• Take time off from social media once in a while, or at least avoid doomscrolling all day. Bad stories generate FAR more engagement than good stories, and every form of media knows this. If 100,000 people in your area have an average-to-good day and 5 people have terrible days, all 5 stories presented to you will detail how things are in your area are terrible.

• Physical health affects mental health and vice versa. Eat healthy (or healthier). Stay hydrated. Get 7-9 hours of sleep regularly and use sleep hygeine. Get 90+ minutes of exercise (anything that raises your heartrate) a week which is like 15 minutes/day. Don’t worry about doing it all immediately - if you try to change everything at once you’re more likely to get overwhelmed and burn out. It’s way better to make slow, sustainable changes over months than it is to do a difficult crash course for a short time and get fed up with the process.

• Do thankfulness exercises. When I go to bed at night I think of 3 things I’m thankful for in the day. On average or bad days it may be that I wasn’t in constant/chronic pain, that I got to eat and drink, and that I’m in a safe place and a soft bed. Just remembering those basics (that many of us take for granted) helps keep me aware of good things in my life.

• Find ways to enjoy hobbies that require participation - arts, sports, board/video games, whatever. Just something other than passively taking in TV/online media. This will help you feel engaged and double points if it’s something that allows for improvement because you’ll feel rewarded as you get better.

I like that it’s moderated fairly lightly but reasonably. Often I can have an actual discussion with someone who doesn’t agree with me without either of us getting banned by a mod who likes one side or the other. From what I see generally a user needs to be very obviously abusive/racist/violent before a mod steps in, even if the content is controversial.

I dislike that I’ve needed to heavily restrict my use for my mental health until after the election. A lot of people (not all by any means) believe it’s ok to bully and abuse other users because their cause is righteous - it’s already shown up in this thread. E.g. the daily posts and comments, with a lot of upvotes/support, that label anyone who disagrees with or criticizes Kamala (used to be Biden)/Democrats a bot, idiot, worse than useless, foreign agent and so on. I’m not talking about downvoting which is just expressing disagreement - I’m talking about outright insults and upvoting those. The attitude of “vote with/support me or else” has no place in a democracy founded on free voting without persecution, even if the bully is sure they’re right. If I didn’t mention it, perhaps even though I have, we might see a version of “but it is actually ok this time” and reasons why. It’s happened before.

Guess what? Very few “policy bullies” think they are evil - they’re positive it’s justified. Christians demand abortion bans, Muslim deportation, religion in schools/government and so on because they truly believe they are saving eternal souls. I was raised in that environment. That a sizable amount of Lemmy users believe it’s correct/admirable to insult others into “proper” behavior makes them very similar in character to those religious extremists IMO. Apparently when the issue is really important abuse is ok.

I’ll end by saying Gaza/Palestine is incredibly important to me - I am legitimately very upset frequently by the stories and media. However, Bernie Sanders convinced me to support Biden and then Kamala. Bernie laid out his argument with logic and facts and did not once insult my position. I also doubt the aggressive posts/comments are winning over undecideds. “I wasn’t sure if I should vote Democrat until I was called a harmful idiot and had my concerns dismissed as being in bad faith”.

“Hang loose” is what you tell someone who needs to chill out and let the waves carry them away from their problems man. Align your chakras with the Earth and so on.

Seriously though, the reason I wrote like that is I’m using the slang of roughly 90s/2000s-ish California surfer culture, which is where the hand signal was used to tell people to relax and be happy. Or say hi and let them know you are relaxed and happy. If you imagine it as a gang sign for surfer hippies you aren’t far off.

Dude, radical emoji. That’s just a gnarly way of tell someone to hang loose, bro. I’ve usually seen it done left-to-right instead of up-and-down, but the universe is infinite so if you wanna flip it that’s totally copacetic.

Edit: I started thinking about surfers and it dragged up memories of this legend on Tosh.0

I have zero proof of this so take it for the musing it is, but the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine can be used to view articles that have been taken offline (sometimes for political reasons). The IA is a very accessible way to prove that once something is on the Internet, it’s out there forever. I used it in a recent post to show an Israeli newspaper article that argued Israel had a right to not just Palestine, but Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and other territories. It was taken off the newspaper’s website a few days later, but IA had it.

This may explain why no one is taking credit, and there are no demands. Or it could very well be another reason, including people just being assholes.

Yeah, and what kind of psychos would want to restrict public access to books in libraries?!?! I’m not on the conspiracy train until there’s proof and I agree with your post. Just saw a bit of irony there since a lot of North Americans are currently in the process of dismantling libraries.

Worked through my obsessions a bit and let go of them. In the following weeks I asked three women out and got shot down each time instead of thinking about doing so for a month and being a creep.

Unironically, good on you. That’s character progress and it takes a lot of courage and self-confidence to accept rejection in a mature way and keep trying regardless. For what it’s worth I as an Internet stranger think we should help more people do the same sort of things.

Her name is [kept to myself because I’m a gentleman who doesn’t kiss and tell]. I hope I, in turn, am not someone’s most alarming thing but it’s possible :P

I’d say it’s sometimes ok, sometimes necessary for brevity, and sometimes accurate. Accurate = “All people need oxygen, water, and calories to survive.” Brevity = “Generally speaking, people enjoy good food and good company so those situations work well for forming relationships.”

