I just purchased my first car today. I’ve never needed a car before because paying for Uber was cheaper, but now with my new job, transportation costs will be lower with a car.
I’m excited and nervous at the same time. I’ve heard about the stress that comes with driving, but never experienced it with a brand new car that I just purchased.
I’m also trying to find a good name for the car, but it should come to me in due time. Overall, I think it’s worth it and that I’ll hopefully feel less stressed the more I drive.
My driving instructor always used to say “for all its faults, a car is still highly addictive”, and he’s totally right. But of course how much you enjoy driving it depends on where and how much you do that. Congrats anyway! What type of car is it, and what style of name did you have in mind?
It’s a Nissan Kicks SV, compact crossover, 122hp/FWD. I also chose it for storing my luggage when moving or traveling.
I do like the noise it makes when accelerating and it reminds me of a small dog barking at something 5x it’s size. The car feels light and smooth when driving, as well. I’m heading in that direction so, if you have any suggestions, let me know.
Sounds like both a practical and fun car! Here’s to many adventures with it.
As for the name, I have no idea. For some reason, Pierre comes to mind. Maybe because Nissan is french nowadays, or maybe I’ve just rewatched too many episodes of Danger 5 this week.
I’m interested in something like that too but lack experience with it.
I’m wondering how you balance between letting things flow organically and sometimes forcing communication. Because I really value the former, but I feel extra communication might be required for poly.
I’ve never dabbled in poly myself (just open relationships, which have some similar mechanics but a fundamentally different mindset), so the following is limited second-hand knowledge/opinion, but seeing as nobody else has replied…
First of all I don’t think there’s a definite answer to your question, as ‘poly’ is an umbrella term for a lot of different constellations: does everybody date everybody or are people just allowed to have several unrelated partners, is everything fair game or are there things you’re only supposed to do with your main partner (if there is one), how are new partners introduced, who can have sex with whom, do the same rules even apply to everybody involved, etc. There’s no right or wrong, only “everybody involved is comfortable with this” or not.
I myself haven’t seen many poly constructs work out mid- to long-term, mainly for the same reason that many open relationships eventually fail: not everybody involved was equally enthusiastic about the open/poly part, and/or as mindful of their partner(s) ad the situation demands.
Those I’ve seen succeed all have two things in common: very, very good communication and unconditional trust.
One part of this is what some call “brutal honesty” - you talk about everything that might affect your feelings for each other - even, and especially, the things that may hurt your partner(s)'s feelings. This obviously demands a lot from everybody involved. You also need to accept the fact that your partner(s) will have feelings that may be hurtful to you but are still valid and good for them. For example you need to be genuinely happy for the person you love the most in the world when they fall in love with somebody new and/or have had better sex with them than with you. That’s tough on many levels. It also means that there needs to be enough trust to accept and overcome jealousy and fear of loss.
You also see how easily such a degree of trust can be abused. That abuse accounts for, hmm, probably 90% of all the failed poly and open situations I personally know of. It never works out when one partner just goes along with it in order not to (entirely) lose the other partner, which sadly happens alot and is not always obvious from the start.
Funnily enough, a monogamous relationship would profit just as much from that kind of communication, only a monogamous break-up is generally more of an obstacle than a shift in a poly constellation (both for personal reasons and because of what society expects), and so monogamous constructs can be of a much lower quality before they’re deemed unsustainable.
I’ve also asked a close friend with poly experience what they think is important and will add their response here once they’ve replied.
I had an … uh, interesting new years, I ate some pre-warned strong magic edible brownies, and it’s never happenend before but from 11pm till 2am I went into a deep paranoid psycosis, hallucinating, losing grip on reality, time-jumps, paranoid, not knowing what’s going on, hard to talk to / interact with people, just having a poker-face trying to appear normal, lying on a couch, waiting to get through @__ i’ma stay away from psychedelics from now on, awesome for most ppl, but I don’t want to unlock something and have any of that when im sober x__x
Ya the bad trip wasn’t that bad , but I think I’ll stay from psychodelics again just to be safe , which sucks because I’ve always been more into the idea of them rather than alcohol , we’ll hope they get legal for everyone else’s benefit~
Is there some sort of twist that makes it more fun further in? Got halfway through the first Gentleman Bastard and had to give up because I just couldn’t care less.
