ameancow

@ameancow@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨At this point, what should we do about the ICE raids? If an ICE agent breaks in without a warrant or holds you at gunpoint, what do you do?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Advanced tactic for people who aren’t afraid of dumb people and are social enough to make friends: get to know your right-leaning neighbors anyway, make them like you even if you’re a different race or culture. It’s far easier than most people think. Run to them for help. Make them confront the situation they would normally feel removed from. It’s amazing how often these people flip when they’re in the middle of it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman among billionaires investing in 'Freedom City' to be built on Greenland⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  As a US citizen who will suffer under the embargo the rest of the world will set up around US trade, I will kind of miss things like toothpaste and medicine.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨There are only like 3,000 billionaires and they're not physically imposing people.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  the trick is getting all those people moving in the right direction.

  Turns out only a handful of things in all of history have pushed people out of social boundaries and into a realm of discomfort and possible consequence:

  1. Fear and hate. Always number one here, if you get enough people scared together, they can be driven anywhere. Most people don’t think, they feel. Feelings drive the motions and actions.

  2. A greater discomfort than breaking social norms and potentially going to jail- IE: starvation, homelessness, genocide, etc.

  3. Extremely charismatic people who capture enough political capital that they’re given the opportunity to gather large numbers of people for a cause. These are usually politicians who are well trained in how to influence people, and typically use item #1 to enforce their goals.

  Right now we don’t have any of these things. We also don’t have political capital or organized power such as uniting behind nationalism or guns to demonstrate our ability to actually disrupt the system. This makes us a target by the state, and the state protects capital right here, right now.

  We can still fix this through political action and organization, and if we do, we can actually create systems that protect the world from more lich-kings rising up and swallowing all of our work and money. It just takes more social involvement than we’re doing now… and since just that seems too much for most progressive-minded people, I don’t have a lot of hope that we’re going to do any of the other, more forceful things that require a LOT more cohesion.

  Reality sucks. I know. But we can influence it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does everyone here think they're autistic or ADHD? The memes all describe normal human foibles.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my decades of forward time-travel, it’s that the future is consistent about only one thing: that there’s more of everything.

  Our future is going to have great hardships and weird politics and disasters and suffering, but it will also have more wonders, miracles and everyday concepts that would seem utterly alien to us presently. People in many places will die of easily preventable diseases because of income inequality, that’s a norm. But those easily-preventable or treatable diseases will be things like cancer or heart disease.

  You will have a an ocean of cheaply made “AAA” game titles being pushed out by the EA/Trump/Saudi conglomerate, sure. But you will also have totally new experiences being experimented with as AI matures and creates new ways to generate worlds on the fly, things like video cards will slowly start becoming obsolete as new ways of creating virtual environments are experimented with.

  It’s going to get harder and harder to keep up with changes too. Trust me on this, there’s no avoiding it. Just find a niche in life you enjoy and ride it out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does everyone here think they're autistic or ADHD? The memes all describe normal human foibles.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  People have stopped socializing, at least not in a real, meaningful way. Discord groups of other shut-ins feeding off each other’s insecurity doesn’t count.

  The lack of socialization means a lack of social validation so to feel any value at all, we all have to figure out how to carve out new identities in a much more lonely and dark world. Self-diagnosis of conditions and syndromes can give you insulation from criticism and give you a sense of community and belonging, so less effort is placed on managing or treating the condition and more effort is placed on affirming and defending your condition.

  I’m not saying the conditions aren’t real, they exist on a large spectrum that almost everyone falls on to some degree, but what’s changed is the view of the conditions or syndromes as an obstacle to life that needs to be managed or beat. Instead it’s a badge of identity that people work to justify and preserve, often without realizing it.

  I’ve been in and out of the mental health system for years, I’ve done it to beat depression and anxiety and have made great strides by accepting the hard truths of the things I need to do to make it easier to live with problems outside my control. But these are tools I embraced because I wanted to go outside, meet people, be more social and have more opportunities.

