+1

That being said, as someone having a hard time using stairs (some issues with me knees) I know I’m very appreciative when there is a chair or something to sit on for a short rest.

Sure, not all communities are the same, that’s fine. There are plenty of communities I’m not interested or I see I won’t fit in. There are others I don’t have that impression.

. I like it a lot here but I feel like I need to engage a bit myself to create the great discussions I used to simply observe on Reddit.

+1

How to create great discussions on Lemmy?

I can’t tell about ‘great’ save that it has a lot to do with both the topic discussed and the people involved, but I consider being honest combined with 1) not being afraid (ie, no self-censoring) and 2) not trying to create polemics (throwing random shit knowing at least one will trigger some emotional reactions) as an excellent starting point to a potentially interesting discussion.

(Yesterday, I was reading (not commenting) a thread on some public transportation discussion. It was very interesting.)

Next to that, and equally important imho: don’t try to push new content for the sake of adding content. No matter how clumsy or simple, I prefer posts that the OP finds genuinely worth sharing or discussing with others. I don’t need to be entertained with constant new content. Like with eating, I prefer quality over quantity ;)

Can I reply after a day or two if I am too busy to reply immediatly?

Sure. Some like me won’t mind (I do that too) while others won’t like it, and some can’t even be bothered to click a discussion that is more than a day old. That’s fine. It’s their right to prefer freshness but they also don’t own Lemmy and they don’t get to decide how we should all use it.
Lemmy is ours to make it exactly what we want it to be. So, make if yours by answering/participating at your own pace :)

Maybe but its also super off putting to people looking on from the outside and wju do we need 500 flavours of Debian based distros when interested developers perhaps would be better tasked working om a few projects to inwprove things

maybe those newbies would not have a single ‘linux’ to look at at if that was not for that fragmentation that seem to be so much of an issue…

The people working for free to make Linux what it is are doing it on the simple idea they have been promised: their freedom (and right) to make Linux what they want Linux to be. Not to make it what some group of users or some manager want them to make it.

It’s many flavours, like you called it, is in the Linux DNA like freedom is ;)

Edit: rephrasing (it’s early around here, not slept much ;)

What you describe as “not feeling terrible” is what I would describe as “empathy”, aka what makes us humans. Our ability to feel emotions regarding what is not happening to us but to someone else.

There is no need to go seek trauma-like events to experiment empathy, no need to witness a war, a child suffering or something deeply unfair. It’s the same empathy that also makes us able to cry real tears when watching/reading a love story, and sincerely worry about what’s happening to a fictional character that is, by definition, not even a real person. That is the same empathy that makes us feel good when witnessing someone happy in front of us, even a perfect stranger (like this sweet couple sitting in front of me in the bus, yesterday), or feel happy when we see kids playing around on the street or in a park. The same empathy that makes us feel bad when we see those same people not being happy. And it’s the same empathy that makes feel like helping some random strangers that obviously needs help. To care about others, that’s what make us human beings.

So, would I take pills to stop being a human in order to not feel bad? No. At the very least because I know I would also not be able anymore to feel happy, as I would not be able to feel much anymore, if anything.

if everyone stopped caring, how would the world look like?

robot like. De-humanized. A billionaire’s dream I imagine. Even more so that they would make us pay for having access to those magical (?) pills.

Personal remark:

Ignoring real trauma here, just considering our emotional reactions to events happening around us. Imho, the real issue with bad/sad feelings is not in us feeling bad. The issue lies in not being educated to accept and to handle those kind of feelings as a legit part of ourselves. Exactly like so many of us now seem to have become incapable to handle any disagreement or contradictory fact, btw. It’s most likely the same issue.

No pill ever will replace education, or its absence.

Not knowing something does not mean one is dumb, refusing to learn about it would be a safer indicator. How did she react when you explained her Vietnam was still a country and has been so for quite some time?

Also, wtop worrying her being 10/10 (or 0/10) or being the reincarnation of Einstein or… not Einstein, maybe? Was she an interesting person, you had a great time with, or not? That would be the only reason to date/not date someone, in my book… But I’m old and I don’t date.

I do avoid those streets where I know there are too many of those. Which is kinda great since it helps me walk for a longer time.

I would not stay nearby.