I didn’t loathe it like I did with the Kingslayer Chronicle (also DNF), but it’s one of a select trio of books that I just couldn’t finish, out of some 200 books I’ve read the post 4 years (Jo Nesbø’s “The Bat” being the third).
If Beehaw chooses to leave the fediverse and defederate everyone, I wish them all the best, but I know I personally will not be joining.
I’ve had enough of walled gardens and private spaces, I chose the fediverse because Reddit started forcing decisions I didn’t like, like which apps I could use or how I interact with the communities I enjoy. The fediverse allows me the choice to choose what communities I want to subscribe to on my own terms, and that isn’t something I want to let go of easily.
There are downsides, there is noise, but that’s the role of hosting social media. It’s inevitable that as a community grows with more people who enjoy it, that there will also be people who want to tear it down. To me, that’s just a fact of the internet.
I’ll be disappointed, Beehaw is what inspired me to set up my instance and my communities and nurture my tiny instance - but I still believe in the fediverse. Welcoming differing opinions - not shutting them out.
This. I like Beehaw and I respect it’s nature. I even maintain an account here just to separate my more boisterous posting personality from the one that I feel safer in expressing on Beehaw. While I do external-post from my other account; that’s usually to respond to either Beehaw users not behaving in a way I feel is consistent with Beehaw values or to address others from external instances.
But I don’t want to see Beehaw closing it’s doors to the fediverse. If your staff team is getting swamped, you’re getting overwhelmed as admins, etc…then find more staff. You literally have the hugest pool of nice people right here on Beehaw, and I’m sure everyone who regularly posts here would likely be highly skilled at moderating somewhere on Beehaw if needed. Most of the time, Beehaw does not attract nasty people, and the hard work of the moderation done here shows.
Spread the load. Don’t defederate or give up on Fediverse. Invest in mental health buffs for your moderation team as needed if necessary!
A big general problem I have with the fediverse (as do others I’ve spoken to) is that it affords not real capacity to foster both private and public spaces with good and convenient means of moving and connecting with people between them. From the lack of truly private DMs, to no private group chats or local only spaces … the whole idea of private spaces for when people want them seems to be absent from the fediverse creators and it’s a significant gap IMO.
In the case of lemmy, I can imagine private communities being rather useful and pleasant. That is, communities visible only by people who are members or who have subscribed, with membership being optionally open or closed to being invite only or requiring approval or something similar. Having both federated and local-only versions of these would also probably be nice.
The useful part would be that you could meet people/accounts in private spaces and then see the same person/account in public too, which should only foster community creation through personal connections and discovery.
Then, whenever people need a quieter and more private space for a particular conversation or topic, they can take discussion out from the public and shield it in private. While you might argue that this would stifle discussion (and I see your point), I think there’s a relatively natural equilibrium between our needs for public and noisy engagement and quiet/safe/private interactions. I think people would naturally move between these spaces as they need.
I’m pretty nostalgic for forums myself but while they are great for smaller communities centered around a specific topic, they were really difficult to navigate when it comes to larger general communities IMHO. Fediverse with its reddit-like structure has an advantage here, and I personally like the idea of AP and multiple smaller communities interacting. We just need better tech and UI.
I dunno whats the official definition, I just remember the old (phpbb) forums having a complex roles structure and privileges so a subset of community would often have access to subforums or threads that other people can’t see. You’d have a public face of the forum and then private categories within it that wouldn’t be visible from outside.
This is more of a reddit-like news bulletin where everything is public and open by default - in the case of fediverse even more so since everything automatically gets pushed to other servers that you have no control over.
This is week 2 of being back at work and it’s nice to have some things I’m working on but also nice to not really have a lot on my plate and not expect a lot to be dropped on my plate anytime soon as everyone’s just starting to emerge from their winter vacations.
