Hence why the members of c/fuckcars are so intense (I include myself in this).

The only practical way to avoid exposure to society's car dominance in your everyday life is to live far from society... Which ironically forces you to own a car and drive to get literally anywhere.

This may have something to do with which states do all-mail voting:

Eight states—California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington and the District of Columbia—allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail.

Utah is deep red, but the others are quite blue. Especially with California in there, that's a pretty good chunk of the US that votes early by default (there are same-day options in these states, but I suspect that option is often utilized due to procrastination rather than intentionally waiting until election day to vote).

In a statement, the consul general of Israel to the southeast US, Anata Sultan-Dadon, said that the diplomatic mission is "saddened to learn of the self-immolation at the entrance to the office building". "It is tragic to see the hate and incitement toward Israel expressed in such a horrific way"

Anyone else caught off guard by this utterly tone deaf statement?

The article: "a bunch of us are worried about the potential rise of fascism in the United States, so we're moving to Italy"

Tell me that you are oblivious to international politics without literally telling me that you are oblivious to international politics.

More to the point, if Americans were the type to "flee in droves," left-wingers would have left states like Texas and Florida en-masse for bluer pastures. Moving within the United States is a million times easier than moving overseas, and if they're not doing the former in the face of fascism/degradation of human rights in red states, why on earth would they engage in the much more difficult latter? Definitely sounds like a case of taking anecdote and non-committal musings online too seriously.

I'd be furious too, having such incompetent, out-of-touch advisors. This article alludes to it but others have gone more in-depth: Biden's advisors keep telling him the economy is great, the problem is messaging: the American people just haven't heard how great it is. Telling people struggling to pay their bills every month that they're better off than they were four years ago isn't messaging, it's gaslighting. His advisors should be telling him the truth, that the economy is only good on paper, that while the "haves" are living large the "have nots" are not only struggling, their ranks are quickly growing. Don't get me wrong, anyone who votes for Trump because they think he'll do better at economic issues is a moron, but history shows that a lot of people are going to go this route come November at the current pace of things. And Biden's advisors are just as moronic if they don't understand this.

This is in Missouri, for anyone wondering.

Millennials grew up in the 90s, possibly one of the "best" decades in modern history: good economy, closest we've gotten to "world peace," comparative political stability and "quiet" (the biggest scandal in US politics was Monica Lewinsky), and problems existed but generally seemed to be getting better with time not worse. The 90s were an optimistic time, especially considering the snowballing disaster of a 21st century that followed.

Edit: also advancements in science and technology were bright and exciting, without the constant existential dread of "what calamity have we unleashed this time?" The biggest tech/science-advancement ethical debate I remember was about cloning people, which is a genuine sci-fi-esque moral quandary but ended up being generally moot in reality.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican seen as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, tells a story in her new book about shooting and killing her young dog and a goat

Noem, who became governor in 2019, likened murdering her canine to having the ability and willingness in politics to do anything “difficult, messy, and ugly.”

I remember when presidential candidate Mitt Romney sunk his political career by telling what he thought was a humorous tale of creative problem solving that involved strapping the family dog to the roof of an overloaded car. This is like that, but horrifyingly worse.

Perpetual growth in a finite system is impossible, and anything that relies on perpetual growth to function is doomed to eventually fail.

For instance: social services that rely on perpetual population growth (especially youth population; e.g. Japan/South Korea), companies that rely on perpetual increase in users (most publicly-owned companies; e g. basically every social media company ATM), industries that rely on perpetual advancements in technology (e.g. industrialized agriculture, which constantly needs new ways to fight self-induced problems like soil depletion and erosion), housing as wealth generation (to be a wealth generator it has to outpace inflation, but at a certain point no one will be able to afford to purchase houses at their inflated prices no matter how over-leveraged they get; e.g. Canada). [Note that these are merely examples where these issues are currently coming to a head; they are by no means special cases, they're just in a more advanced state of "finding out."]

In other words, a lot of the modern world, in both public and private sectors, is built around a series of ponzi schemes.

