Bazzite is pretty good for gaming. Most things I’ve thrown at it have “just worked”. The games that tend not to run on Linux are live-service games requiring kernel-level anti-cheat. I don’t play any of those, so it’s not an issue to me, but I know it is a deal breaker for some. I had one game that required me to use a different version of Proton than the one that came pre-installed, and that was as simple as installing the flatpak for it, then selecting it in the game’s configuration menu in Steam.

I tried the Fossify launcher today and gave up pretty quickly. Feels like it doesn’t have anywhere near enough settings, has zero documentation, and aesthetically leaves something to be desired.

I’m not surprised. USian evangelicals have been solidly zionist for at least a century, probably hitting a high around the mid-90s apocalypse fever, if I had to guess. Obviously any change in the demographics would scare Isntreal shitless. It’s already hard to engage with evangelicals and this will only make it that much harder.

If anyone has any good reading recommendations on arguing with Christian zionists, I’d appreciate it. Better yet, something challenging zionism from their own perspective that I could encourage them to read - bonus points if it doesn’t rely on liberation theology, as the ones I’ve been unfortunate enough to come across find anything Catholic to be inherently suspect.

Last time I had the pads on mine disintegrate, I found some replacements that were made of real leather. I haven’t had to replace them since. Some brands also make fabric pads; I’m sure they probably last longer than polyurethane, but I would expect them to wear out eventually.

It’s not just the current administration; it’s every administration.

I swear this is purposeful for a lot of websites; they make the mobile site run terribly to push people onto the app instead, presumably because they can collect more data that way.

Mine too. Though I’m sure there’s could’ve been other factors at play as well.

I really hope someone else decides to pick up the torch.

The most obnoxious Democrat supporters have their whole ego caught up in being a “good person” by having the correct ideological positions. Admitting that their “team” is full of war criminals would directly challenge their egos and is thus summarily dismissed. They are idealists, and thus disconnected from material reality. They tend to be quite caught up in the notion of “electability” - the idea that they shouldn’t back candidates or platforms they actually want, but those calculated to appeal to the largest number, which is always smack dab in the center of the Overton window, in their estimation. (Of course, ironically, a true socialist platform would have the greatest appeal were not USians so propagandized against it.) I have literally had liberals tell me that though they are not themselves racist, they need a candidate that would be accepted by racists. I think more often than not, they cry “electability” so they have an excuse for supporting a conservative candidate while simultaneously calling themselves “progressive”.

This is to say nothing of the fact that liberalism is a conservative ideology, and that it is more than happy to back imperialism if it means the spoils can subsidize their lifestyle. Or in other words, Democrats will cheer for any war if it keeps their Starbucks cheap and their gas tank filled. They are not anti-war at all. They oppose the appearance of warmongering, but not the actions themselves; they want plausible deniability so they can go back to brunch.

Tl;dr - Democrats are bad people who pretend to be good people and back war criminals because they like imperialism, no matter what excuses they make for it.

It can absolutely feel pointless in the moment, and you’re right that it may not be worth further engaging with that person, but these arguments and discussions may eventually stick with someone such that when something finally does shake them free of that axiomatic belief, they’ll remember what you said before. I know I’ve experienced that in my own life.

It’s hard to know how to effectively reach “the masses” (as opposed to individuals). There’s a real need to teach people how to think critically and how to self-reflect, but I don’t know how to instill a desire for that in people who aren’t already inclined in that direction.

Have you? It’s a poor anti-communist allegory, so I don’t know where you’re pulling anything anti-hitler or anti-nazi from it. Snowball is Trotsky, for example. It’s not subtle.

I think you’ve hit the crux of the issue here - memes are never going to reach people the way IRL organizing can. It’s not that we’re writing off people who can’t engage with theory on their own, it’s that we have to go meet them where they are.

In the context of this specific meme, I don’t think we’re discussing the disaffected members of the working class, but those who describe themselves as liberals - those who fetishize law, read The New York Times unironically, and worship Obama. Those liberals tend to be more educated and are definitely capable of engaging with theory; they choose not to because it threatens their entire conception of the world and their place in it. They present themselves as caring about social issues less out of a concern for their fellow human beings and more out of a self-concept that they are “good people” - they are idealistic through and through, though they may or may not be religious. Their ego is caught up in being an “upstanding citizen” or having some sort of moral fortitude that may belie what they actually believe about the people around them. This is why when they are pushed about the contradiction (the “scratched liberal”), they will lash out and reveal the true face underneath - one of self-interest and a desire to be better than other people, which will dovetail quite easily with fascism the moment fascism is seen to be socially acceptable.

