Lots of stress and uncertainty, but some of the uncertainty is good maybe? Made a new Beehaw account, eager to try this experiment of whether I fit in here
After I freaked out during the last couple elections, I basically stopped most news. Itās pretty unclear what I could do with it anyway. The theoretical benefit was mostly around politics, but the vast masses just do it as a team sport, so my being āinformedā by the news isnāt helping hold politicians accountable or affecting elections. Outside of politics, except for the information about COVID during the pandemic, most specifically the vaccines, I have a hard time thinking of any useful information.
Even local news usually isnāt too relevant. I guess the āavoid this intersection because of power out to lights, flooding, icing or whateverā could be helpful, but usually I donāt get it till itās later on anyway.
This article is a great example of the struggles of living in our highly constructed world. It has been thousands of years since the mathematically average human lived a natural lifestyle and the rest of us trying to make big interconnected settlements work have been blundering it because what a big society needs is for us to constantly work against many aspects of our nature. No one can just live by their instincts and expect everything to work out, and anyone encouraging people not to think are literally trying to take advantage of what people tend to do when they forgo rationally considering key decisions.
It is very uncomfortable and distressing to hear about major disasters my government is responsible for, and it would be much more natural and fulfilling to me if all I needed to know was how to master my local environment with the rest of my band, but we have historical examples of atrocities being allowed for long periods of time due to nothing more than popular carelessness. If more people had the moral courage to expose themselves to the realities of our government and their own beliefs, I canāt imagine Hillary, Trump, or Biden would have come anywhere close to winning their respective primaries over the past so many years. These elections took place as a consequence of trusting that there were no ulterior motives for any information offered by the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News by most who cared to vote and the rest simply closing themselves off from the process. Just carelessness. Simply hearing about the information spread by these outlets second-hand is probably even worse since it will be filtered through an individualās interpretation of it. The solution canāt be to try to close oneself off from the outside world.
Uncritical reading of the product of highly compromised information companies is a bad thing, as this article discusses. The solution is not willful ignorance, but the more difficult and less comfortable path which is ultimately more beneficial to oneself and their society. Continue to read the news and in addition, be critical of it. Understand that the news starts with a reporter and then goes through a process of edits influenced by the editorsā biases, the advertisersā desires, and the orientation toward maximizing profit. Reading foreign news coverage of the same events filtered through an often totally different set of biases can make the important information itself more clear. Just as important as what the major news sources are covering are important events they arenāt covering which tend to get picked up by independent outlets with fewer restrictions. The American media blackout of the Standing Rock protest was particularly notable. I have always wondered how that event may have turned out if it were given more coverage than page 7 of the AP one time.
It almost certainly is better for our mental health to block out unpleasant information. We werenāt built for this society we have. We have a lot of work to do before we can approximate a natural lifestyle in our constructed society. There are powerful forces creating an information environment to manufacture our consent, and ignoring that they are doing that will not fix anything.
Unfortunately Iām considering to put an end to a new friendship. Itās like every time Iām around her I trigger her and it becomes a drama. Iāve already tried to adjust again and again but I have to face that Iām just a hedgehog to her and weāre not compatible.
The thing is I love using sarcasm and making slight jabs at people, itās like second nature to me. Honestly itās really not that extreme and Iāve asked all my friends and they say they enioy it. But to her these are real personal attacks and enough cause to ruin our time together.
It sucks cuz we had some really good laughs together. But also Iām done with stepping on mines, even when I am careful.
I pay very little to no attention to the news at all and could honestly care less. And I feel as if I am better for it because I am not concerned about every little thing. Big news stories I will hear about through the grapevine, but the little things just pass me by and thatās okay.
@taanegl whatever you do, don't stay at home. This is a great opportunity to travel places. I spent my previous two Christmases alone in my house and I felt miserable. Try going to some place where you could go in the morning or return to the evening if you don't afford/cannot get accommodation. Or, if you can, book a ticket in a sleeper train in one day in the evening, and another in a sleeper train back in the evening of the next day (that way, you could combine the cost of the accomodation with that of the transport, and you could come out cheaper and save time). Try getting through all the best parts of that place - maybe check for information about that city on Wikipedia or anywhere and take some photos (it could also be an opportunity to get into photography if you want. That'll help you out as well. Then start categorizing your pics into a photo management program, you'll keep yourself busy a lot).
