That sounds like it would get very expensive very fast.

In a way, it makes sense to me.

If the big bang was not unique - and why would it be - it makes sense that it would rather be infinite. It exists outside of time and reason, if it is not singular it doesn’t make sense to think that it only happened a finite number of times.

If it happened an infinite number of times, everything that could happen will happen in one of the instances. That’s just math.

So I guess I think it’s a reasonable idea.

However, I don’t know if it makes sense to me to think in terms of these worlds actually existing. After all, they are by definition not a part of our world, which I think would be a reasonable definition of existing.

I heard Stephen Hawkins was playing around with the possibility of connecting to other words. If that is possible, it would make them real by my definition of reality. I don’t personally believe such a thing would be possible. But I know far less about the topic than Stephen Hawkins.

I have little patience for memes, and even less so political memes. The right wing stuff is all woman hating fascists, and the left wing stuff are people who would send me to a camp or chase me out of the country for having a slight disagreement with them on my specific take on socialism.

There’s often no room for discussion or disagreement, because “its a joke”. So at that point it’s just political brainwashing, no matter which side it is on.

Of course, sometimes it’s fun, and sometimes it’s good. There’s a role for humour to play in highlighting injustice and systemic absurdity. I’m not completely against it. I just have little patience for for it.

Which is why I mostly use this platform to look at pictures of owls.

When it comes to digital communication, I think I might be a dinosaur. I have never used Discord or TikTok. My group chat experience as a teenager was on IRC.

Culturally I am also out of touch - I come from a time when young people were reliably progressive, and where there did not seem to be a huge political gender divide. I feel weirdly removed from those born ten years after me, who are now around 20.

Sure, I’m in a few group chats on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and I know these situations in the abstract. But if OP is a teenager they probably come from a completely different world than I do.

I’m just not with it any more, you know. I wear an onion in my belt.

That said, I of course agree completely that I am the embodiment of youth in most aspects of life!

Holy shit, the sociology of group chats is complex as fuck judging from these comments. I hate them too much to ever have stopped and wondered why I hate them.

My suggestion would echo Bukowski: Don’t try. It’s perfectly fine to only respond in the group chat when something needs to be coordinated. Everything else one on one communication is better for. And if you do feel like interacting, don’t force it. Silence is never wrong. On the contrary.

I don’t even do group chats for party invitations. I just text everyone individually. It’s a little more work but it’s so much nicer, as far as I’m concerned.

Then again, I was born in the 90s. I’m a grumpy old man and without a doubt out of thouch.

The lesson of the story seems to be to keep the fuck away from McDonalds.

Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan!

…which hasn’t been aired for years, so you’d have to download it. At which point it could might as well have been a podcast. But it is a radio show!

When I listen to the radio live (as I am doing as I write), I listen to music only, occasionally channels that have brief news every hour if I want to feel connected to the world.

Well, one stands out as particularly weird in its own way.

I was spending the night with this woman. For the first time. I was happy to be there, so my dream got pretty energized. Usually my dreams are rather mundane, like about cheese or something.

Anyway, this time I was an adventurer/explorer - full on Indiana Jones kinda thing. I entered this huge ancient complex of overgrown ruins - like a round opening in a mountain with small-ish carved out openings, like in Petra.

First I was alone. But then some wolves came, and I bravely fought them off. Then a gigantic bird attacked me, and I fought that one as well. I was on fire.

After all this I was getting tired, so I climbed towards one of the carved spaces in the mountain to take a nap. Just then another gigantic bird flew against me full speed, posing an immediate danger. As it approached, I reached out and grabbed the beak with all my might, ready to heroically throw it aside.

And the beak was… Soft? Like some Big Bird kinda thing?

Snap back to the real world, and I had just woken up my bedfellow by violently grabbing her butt cheek. Apparently it was quite painful. It was an awkward situation to have to explain.

Norway only discovered oil worth extracting December 23 1969. So you would not have grown up in a particularly rich country, but you would see the country gain incredible wealth as you grew older.

If you were born in the early 60s and bought a house in the early 80s, you’d be pretty fucked when the global economy crashed. But I guess that goes for everywhere. The 70s would probably be a better bet in that sense.

You’d probably not live in a city, but in some village in the middle of nowhere. So the wealth of the country would mostly be noticable through the social security web built around you, and the fact that your random village suddenly got a tunnel to it. If you’re a farmer you’d receive subsidies so it would be somewhat possible to keep going, even as your peers in continental Europe would run out of business one by one.

You’d probably secretly wish you would also go out of business so you could retire to something less taxing.

