’d both certainly smash my sorry ass.

Got dialup as a young teen in the 90s - first with CompuServe, then usenet and the early Web. Usenet was amazing, fun communities, kibology, and great for dialup, and as someone who lives in the country, I still wish sites had more options for downloading stuff in advance to view when out of signal.

A less positive part of usenet was back then it was completely uncensored (or at least, that child me had unrestricted access) . At the time I thought it was normal and good to be able to get porn with people my age, instead of weird adults. But now I feel pretty sad and icky that this was my introduction to sex, and horrible if I think abiut the situations behind those pictures.

I agree with most of the other comments that labels aren’t really important. But if you do want to think about and describe your sexuality for whatever purpose, go for it. And as a lifelong bisexual, self doubt is a common enough trope in bi/pansexual communities to get it’s own label, ‘bi imposter syndrome’. Some bi (or pan, I see the difference as mostly stylistic) people are equally attracted to all genders, some have a significant tendency one way or another, and some think they have a preference and then it switches, and sometimes switches back again and again. I’ve been in a relationship with the same guy for so long now, I sometimes wonder ‘am I really bi? Am I just pretending? Maybe I just didn’t know what I wanted when I was young, and now I can admit I’m just gay’. But then I speak to some girl, or see a hottie on TV, and realise I’m defitnely sexually attracted to them.

If bi is so broad to include anyone who has ever had, or could have, sexual attraction to anyone who wasn’t their traditional hetero gender, is there any point in the label? Isn’t almost everyone bi? Sure! I kinda think everyone is kinda bi on some level. But it’s also about what purpose a label serves. If someone described themselves as ‘pan’, I would assume they woukd open-minded and nonjudgemental about people of different sexualites and genders. I wouldn’t assume they’d automatically be attracted to everyone they met, even straight men aren’t attracted to every woman. I use to avoid calling myself gay, because I’m bi, but I realised that insisting on that was sometimes kinda homophobic, and as someone married to another man, I have a lot in common with lots of gay folks. But I also sometimes refer to myself as a “straight white man” when talking about privilege, because most acquaintances don’t think of me as gay so I’ve never experienced much discrimination on that front, and don’t feel I can claim to speak as a ‘minority’.