  Not a lot of young people want any of that, they’ve been disillusioned by the promise of the future because the internet just feeds them the bleakest picture of the world that it can, and people don’t generally seek out balancing perspectives on their own, and even resist any attempt to tell them that there’s a lot of important reasons you might want to stretch your mental and social muscles.

  Nearly everyone I talk to under the age of 25 or so says they can’t imagine living past 40, with many saying that they actively have plans to not live past 40, which blows my goddamn mind.

  Every single one of you whiny, nihilistic shits out there is going to hit age 40 and say “Oh fuck, what have I done with my life?”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I've never been in a situation where me having a gun would have made things bettter.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I know that building community is not only an answer to violence, but broadly speaking the answer to a lot of social problems. I am curious though if you’re referencing a source or study, if the neighborhood beautification projects lead to people becoming more involved in their communities, or if it’s communities already coming together to beautify their neighborhoods.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I've never been in a situation where me having a gun would have made things bettter.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It depends a lot on your local laws. Not every state even makes the distinction, so to err on the side of caution, I always treated ammo the same as a gun, and never separated them.

  Some laws let you transport guns anywhere in your car if it’s in a locked box, some laws are written in a way where that could mean your glove compartment, other states have wording that excludes a glove compartment, just as an example of the ambiguity involved in gun laws.

  Also, your proximity to schools or other public services can override all the other laws. It was when I was drawing kilometer radiuses from local schools that I started to feel such stress from planning my trips outside that I decided to stop taking the damn thing out all the time, and eventually just stopped entirely.

  A good CCW class will give you the most basic stuff you need to know for your area, but it does change frequently so you would need to refresh on the laws frequently.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I've never been in a situation where me having a gun would have made things bettter.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I did self-defense training, both learning and teaching for close to 15 years or so, I did the CCW thing, took classes in firearms as well as martial arts and the whole nine-yards for many years.

  I will often reiterate what you cited there, that if you’re in a dangerous situation that you already expect to be dangerous, your first priority is changing your situation. Not going to that place, working towards moving, etc.

  I eventually also stopped carrying my gun, because all it did was add extra stress to my life. Always making sure you know where it is, if you’re somewhere that legally prohibits you having it, then if you do have to leave it outside of a store or business, you are always thinking about it inside your car. My greatest worry was someone breaking into my vehicle and using the gun to commit a crime, which statistically is much, much more likely than actually being in a situation where you need to use it.

  I still own guns but keep them locked up. But I don’t enjoy guns broadly because I’ve had too much time think about it. I’ve had to learn the law, I’ve had to take responsibility for teaching others how to defend themselves, I’ve spent too much time playing out situations and the post-event situations that most gun-chuds NEVER spend a moment thinking about.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK the Venezuelans community in the US is not representative of Venezuelans as a whole.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If God truly is ‘all-powerful’ and ‘omnipotent,’ then Jesus dying wasn’t the only way to ‘save us.’”⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The more you think about it, the less sense it makes.

  If you actually read the book, it makes so little sense you will weep for humanity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨There should be more negative awards. For example: the most pathetic nation or the most monstrous person of the year.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  People will compete for those negative awards to get famous.

  Source: look at the fucking internet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you "feel" gender?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As a cishet man, I don’t. I recognize it, I know my social expectations, I know what the unwritten “rules” are and I am just “comfortable” with it. In that it doesn’t bother me enough that I want to change anything.

  That doesn’t mean I “feel like a man.” I don’t know if there’s such a feeling. It’s words we use to describe having comfort with your life and situation, and I bet there are very few men or women or anyone else who feel that sensation all the time. Even though I feel comfortable being a man, there are so, so many things I don’t understand, but cannot change.

  I would say the way I feel my gender the most is physically and sexually. Without delving too deep into the horny-pool, all I can say is I feel like a man in sexuality. I feel very “male” urges tickling the back of my mind which are very pleasant to indulge in the right circumstances. I have attractions and desires that line up with being heterosexual male and that’s probably the only place where I enjoy maleness.

