Yeah, that was clearly just the group having fun, sounds like it might have been some kind of in-joke. Stuff like keygen music and adding extra fun stuff to your cracks has always been part of the culture. For the most part, while I’m not saying there is zero risk, but as long as it’s from verified groups with good reputation, your pirated software will be safe to use - also part of the culture.

Mayo + Ketchup combined, the classic “Rot-Weis”-combo in Germany.

That or, preferrably, mayo + a good chilli sauce

Yeah, I am too attached to my account because it’s several years old and was made when there were next to no instances running. But I can only shake my head at the amount of Marxist-Leninist nonsense that is at times pushed there, that unironically elevates what was a development of “Marxism” out of the material conditions of the Eastern Bloc as an imperialist sphere bent on market expansion and accumulation of national capital, into a religion-like orthodoxy.

No, ideology that is nominally Marxist, and having an educated caste of decision-makers highly trained in your interpretation of it at the top won’t prevent capitalist dynamics and bring about communism, only the material base and changing it will, and your ideology will follow what your material base demands. And that had been expansion of national capital for the Eastern sphere since the revolution failed to link up with any industrialised nations in the 1920s. The elevation of Marxism into a basically teleological ideology, claiming that with subservience to the interests of national capital, there will be communism at the end (a promise broken over and over again), is completely understandable by looking at the Soviet and Chinese spheres of influence from a Marxist perspective.

And even the structures put into place by Lenin were explicitly designed as for his own time and the conditions within the Russian Empire, not as an infallible orthodoxy, and things like Democratic Centralism explicitly contained open and free discussion before unity of action, which was just completely pushed away. Urgh, it’s sad to me, because I think a new, invigorated and organised communist movement is needed more than ever, but by redirecting it to the national interest of states like China (and even Russia, which isn’t even nominally communist, and just opposes western imperialism to impose its own imperialism - like choosing Germany over France in WWI, the exact shit Lenin fought against) instead of the international proletariat, just weakens it overall.

I ran an instance for a while out of curiosity a few years back - building the database seemed to work fine and appeared like a good idea, had a lot of fun to see the connections with other servers and my crawler filling holes of unknown spaces. But I think the search algorithm itself was (most likely is) not sophisticated enough, it just did not give relevant results often enough, and it was extremely vulnerable to very simple SEO tactics to push trash to the top.

Let’s do an EU4 Dithmarschen world conquest run from here on out.

Ah, sad, thank you for researching! Here’s hoping it will come back in some form.

Life itself, the propagation and continuation of it, the creation of conscious structures capable of experience, reflection and influence over their nature - and ultimately defiance against a cold and dead, seemingly endless universe.

Or, for people that like the cold universe, there’s a quote I forgot who it came from: “The purpose of life is to waste the energy of the sun”

Fun fact: The designer almost chose “Cool Centrist Clicker” as a name, they have a devlog about it.

Spring. Not too hot, sun is out, things are green, lovely time of the year. Autumn is also nice, similar stuff to like, but overall, I don’t like the muddy ground and weather as much. Winter is nice temperature-wise, but the lack of sun messes with me. Summer is… unavoidable, unfortunately :/

By now, Lemmy, hands down. I do sometimes end up on reddit from searching for stuff, and I check every now and then if I got any messages on my old accounts just in case someone wants to reach out, but overall - even without niche communities, Lemmy is just the better experience for me, personally.

I can basically go wth any kind of jam, blackberry is really good. Something like Sriracha or a similar kind-of sweet chili sauce can also be amazing. Oh, and honey is also a really good taste experience.

Satohi Kon’s “Paprika” is still my favourite movie, and there is a lot to discover and reflect on, on second and third and umpteenth watches.

It reminds me a lot of what was commonly done to fuck around in early physics games, I remember doing stacking stuff like this as a kid in Ultima VII for example.

Some sort of humanist atheism/existentialism? I guess…

As a teenager and young adult, I used to be very interested in cosmology and astrophysics, to the point I wanted to study it at uni. The vastness of the world and existence seemed like a beautiful enigma. I was also always interested in philosophy, which ended up more lasting than my interest in physics.

After growing older, the vastness of nature and existence seemed more and more haunting than beautiful. If there was something like a God, it had to be a mad idiot god. I actually kind of sympathised with Gnosticism and similar thoughts for a while, but I could not believe in a metaphysical, perfect entity waiting even further behind everything. I could not believe in some sort of salvation, that could just come to us by giving up on materiality. It seemed like an empty self-delusion. Similarly, I respect Buddhism a lot, and think there is a lot of good ideas within it, but it’s ultimate life-nonaffirming philosophies and focus on avoidance of suffering did not resonate with me.

