As someone from the U.S., it seems like that concept has practically disappeared from the country. The nuances of civil debate, including the acknowledgement of differing opinions as valid, don’t exist in most of our popular media (both traditional and social.) We’ve been conditioned to react to things immediately and intensely using our emotions instead. There has been a slide toward this state for decades, but it’s come to the point where a lot of people genuinely struggle with separating “thing they personally disagree with/don’t like” from “thing that shouldn’t be said/heard/shared.”

(Not saying that’s the case with OP, just that it’s definitely a thing that’s been going on.)

Had those missing voters participated in good faith in 2024, Trump would not be president today.

The problem with this argument is that it ignores the effects of Covid-19. A not-insignificant number of people who voted in 2020 didn’t vote in 2024 because they had died since then. I did the math once, and it’s buried somewhere in my comment history (I’m at work at the end of my break. I’ll look for it when I’m able to.)

EDIT: Found the comment where I did the math. In the end, over 716,000 people died of Covid in the United States between 2020 and Dec 2024 (the time that comment was written, and the closest I could find date-wise at the time.)

I don’t know about OP. I went to a public school on the eastern seaboard and we certainly weren’t taught “Spain Spanish.” The pronunciations and pronouns we were taught would’ve been very different if that were the case.

If any specific dialect was taught in those classrooms, it would’ve been because a teacher spoke that dialect natively. All of our teachers were either non-native Spanish speakers, or from somewhere in Central or South America. Maybe OP had teachers from Europe?

If there were regional differences for vocabulary, we were told about them. For example, for the English word “bus,” we were taught that “autobus,” “guagua,” and “camion” all work but in different countries/regions. To be clear, we weren’t expected to remember all the variations, but we were informed that they exist.

By contrast, I’m a little pissed that it took this long for my little sister to become my little sister - we used to beg our parents to let us share a bedroom! But she was made to share a room with our two older brothers instead.

In a way, we always knew.

you should absolutely rely on friends or family for help.

Aw, I wish. There are two types of people in my family. The first type is people who also have ADHD (unmedicated, at that) and/or autism. The second type is people who believe the first type are jUsT bEiNg LaZy.

There is no in-between.

I agree with applying healthy skepticism to any and all stories. At the same time, I can’t blame a recent Reddit refugee for not fully trusting Lemmy yet. They don’t know the environment here. It makes sense for someone to be apprehensive about repeating a thing that just got them banned somewhere else.

But I hope OP feels comfortable enough here to share their story some day.

That’s perfect. The more aliases, the better

The door is located after you click your username in the upper-right corner, and choose “Settings” from the drop-down. Scroll to the bottom of the page. On the left, in red, is a button to delete your account.

I’m not sure what really happens after that, though - I’ve never gone out that door. IIRC a deletion can take time, since various servers have to sync that information.

-Takes a bong hit-

So in a way, a recently-deleted account continues to exist across the Fediverse for a while. It is temporarily trapped to this plane of existence, until it can complete its final mission (deleting itself) across every corner of its known Fediverse. Then, and only then, can an account truly experience deletion.

-Passes to the left-

the government is not here to be your enemy.

“The government” as an abstract entity might not mean to be anyone’s “enemy,” but the one currently running the show absolutely views its own people as such.

I never set out to be anyone’s enemy. I want a peaceful life, like most people do. Yet, by doing no more than the radical act of “existing,” the current United States government has hand-picked me and others like me to be their enemies. Anyone who’s LGBTQ, female, non-white, foreign-born, science-minded, and/or financially poor is liable to be scapegoated (at best) or outright targetted by those currently in charge.

Make no mistake - “the government” might not be here to be anyone’s enemy, but this government definitely is.

Common reported feelings include: elephant sitting on my chest (overlapping symptom between heart attack and panic attack)

This is such an apt description. There is absolutely a metaphorical elephant sitting on top of all of us.

Anyone else think chocolate is great? I love to eat the rich, dark kind for dessert. It’s a delightful way to end a meal.

Here’s a fun trick to stop using Reddit - simply install and use a VPN.

Just like that, Reddit blocks itself for you!

Excellent comment and very informative!

Just a quick note on the last sentence: 1 yard = 3 feet, which means a yard is approximately one meter, not 100m.

Do you mean Claudia Sheinbaum? (It isn’t clear who you’re talking about from your comment, but she would make sense.)

His administration won’t let NOAA provide accurate forecasts so that the farmers can plan ahead.

He’ll also deplete irrigation water in the off season so there’s less of it available when farms need it.

Not to mention, a significant chunk of the farm workers are/will be rounded up.

Does that link lead to a “Server error” for anyone else?

You’re definitely not alone.

I think the key is that we are so often told what to do, but rarely are instructed on how to do it - it’s easy to give advice, but without providing the structure to actually implement the advice, it isn’t worth much. People seem to forget how much work it takes for us to do the things they suggest. Very little advice is as straight-forward as advice-givers make it sound.

Like above, one can say “install time-tracking productivity software” but what does that really mean? To me, it means that now I’ll have to research different types of software. Which means I have to find something compatible with my devices that also: respects my privacy, is easy to use, that has a reasonable price point, and won’t bombard me with ads. If I manage to do all that without getting side-tracked for too long (which is a big “IF”), THEN I have to set up the software and figure out how to use it. Only after all that can I get to the step of actually using it… which honestly, is easy to forget to do as well.

Point is, a lot of “simple advice” isn’t actually that simple for people with ADHD. So when people talk like an idea is some easy thing, it can leave a lot of us feeling like we can’t even reach out for help because iT’s sO siMpLe that asking for help feels embarassing. Yet without guided support, it’s much easier to discount the advice outright than to try to figure out how to implement it on our own. So we fall into that trap, and the “good advice” is ignored yet again.

Can’t forget that military bases are communities where people live, too. Not just barracks and mess halls for individuals, but there are full neighborhoods and shopping centers for families.*

*My knowledge on this is limited, I just remember visiting a family member on base when I was younger.

Periods? Pfft, those are for women

It was slower, the graphics were basic, and we could get knocked offline by someone picking up a telephone. But damn, it really felt like reaching out and touching the world for the first time. It took so long for my mom to understand that yes, I can be chatting with friends online at 2am. She would always ask, “Why aren’t they asleep?” and I’d have to remind her that other time zones exist.