  Everything else? It just feels like wallpaper, and I don’t care. I wear a beard because I know there are people who like beards and have decided I look better displaying facial hair, but I don’t stroke it and say “damn, that’s nice man-hair.” I would feel better smooth shaved but it makes me look like gumby.

  I am the first downstairs with a gun when someone hears glass breaking, not because I like being first in line for danger, but because I know I am larger and well-trained and can probably survive an injury better than smaller humans around me that I care about.

  I am the one who does the “guy things” because I am the guy. When I (rarely) get support or reward for specifically male things, it feels good but I don’t connect it with my gender. I don’t even know what that means. I feel more like I happen to be in this body in this culture and need to do the best I can with it, and feel no strong urge to change that dynamic. No glaring discomfort, but also no real sense of “identity” about my gender.

  Honestly, maybe it’s because I keep the company of people with a few more brain-cells than the stereotypes you see in media, but my male friends are usually the same. We don’t “talk like guys” together, if anyone tried that they would get stared at. Most of our conversations are about healthcare and problems with our homes or backs or family members, real-world, material issues with life more than our gender roles. Most men I know are just “people inhabiting male bodies and roles” and I don’t think that’s rare, I think it’s largely what most people feel.

  There are things I recognize that are deeply painful about my gender role, as well as things that give me benefits. If I let myself feel anything at all, it would be a level of despair that no matter what else happens, there is an expectation on me that I will have to work, solve problems and do the hard things in my family/social circle that people who do not identify or “feel” like men don’t have to do. I don’t get that part on a broad, social level.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨xkcd #3182: Telescope Types⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The good news, is after you lose everything at least once, life broadly becomes a lot less scary. Best wishes and I hope you land on your feet whatever the results.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨xkcd #3182: Telescope Types⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Very much got USA’d in the middle of trying to grow a business. Ended up losing basically everything and starting over in life, out of everything though, that telescope was the only thing I really miss.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨xkcd #3182: Telescope Types⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  But bathing in the telescope is still fine, right?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨xkcd #3182: Telescope Types⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Had to sell my Meade LX200 12" to pay for medical bills a number of years ago. Made me very sad.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do we have No Man's Sky fans here?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I have high hopes that Light No Fire will learn the lessons from NMS and make a world that is both dynamic and interesting, but grounded enough in a single planet that it’s not such a slog to explore and it’s not just “Oh, neat, a green planet with blue worm aliens and purple trees, this is a color/creature combo I haven’t seen in hours.”

  Also, imagine how nice it would be if they just drop it as a huge MMO and you just drop in somewhere and people start randomly finding each other and building communities. That would go so hard, and yet the studios capable of making that kind of experience are soooo scared of the 2% of players who will play that and whinge all over the forums that they’re “bored, lost and can’t find anyone.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are your gaming highlights of 2025?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I am using a 7-year-old video card on a 5-year-old machine and have been notified my health care premiums are going up 1000%.

  I’ve been playing small, cheap, low-res social games with friends and family like Misery or RV There Yet and those are nice. But I feel like gaming broadly is starting to recede in my rear-view mirror. Too many real-world problems and stresses and not enough pay.

  I am not sure what all these huge companies are going to do when nobody can afford anything anymore.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do we have No Man's Sky fans here?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That may be it, I am expecting something more grand or epic or complicated to start uncovering, not really realizing that what I’m already doing is “it” and the rest is just exploring for the sake of exploring.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do we have No Man's Sky fans here?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I really really really want to like this game

  Same, when it comes to games with vast scope and scale of a universe, it’s either this, Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen.

  Elite Dangerous feels very “cockpitty” even with recent updates, it’s just not very pretty or engaging and I’ve tried several times to launch myself into it. VR was amazing for a little while, but still felt very “yellow cockpit” after a bit and a dark field of stars everywhere you look.