I had a nice date the other night with another very non-binary person and there’s something really special and nice about dating people who have so thoroughly rejected the gender binary. It’s a special kind of trans in my heart, and I always find people like this so darn fascinating in terms of how they want the world to perceive them. Seems to have gone well, but they also seem to be very anti dating?? so I guess I’m lucky I made the cut? I have no idea where this is going, but they live nearby which is a plus
As an aside I’m so tired of dating apps and dating in general. People either have impossibly high standards or something about me just doesn’t vibe with most people and like, I get it, but why does it have to be so exhausting? I just want to curl up in someone’s lap and have them run their fingers thru my hair 😩
Ugh. One of our ‘kids’ has been using various dating apps for a couple years, and all they did was make her depressed and me immensely grateful that I’ve never had to resort to any of them. They’re such a carnival of vanities, people killing themselves to outbid each other with unnatural selfies photoshopped to faux perfection (while simultaneously assuming that every other person is naturally beautiful without filters).
There should be a dating app or website with a strict ban on images that have been altered in any way.
Good for you to have scored a date though! Fingers crossed that there will be a second one.
I’ve been using a bunch for years. Honestly the vanities don’t bother me the slightest. What bothers me is the way people treat them. First and foremost, the majority of people on these apps aren’t even looking to date! They’re looking to quell their anxiety about whether they are date-able, whether they can find a match in case their current partner dumps them, are curious and want a way to people watch, or just interested in the dopamine they get from swiping profiles. They can’t find a healthy way to use them, so they use it for a little then delete the app because they find themselves addicted then reinstall months later when they find the urge. Or they mute all notifications and rarely open it, then feel bad when someone messaged them a week or two ago and decide it’s better to just not respond. Or they just make a snap judgement over just a few words and refuse to give the other person any time of their day to respond and just ghost. Or they chat for awhile then forget they were chatting because they have no notifications, disappear for a month, then feel anxious about that and rather than apologize just pretend it didn’t happen and delete the chat or match.
It’s just exhausting. I just want to meet people and see who I vibe with and I don’t understand why so many people don’t treat dating apps the same way.
I’ve been debating picking up Tinder or something because I’m having a lot of trouble meeting people in the town I just moved to, but all the horror stories have me conflicted on whether I should even bother. 🙃
You’re very kind to offer. It’s mostly just self-image stuff that will have to clear out in its own time. I’ve at least got an okay support structure, so I’m not going it alone.
Just like every other week of my life, it was mostly good and I had a lot of fun, but just one bad thing happened and that’s all I clearly remember now.
This week I played games with my wife, we both made new friends, which we’ve been hoping for for a long time, went to an in game event and laughed our asses off about how crazy that got. It was really fun.
But then I got sick, severely injured my pinky toe and can’t walk, and had a minor argument with my wife because I woke her up to ask what to do about it, even though I knew what to do already and my anxiety just made me not trust myself.
I really hope the good parts are the parts that stick in my head, but that’s not usually how it goes with me.
Aw man, that sucks both for its effects and for how much people underestimate the consequences. Did you stub it or cut it? Keep it snuggled up to the two toes next to it and make sure there’s a steady supply of chocolate.
Slammed it into my solid wood coffee table in the dark because I wasn’t paying attention. Broke it, which is the second bone I’ve broken in my life. The first was the same toe, the same way.
The toe is cursed I think.
This, I think, may explain a lot of that mentality too. People tend to hyper-focus on things that stand out, and negative things stand out. Spending enough time steeping in that feeling definitely seems to be connected to rising levels of meaningless cynicism and jackassery.
I do think there’s also something to be said for people who spend their whole lives glued to social media generally having pretty boring experiences when they’re not being spoon-fed dopamine. If you don’t go out and have your own adventures, the adventures you see in fiction are the only ones you’ll be familiar with. It’s hardly surprising that they’re so incredulous of the stories of people who are getting out there and living life.
Doesn’t take much bad to spoil the good, to me at least and OP it seems. Only so much letting go I can do and it’s mostly focused on the state of the world rn
Not even mean, borderline conspiratorial in terms of fake stuff. I guess people have been “burned” a lot by fake stuff in the past, but even when something’s fake they bring out every pitchfork available. It’s like they don’t understand the concept of entertainment. Not everything has to be real to be entertaining.
