Sploosh the Water

Nobara Linux

Yes, several. I’ve never done drugs, I don’t drink, I have no diagnosed mental disorders.

Can’t really talk about it super openly here, but I would be happy to DM you. Both dark and good ones, mostly good.

The good ones were wonderful, made me feel more alive and aware than any other time in my life. Saw people healed seemingly miraculously, some other stuff that is really personal but very lovely.

The bad ones, especially the worst one was almost indescribably horrific. I’ll just say I decided it would be interesting to try and contact beings that shouldn’t be contacted, I was skeptical and didn’t think it would actually work, and I was horribly wrong. They accepted my invitation, I wish they hadn’t, terror followed.

DM me if you wanna know the details.

I’ll have to check that out lol.

I’ve tried to get into Arma 3 many times over the years. But it’s just way too much for me. I like some MilSim, but Arma is so complicated and just not worth it to me. To make it worse, everybody that I’ve linked up with to learn how to play with always says that the base game sucks and you have to install 15+ mods just to start having fun.

Sorry, but if a base game isn’t worth playing unless you spend 2-3 hours fighting to get 15+ mods all working together just to then get barely 40 FPS, spend another hour planning the mission, and then trying to remember the dozens of hotkeys for the 10 unique ways you can crouch next to a wall, I’m just not interested and it probably isn’t a very good game.

Most people recommend playing Minecraft with like 50 mods, but at least Minecraft is a good fully playable game in vanilla mode…

Sim City for GameBoy. If you’re thinking, “how the heck would you play Sim City on a GameBoy?” Exactly, don’t do it. Young me wanted to like it, but just spare yourself…

My spouse and I had a very long layover between red eye flights and decided to get a ride to a nearby motel to catch a few hours of sleep before going back to the airport early in the morning to catch our next flight. This was in a southern state in the US.

It turned out to be a super sketchy motel and it was really late at night when we got there. We could tell it was in a rough part of the city, driving past houses on the street all had bars over the windows and doors, lots of trash blowing across the street, stuff like that.

We go inside to sign in and get our room and the clerk mumbles something we can’t understand and asks us to wait for a few minutes. Then while we’re sitting in the lobby, a huge pickup truck pulls up outside with a white guy driving it. Two Hispanic guys get out of the cab, an older man and a boy. They walk in and start talking quietly with the clerk. They both seemed really nervous and kept glancing nervously at the pickup running outside. After a few minutes the clerk led them both away somewhere and then the truck drove away and the clerk called us up and signed us in.

I think it might have been some kind of human trafficking/smuggling thing, but idk. It just was so weird, everybody involved was acting really nervous and on edge. I hope both of them are alright, we obviously never saw them again or even saw where they got led off to.

You’ve taken your first step into a larger world, welcome! (Technically a smaller world but bigger in spirit, ya know?)

In college, I was in a geology class and randomly in the middle of a class session, one of the students decided to stand up and start yelling at the professor about creationism and how the earth is only a few thousand years old, all that crap.

You could tell that he thought this was his big moment of “fighting for his faith” and expected some dramatic showdown with the professor in front of the class because he kept glancing around at the students expectantly as he ranted.

Instead, the professor just quietly said something like, “well, I’m not telling you what to believe, I’m just teaching what I know from my profession.” The student said some final snarky line, I can’t remember what exactly, then sat down again and after a few seconds of awkward silence, the professor just started again where he left off lol.

It was super cringe.

vlemmy.net here, working fine on mine!

Capitalism. The incentive for any large, profit-motivated firm will always be to get the most people to pay as much as possible for as little as possible.

I want this lol.

Left wing market anarchist is the closest summary of my general views.

Left wing economically and socially. I believe strongly in workers rights, collective control over production and labor practices. All people have dignity and should be treated with a base level of care and concern, even if they have done horrific things. I am very supportive of LGBT+ folks and any marginalized or underprivileged groups.

Market because I am not against markets or money. I think they are tools that can greatly aid society if used correctly. I am strongly anti-capitalist, which is a economic and social philosophy that uses money and markets in ways that are inherently oppressive and exploitive.

Anarchist because I am anti-state. Monopolization of power and resources, especially in a capitalist society, only ever result in oppression, even if supposedly “of/for the people.”

I always use adblock on every device I browse with, no exceptions. I honestly wouldn’t use the internet without it in any significant way. When other people try to show me videos on their phones and double ads play in front or in the middle, I get so irritated I wanna scream. I have no idea how people use the internet without ad block, it’s just so over the top now days.

