Not trying to butter you up, but if I could speak for him I would say you may surprise yourself by the end.

I suspect that exercising good will in the face of endlessly variable forms of human selfishness is in many ways like learning to run marathons. Until you’ve run that distance, it seems like a superhuman effort, but in hindsight you can’t imagine enjoying anything more. You do it because you like it. It becomes its own reward.

I’m just saying I think you’re capable of a more of the good fight than you might give yourself credit for, and we all need to be reminded of this from time to time.

Yes! What the Dems have been is history. What voters make it is the future. That’s what primaries are for. So imagine what you want them to stand for and vote for the candidates that fit that vision.

Everyone should vote in their primaries, even if they can’t make the general. Your vote is higher impact there than in the general election for a few reasons:

1. The folks who usually vote in the primaries, bless ‘em, are not good at picking winners
2. Participation tends to be so low that it doesn’t take many additional votes to elect progressives
3. Progressives are MAGA kryptonite; people will actually show up for them in the general.

Also voting in primaries is easier, since early voting can often be completed digitally or by mail. You don’t have to take off work. And if you vote in person, you don’t have to be registered beforehand. Just show up to your polling center and they’ll have you fill out a special affidavit ballot that’s submitted in an envelope with your registration info.

Vote in your primaries people.

First off, it’s OK. We all make mistakes and misrepresent our feelings sometimes, which can affect others in ways we don’t intend. The particular social accident you describe is also quite common. I promise she will quickly recover from the inadvertent rejection.

My answer is: practice. 8-9 years is a long time to be out of practice at anything of this sort.

There are a variety of ways to actively pursue that practice, some more creative than others, but the most natural way is simply to invite interaction with others in general such as, apparently, drawing on a bench at the park :)

Is “trolly” pronounced like troll-ee or like trolley? Because I do have some trolley opinions.

The turnout Saturday was encouraging, at least, though I haven’t yet seen the over-under on flippable seats that will be up for reelection.

Oh, and in case you’re looking for recommendations, my current daily driver is Blair’s “Ultra Death.”

To set expectations, Tobasco (a common North American vinegar-based chili sauce) has a heat rating of 7,000 scovilles, whereas Ultra Death generally measures over 1 million.

If you like heat, extracts are a cost-effective step up, since each bottle lasts longer. At first anyway.

IME this sort of error is often related to the aggregation of traffic through a single IP address. (Commonly: VPNs, public WiFi hotspots, large commercial networks, and so forth.)

The safest workaround is to temporarily change your server location (if using a VPN, which is advisable).

Another easy solution is a different connection, such as switching to mobile data (less safe due to ISP fingerprinting).

Also, since this error is often generated by simple time-based access quotas (throttling), you can confirm the root cause by refreshing once the next hour or day ticks over. (If due to throttling, the error will suddenly disappear.)

Great idea! Many of them offer a nice color palette too. I’ll try it.

Lol you’re not alone. I think someone commented something similar last night. And you’d have plausible deniability too, since the blue is “accidentally” allowed to show between the white and red stripes.

Most of the gastrointestinal distress from capsaicin is the result of poison countermeasures triggered by contact pain signals.

But capsaicin is telling your cells a lie which fewer believe each re-telling, so it requires increasingly ridiculous doses to trigger those internal signals.

If you eat spicy food regularly, you likely won’t get any internal signals again until you graduate to a different category of spiciness, such as extracts.

Hot sauce nerds consider extracts cheating, since you can achieve heat that’s many orders of magnitude above what the hottest pepper hybrids can produce, but do what you must to feel alive.

You’re right, but I wouldn’t guess the intern they tasked with graphics design has ever looked too closely.

Yeah, actual Russian collusion aside, anyone who thinks the horizontal stripes in that stylistic divider are supposed to be Russian flags is probably a prime target for ragebait like this.

And if this describes you, consider how the divider is reminiscent of the ribbon used to adorn many official medals. Has the US been secretly promoting the modern Russian flag for hundreds of years? Probably not.

Yes I wasn’t referring to the comment I replied to, but rather all the replies below it. I can see how that might be confusing so I’ll clarify the comment.

Regardless, you’ve probably seen better examples of what I’m talking about, and if you have any ideas, I’m all ears.

Can someone explain to me these little self-flagellation parties (edit: meaning the replies below, not the root level comment I’m replying to) that seem to appear with every other dystopian headline in this community?

I mean like this mopey circlejerk right here, with Americans unironically declaring “no one is doing anything!” when literally every day brings more news from the hundreds of large active US protests which lately have been maturing as the fash behaves predictably. Even if that weren’t the case, isn’t the obvious solution to “be the change” or are we not doing basic grassroots work anymore?

This shit is really persistent on lemmy, like some kind of self-affirming narrative to excuse inaction, or maybe doomerist/accelerationist propaganda, or some other internet koolaid I’m too offline to understand.

But I want to know how to get the disillusioned circlejerkers plugged into local efforts. The boots on the ground reality of the work being done, not to mention all the preparation leading up to this phase, seems like it’s right in front of them yet they can’t/won’t see it. We really need all the help we can get.

And on a personal level, it’s getting hard to watch them on here whining that no one is doing anything, high-fiving each other for admitting they’re also not doing anything, and other one-downsman-ship type behaviors, because a bunch of people have been busting ass out here for a while and like, if you don’t want to or can’t help, fine. But then you don’t get to complain on the internet that we’re not doing enough.

You’re describing pragmatism, a solutions-oriented mindset.

I’m referring to left’s problem with edgy despair evangelists suffering from a deliberately propagated fascist contagion that must be recognized and treated rather than allowed to spread.

Why? Because it deactivates would-be activists (including, for example, voters who had the chance to prevent this fascist takeover). It is not harmless. It must be addressed.

I’m addressing an instance of doomerism. Participation of current or former military in the rebellion occupies my thoughts far less than that, currently.

Same but even smaller.

I’m torn.

On the one hand, CA has no military, so attempting diplomacy and formal protocol is logical, even responsible. By “responsible,” I simply mean that picking a fight you know you can’t win, and doing so on behalf of the people you represent, is usually irresponsible, since they will be the ones who suffer.

On the other hand, the closest thing to diplomacy Trump understands is some combination of posturing and quid pro quo. Historically, formal correspondence of rival leaders tends to have a varnish of politeness like this, even in the midst of bloody wars. (Indeed this “formal request” does convey a demand, an accusation, and a veiled threat.) But is someone with a demonstrably facile notion of power capable of understanding such subtext, or will they see only weakness?

Most importantly, I think there comes a time to commit to the inevitable conclusion. If you know the authoritarian will continue to threaten brutality against your people to ensure their compliance, it becomes your duty to say “do your worst or pound sand,” since you know compliance only delays and worsens their suffering, and a threat to the will of a people is always greater.

Breathe. We will get through this, and how is a question worth considering, as the commenter above was doing before your sweaty takedown.

If you need to share this burden of despair with someone, my DMs are open. Spreading it among comrades is not OK.

Haha was going to offer this. Currently live in a predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood and hear the distinction made often. It must be useful to have the additional word in between here and there.