TommySoda

u/TommySoda@lemmy.world
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You can't stop stupid people but you can get them on your side with enough convincing and promises. Which is exactly what MAGA did. Stupid doesn't equal evil. It's the evil people convincing the stupid to do their bidding by making them feel better about themselves, promising the world, and convincing them that the evil they are doing is a good thing. And there's a difference between stupidity and ignorance. You can't teach stupid, but you can teach the ignorant. That doesn't sound like a big distinction but it is. Imagine how many of these people could have been the most highly educated people in the country but ended up stuck in rural Iowa working the family farm.

I mean, when you really think about it there were a significant amount of voters in 2024 that were only 10 years old when Trump got elected the first time and were still in highschool when he left office. Not only that, we were in the middle of quarantine for half their time in highschool and they probably spent a lot of that time online out of pure boredom. Add into that the fact that a lot of these kids were getting bombarded by anti vaccine sentiments from family members, the internet, and the former president. And seeing as they couldn't go outside they couldn't get a perspective from people irl.

I'm not saying they aren't without fault. I'm just saying that they were set up to believe in these things before they even starting having opinions for themselves. I remember when I was in highschool I was on the whole "I don't want a black Muslim as president" train because that's what my dad and half my classmates believed. I'm lucky enough that I made it out the other side a decent person compared to my friends and family growing up, but I was not a good person in my youth. We are all susceptible to propaganda and if you think you are immune to it than you are probably just falling for a different flavor of propaganda without realizing it.

Not all of these kids were racists, misogynists, or bigots at heart or to begin with. They were just taught from a young age that they were doing the right thing. In my opinion, there's nothing more evil than manipulating good people to do evil things in the name of being righteous. These red pill and MAGA influencers knew exactly what they were doing and made bank doing it.

As someone that has wasted 100s of hours into Star Citizen I don't think I ever really liked that game as much as I convinced myself I did. Turns out I liked the game only because of what I thought the game could be instead of what it actually was. All my friends are trying to get me back into it but I just can't do it anymore. I probably only ever enjoyed 10% of my total playtime on that game as the other 90% was spent fighting the gargantuan technical issues, performance issues, game breaking bugs, and general jank. The game is all vibe and promises without an actual fun experience underneath.

Yeah but I'd honestly say the same for Star Citizen. Nothing you do feels like it has any meaning as they wipe he servers twice a year and the only way to make real progress is to spend real money, there literally is no story outside of world building and subtle lore, all the missions and mining feel like they are placeholder and more than half the time don't even work depending on the update, ships are mostly just for looks and the majority of the features inside them are bare bones at best, and the graphics are pretty good if you can even run the game at 60 fps and ignore all the glaring graphical glitches.

I've probably played the same amount of time in both games and my opinion of both is usually the same with "this games could be so much better." The only difference is that I actually have fun in NMS whereas in Star Citizen I spend most of my time fighting the game in an attempt to come out the other side with any sense of actually having fun. Star Citizen is such a time suck that most days I'd play it I'd come out the other side and realize I literally didn't even do anything besides constantly play catch up because the game fucked me over in some way.

I worked for a company that did the hydrographic surveying for the Colorado River. You can literally see how empty it is and it's straight up negligence that let it get this bad. We surveyed the entire Colorado river south of Lake Powell over the span of 2 years and they've done fuck all with it.

Not only that, they used it as a way to have offices upgrade to Windows 11 for the never specified reason of "cyber security" which is where most of their sales come from. The company I work for just had to replace 15 computers at the start of the year and now half of the older software we use doesn't work anymore. Not only that but we were using Office 2019 with a perpetual license that they invalidated so now we have to get Microsoft 365

Depression is one of the hardest things I've ever talked to people about. People that don't get depressed don't get it. People that are they themselves depressed can enable bad behavior. People that don't believe in depression (thanks dad) think that you are over reacting. And people that want to help are usually the ones that don't really get it either and don't know how to help.

Of course there is a bias towards negative experiences as when you are depressed those are the ones that stick out the most. But it still seems like bringing it up to people is such a mixed bag that most people end up internalizing it which only exacerbates it and continues the cycle of hiding emotions (I'm speaking from a male perspective if it wasn't obvious).

And as someone that has been horribly depressed at various parts of my life I honestly can't even give any good advice since those parts of my life are such a blur. All I know is that one day I was just okay without even realizing it. Sure I still get depressed from time to time, but I think the part that has changed most about me is my perspective. These days instead of focusing on the feelings of depression I focus on what is causing the depression. Sometimes there is no cause and I just have to deal with it, but most of the time I can figure out what is currently doing it and try and mitigate the issue if I can. And if I can't, I'll try and distract myself when I have free time instead of sitting inside my head.

Everybody's journey is different and I recommend taking what I say with a grain of salt. I was able to face my demons by myself but I know I'm more of am exception rather than the rule. If you think you need help, you probably do. And I recommend help from a professional or someone close to you that has had similar life experience in the past. Talking about it may not seem like it helps sometimes but it really does make small dents over time. And speaking about it out loud can really help you work through something and put it into words instead of generic thoughts floating in your head. It's why a lot of artists and musicians poor their emotions into their work. It's easier to work through things in the real world than it is with the abstraction of ideas that is your mind.

And believe it or not, the advice of "drink water and do yoga" is less about the actual activities and more about letting your mind and body do something else besides be depressed. Pick a different activity that you actually enjoy and just see where it goes. The worst that can happen is that you are still depressed but have a new hobby. And, let's be real, none of us drink enough water.

Probably everyday like we hear about these ones. The issue is that they are always framed as prisons and detention facilities and the average citizen doesn't care enough to investigate further until someone they know gets taken to one. For me personally I've never seen an ICE agent in my entire life and probably nobody in my community has either. A significant amount of people are in the same situation as me but instead of look into this stuff they just think "I've never seen this. It can't be that bad, these people are just overreacting."