Finding out that we live in a simulation would change nothing about how I see other people or myself. That concept is perfectly compatible with how I’m living my life right now.

World would need some Good Guy Greg right now

Life is a sandbox game and nowhere it says you need to play it like other people do. I look at the lives of the “average person” and I don’t want what they have so I also don’t see why I should do what they do and expect a different outcome. Ofcourse one doesn’t just choose to not care about what others think - it’s not that easy, but there are small steps you can take towards it that you can do every day.

For example: I like looking at things. Virtually every day I notice something and go: “what is that?” A normal person would maybe look at it while walking by without stopping but not me. I’m the guy others walk by wondering what the hell is he doing. Just yesterday there was this fascinating chain mail curtain that a store uses to close in the cashier window at night and I spent a solid 2 minutes there twiddling with it while the staff was wondering if I’m going to buy something or not. Nah, I’m just studying this thing here.

Yeah I don’t want to be that guy telling others to install an app to stay in contact with me. That would be extremely hypocritical on my part as I’m the one those people who refuses to install any apps people tells me to and it wouldn’t solve the issue anyway as then I’d still be using WhatsApp as well but now I just have one more additional app to communicate with certain people.

Nowdays doesn’t seem to matter where ever you go there’s always an app you need to install to do XY and Z. I don’t even have a Lemmy app as I only use it via browser. Same applies to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pixelfed, Reddit and so on.

That was a draft. USA has never had a concription system.

Help with what?

Switching from WhatsApp to any other messaging service isn’t a realistic option for quite many places. I’d be more than willing to switch but of all the people in my contacts (including my entire customer base) there’s like 3 people using Signal but every single one of them has WhatsApp. Even the 60+ year olds.

Mandatory military service doesn’t generally mean being sent to conflict zones. This is done by active military members, not conscripts.

It’s called Finnish Defence Forces and its purpose is just that; to defend Finland. We have a 1400km border with Russia.

Most conscripts are around 18 to 20 years old and the service is something between 6 to 12 months depending on your position. In general you spend weekdays at the barracks and weekends at home - with some exceptions. You don’t generally see people in military uniforms outside the military areas except for when they’re traveling to and from the barracks.

The service is mandatory for men but recently there has been some discussion on expanding that to apply to women as well. I think it’s a good system. Even if not military, then atleast some sort of community service. It acts as a sort of rite of passage.

I was going to say liquidate my investments but to be honest I’m not sure I could even spend all the money in my bank account in 31 days. I don’t even know what to buy. Beef Jerky and RedBull? I’d probably get my hands on some psychedelics though, maybe even hard drugs. One thing I would do is much more urban offroading with my truck since I no longer need to be worried about my license - or the truck. I’d probably go have a thai massage with a happy ending and try gay sex too because why not.

All in all I don’t think I’d be living that much differently. I already know I’m going to die. I just don’t know when.

That’s quite the number of assumptions you made there

Reddit is more diverse. The same kind of cynicism exists there too but it’s dilluted by all the other content so it’s easier to ignore. Here that is less the case as majority of the content is news articles - granted that I haven’t been to reddit for over a year so I don’t know what it’s like today.

Agreed. This is the most cynical corner of the internet I’ve ever been to, yet here I’m.

There’s plenty of censorship here though. Some instances are worse than others but even on a community basis, your average moderator is just some random dude who is free to remove your posts/comments and ban you just because they don’t like something you said and there’s not really anything you can do about it.

Fediverse as a technology yes but the userbase here does the opposite. By definition someone commenting on a message board is not a normal person because normal people don’t do that, but to be commenting on a niche platform like this makes you hyper not-normal, and yes, that applies to me as well and I’m well aware of that.