I think the distinguishing feature of the newer “isekai” genre is just how trashy they all are. :P

When I went to France after taking French in high school I tried speaking French to various people and they usually responded to me in English. That’s certainly one way to say “your French is shit.”

This is just reminding me of my current cat who will open the door to my room, then get inside and close it. I think it’s to get my attention, but the funny part is always when he is ready to leave and he realizes the consequences of his actions.

I didn’t know how messed up it was at the time, but with the hindsight of what I know now: Hebrew school telling me I could go on a free trip to Israel after my Bar mitzvah. I didn’t go mostly because I didn’t like religion or having to go to boring temple all the time, but now that I know about the genocide and the Birthright trip being this super messed up propaganda tool for impressionable teenagers I’m really glad I didn’t go.

I’m also pretty sure that cats understand human languages and just choose to ignore us most of the time.

Semi recently. I’ve got a group of college friends who hang out on discord most nights to game and chat. Most of the time it’s shooting the shit, but we occasionally mix in life talk. We all have some bundle of mental health issues, so stuff related to that comes up a lot. One of my friends has been trying to find a romantic partner and we’ve been giving our fairly limited advice to him on his search.

It’s kind of a shame that we’re not geographically close enough to see each other in person to be more directly supportive, but it is what it is and we’ve had a few visits over the years. ATM I’m with 2 of them on a trip and we got to spend a lot of time chatting.

It’s a restaurant where all the servers are women dressed as maids (or whatever the theme is) and act all cutesy. I went to one once just to see what it was like on a trip to Japan and it was an extraordinarily awkward experience.

Is Hooters just an American maid cafe?

Yeah, but why did it turn out differently like that? Europe surely had its own class of capitalists and other entrenched interests. They could have pushed for similar suppression measures.

Maybe it had something to do with the difference in fallout from WWII? Idk. I’m not super well read on this subject in particular, so I don’t know enough to do anything but speculate.

Like most of these kinds of problems, the answer can be boiled down to a simple commonality: The people who stand to lose the most from things changing for the better are the same people who have the most power to influence the outcomes. The only thing that can counter that is a strong labor movement.

Now, there is a more complicated question to be asked about why US labor movements have been less successful than their European counterparts, but that I don’t have an easy answer for.

I do see plenty of disagreements, especially in the political sphere. While people seem to generally lean left, there is a decent amount of variation in opinions within that space. Although since they all still generally align with the same goals, the disagreements only get so heated.

For things like media (games, movies, etc) I see less, but for me I just don’t really feel the need to rain on anyone’s parade. If they like something I don’t like, whatever. I wouldn’t be shocked if a lot of people felt the same way.

For tech stuff… we’re on a decentralized open source platform and a lot of the users came over from corporate social media. Of course most of us are skeptical of big tech developments. Occasionally some nuance gets lost, but I even see some of that show up. There are plenty of threads where the OP posts something based on a misunderstanding and the top comment is someone who (probably) knows more about the topic and can clarify things.

Also like some others have said, a non-trivial amount of the arguing that happens on other sites is likely egged on by astroturfing and prioritized by algorithms designed to keep attention rather than promote healthy discussion.

Also, there are some topics where the disagreements I have at least just don’t feel relevant enough to post. For example, with the AI thing. I generally agree with the sentiment of opposing the current AI implementations being pushed by big tech. The environmental impact makes it a non-starter even if the rest of it was good, but then there are issues with privacy, companies using AIs that aren’t good enough to accomplish the task to replace workers just to save some money regardless of the consequences, and the involvement these companies have with the MIC, etc.

However, I do have some optimism for uses of AI in the future. I think it’s cool tech that has potential to do good things, it’s just that a) It’s not actually ready yet and b) Some of those things would only work if we lived in a fairer society. But… honestly what’s the point of interjecting this into a discussion about what’s CURRENTLY going on with AI? What does my hypothetical sci-fi automated luxury gay space communism have have to do with a thread about companies spying on us or switching workers for AI and hurting both the workers and the consumers? Nothing really. It’s only really relevant for a discussion about academic research on AI. So I don’t bring it up. Not because I feel I need to silence my dissent, but because I recognize that it doesn’t really serve any purpose in this context beyond potentially derailing the discussion.