Vigano referred to the pope only by his surname, "Bergoglio", and accused him of representing an "inclusive, immigrationist, eco-sustainable, and gay-friendly" Church

First time I've ever heard the words "inclusive" and "eco-sustainable" used with the intent of condemnation.

Millennial here. My impression is we're the largest generation on this platform, but I could be wrong.

I'm digging deep in my memory here so I can't provide any details, but there was one episode from a very early season of Grey's Anatomy where I got to the end of the episode and thought, "wait, did they ever solve this episode's medical mystery?" There was a lot of doctor-plot that episode and the patient plot just kinda got dropped. Well I watched the deleted scenes for that episode, and low and behold there's a line where they explain exactly what was going on with the patient. It wasn't the real highlight/purpose of the scene, but I'm still shocked they would cut it because it left an entire plotline (albeit just for that episode) completely dangling.

Arcane, the animated Netflix show that was based on League of Legends.

Greg Poole, who has been district superintendent since 2006, said the policy is legal and teaches students to conform as a sacrifice benefitting everyone.

This is clearly about control, as well as conditioning students to concede to authority and "traditional" social standards.

The headline completely buries the lede by making it sound like this is an article specifically about Austin, rather than the entire housing market.

In the U.S., our houses are meant to perform contrary roles in society: shelter for today and investment vehicle for tomorrow. This approach creates a kind of temporal disjunction around the housing market, where what appears sensible for one generation (Please, no more construction near me, it’s annoying and could hurt my property values!) is calamitous for the next (Wait, there’s nowhere near me for my children to live!).

If homeownership is best understood as an investment, like equities, we should root for prices to go up. If housing is an essential good, like food and clothing, we should cheer when prices stay flat—or even when they fall. Instead, many Americans seem to think of a home as existing in a quantum superposition between a present-day necessity and a future asset.

Thank you, article, for finally spelling out the obvious paradox that is housing in North America. I don't understand why this isn't immediately obvious to everyone, but then again we live under the myth that perpetual growth is not only possible, it's vital to a healthy society.

Oh honey, what dark corners of the Internet have you gotten mired in?

Audiences aren't sick of superhero movies, they're sick of BAD superhero movies.

Or we could regulate vehicle size and reduce speed limits, two things actually proven to reduce pedestrian fatalities and that could be implemented today without waiting on future technological advancements

¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

I remember really enjoying How I Met Your Mother when it was airing. I tried for a rewatch recently and only made it a few episodes in because I was so disinterested. It felt empty, and the humor wasn't hitting. I think it's a combination of I've changed (I've aged out of the "20-something singles fool around in a fantasy version of NYC" demographic) and TV has evolved (good comedy shows are no longer just goofy hijink situations and setups for one-liners).

So instead I rewatched Archer season one (same era as HIMYM) and fortunately that one still slaps.

I would love to see increased standardization in the food industry limiting the possible sizes and shapes of containers (such as glass) making them easier to wash and reuse as-is. On the home front, for example, it's ridiculous that I have to go out and purchase brand-new Mason jars for canning instead of being able to reuse a store-bought salsa jar. But more importantly on the commercially-processed food front, standardization would make reuse easier by ensuring that containers do not have to return all the way to their original company; that way a jar used by a raspberry jam company in the Pacific Northwest bought by a customer in Florida could go to a local orange marmalade company for reuse rather than having to travel all the way back to the PNW.

I think should also start seeing a lot more compostable products. We're already getting there somewhat with paper replacing plastic in shipping, but more products need to be explicitly labeled as compostable, and more municipalities need dedicated compost pickup and processing facilities. It's insane that we've created a soil-to-landfill pipeline for nutrients.

They might also recognize that shrinking family size isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Lower birth rates around the world could lessen environmental degradation, competition for resources, and even global conflict, Wang Feng, a sociology professor at UC Irvine, writes in the New York Times.

In every single one of these "depopulation crisis" articles the "maybe a shrinking population isn't entirely a bad thing" perspective is always in a throwaway paragraph near the end, if it's even mentioned at all.

Also consistently missing in these types of articles: an actual breakdown of the costs of raising a child (including the opportunity costs to one's career as the result of parental leave) vs the benefits the government is offering.