Consequences of generalizations have a lot to do with how tolerable they are. If I say, “most people like pizza” there’s not much harm if several million people don’t. If I say, “all or most people of this gender/ethnicity/religion/whatever have X problem” that’s a lot more problematic because it can easily lead to a consequence of harmful prejudice. When it comes to matters of ethics, beliefs, accusations etc. it becomes very important to handle cases individually as much as humanly possible.

I have a lot to say when reading a headline like this, but it boils down to: I really hope advances like this and EV’s topple the fossil fuel industry that’s hurting our planet.

Given the recent solar eclipse, I’m reminded of the people who stared directly at the sun and found it to be dangerously bright.

I can think of two fairly active potential homes for that content: Showerthoughts, which is for random trains of thought that you think others might relate to. Lemmy Be Wholesome is for content that you feel elevates people’s moods, is supportive, shares good vibes and so on.

It isn’t too much to ask. According to Dr. K of HealthyGamerGG (Harvard Psychiatrist/Instructor), research shows that the release of non-consensual porn makes the unwilling subjects suicidal over half the time. Non-consensual porn = deepfakes, revenge porn, etc. It’s seriously harmful, and there are other effects like depression, shame, PTSD, anxiety, and so on. There is functionally unlimited porn out there that is made with consent, and if someone doesn’t want to be publicly sexually explicit then that’s their choice.

I’m not against AI porn in general (I consider it the modern version of dirty drawings/cartoons), but when it comes to specific likenesses as with deepfakes then there’s clear proof of harm and that’s enough for me to oppose it. I don’t believe there’s some inherent right to see specific people naked against their will.

Interesting fact: Einstein cheated on his wife with, and eventually married, his first cousin. “Their mothers were sisters, thus making them maternal first cousins. The couple were also paternal second cousins (i.e. their fathers were first cousins).”

Another interesting fact: as many as 80% of all marriages historically were between first or second cousins. About 10% of all marriages in the world today still are, and up to 50% in some areas.

Now if you don’t mind, I have a banjo to tune.

There’s this really entertaining forensic psychiatrist named Eric Bender who does multiple analyses videos of pop culture “insane” characters using real scientific/medical knowledge.

• Here he talks about Ledger’s Joker in Dark Knight. Summary = the Joker is psychopathic (violent, doesn’t care about others, others are pawns for his “game”), but not psychotic (experiencing a break from reality, hearing voices, etc). Ledger’s Joker would not qualify for an insanity defense because he knows what he’s doing is “wrong” and experiences the real world as opposed to hallucinations. He’s not mentally healthy or normal though and possibly doesn’t understand how to interact with the world.
• Here he talks about Phoenix’s Joker from “Joker”. Summary = much the same as Ledger, but still interesting to watch. He discusses risk factors (abuse, neglect, genetics) that can be an extremely rare “Pathway to Violence” that could apply to the Joker in this movie.
• Here he talks about various Arkham Asylum inmates, including (briefly) various versions of the Joker. Summary = much the same, but also talks about Anti-Social Personality Disorder. Also, the fact Joker avoids capture means he knows what he’s doing is “wrong” or at least illegal.

So the movie versions of Joker aren’t insane in the sense that they’re lost in hallucinations and unable to discern reality from make-believe. The Joker likely wouldn’t be sent to an asylum in the real world. The Jokers of the movies are psychopathic, evil, uncaring, manipulative, etc. For the most part, to them the world is a game and it’s all about the Joker being the main character with everyone else being pawns to be used for evil amusement.

You may just have a bad hairdresser. I put up with “ok” haircuts for months when I moved into a new area, then one month I decided to try a 2nd shop instead. I brought the same pictures to both places but the 2nd place was immediately better and fixed the problems. She even remarked that my issue was something the 1st shop should have recognized immediately because it was a) obvious and b) not hard to remedy. Don’t be afraid to visit another place if you have one available.

To people who aren’t sure if this should be illegal or what the big deal is: according to Harvard clinical psychiatrist and instructor Dr. Alok Kanojia (aka Dr. K from HealthyGamerGG), once non-consensual pornography (which deepfakes are classified as) is made public over half of people involved will have the urge to kill themselves. There’s also extreme risk of feeling depressed, angry, anxiety, etc. The analogy given is it’s like watching video the next day of yourself undergoing sex without consent as if you’d been drugged.

I’ll admit I used to look at celeb deepfakes, but once I saw that video I stopped immediately and avoid it as much as I possibly can. I believe porn can be done correctly with participant protection and respect. Regarding deepfakes/revenge porn though that statistic about suicidal ideation puts it outside of healthy or ethical. Obviously I can’t make that decision for others or purge the internet, but the fact that there’s such regular and extreme harm for the (what I now know are) victims of non-consensual porn makes it personally immoral. Not because of religion or society but because I want my entertainment to be at minimum consensual and hopefully fun and exciting, not killing people or ruining their happiness.

I get that people say this is the new normal, but it’s already resulted in trauma and will almost certainly continue to do so. Maybe even get worse as the deepfakes get more realistic.