testfactor

Could be reverse causality? Rich and industrializing countries have the money and resources to send out explorers and start colonies.

If you're not on the rise already, you're probably not throwing away ships on suicide missions.

Yeah, that's what I told my doctor when he said I didn't have unicorn pox. He was like, "that's not a real thing, and if it was I'd have heard of it," and I told him he was just an arrogant jerk. He doesn't know all the diseases, just cause he's a doctor.

That seems like an impressively blanket statement when there's literally dozens of sugar substitutes that are all wildly chemically different. Insane that all of them would kill your mouth and gut microbiome even when they often work in fundamentally different ways.

Even in your made up scenario it doesn't prove the negative. Maybe your mind reading didn't work because Apple has a mind wiping device that made them forget. Maybe the crystal ball didn't work because Apple made an even more powerful "crystal ball blocking" device. You can't prove that's not what's really happening.

So no, you in fact can't prove a negative.

How many fascists have you killed? Genuine question. Cause if the answer is zero, you have stopped short of killing fascists. Saying you would is no different than the person who says they would care about politics but doesn't.

I don't mean that as an attack. I simply am pointing out that everyone draws the line differently. A Ted Kaczynski would say a person who really cares about these issues would already be sending mail bombs.

I disagree with that (as do you I imagine, as I don't think you've started mail bombing people, as that would've been in the news), but he was just as sure of his line as you are. Why do you not go that far?

To be very clear. Don't mail bomb people. Don't take this as a challenge. I'm just genuinely curious how that falls against the line you are drawing.

Also, back to the original topic, you said earlier that you can't go to events solo due to your social anxiety, which is understandably difficult, but could you not bring your partner along? Why can't you have that security blanket as you go out to meet new people? Having a partner makes making new friends a thousand times easier!

I do think there's an element of privilege here. Just because you have the luxury of time and space to be involved in politics and spend a lot of emotional energy in that area doesn't mean that everyone else has that luxury. For the single mother of three, working two jobs to provide for her kids, she probably doesn't have the bandwidth to be super "educated" politically.

But what would you have that PTA soccer mom do? The bar is always arbitrary. I could choose to set it higher or lower than you. Why is your spot for the bar what it is? I could claim anyone who isn't vegan, or uses toilet paper, or doesn't drive an EV, or isn't growing their own food, or isn't chaining themselves to government buildings in protest isn't doing their part and is actively "contributing to the destruction of humanity." You have defined your threshold of acceptable somewhere short of actively murdering fascists (I assume), so why is that? And what makes your choice of threshold the correct one?

I think we have a tendency to say, "what I'm doing is the correct standard," in order to make us feel justified in our outlook and superior to the people around us. Is it that others are actually "contributing to the destruction of humanity" more than you, or is that something that you tell yourself to help maintain an emotional wall of protection?

And, literally all that aside, I think your assumption that there aren't plenty of people around you who feel similarly to you is unfounded. You could make friends by getting involved in a political campaign. I did that a number of years ago, and met a lot of great people. Helped a lady get elected into the House of Representatives. Had a great time and met a lot of cool people along the way. And surely those people would meet your thresholds of "good enough," no?

I couldn't source the 48.5 billion for personnel number. I'm seeing a total budget increase for ICE to 30 billion. But still a large number for sure. But that's total budget, not just personnel.

But look, I agree with the sentiment. I'd rather this money be spent on teachers too. I'm just not convinced that the numbers, as presented in the meme, are meaningful.

It does sound like you've let doom scrolling negatively impact your life.

I won't argue things are bad, but the reality is that most people are generally decent.

Sure, there's a lot of dicks out there, but they're very much the minority. They are just overrepresented in the Lemmy echo chamber (and other online platforms too of course).

Obviously it's hard to say if you're being "too picky" as it were without knowing exactly what lines you're drawing, but it sounds like you might be projecting your negative expectations onto people as opposed to people actually not living up to those expectations.

Fair enough on all counts.

I would point out that if everyone only made friends with people better than them, no one would have any friends. It's important to pour into others as well as to get poured into. It's how we make the world better. And just because someone is "worse" than you doesn't mean they don't have value. And it doesn't mean there isn't something you could gain from having them as a friend. I've had friends who are "better" than me and "worse" than me make positive change in my life.

And I know you say you're not in a place to work on this, and I can respect that, but I would say that it's never a bad time to continue leaning forward in a positive direction. And if this is something that's negatively impacting your life, the sooner you work on it, the sooner you'll be less impacted by it. No time like the present and all that.

I have friends with crippling social anxiety. It's a lot of work, and they have their ups and downs for sure. But it's something that they're working on in therapy and making strides on. It is possible to improve and for things to get better.

I mean, it's hard to say without knowing exactly what you're talking about, but universally condemned likely seems strong. But regardless, you said that you don't value the same people I do. Does that mean you can't value someone with different beliefs than you?

You say that there aren't any groups in your area that would interest you. What kind of group would interest you? What group, if you saw it was starting up in your area, would motivate you to go out and meet people?

That's a spooky looking dude.