Also invariably missing: a description of the serious short- and long-term physical and mental risks of pregnancy and childbirth; at least this article mentions maternal mortality, but there's so much more at risk even in a "healthy" pregnancy and birth, from post-partum depression to incontinence. Occasionally articles will muse about women's fear of "frivolous" conditions like weight gain and stretch marks, but never life-altering ones like severe hemorrhaging, organ failure, and fistulas. How many women are postponing or forgoing pregnancy because they're not willing to risk life and limb to procreate? We'll never know as long as no one thinks to ask.

I have read a million of these "birth rates are dropping despite government efforts" articles, and they all echo the same pro-growth propaganda while conveniently neglecting these major, crucial points. JOURNALISTS, DO BETTER!

A lot of government agencies use Twitter for breaking news, notifications, and alerts that they're trying to get out as quickly as possible to as many people as possible, such as tornado warnings, amber alerts, traffic conditions, etc. I can't imagine they'd stick around a platform that requires logging in to view these messages.

Just this morning I read an article posted to Lemmy about an effort to hold a boycott against Loblaws and the difficulties of boycotting what is basically a monopoly for an essential service (in many places lacking competition, or where the competition is pulling the same shit, it wouldn't be a boycott so much as a hunger strike). Looks like someone found a way around that conundrum!

To your "edit" point: Don't take a handful of downvotes personally; it's pretty easy to do accidentally on mobile so they may have been unintentional

The Mario movie was incredibly mediocre, despite its high production value. I'm talking MCU-levels of truckloads of money spent with shockingly little to show for it.

This mostly relates to stuff you disagree with (politically, etc):

It's really easy on the Internet to live in a bubble, surrounded by others and material you like and agree with. This is especially true when it comes to the political right or left. Posting/viewing material from the "other side" serves three purposes: 1) it's different from what your Internet crowd posts and therefore novel and interesting, 2) it's something to gawk at, and 3) it keeps your crowd up to date on what the opposition is doing and thinking, which is important if you want to debate/defeat/win them over.

Example: you're on the left and a "look what the right is memeing" sub/community starts posting a lot of trad-wife material. You have now been 1) introduced to a new concept (and thereby upgraded your Internet cred with new slang), 2) provided with novel material to yourselves meme about and make fun of (in this example, Ben Shapiro's sister's oversized titties), and 3) inoculated to the concept so when your 19-year-old cousin starts whining at Thanksgiving about how all the women at college are sluts and why can't he find himself a good traditional wife you can give his manosphere-brainwashed ass a thorough smackdown thanks to some sweet rhetoric you picked up from the snarky comments section of aforementioned posts, instead of weakly stammering something about equal partnerships (or worse yet, not understanding the nuance behind wanting a "traditional wife" and thinking this is a perfectly normal expectation for dating in the 21st century that totally won't lead down the path of inceldom).

There is another, 4th reason: self-reflection. Sometimes, during a blue super-moon lunar eclipse, you see content that's from the other side that makes you wonder, "are we the baddies?" Or perhaps, "okay maybe they have a point there." Or at the very least, "yeah I can see where maybe we're not at our absolute best on this particular aspect of this specific issue." At least, it would be nice if that ever happened, right?

I just want the communities that already exist to have more engagement. It's pretty demoralizing making a high-effort post and getting only a handful of upvotes and no comments. And it's like watching a hospice patient visiting a neat-sounding community and realizing all the posts are by the single moderator (and are getting less and less frequent).

I think one of the best ways for folks to contribute to the health of Lemmy would be for everyone to spend some time on "all - new" (or even "all - top hour") on occasion. "New" on Lemmy is not the cesspool of reposts and garbage that it was on Reddit (although there is a LOT of porn if you don't have NSFW toggled off), and the quality of the first few pages of "top hour" is usually pretty good (except again for the porn, which it turns out gets pretty decent engagement). I visit "top hour" pretty regularly, and nearly all posts that are stuck in zero-engagement/minimal-engagement pergatory are simply niche content rather than bad content.