Some smaller number who self-describe as liberal may just need a push in the right direction and are merely suffering from the miseducation prevalent in the west, but these are generally not the ones cheering for the US Democratic Party or arguing about the “rule of law” online.

I was never banned; I deleted my account as I was frustrated with the increasing surveillance. Someone had mentioned Lemmy in one of the degoogling or privacy subs and I decided to check it out. It reminded me a lot of how the internet used to be before it was filled with bots, so I stuck around.

Certainly!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2KI50nB7cs&t=0

Yes! Plus a longer video on Drew’s side channel featuring a discussion with the same guest - they were discussing a particular indigenous group that has resisted conversion efforts for centuries.

You have way more patience than I do, and I applaud that. I’m going to be charitable and assume this .worlder didn’t bother reading the article beyond the excerpt, because it’s way more upsetting if they did.

I had just watched a video on YouTube yesterday about how the CIA used missionaries and commodities to try to control indigenous peoples, and I was reminded of that when I read the article this morning. The world doesn’t have to be this way, and it’s beyond sad that so many people seem to think it can’t be any better than it is.

A lot of people spend a lot of time on an extrinsic search for intrinsic meaning. There isn’t one. The value and meaning of your life can only be self-determined. That feels impossibly heavy at first, but as you come to embrace it, there is an incredible freedom in it. If there is any determinant of adulthood, that’s it - to be self-defined. To that end, there are no “rules” about what your life must look like - marriage, kids, home ownership, whatever else are all options, but not compulsory. It’s up to you to determine what it is that you actually want.

The other marker of adulthood, I think, is to have come to terms with your childhood. It sounds like you think your father was given advantages that he hasn’t seen fit to pass on to you, and you understandably have some feelings about it. Family of origin issues can really cloud your mind until you sort through and come to terms with them. Talking to a therapist about it (or bar that, reading some books on the subject) could be of some value. A lot of people go through their lives reenacting patterns they observed in their parents or projecting their unmet needs from childhood onto others, to their own detriment. This is work that you have to do yourself; no one can “fix” you.

Comparison will not get you anywhere. Consider who you want to be, and then start taking steps in that direction. Once you have set out on that journey, you may encounter others on their own journeys or you may not, but you won’t have your self-worth riding on the outcome.

The US has no maximum working hours, not even in the so-called “progressive” states. There may be limits in the public sector or in very specific industries (airlines), but this represents a very small percentage of the US labor force.

I’m not trying to be US-centric here, and I know other places have better laws, but the average USian is extremely ignorant of their own labor laws and the US deliberately misrepresents its actual conditions to those abroad via propaganda. (That system is being allowed to break down for the moment but it is not gone.) This is what capitalism brings, and anyone who thinks they are insulated from it or that their country is ‘too civilized’ to go down this path is being wilfully ignorant. The vassal states will not be unaffected as the imperial core turns to open fascism.

This is a problem I think we need to start considering collectively. If the internet as we know it can no longer be relied upon for communication (at least not for anything of importance), how do we effectively organize? I don’t have an answer, but I think we will have to come up with alternatives before the cage locks around us.

Averages are not very useful for making sweeping generalizations. An average of hours worked is going to include people working 80 hours per week to make ends meet as well as people working under 40 who are unable to get healthcare benefits. In the US, the number going down would reflect increasing underemployment, not prosperity, as we have no safety nets and virtually no one is working sub-40 hours and getting full-time pay.

As for time spent watching television, it’s a passive form of escapism that it more accessible to people under stress. The worst times in my life have been when I would do nothing but watch television to distract myself after work - because I had no social connections and no money to spend on hobbies or going out.

Those here not currently feeling financial pressure are not paying attention to the rise of fascism if they’re reporting being completely unstressed. I am lucky enough to be well-situated financially, but I can feel the walls closing in and I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do to prepare for what’s coming. (It’s easy to say “organize,” but I am not as able-bodied as I used to be and I don’t have the time or energy to commit to an org.) I try to agitate with the people around me, but it more often than not feels like I’m tilting at windmills.

Tl;dr - yeah, I’m pretty stressed.