I think I’ve seen more internet rioting over fake stuff than I have over genuinely bad things.
I just had someone here accuse me of being part of an astroturfing campaign because I disagreed with them about FOSS licensing. At that point I just stop responding because there’s no use having an argument about whether my entire comment history is just a facade to cover for my secretly paid-for opinions about FOSS.
I think that the “post-truth” world that is blossoming in Right-wing political circles, where incorrect facts are hand-waved away as “differences of opinion”, is causing people elsewhere to react defensively and be very guarded against any actual differences of opinion, and some are overreacting and treating any difference of opinion as immediately suspect or even malicious.
Lemmy has a specific tech slant problem where inevitably if you post anything which is even tangentially tech related (such as sharing a spreadsheet on google), you will inevitably get someone complaining or ranting about big tech, providing a FOSS alternative, and typically chastising you for not knowing/doing better. I would say a good third to half of all comments we remove for not being nice is something cussing out someone else over a tech disagreement, which is a pretty wild problem to have.
I’ve posted some mean answers in the past, so I may share some insights:
Someone had a bad day. Maybe a client berated them, maybe they had a falling out with a family member, maybe they stepped into a dog poop on a rainy day and their umbrella got blown out before a passerby burned their hand with a lit cigarette (too specific? yeah, well…)
Someone decided to self-medicate (booze and weed seem to be popular choices)
Someone forgot to take their meds (high blood pressure can do it, the flu will do it, insomnia or psych meds will do it more)
Someone got a series of the aforementioned.
Generally: people post mean answers when their sense of empathy is either inexistent, or beaten into oblivion.
Once there are enough people in a place, the chance of encountering at least one person in one of those situations, quickly grows to 100%. If the place doesn’t actively discourage that kind of behavior because “engagement”… then you get the likes of Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and similar.
Hey, thanks for your very reflective answer! That all seems somehow valid. Guess I am just a very harmony-seeking person. Can’t even choose the mean options in Video Games sooo…
I used to love reddit. Especially because it was so diverse. So many communities living side by side generally pretty well (except the well-known toxic communities of course that we all knew to stay away from). And the everything-goes attitude, like people discussing religion on the same site as people exhibiting their sex lives :P I used to love seeing that kind of diversity (ok and the exhibitionism too, I admit 🤭, I’m just into that.). I just loved the everything-goes feeling about it.
But two things went wrong as I see it. One was that US society got more and more polarised and toxic due to Trump and most of reddit’s users are from the US. Even the people who used to be pretty nice are so triggered by anything you say “wrong”, they always think you’re trying to pull them into an argument for the “other side”. It’s like they have PTSD from being constantly attacked by the other side and it causes that knee-jerk reaction on anything that doesn’t fall 100% into their narrative. I got so sick and tired of that hostility especially because I was not used to it locally. That thing you mention, where you say something and someone always claims you’re making it up to make a point or karma or whatever is so familiar and tiring.
And the other thing was of course that idiot spez. Trying to clean up reddit for his precious investors by removing (or locking away) anything not above the belt, killing third-party apps, etc. I still go there once in a while to gather some information but I stay away from discussions and I rotate my accounts every couple of months. So I don’t give a crap about karma because I kill my accounts anyway. In fact even when I did have a long-term account I used to “shreddit” it every couple of months so karma was not something I ever cared about.
The sad thing is that this Trump toxicity has now even blown over to my country (Holland). They elected a total fascist 2 months ago and the same thing is happening there now, there are lots of people claiming they were never heard and now their hero is going to drain the swamp and kick out all the refugees and all that same old blahblah. Several of my “friends” were caught up in this BS and I’ve had to break off all contact with them. 😡
Even Lemmy is not free from this, I joined lemmy.ml for a while but I found it pretty toxic too. Lemmy.world looked similar. This is why I came here and it’s been great so far.
