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I read the interview as a 380 page paper on a subject I don’t really understand seemed a bit ambitious. I linked it, as I didnt know who did the report, and I wanted to hear her summary in her own words.

The comments here are full of people defending one side or the other, but no one seems to be providing any sources. This seems to be a difficult subject to approach if one isn’t seeking to affirm an existing stance. Both sides just seem to say “show me the proof” back and forth because neither will acknowledge the other.

You seem to be at least leaning in favor of the report. If you have any noob appropriate links to supporting info, I’d look at them.

Reading this BS from McConnell made me ask if a face eating leopard could eat its own face, and if so, would it even realize it.

Then I pictured an oroboro with his face instead. I’d do a mock up, but I don’t want to look at his face that long. I feel McConnel has been playing this game with “not supporting” Trump for far too long now.

I don’t think Mitch has surpassed Kissinger for biggest bastard overall, but he’s tried damn hard. He’s always gloated about what an ass he is, and nothing he says now is ever going to redeem him.

She makes it hard to feel out what her actual position is, which in a way is probably what she should do, but is also very frustrating because being on neither side feels disingenuous as a default these days. I don’t know enough about her to really feel I know for sure.

We had decades (centuries?) of people not getting this care. There were definitely negatives to that. We’ve had maybe now a couple decades of increasing HRT/puberty blocker stuff. I’ve heard positive stories. Everything makes it sound reversible should the need arise. Everything against it seems to not be evenly distributed across the political spectrum so walking it back feels political based on what I’ve heard cumulatively.

Keeping it as research seems it would greatly reduce its availability, and if it causes people to suffer or die, that’s not something that can be taken back, unlike stopping hormone treatment or puberty blockers seems to be. That’s the part that concerns me.

I don’t know much about the issues, but I try to stay informed, so I don’t want to go trashing this lady’s report. From all I’ve read though, a lot of doctors already have to sign off on patients before it comes to these treatments, so canceling that now seems to overrule a wide range of medical and mental doctors for a dubious position.

I don’t know about the issue enough for me to comment on if she is biased or not, but I found this NYT interview (archive.org link) and she really seems to try to be playing both sides to me. Her main arguement seems to be don’t treat this as an issue to resolve gender, that makes you ignore mental health/depression/other things, but with there not being the best care of that nature available for trans individuals, what avenue is left for them?

It sounds like she wants to go on about a lack of enough proof for her to stop treatment, but it also doesn’t sound like she has enough proof to say it’s harmful, but that doesn’t seem to discourage her helping eliminate it.

I forgot the emergency updates. My gf will send me links of that stuff well before it ever hits the news, if it even makes the actual news.

Like I mentioned in my comment, I think that it still has a huge user base and it’s free makes it still be the default tool for casting a quick message to the most people for free.

I have the Messenger app since some of my best friends still prefer it. It also seems to be useful for occasions where I run into problems sending something to someone via RCS. Not sure if it’s an occasional hiccup since I’m on Android and they’re all iPhone users, but Messenger never has that problem with us.

I don’t use the Facebook app, but I am on there for an extended time every day. I use it to get the bulk of my content for !superbowl@lemmy.world since all the animal rescues use it. It’s free and still has a huge audience, so it makes sense for them to share their content there. I take the hit and subscribe to every rescue, rehab, and wildlife photographers I come across, filter through all the fake stuff, scams, and privacy violations, and bring the best of it here to share with you all so you don’t need to do it. No need for us all to suffer.

They share important info, but I get why most people here want nothing to do with it. It’s the only practical way to get info for a large group of charities though, so it’s still a necessary evil for some niche purposes like mine.

I am a big fan of most zoos too, so I wouldn’t want anyone to write them off completely. As I’ve gotten to learn more about the animals, when I get time to talk to staff now, I’ve been getting more info on the regulations and licensing they have to navigate, and transitioning from a place helping animals to one that also displays animals is a pretty big leap, and that is going to require much more overhead. While many cases won’t be as extreme as a huge zoo like OP was looking at, that would seem to be what leads to larger and larger zoos starting to look more like a typical corporation on paper like that.

A female Air Force officer was targeted because of “multiple woke posts” on her X feed, including a tweet about LGBTQ rights, one about “whiteness” and another about honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on a stamp.