As for me, I think I have enough chores to do to keep myself busy. Plus some movies to watch and a book to finish.
I love to travel :) never considered myself a tourist, because I like to travel to places and meet the people there. Not to lay on beaches and buy cheap trinkets.
I need to save up money again to actually go somewhere Iāve never been. I want to see Africa, Asia, even America. Been largely traveling in Europe and I feel like I need to spread the net wide.
Me and a Swedish-Ghanan friend have talked about visiting Japan to visit his friend, and I can maybe say hello to an old friend who plays the clarinet :)
busy, busy weekend. took coco (foster dog) to the community garden volunteer day on saturday morning. my partner had his birthday bash at a local music venue where his band and his friendsā bands played. came back to our house for a garage after party. drove to the adjacent city to hang with folks sunday morning, then came home and watched the extended edition of the lord of the rings: the two towers. i fell asleep during the last hour or so, but i just watched it last weekend, so iām okay with that. (my partner missed watching it, which is why i rewatched.)
going alcohol-free until valentineās day, which should be a good little reset.
A book/movie/object collection shelf app that has barcode scan, ISBN search, and custom database entries like money spent. They were really popular in the early 2010s but mostly subscription based and Mac only. I could probably repurpose something like Calibre to do similar things but thatās a bit overkill and a lot of non-book entries would take too long to setup.
Well if anybody read my previous comment, I had a date a few weeks ago and scored an apartment. She allowed me to move in earlier, before she moved out. So weāre roommates now! And itās a studio apartment so ya sheās an angel. Of course I immediately started doing all the chores and trying my best to cook the best meal for her.
To be honest Iām sad that sheās looking for a new place. I wouldnāt mind living with her. In fact I think I would really like it. Itās like we just click.
Anyway I woke up with the same smile I went to bed with. I was technically homeless and living in my office. It was damn cold. I am talking 13 degrees if you set the heating to 1000 euro a month, because electricity and war.
We used to heat it with wood and that was like 350 a month, but at least it was warm. Itās not allowed any more.
Well Iām just glad things are more stable now. Itās too much to explain but it was really bad. Now I can take care of the stuff thatās urgent and then hopefully Iāll be bored for a while. Then Iāll continue with my life work!
Iām really glad youāre in a better spot now. Definitely hoping you can keep that trajectory.
My eyes popped at 350/month. Thatāsā¦ thatās a lot. Around us $750 gets you two cords and thatās enough to heat our space all winter (but the house is <1200 square feet so it doesnāt take much).
Same size here actually. And Iāve invested in isolating it, so you could add that to the cost too. But thatās just a relatively small issue compared to all the others there. I just had to get out.
In fact today I felt like I was hit by a truck. Slept most of the day and couldnāt concentrate at all. All that stuff you pretend that doesnāt bother you, it catches up. But only because Iām safe here now, and so I can let it.
iām on my last day of house sitting two big goofy german shepherds (+ a turtle). itās been nice to veg out and chill with some mellow dogs and not have anything else to worry about. looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight though. iāll be back here for a quick overnight on saturday-sunday, then going into winterfest weekend full ham.
itās a turtle in recovery, so thatās the identification number! technically this turtle has recovered, but itās too late in the year to release it, so itās overwintering until itās warm out again. this is all through the local vet school, NC state university. :)
ever since kagi expressed that theyāre not interested in caring about the effect of LLMs on the environment (kagifeedback.org/d/ā¦/2), i had already hopped off because i could see their talk about āmaking the world a more humane placeā was just talk. so iām not really surprised to see this shit unfolding either
iām surprised to see that the dude who replied on my post is actually the kagi guy, though. thatās surprising, i took him for some q&a support mod lmao
but yea iām trans so i do my best not to support transphobic (or otherwise bigoted) people. seems like itās in my best interest yāknow. and sometimes i donāt know! i was pretty excited for kagi at first blush, itās really a shame theyāre not worth the time or effort
chat
Active
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.