You don't need a specialized product (like Goo Gone several comments mention) to remove sticky residue. Any kind of cooking oil will do. I usually use a small dab of whatever is on hand (which in my house is olive oil, but avocado, canola, corn, etc would also be fine). Start with a very small amount, like one drop: a little can go a long way and it can be a huge mess if you overestimate how much you need. Rub it in with your finger and the gunk should come right up. Paper towel the rest off. Repeat if necessary. Extra bad spots might require a touch of gentle fingernail action.

I posted this in another thread for this meme:

Fun meme and all, but I somehow doubt the author has much experience working with children. Some kids are genuinely little terrors, in that everybody around them tends to have a bad time in their presence (adults, peers, and usually, the kid themselves). "We live in a society" and all that, so not being able to function within that society (especially as a minor since they don't even have the option of living off-grid in the woods as a hermit) is, sorry to say, a problem.

This is also a gross misrepresentation of ODD as defined by the DSM; here's a snippet of the diagnostic requirements (emphasis mine):

A pattern of angry/irritable mood, argumentative/defiant behavior, or vindictiveness lasting at least 6 months as evidenced by at least four symptoms of the following categories, and exhibited during interaction with at least one individual who is not a sibling:

Angry/Irritable Mood

1. Often loses temper
2. Is often touchy or easily annoyed
3. Is often angry and resentful

Argumentative/Defiant Behavior

4. Often argues with authority figures or, for children and adolescents, with adults
5. Often actively defies or refuses to comply with requests from authority figures or with rules
6. Often deliberately annoys others
7. Often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior

Vindictiveness

8. Has been spiteful or vindictive at least twice within the past 6 months

There's also additional qualifiers such as for frequency (they're not pathologizing having a bad day or two).

So no, your "eat the rich" and "ACAB" laptop stickers are not going to get you slapped with an ODD diagnosis.

Reading the article, there is obviously there's some shady-ass conflict-of-interest shit going down in this specific case.

However.

Literally any municipality in America could make bank if they enforced the traffic laws to the letter. Conditions permitting, most drivers regularly go 5-10mph over the speed limit. Distracted driving is common, and evolving (apparently the new things is people watching streaming videos while driving). In certain areas drivers leave their cars parked on sidewalks, blocking crosswalks, inside bike lanes, etc. Laws about stopping for pedestrians waiting to cross the street may as well not exist. Buzzed (and more recently, mildly-stoned) driving is socially acceptable. My local municipality could probably fund itself exclusively off tickets from drivers who don't have their lights on in the rain.

To be very clear: enforcement is a terrible way to get people to follow traffic laws (an outsized number of encounters that end in police violence started with a traffic stop, traffic stops are disproportionately made against people of color, tickets are regressively priced, etc etc). However the case study of this little town reveals a big truth: lawbreaking while driving is widespread on American streets to a level so extreme that nearly all drivers on the road will break the law (however minutely) every time they get behind the wheel. What kind of a broken system is that?

I’ve been told that if you can get a transfer there you need to understand that you’ll only ever hang out with other westerners because the culture is impenetrable.

I've lived in Japan and that's completely untrue. Sure lots of westerners have this experience, but it's usually for one of three reasons:

1. Language barrier: if you don't speak Japanese, obviously you're not going to fully integrate. However English is a required subject in schools, and while many Japanese are hesitant to speak it (mostly out of embarrassment over mistakes) there are plenty who are eager to utilize what they've learned. And this doesn't even include Japanese who've lived abroad and are properly fluent and comfortable in the language (there aren't many, but they certainly exist). Learning even a little Japanese and appearing to make an effort will also open a lot of doors.

2. Self-segregation: It's easy to fall into this one, especially because of point 1. But if you make an effort to make friends with people who are Japanese, they'll introduce you to their friend group. This works best if your co-workers are mixed westerners and English-speaking Japanese, but with some searching you should be able to find mixed socialization opportunities outside of work too. Plus there are non-Western communities in Japan too: folks from other Asian or Latin American countries who also feel like outsiders. Of the foreigner friends I had in Japan, almost none were American (and almost none were native English speakers, although they were all fluent or close to it). Taking Japanese language classes is a great way to meet these folks, but each school is going to be very different in their demographic populations so be choosey and avoid any that seem too homogenous (eg all Chinese students).