And no, I piss on the idea that by using ad blockers you are “stealing” from the creators. That’s absolute garbage imo. I never signed a contract with them to watch X minutes of ads in order to consume their content. Plus, most creators now just embed ads in their videos anyways, so ad blockers don’t do anything for those, I just skip over them in my browser.

If you wanna support a creator, donate to them, buy their merch, link to their content from yours and give them free advertising/publicity. The idea that I “owe” a content creator some fraction of a cent of ad revenue by letting some random clip about ball hair trimmers or protein bars play for 15-30 seconds is laughable. If they are really opposed to their content being consumed for free online, then lock it all behind pay walls or don’t release it online at all.

I know that’s a hard-line position in some people’s minds, but it’s what I truly believe. Also, the creators that I consume a ton of content from, I’ve donated or purchased 100’s-1000’s of times more than what they would ever make off me watching all of the YT ads that play before/during their vids.

Fair points!

I think it’s generational. When I talk to folks about gaming in their early-mid 30’s, the majority of them either also game, or at least don’t think it’s weird. Video games and board games too.

I think once you hit that rough age cutoff for millennials, late 30’s-early 40’s it seems video gaming and board gaming also largely falls off. At least that’s been my experience.

My spouse and I are in our 30’s and most of our peers game. Keep it up and never stop having fun!

1-2 years, alright. 3-5 years, nervous. 6-10 years, quite pessimistic. The coming decades, really not great…

I’m here too, this feels like the beginning of a Lemmy legend :)

Good luck and stay safe!

That’s a great idea! I think I’ll start the same :)

Lol!!! Just saw this response haha xD

A few have helped me a immensely in life:

1. “Learn to pick your battles.” I’ve found that the vast majority of battles aren’t worth picking. Your time and energy are valuable, don’t waste them on things that aren’t worth it. Ask yourself, “Am I willing to die on a hill for this?” Most of the time, you should just walk away.

2. Learn how to do deep, honest self reflection, the kind that makes you fully vulnerable to yourself. If you feel yourself snapping to a conclusion rapidly or defending a position aggressively, stop and really question why. What are the reasons you think that/feel that?

Use those moments to expose yourself to opposing views with an open mind. Even if you still end up on the same side, you’ll have at least understood where the other person is coming from. I’ve trained myself to be suspicious any time I hold a view where I struggle to think of plausible arguments supporting an opposing view. That usually indicates that I’ve been in an echo chamber and I need to start challenging my own position more.

3. “The heart without the mind is ineffective. The mind without the heart is insincere.” Passion and practicality need to work together to find effective solutions to make the world better. It does little good to have a bleeding heart with no plan of action to accomplish anything. It also does little good to have a plan of action without people involved who truly believe in it and care about the outcome.

Those folks will be the only ones left when funding runs thin and support dwindles, the bleeding hearts will show up when the weather’s bad, show up early and stay late. Both are essential to create lasting, effective, positive change in the world.

4. Above all else, be compassionate. All people deserve basic human dignity. Love people as best as you can. This has sadly been the hardest lesson for me to learn. I grew up in a family with lots of law enforcement connections and sadly, I was taught to fear, hate, and ridicule far more often than I was taught to love.

I know that’s not everybody’s experience, but that was my experience. I was taught that if somebody was in a bad situation in life, it was almost always their fault, and they were to be condemned for that and I was to treat them as outcasts.

I’m ashamed to admit that I carried that mentality with me through all of my childhood and into my adult life. I was disgusted by homeless folks, drug addicts, people suffering in shelters and in government housing. I’m ashamed to admit that I viewed them as parasites, draining valuable resources from society all because they were “too lazy/dysfunctional to be productive.”

I was told this and taught this as truth. Thankfully I started to slowly deconstruct and question all of that that in my 20’s. Something started to happen to me internally, and when I would see a person begging or hear a story about impoverished folks struggling, I started to feel care, and compassion, and concern for them. I started to understand the systemic reasons for their situation, I stopped thinking the way to deal with these problems was to throw them in jail or fine them for panhandling.

I’m happy to say that my spouse and I are involved in community efforts now days to help folks in need. We’re are working with different organizations that address these issues in our home city and it’s been such a fulfilling journey so far.

Sorry for the novel, I felt like I needed to get some of that off my chest. This world is really broken and the underprivileged are suffering a lot. Don’t be like a younger me and add to that, be compassionate and caring to others. Love and try to understand. Help and serve, you might be the only hint of positivity another person sees for days, weeks, even years, so make it count.

Find orgs/groups around you that help folks in need and address systemic issues in your communities. Stand up for those who are the most vulnerable, give a voice to those that don’t have one.

Peace, love, and good vibes to everybody here and beyond. I hope y’alls day/night goes well. Stay safe and be well. <3