So overall, I’m not worried. While it would be nice to have some more people on the fediverse, I’m fine with the disagreements we do see and I don’t need to argue both sides with a Nazi or a bot. As long as mods don’t get too heavy handed about unreasonable stuff, it’s fine.

Do you think they’d actually bring back the draft? I feel like after Vietnam they realized that it’s too hard to send the general population to do terrible shit without getting a lot of pushback. A professional military that’s already filtered out anyone with a conscience is half of why they can just do shit like this while most of the country doesn’t want it. Plus technology has improved a lot, allowing a smaller force to do the same thing.

As for me. I’m already out of that age range, but I’ve already been wanting to move for a while. Maybe that would be the last kick in the pants necessary to get me to actually do it. But with the depression it’s still kind of a coin flip so….

I couldn’t even buy it for like an hour because Steam was getting overloaded lol. I’m playing it now and having a lot of fun.

The thing that bothers me about the whole discussion around the Epstein files is why do people think THIS will be any different? The rich and powerful have been getting away with heinous and illegal things in public for a long time. Wars which aren’t just immoral, but illegal by both international law and the laws of our own country. Gross violations of civil liberties and human rights. Police just straight up kill people and get away with it. Illegal torture facilities. Companies have killed tons of people through either negligence or outright malicious greed. Etc.

We KNOW about all of these thing already. Some were just straight up done in public, some done in private but eventually got leaked or declassified, but either way, we’ve had plenty of evidence of these people doing things that should have put them away for the rest of their lives and the worst consequences they’ve ever suffered were slap on the wrist fines if they even got those.

To me, the Epstein files are a perfect crystallization of the broader reality that the rich and powerful can use their money and influence to commit crimes with impunity. The idea that they are distracting from these crimes by committing even bigger crimes is just sheer absurdity. Not in the sense that it may be wrong, but rather how it shows how fucking insanely broken our system is. If you can get out of one crime by going out and murdering a bunch of people… what the hell are we even doing? Why do we think any of these people will ever pay for their crimes? The very system that would do that has been corrupted by those same criminals. They’re not going to put themselves, their buddies, or their benefactors in jail.

Something needs to change. Something needs to be done. But the idea that all that we need is for people to see the complete evidence of this particular set of crimes and the legal system will finally work properly is beyond delusional.

Do you realize how insane our politics are for people to think of supporting a genocide as just one thing on a list of policies?

Idk… I’ve had a few pretty shitty pencils.

Other people have good real answers, so here’s my joke answer:

Clothes and fire. Humans evolved to live in the climate of Africa, then one day some genius had to invent stuff that let them move to everywhere else in the world, and now thousands of years later, I’m freezing my ass off and my skin is dry for like a third of the year.

Yeah I shower right after. Shower temp is a bit inconsistent but I try to get it to be warm but not hot. I use body wash in the shower then I do moisturize and then I’ve been using clyndamycin that I was prescribed for this issue.

When you say do sets and groups, do you mean to do each of the exercises one time a day or only one part of the body rotating each day?

Also should I still pair this with the running? How much could I reduce my running if I started doing these? I’m currently doing an hour. I start seriously sweating after like 15 mins maybe and by around 40 mins I’m usually out of towels.

Also perhaps this is a silly question: But do you know a good set of workouts that I could do while watching anime? That’s what I do while running to keep my brain occupied and part of the reason I stopped going to the gym a while ago was because I couldn’t really do more than listen to podcasts, which isn’t really enough of a distraction. In other words, exercises I could do while facing towards a stationary screen like a tablet or maybe I could do some in front of the TV.

huh. I actually did start one somewhat recently (a few months now) and that somewhat coincided with when I increased my run from 30->60 mins. I do end up sweating a lot on my head, although also on the chest, back, and armpits. Probably not a reason to swap off the meds, but good to know I guess.