I have never been there so I won’t pretend to know what it’s like but I would suggest that taking that macro level pulse of the nation and applying it to your individual interactions is going to reinforce and entrench the problems you’re seeing at that larger scale.

Sure, sometimes it’s very clear what the intent is and when someone is disingenuously hiding behind a feint for ideological reasons. But without the necessary context it’s probably better not to assume the worst when they could just have blind spots. There’s no need to be charitable or generous with people that are obviously out to cause harm but if it’s not obvious, as with this story, and when there’s an opportunity for a real dialogue as seems possible with OP and their personal relationship with the person in question, it’s got to be better to reach out first before giving up entirely.

Yes but by that logic, all interaction and advice is basically attempting to control someone else’s actions. For example your comments literally tells the OP to do something different than their intention, defying your own prescription that autonomy is completely sacrosanct above even the attempt to influence someone in any form.

There’s a balance that’s struck and that’s how we are able to respect one another and live in a society. There are few if any circumstances where it’s permitted to force anyone to do something, but to affect one another’s actions through persuasion is simply an integral part of being human. If the only options available to us when the people around us do anything we don’t like is to either tolerate it, or cut ties, life would become impossible.

Such a tactic might work, but I don’t know about the reasoning. They might seriously not know that they’re doing anything other than kidding around. It’s a bit much to assume they don’t have a better nature. Sometimes people just adopt a behaviour that they learned in one environment at some time or another and never grew out of it or invested enough thought to realise how it might affect people around them. Maybe that’s too much sympathy for someone being shitty but I just don’t know if I’d start with the assumption they have no better nature when there really might be a decent person behind it all that’s simply never been shown what they’re doing in a different light.

If it comes from someone they trust and wouldn’t want to offend they might take being honestly told about it seriously. Ironically though, I still think your approach could be a way to do things even if I don’t agree the person is beyond redemption and just deserves it. I’d just hope it shocks them out of it and prompts them to reflect.

I once had a flight in two legs where the first leg was operated by a well known established airline for an okay ish price and the second leg was operated by a “sister” airline that did shorter ultra low cost flights. The first flight had infotainment screens and a few other minor comforts that are standard for economy flights these days and make it just slightly more bearable, whereas the 2nd flight had no screens, no food without paying separately and just made as uncomfortable as possible on purpose.

During the first flight, you could use their crappy as screens on the back of the chair in front or connect to their local network with your own device, which was free and didn’t involve any shenanigans like ads or accounts. I made use of the service which worked by entering a URL printed on the back of the chair in front. On the second leg, there was no screens and no apparent mention of an onboard entertainment offering through your own devices but there was some sort of QR code which I assume was supposed to take you to a payment portal or something but which didn’t even work. It was a different URL to the first flight.

I still had my tab open from the first flight though, and when I accidentally opened that tab on the second flight, I got access to the seemingly hidden entertainment service with no payment or logins or anything. Seems that sometimes it’s just a question of knowing the magic URL.

So, if I’m to take their message as intended, in addition to avoiding sports and education, I ought to avoid religion too? Are there more pages to this saying something along the lines of “… Except my favourite religion?” Otherwise, I mean, I’m confused what they want me to do here?

Yikes wtf? That’s a terrible idea, recipes for fan forced already compensate the temperature so everyone will be getting it wrong. That’s crazy.

Probably shouldn’t confirm that the address was correct.

It’s just like that. Actually it’s an interesting point about wanting to try it again and get it right. I think that’s a layer that probably explains some of the feeling like I miss something that actually wasn’t great to experience.

I opened up my post again the next day and immediately thought of that. Don’t know why I didn’t when I wrote the title haha

This puts it well.

The experience of nostalgia I understand is bittersweet and often melancholy. I guess what I’m finding strange is that normally one experiences nostalgia for something they’d actually like to be able to return to, and that usually means something that they actually liked, a previous happiness. Weirdly I seem to be pining for a particular way I felt that actually, sucked at the time. It’s weird. I know what you mean about it being best not to dwell but it’s such a powerful draw, it’s like I’m swimming around the edges of a vortex.

Modals make me so godamned angry.

Arguing with people on lemmy, people are wrong and the internet and the world totally needs my opinions to correct them.

He was a buay man with all the salad and calendar making and had no time to just wait around for a kid to come out whenever they felt like it.

Coming in to this I really wondered how anybody could sincerely find anything on Sesame Street scary but watching this, I don’t think it would have scared me but I get it. It’s the music that really does it, unsettling and ominous and with the lack of context you described, I get it.

I really liked those things. They were funny.

Sounds like something Jeff would say

Thanks for running that experiment for me. Hopefully the results are transferable.

Outlook is positive so far, I’ll give it a shot.

Hmm, sounds tentatively good. Definitely worth a shot. Thanks.