Talk about sensitive snowflakes! Trying to ruin someone’s career because they talked about a stamp with a liberal on it…

The whole list is worth a read for the poor excuses, but the stamp was the weakest of the weak to me.

I suggest donating to your local wild animal rescue/rehabber. They’re all volunteer based. They receive $0 public money. The public rarely sees the work they do. They’re doing physically and mentally taxing work purely for the love of animals.

They typically all have a donation page, and many have Amazon Wishlists where you can send them cleaning, maintenance, or medical supplies directly if you’re worried about the money going to something you might not intend.

Nothing will go to people. You won’t have to question if you’re really help an animal that may or may not exist in a country you’ll never see. They’re your neighborhood animals.

As the !superbowl@lemmy.world person here, I look specifically for a raptor rehabbers to donate to, and I share links to those rescues worldwide.

I can’t find my link to the world rescue database, but for a US based one, you can look here or just Google up “wild animal rescue near me” and you should get some options.

I still feel grateful for being in the right place to help out some people many years ago.

I was headed to meet some friends down at the shore and right when I got to town , I stopped by McDonald’s to grab something to eat. It was pretty empty, just the employees and 2 groups of kids.

There were 4 young teen girls and 3 or 4 older teen boys, and from the second I walked in, I saw the girls were very uncomfortable and the guys kept trying to get them to leave with them. They were trying to call someone to pick them up but nobody could come get them from what I could tell.

It was very dark out and the town was deserted, so I assumed they were not locals either so they didn’t have many options.

I asked them if they wanted a ride and they quickly said yes and literally jumped in my car as fast as they could. They were a decent number of blocks away, and they were very happy to be back at their rental.

I assume nothing serious would have happened, but it probably would have made the rest of their trip shitty if they had to worry if those guys knew where they were staying. I couldn’t have just ignored them without offering to help though, they all seemed on the verge of tears.

It was a little mind blowing how they’d just jump in a stranger’s car, but I was at least a neutral party when the other guys were already verified creeps. I wasn’t much older, about 20, so not in creepy old man territory yet, so that probably helped. As I said, I still think about how I got to be someone’s champion that day, and it makes me feel good to know I helped out.

I imagine you’re an adult, so you should have a decent radar for picking out some non-creep stranger. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I didn’t have much time to process the situation until after the girls had left, but seeing someone desperate for help I’d think would have most people willing to accommodate getting you to your car or a better public place. Most people are good and would help out if asked.

Yup, my questions in the Maori article have been up for 24 hours now, so time for people in that part of the world with direct knowledge had time to see it. My comments and questions got 7 upvotes, so other people seem interested in some more elaboration, but the thread is probably dead.

Someone’s leaving an audience that wants more hanging, and nobody even gave a yes or no saying if my understanding of the article was right. 😮‍💨

Oh for sure. It’s going to be what ultimately makes or breaks this as a platform. You can’t force a userbase to interact, but as OP states, like many before them, for some people there’s not going to be much going on here. For people that want to at least be mildly active participants though, I haven’t had this much fun since forums were the big thing. I just imagine since that was a decent while ago now that either those of us old enough to have enjoyed them are rusty at it, and the yoots are too young to have seen how it used to work.

not a lot of people even bother opening posts

I’m a bit inclined to agree with this. I try to do the equivalent of the XKCD hover text, where you have to click through to get some of the good stuff. If you aren’t clicking through to the comments, you’re going to miss a lot of good stuff. Photo sets, photography tips, stories, fun facts. I try not to have the pic and title be the whole thing. But I’ll have 100 upvotes on the post pic, and maybe 10 on any bonus pics inside.

With some news posts, they feel like a RSS feed. Just a link to an article and nothing else. I may read it or I may not. There’s no initial comment or question to interact with. I don’t even know if it’s a bot posting or not that way. If all you offer is a Reuters link, I could have just gone to Reuters and gotten the headline myself. I feel these posts have little value until they start collecting comments.

“Yes I agree, nothing to add”

This is a common response I get when I try to get people to comment more. There can still be value to add to something like this though. Why do you agree? Did you agree before you read the post/comment? Do you have any caveats to your agreement? If you haven’t always agreed, what changed your mind? What part of what they said, or the chart/pic/stat they shared really stood out or was unexpected? You may agree, but you’re still a different person with a different background and different adjacent ideas.

