OpenStars

I get spam calls ofc, but I have never once gotten such a text. I have also never donated to a political entity, for precisely this reason. It looks like your number got put onto a list somewhere and people are just passing it around like candy.

Eventually it will wrap back around to being edgy and cool in an ironic manner:-).

Welcome to the Fediverse!

Indeed, people are quite a bit more welcoming here than Reddit - ofc not everywhere, but more so, on average. If it helps, you can block not only individual users communities, but even whole entire instances - the latter by going into your profile, scrolling way down, and adding the instance name to that list. Do what you want, but for me, when TENS of people continue to spam-reply me WEEKS after I STOP responding, that's the signal that they are refusing to control themselves, so I take matters into my own hands and block them. For that reason I blocked hexbear and lemmygrad.ml, and some people block lemmy.ml too but I do enjoy their memes and such and just stay out of their politics community so I have not gone that far for that one. If this describes you, note that this can improve your experience in the Fediverse by perhaps 90% so may be WORTH IT. People from those instances can still reply to your posts and comments, but you will not receive notifications anymore, nor see them while you are logged in:-).

One thing more I wanted to make sure that you and your friends know: DMs are not private. I don't know of any actual tools that makes reading someone's DMs possible, but the signals are out there and not only admins but anyone could, in theory. Probably that won't matter 99% of the time but e.g. sending physical addresses or phone numbers would be easy to scan for across the Fediverse by malicious actors.

Anyway, I hope you feel welcomed! (fwiw, I am not a woman, I just wanted to share these thoughts in case they would be helpful:-)

Let's go Brandon! (have we reclaimed that yet? surely we plan to, I would think? well anyway it works in this highly specific case:-D)

There is no higher irony that I can think of than a pilgrim man-splaining feminism to an actual witch.

Internet level: peaked, it's all downhill from here! :-P

Not always.

Sometimes it will say "and my bow". :-P

It looks like it took EFFORT! :-D

Replaces the older .com format, also compatible with the .bat and .lnk wrappers too.

That depends: are we in a country that lacks any kind of decent access to medical care, so that by not jumping we are causing a worse death than by jumping?

Thank you for at least attempting to be polite. The other responses make me realize that Trump is going to win, when even this bastion of liberalism on Lemmy remains mired at the level of discourse that seems to me to be about kindergarten level.

First, this article is EXTREMELY thin - it says nothing that I have not heard for literal decades - e.g. I liked this one (explaining, among other things, that e.g. a "2-party system" is nothing new in world history), and more recently this series, or for a more mathematical bent watch this one (but ngl, this related one may really fuck you up... seriously, you were warned).

Second, the attitude of the Greek stoics is that we cannot control what lies outside our purview, but we MUST control what lies within that (if we claim to be responsible... and yet not a hypocrite). I did not think that I was making 10-D chess moves here to say that we might want to try acting like grown-ups. Like for one thing, there are ~80% of Americans that lie somewhere between the two extremes of far-left and far-right, but even if only 2% could be swayed to vote to R v. D, that actually might be enough to turn the rudder of this entire whole ship, b/c that's just how plurality rules voting works (within the constraints of the electoral college).

I guess democrats calling them a basket of deplorables and then calling them dumb racist white supremacists for two years straight was not really an insult.

My absolute hero, Jon Stewart, once said: "liberal media aims to be correct, but conservative media aims to be effective". I suppose it is too much to ask that we hold ourselves to a higher standard, in at least an attempt to be both?

Or, you know, we could stick our fingers in our ears and cry "nah nah I can't hear you", attempting to gain solace in being "correct", while downvoting and criticizing people (in this case, MataVatnik@lemmy.world) who even so much as dares to voice an opinion that the flavor of the month crowd decides is "bad"? Again: this is why Trump will win. B/c while conservatives may argue amongst themselves, at the end of the day they pull together and vote as a block, while liberals instead eat our own. Which convinces me that whatever may come from the next election, we fucking brought it upon ourselves, by refusing to live in reality, e.g. if we cannot even talk politely amongst ourselves here, then what hope is there for the wider election audience?:-(

I don't actually think that there is a solution possible. I think that either we will come to, if not an actual Civil War, then at least a constitutional crisis of some kind. Or at least one side will just sort of give up on the other entirely and move on. Case in point: the USA used to have the nationwide Roe v. Wade, whereas now it is left up to each state to decide. Liberal states might want to lock in protection for abortion now while they can, although even that much may not prevent encroachment if Trump wins the next election, picks another Supreme Court Justice, and shifts the entry country even further Rightward.

Never forget - and this is something that I think that conservatives actually do better than liberals: there is no "should" in politics, there is only what you can make happen. As my actual hero Jon Stewart once said: "liberal media aims to be correct, while conservative media aims to be effective". As you pointed out, how do you even begin to fight against that, especially if we choose to remain ineffective - e.g. how many liberals have already stated that they will under no circumstances vote for Biden in the next election, b/c of Gaza. Okay sure, there's time, so I am supposed to just "trust the system"? Just like we did in 2015?

To be clear, I was not saying that liberals should just let conservatives have their way. But any problem begins with a diagnosis - and realizing that the "other side" is sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming "naw naw I can't hear you" at the top of their lungs means that merely talking is not likely to do much. e.g. we could point out Trump's literal and actual dictatorial verbage... which somehow many conservatives still claim to have never heard? (or perhaps do not believe... or something, I dunno) Anyway, I am saying that liberals would benefit from acceptance of the situation as it is, rather than as someone perhaps wishes that it might be.