  Star Citizen was very engaging for a bit, the open-world PVP, realistic scale, social, busy world and hyper-realism and absolutely beautiful environment have sooooo much potential, I log in annually and stand in a viewing area on a space station and just look out at the universe… but that’s it, I don’t like the janky, unpolished controls, the broken missions and lack of personalization/incentive to survive. I would even take very basic survival mechanics like base making, farming, upgrading skills and devices and places to loot and gather furnishings like No Man’s Sky.

  No Man’s Sky feels a lot like “less intuitive minecraft” and I think I rather just play minecraft if I want to dig and build in a colorful, cartoonish world. The whole "harvest oxygen and swamp gas and process it with tungsten dust and then turn that dust into widgets which you refine into super widgets… it gets grindy and off-putting because it’s not comfortably accessible, it’s not intuitive, and that’s where my biggest beef with NMS is, the lack of an intuitive direction or goal and the feeling that there’s just too many lonely planets and not enough rewarding experience in spending so much time landing on each. Even if it was an actual MMO it would be more engaging.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do we have No Man's Sky fans here?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I really would like to love the game. Everytime a new update drops I try to pick up the game

  Are you me?

  I have it installed right now, I logged in to play all this new, raved-over content and found myself on some planet with too much air-traffic making noise overhead, needing to collect minerals to power my ship, and a base with some minecraft-like chests of loot.

  I know the game is vast and deep and full of surprises and such, but I have the hardest time connecting with it enough to feel like I want to explore several hundred hyper-colorful planets.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Transliterated country names into Chinese Language use pre-existing characters that already has its own meaning, therefore native Chinese speakers have a subconcious impression based on country names.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Nah fam you should probably wait until Trump dies, which won’t be much longer.

  My point was only that a lot of the news is a little hyperbolic, you should check other sources to see exactly what people in your situation are facing, I ain’t passing out financial or travel advice, just providing perspective.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Transliterated country names into Chinese Language use pre-existing characters that already has its own meaning, therefore native Chinese speakers have a subconcious impression based on country names.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A couple points that media routinely skips right past because the current drama is great for clicks and views.

  1. The current “escalation” of immigration hostility is only slightly more aggressive than it’s always been.

  2. And that percentage of bad cases and horror stories against tourists is very, very small to begin with. At least compared to the HUGE number of people flowing in and out of the country every hour. This is why the whole spectacle being played out by this administration is so ludicrous and pointless. More people were still deported under Biden. More people still stay in the country illegally just by overstaying their permits or travel visas.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It will trickle down any second now⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  about to blow.

  about to

  It’s not. Speaking from decades of living under this, it’s always framed this way, but there are no international financial cops, there’s nobody with American held debt that dares try to collect, we are the biggest, bloated monster with the biggest, baddest bloated military.

  At the end of the day, the one with the biggest stick wins. Until that collapses, USA will continue to have an economic hegemony.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It will trickle down any second now⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not shown: the innumerable corporate wars fought to create and expand these borders.

  This is already happening guys, this IS going to be our medium-term future.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Transliterated country names into Chinese Language use pre-existing characters that already has its own meaning, therefore native Chinese speakers have a subconcious impression based on country names.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If you can separate out the politics, America really is a beautiful country. So is China, I’ve been to both. Everyone should see both at least once.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not policing shit, but it paints an impression that you might not be aware of if you care about people’s impressions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I can’t imagine using the word “normie” unironically in 2025.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A lot of people get called “idiots” but that doesn’t mean I can’t actually differentiate who’s really an idiot.

  (There is a subtle subtext in this reply, see if you can catch it.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Skyrim on Switch 2 ships with severe input lag and a huge 53GB file size despite being capped at 30FPS⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The year is 2064. The world outside is fire and riots.

  A new life is brought into the world, the hospital lights flicker. The doctor, dirty and worn out, pushes the new parents a form on a battered clipboard.

  “Congratulations to you both, now please sign this release to bring your baby home, but not before you designate which formats of Skyrim your child will inherit, please understand this is not optional, and we no longer take Bitcoin to pay the mandatory $60 Skyrim Fee, so please use cash, credit or ration cards to pay.”