Looking at the history of our planet, our universe, and humanity, it seemed clear to me, that existence just stumbles along. We are a “mistake” in a vastness of empty, dumb, boring clouds of hydrogen and dust, nuclear furnaces and holes in reality, devoid of meaning. Life felt more and more to me, like a great rebellion against a vast, seemingly all-encompassing nothingness. No aliens in sight either, that could relieve us of our burden. Just humanity, as the one lifeform so far known to us, that at least has the potential to not fall into the traps of self-annihilation and lifelessnes that permeates our past and present. Just humanity with the responsibility of getting our shit together or life eventually being just reincorporated into the vast, dumb nothing of the “idiot god”, so to speak.

All the mistakes of humans felt to me more and more like just extensions of the same stupidity that is also manifest in all of nature. And our struggle against it, feels like a sort of “sacred duty”. Those loaded words to illustrate, that I’d think of myself as actually having strong faith in a weird way, even though it is not rooted in the supernatural as such.

It’s also evident to me, this faith has at least partially persisted for me as an anchor for myself. I have not been suicidal ever since I felt that way, even though for most of my life I have been struggling with trauma and a variety of mental health disorders, and have been suicidal before. I could not think of that anymore, suffering seemed almost meaningless to me, now, and it feels better to endure it than to give in to the vast nothingness without a fight, without trying to create as much good as possible in this small contingent miracle that is life, that has been brought forth by so much struggle and so many seemingly impossible coincidences, chance and “mistakes”.

I have a big aversion against beliefs that put faith into higher powers, be it nature or God or some sort of transdimensional aliens or whatever. I try to analyse beliefs like that not with disdain, though, but as results of how we are caught in the world we are, in our circumstances, and how life itself has had to “trick” existence itself into allowing life to exist, by follwing its rules but also emergently transcending them, creating something new from it, that is more than the sum of its parts.

Politically and philosophically it lead me to Marxism and Hegel respectively. Marxism with it’s focus on changing our material foundations and dynamics, in order for us to be able to develop our humanity and be able to act more rational in the grand scheme lends itself well to it. Hegel, with looking at the development of ideas and humanity dialectically, developing something until it reaches the limit of its own contradictions also appealed to me.

Sorry for the wall of text, the question caught me in a somber mood and caused me to monologue.

I was, and am, skeptical, but I also must admit, the potential breakthrough is teasing my psyche with that feeling of just wanting it to be real. A part of me hopes that maybe it will still end up confirmed by other peers, but, granted, it was a low chance even when the news first came out.

Yes, they really are the heartbreak pet. My best friend had some for most of her adulthood, and the recurring heartbreak, feelings of responsibility for them and also just vet bills both took a toll on her. All of them were awesome, intelligent, full of character and cute, but it is an emotionally taxing pet to have, for those reasons.

“Journalists”

I’ve had conversations with one of my friends during some of my lowest points, and I remember him saying once: “I wonder how many mental illnesses could be cured by just giving people enough money to live comfortably.” There is some great truth there.

Hang in there, if not just for yourself, then for loved ones and for all the people that share your frustrations and struggles, there always is the possibility of change, there are years in which weeks happen and weeks in which years happen, and behind every strike lurks the possibility of revolution - as soon as opportunity arises, your frustration and helplessness can be directed towards change.

That’s at least one thing that keeps me sane.

I am blessed to have two friendships that I have been able to maintain even through times of depression and paranoia, mostly because they are stubborn and forgiving enough to stay with me and reach out, even when my delusions of having to isolate from everyone because I am too horrible and bad to deserve friendships kick in. It’s a privilege I know isn’t guaranteed in life and I am so damn lucky that the mess I have comes with them.

If you are going through tough times and don’t have anyone at the ready, I know it can be hard, don’t give up. There’s the professional stuff like therapists, emergency hotlines, self-help groups and, yes, sometimes even strangers on the internet can be enough to give you a necessary mirror to at least lessen any delusional self-hatred and hopelesness that can creep up. Reaching out can be hard and seem impossible, but it is possible, and it is worth it - you are worth it.

I would have done so, but unfortunately, I couldn’t read your advice