Reddit’s always had a toxicity problem (see: Ellen Pao), but there was definitely a shift in 2015. It lines up with the political divide, but I think it was just a symptom of a larger problem. Because of a certain subreddit, a lot of new people were introduced to reddit. When they finally released an official app (lol, or rather they stole it and rebranded it as their own), there was a massive influx of users.
I’m not all “reddit was better when there were fewer users” because it wasn’t. But there was a cultural shift when it became much more widely promoted by app stores and all. It got users from all kinds of backgrounds, but it also got… I don’t know. Different. Maybe oversaturated, which kind of made it difficult to find more quality content.
The only good thing about reddit toward the end of my original time with it (I’ve been browsing lately, but not much because the app fucking sucks*) was niche communities, some funny content creators, and some NSFW subs (some of which have been absolutely gutted, if not banned entirely, since the incident).
A lot of those subs are irreplaceable. There’s just too much previous content and a mass of users that won’t ever migrate to something like Lemmy. Niche communities can still be kind of successful here due to inherently less users, but it still lacks diversity because those niche subs still had a really healthy dose of active users, which often exceeded the amount of users subscribed to some popular Lemmy communities.
A lot of them started turning to shit earlier, but they were manageable with filters and what have you. Plus the good mods were really good. Some left, some stayed, but the divide kind of fucked a lot of subs.
Technically, there are other apps you can still use on Android without needing a paid subscription (eg. RedReader, Stealth, patching with Revanced), but they can be a bit finicky sometimes. Although, so can the official one, so it doesn’t make much of a difference.
I don’t believe this is a US problem. Dates do match with all the Trump nonsense but it happened pretty much worldwide. Look at UK, Australia, Philippines, Brazil, Mexico. All of them had the same divide in society with politics at the center. I think it’s social media and the attention-hungry algorithms that do not care about the side effects. That is what is pulling people apart. Spending hours a day in an indoctrination environment just because ‘clicks and ads and $$’. Laws to prevent this are waaaay too late. Damage is done. And what horrible damage these things did… What horrible damage these people did… And are still doing unchecked.
I noticed the same a couple months ago. After the API shutdown stuff happened, I largely left reddit. I would only go there for things I needed, like information and news related to my field.
But in October, I started going back more, and even commenting. And almost immediately, I got the “well ackshually…” comments and just so much unneeded aggression. People just looking to be right by ignoring 99% of the correct information in a comment and focusing on that 1% that’s weak or, sure, wrong. And it was over dumb stuff, too.
After being on reddit for 13yrs straight, I guess I learned to be blind to it all. Like I knew it was happening, I saw it all the time, and I’m sure I know I even did it myself here and there. Hell, I was/am still a mod on a reddit; I saw it everyday. I did start getting tired of reddit and redditors about a year ago, but I just kinda brushed it aside.
Anyway, it wasn’t until leaving and going to Beehaw and Tildes for a few months, and then going back, that I realized how bad it actually was on reddit. It’s so glaring to me in threads all over the place. And that there was no desire to improve or change things. That that’s just reddit’s culture and that’s how redditors like it.
As such, I’ve still kinda kept some distance from reddit. I’m still there, but I don’t think I’ll ever go back to how I was using the site pre-APIgate.
Further, I actually get angry when I see people on Lemmy engage in that redditesque way of just looking for confrontation and being smartasses. We left reddit; why are we bringing that mentality with us? If I saw someone on a Beehaw community acting that way, I call it out.
That’s one of the reasons I support Beehaw potentially leaving Lemmy to do its own thing. I see Tildes and see how a standalone forum and community can exist and function well and productively, without all the “gotchas” and just unnecessary aggression. That’s not to say Beehaw (or Tildes) is perfect. That behavior can be found everywhere. But at least there’s a desire to try to stamp that out.
If I saw someone on a Beehaw community acting that way, I call it out.
That’s one of the reasons I support Beehaw potentially leaving Lemmy to do its own thing.
I’d rather Beehaw didn’t leave Lemmy, and instead “calling that kind of behavior out” got more popular on Lemmy instances… at least on the ones federated with Beehaw. But we’ll see.
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