3. Expectations: Japanese social culture is very different. It's easy to make acquaintances and hard to make friends. And yes, even if you speak Japanese fluently as a foreigner you will find it more difficult to make friends with the average Japanese person. However you have two strengths you need to utilize: curiosity and otherness. As long as you appear approachable, strangers will sporadically come up to you and talk with you out of curiosity. Sometimes the socialization ends there, and that's fine. But look for the outsiders: Japanese people who don't feel like they fit into Japanese society. I found that there were a good number of English-speaking Japanese who wanted to be my friend because they struggled to make friends with other Japanese. Some of them were socially awkward or autistic, some had lived abroad, and some seemed totally normal. The good news is you probably have a lot in common, even if it's superficial like enjoying the same Western culture (TV shows, etc; think reverse-weeabo), but it's enough for the foundation of a friendship. However you'll need to accept that you're now a member of a misfits social group, because you're yourself a stranger in a strange land!

So in conclusion, it's very easy to fall into the only-socializing-with-Westerners trap, but it's certainly not inevitable. It takes conscious effort to avoid, but is completely feasible, especially for someone who has interest in Japan/Japanese culture/Japanese language.

They rank lower than Volkswagen! I didn't think that was possible given the VW emissions scandal that just happened [checks notes] eight years ago?! My god everything from 2016 onward has just been a giant blur hasn't it

On the plus side, it's a refreshing move away from the opposite: videos that are dragged out, padded up, and way longer than they need to be. Remember when YouTube required videos to be at least ten minutes to be monetized or something like that and suddenly every video that should have been less than five minutes was 10:01? Every basic how-to video suddenly had a filler arc.

"The Bonk Song" (imbedded Xitter tweet near the end of the article) is an absolute mood

Basically all the media.

There is (or at least was) a special kind of joy in discovering a new piece of media (movie, TV, book, video game, comic, etc), getting to the end, and hopping over to the relevant subreddit to sort by "top of all time." Bonus points if you loved the series and would get to essentially relive it all over again through the sub, but even media that you hated or were neutral about could be fun subs to peruse; maybe you would get to revel in seeing something you hated turned into a meme highlighting how stupid it was, or get to feel justified in your negative assessment upon reading an epic rant from another user; maybe instead you'd find hidden details or explanations pointed out by other users that made you reassess the work ("huh, I though that was a stupid plothole but it actually was perfectly explained by that one scene that apparently went over my head"). The ATLA subs especially were treasure troves of tiny details and "holy shit I just noticed on my fifth rewatch" posts that really elevated my opinion (and thereby enjoyment) of a series I was initially kind of "meh" on.

When I think about what it would take to feel like Lemmy had sufficiently replaced Reddit for me, the number one practical answer is for comprehensive news (political, world, cultural, meme, etc... Reddit really did at one point feel like "the front page of the Internet" if there ever was one), and the second is to have the critical mass to be able to ask a question and get a good recommendation for any specific product or service, via regional subs, hobby subs, etc (although thanks to LLMs and corporate astroturfing that may simply be a bygone part of the Internet). But the "fun" answer is to have the critical mass for a wide range of specific fandoms.

That's great and all, but what the heck are you supposed to cook it in, a grain silo?

"OK to disagree"

Dude, if someone tells me refugees deserve to drown in the Rio Grande, that climate change is a hoax, that the only good gay is a dead gay, or that Trump needs to be reelected so he can be a "day one dictator" and rain punishment upon his enemies, I am not going to be fucking OK with that.

To be clear, Reagan youth were on the generational cusp between Boomer and X. The "quintessential" Boomer youth experience was the Vietnam war, ~15 years prior to the cited 1984 election.

Meanwhile Idaho right next door is still at the federal $7.25 minimum wage. How Idaho border town min wage jobs stay staffed I have no idea.

Biden is now 80 and former President Donald Trump is 77.

Literally in the article.