Imho this ‘trend’ will end:

• the day enough of the wearers start getting punched in the face. Not that I encourage anyone to do that, I don’t, but seeing how… angry and and willing to fight so many people already are, I can’t imagine it won’t happen more and more as those stupid glasses become more common.
• If enough people start shaming them/their behavior, and it becomes a hurdle to wear those in public.

Otherwise, it will probably become as ‘normal’ as messaging people sitting right next to you instead of, you know, talking to them.

I have not really considered that aspect, something I should probbaly do. Thx.

I will look into tailscale, thx :)

The other thing is that if it doesn’t need outside access you don’t need to do it which is an extra security step you can take

True that.

Maybe we should watch more a certain movie as it feels like we have largely forgotten that wise advice.

Indeed I should have been more specific and you’re right: most of them are, not all.

lemmy is not reddit, people simply share what they want to share.

This is why it’s important to learn how to filer content you don’t care to see. Like I told you I barely see any meme, if at all, because my home page is only showing content from communities I’m subscribed to and those are not focusing on memes.

by default Lemmy’s home page displays what people are sharing (the ‘All’ option). That’s why my own Lemmy home page only display the content I’m subscribed to (no meme, or barely any)

As for the other part of your question why and how would people be forced to use memes? Memes are very low-effort, it’s to be expected they gather more traction than more demanding type of contents.

Sadly there is Windows-only software I need occasionally for work but I’m going to go full-linux on all but one of my devices.

That’s what we do at home. My spouse has work computer running Windows that she is expected to use, but our personal machines are running Linux. Only regret? Not having made the switch a few years earlier.

I’ve yet to start self-hosting: nearing my 60s, I confess this is a task I find intimidating (it needs to be done right to be secure and I’m afraid I will not be able to do it right and won’t even know it until it is too late). That being said, living in France, I already moved all the services we use from GAFAM and/or US-owned ones to independent EU-based services, if at all possible ones offering full privacy/encryption.

Fear not. The Internet was born outside of corporate greed and outside of state control. It can’t really survive under their control, its suffocating. Let it die. Later, it will be re-born outside of their reach, in another form and another place. And for a moment at least, once again, it will be a free place. Amazing and scary and naughty at the same time, but free.

Capitalists surrendered all over the world. They gave up acting like dicks, or were they assholes or cunts? Hard to say but what matters is that they all stopped being what they were, aka people willing to screw everyone and their mother in order to earn half a cent more. They stopped polluting our drinking water and our food, too. And all that happened under the bright leadership of the USA and its new emperor that suddenly realized he had it all wrong. That hate, anger, lies, manipulations and violence were not the way to go. A real change, from the dude we can all agree.

Billionaires are now distributing their fortune to charities, while firms like Apple and all the others have started designing 100% repairable and upgradable devices that will last for decades that they sell with almost zero profit margin. YT shows no ads (ads have almost disappeared online too, like tracking). Most news channels have been closed down for extreme toxicity. Most administrative and most of the teachers in universities have been replaced by competent leadership and teachers that, in a true revolutionary shift, focus again on teaching kids and students instead of pushing their own political agenda and ideologies.

Heck, even fast foods started selling quality food.

Really.

What? Is anyone here questioning what I just said?

edit: typos (that has not changed, as far as I’m concerned)

Wise, I wouldn’t know but since I’m not rich I know a lot of people will sincerely doubt it, instead considering I’m just another loser. They probably would be right?

We also need to be identified to buy a domain name here in Europe (in most of it, at least).

As a user, I’m still allowed to own a random domain name but I need to be identified to buy it (and the informations need to be valid). I’m also allowed to not use my real name to sign whatever I publish online but for how long? It feels to me like this too will soon go away (its too easy, and for them it probably is too tempting, to conceive a law that will make it way too risky for poor little children to read random posts by random people hiding behind a pseudonym, even if their real identify has already been registered for years and even if said content is solely aimed at adult readers.

That won’t be a big deal for me, I used to publish under my real name a few, many, years ago. I should be able to do it again… if I ever decide it’s worth publishing anything. But a law of this type will probably become the real tombstone under which the online freedom of expression will rest.
RIP, dear friend.

If only we had such a watchful mom right now IRL. Something tells me she would quickly become exhausted by the task at hand.