You would spend your childhood amazed by America, and jealous of the youth revolution going on there. You’d watch American movies and grow up idolizing American and British war heroes. You would think your stupid valley was the most boring place on earth.

In your old age, you would thank your lucky star you’re not in America. Maybe you’d get a house in Spain for the cold winters. Your family would think less of you for it, but they wouldn’t be vocal about it.

I guess at least there are those specific moments in history when, if you were to be born in a specific country, being a woman at least significantly increases your life expectancy.

If I knew what shit was about to go down and I had to be born in, say, Soviet Russia in 1925, I would probably have opted to be a woman. Not because it seems so darn great, but because chances of at least making it to age 30 would significantly improve.

Then again, not a point in history I would particularly favour.

I feel like most self-proclaimed anarchists have very little interest in the political philosophy aspect of it. Which is a shame, because it’s really far better than its reputation.

Ah. That’s a fun idea.

I think it’s too much effort though - you can get upvotes easier than that. But I’m sure content is already stolen from here for some uses, and it’ll only get more common as time goes by. It’s in the nature of posting things online, I guess.

Fun fact: if you’re an artist on Spotify receiving less than 1000 streams in a year, they won’t even bother paying you. You also need a minimum number of unique listeners. That number is secret.

Spotify is good for those already rich, and bad for those who isn’t.

They also have Joe Rogan and Gwyneth Paltrow on their payroll, and they actively lobby for more relaxed AI legislatiolegislation in the EU.

If you have a subscription, the best thing you van do is to cancel it, get your music from the high seas, and instead donate $12 per month or however much it costs directly to artists you enjoy by buying their music or merch online.

AntennaPod is good for podcasts.

Yeah, generally people need quite a bit of nudging before they get off their asses.

So now seems like a good time to start - no reason to wait for things to get even worse. This is why I stress the community building - it only really requires people to fight back, but it does require people to fight back.

She’ll be happy to hear that it has worked on numerous occasions throughout history! After the fall of Fascism in Europe, people in many countries got together and created strong welfare states in the post war period. Some were more successful than others, but even in the ultraconservative UK they managed to create a national health service that hs proven difficult to kill off.

Sadly, I’ll have to break to her that the fight never ends. The second you stop fighting for progress, some asshole will pop up and try to instill feudalism again. After a generation or two people tend to forget the ongoing nature of this threat, and it seems we haven’t managed to come up with ways to permanently get rid of it, despite our best efforts following the French and American revolutions.

Maybe the time has come to go back to the drawing board, and rethink some of the decisions that were made back then. Jefferson said every generation should have its own constitution. Maybe he was right.

If your friend is willing to make the effort to combat this, she should get organized. She should find like-minded people, act locally to gain political power, and create a stronghold where the illegitimate government will face resistance. She should base this around ideological lines, rather than willingly subscribing to what experienced members in established political elites in her country are trying to make her say or do. She should write down whether values are and make sure to keep them close at all times, knowing that she just might be successful and that power corrupts.

She should not give up hope, but she should give up the belief that others will change anything for her. She needs recognize that her country is already broken, and she needs to act to be the change.

She needs to recognize that she’s not powerless. She can make a difference.

Likewise, she needs to recognize that it’s a long and painful process. It needs to start locally, and it might always stay local. But that is fine.

She needs to realize strength is in the community. Building the community of like minded people working for local action is crucial. She’ll be disappointed in them at times, but she’ll just have to keep going. There’s power in community.

At least that’s what I think I’d advice her. But I don’t know your friend or her situation, obviously.

American capitalists are really, really good at cracking down on any civil attempt at unionising and/or improving society at the cost of the ultra rich.

You could recite the extensive history of violence, but honestly the greatest achievement is in the propaganda. Solidarity seems to be commonly understood - by all classes - as having to take the bill for somebody even poorer than yourself, and nobody seems to be comfortable with the idea that they might themselves one day benefit.

Americans can’t have good things before they start fighting back. Read up on union history. Organize. Educate. Teach people what solidarity is and what the Battle of Blair Mountain was. Learn what was taken away from you, and help others understand as well. Begin locally.

Either that, or keep watching the fascists take over day by day, as they have been doing for decades.

My impression is that karma matters less here. But I never used reddit much and I have never used Lemmy either, so I’m a bit of an anti-expert.

I think the bots are set up by people who simply wanted to see the content. I don’t think anyone is trying to farm anything here.

Ideally they should all be tagged as bots, which would make them less problematic.

No worries at all! Good to keep some suspense! I hope you managed to have a good nap, sounds like you needed one. :)

If you’re this principled you should be boycotting Amazon anyway. If you’re not, give the driver $5 if it costs you nothing.