In case you can’t tell, I’m passionate about rationality and critical thinking.

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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: September 22nd, 2024

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  • I understood the comment above to be comparing how public opinion is allowed to shape itself in the fediverse, vs being censored and molded to only fit particular permitted messages in mainstream social media. We can express ourselves without worrying that we’ll get locked out of the entire fediverse for stating an opinion that mods or admins don’t like. Which makes it fair to wonder how much suppression is going on elsewhere, that we don’t see and never hear reports on, because censorship.

    I’m not sure where the idea of Lemmy having an effect on public opinion at large came from. It feels like a non-sequitur, but maybe I’m just too tired and I missed something.





  • Did you date my former coworker? I used to use a chartreuse coathanger because it was the only one of that color, which made it easy for me to spot. One day, as I was putting my coat away, this coworker started talking as if we were already mid-way through an argument. “It’s so green. I don’t know why you said it’s yellow.” Huh? I had no idea what he was talking about at first. I asked if he meant my coathanger, and I responded that I didn’t know what color it was. (I didn’t know what “chartreuse” meant yet.) He ranted on, claiming we fought about it once before, even though this was the first time he’d even talked about my coathanger. It was bizarre.

    I think that guy had something psychologically troubling going on. I’d also seen him: ask a question, make up an answer for that question, then immediately proceed to believe the answer he made up with 100% certainty. The question? “How do those Magic Eraser cleaning sponges work?” His answer? “They use paint.” I asked how it could possibly match the color of every surface it’s used on, but he insisted his answer must be right. Truly magical thinking.

    I also saw him watch an ad for a random product, then promptly declare that he needed that product. I had always thought of ads as something to tune out, but he legit followed them as if they were friends giving advice. I had never seen anything like that.




  • Shortly after entering adulthood, I lost a close friend. He was still in college at the time, a talented, friendly, bright light snuffed far too early. He was well loved and his funeral was so packed that it was standing room only. One attendee described it as “the most depressing class reunion ever.”

    His loss has never left me.

    Right before I got the phone call telling me the news, I had been feeling extremely down about myself. I was crossing my work parking lot (which I had to do regularly as part of my job) without looking up for moving cars, thinking that if I got hit, it wouldn’t have mattered.

    But that same day, my phone rang. It was a mutual friend, and through obvious tears and a quavering voice, she told me, “John is dead!”

    With that, everything changed.

    I’ll never forget how much it hurt to lose somebody so important to me. The idea of purposely putting my friends through that has kept me going more times than I can count. I have to remind myself, even in my darkest, most self-hating moments, that I’m more important to others than I realize. I can’t imagine John would have known just how much of an impact he had made on others, but I saw the proof. I felt the pain. I love my friends and family too much to entertain the thought of making them attend my funeral. And so I push on, but with one change:

    I now make a point to explicitly tell my friends how much they matter to me.


  • I’ve mentioned this before in other threads that seek a women-centric Lemmy option, but there was at least one secret community on Reddit like that. Invitees’ post histories were vetted before an invite was sent, both to find women specifically, but also to prevent trolls.

    I don’t know exactly how they did it, all I know is that I got an invite one day and found the most open, comforting community I’d ever seen online. It was a place where we could talk about anything from silly stories that made us smile, to complaining about specific issues with bras, all without fear of trolls hijacking the thread, or turning an ordinary thing for us into something sexual.

    I miss it.



  • Here we are 16 or 17-year-old girls showing up to these random college guys house.

    Oh man. It’s scary how normal this is treated. I remember having friends with “older boyfriends” and I always felt really weirded out by it. Yet when you’re a kid (or teen, in this case) and your friends act like it’s normal to want adult boyfriends, you’re put in a really awkward position. I wasn’t able to fully articulate or even comprehend everything fucked up about it at the time, but as an adult looking back, holy shit. There’s an entire hidden social ecosystem where being groomed is not only considered normal, but can be seen as enviable by peers.



  • The downvotes prove your point. This topic needs more discussion, but most of the times when women bring this up, their comments get downvoted to hell. It’s quite a “gotcha” for someone to ask to see “examples” when most of the examples we’ve come across or created will be buried or have since been deleted.

    Alternative question - for those that don’t believe this is an issue, when is the last time you came across a post on Lemmy that is specifically for/about women or women’s issues (especially one posted from a woman’s perspective)? Or even better, go ahead and make such a post. Watch how fast the downvotes come.

    I expect this comment to be downvoted the same way as the parent comment was, the same way that past posts I’ve made and read about women’s issues have been downvoted on Lemmy. If men want this place to be inclusive for women, they have to do their part to support us - not downvoting our concerns, simply because they don’t experience the same issues, is the absolute bare minimum. Otherwise, why would we keep posting/commenting about our issues when doing so invites a downvote cascade?