Example from today: Pic of flying owl. Comment was basically I like all these recent pics of flying owls. On the surface, not the deepest comment ever. Buuuuuut, someone took the time to respond to a post, so I know they liked it enough to make effort. Makes me feel good knowing I motivated someone enough to respond, keeps me motivated to post again. I also learned that a specific type of content really got them interested. I know to look for more of it. Then I took the time to respond in kind, because their effort deserves recognition. I said I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I also said that even though I see hundreds of owl pics every week, that I was still surprised by something I saw in one of the recent photos, so that gives them or anyone else reading the response something to go back and look at. They might not have noticed the unique thing about the photo the first time.

Example going the other way: Maori rights in New Zealand. You can’t get much further from NZ than where I am. I know basically nothing about it. This topic really caught my attention though. I read the article to see what was going on, and I thought I understood the basics of it. I commented and said, hey, I read this, and this is my understanding. Am I correct in my understanding or am I missing some significant parts of the story not in this article? If so, can someone explain it or point me in the direction of some more reading? So I know nothing, but I showed them the story was making me interested in something they shared. Anyone familiar with NZ can chime in to talk to me. I hopefully get more things to talk about from that, and we have some conversation. I don’t have to know anything, I just show interest in the topic, and in interacting with someone.

Not every interaction is going to result in more upvotes, comments, or conversation, but if nobody is going to be willing to make the first move, it’s gonna be boring. We’re not big enough for the 1% rule (1% creators, 9% commenters, 90% lurkers) to carry us. It kills the creators having to force the momentum all the time, and if you disagree/agree too much with the small pool of comments, you’re going to say this place is boring. We need to participate, we need to show our individual personalities, and we need to interact. That’s the “social” part of social media. Have fun with it!

For me, the upvotes are ok. I use them more to gauge overall traffic. I have an idea the typical number of votes things will get, and I can see what deviates to see what is a hit, what’s typical, and what isn’t resonating. But without comments, there’s no “why” anything is good or bad. I’m not really any better off than before to give you what you want. I can take a guess, but you could have also taken a moment to tell me. It doesn’t tell me everyone’s opinion, but it gives another things for the people that do vote to either add upvotes to that comment or ignore it.

Also, as someone providing the content, it’s nice to have an interaction, even if it’s minimal. Creating posts can eat up a lot of time, and I’m doing it to talk to you all. If nobody stops by to even say, yo, nice work, or whatever, even if I have a lot of upvotes, it still feels like I’m not talking to anyone. It feels like a chore. But if I get one person that says, hey, seeing this really made my morning, now I feel awesome and I want to post more.

A lot of focus is put onto posting, but I like to encourage commenters. I’ll post and respond all day, but if nobody is interacting, it’s going to stay quiet. Put the quiet to your advantage by doing things like:

If you like an image, say what you like about it. Lately, I’ve been having people talk about how they really have been enjoying dawn/dusk pictures, so I’ve been collecting more of that so I can post what people are in the mood for. It gives me good feedback, it gives people a chance to agree or disagree with you, and you got to participate.

Do you ask anyone any question? Take advantage of the relative quiet. With not having a million comments on every post, I have plenty of time to give you really detailed answers. I got asked how to differentiate between 2 animals yesterday, and I had time to make a nice visual guide, highlighting key differences and giving multiple visual examples of potential variations while still simplifying the process of identification. If there’s a million people talking like on Reddit, it’s hard to give people that much attention, but here it’s easy. I pretty much take time to respond to every comment.

Don’t be afraid to go off topic. Rules seem to be looser in many communities because of the low post count. This week, I posted something from a country with a different language, and I ended up having 3 days of conversation with a native speaker who filled me in on tons of subtleties of the language pertaining to our niche topic. I got to learn so much, and they got to learn a few things about English.

I feel you have to do something to have a good time here, but it needn’t be to post multiple things every day, but it’s more than just up or downvoting something like you can get away with on Reddit. We’re too small for you to have a free ride. But make someone laugh. Let them know that you liked their post with a short comment. If you don’t like it, say hey, do you have any content on such and such instead. Make a post saying, hey, what’s your thoughts on this? It doesn’t need to be something groundbreaking or insightful, you just need to give a sign of life so we know you’re here, and one of us will probably talk back to you.

Interact enough like that, and you may find what you enjoy doing, if that turns out to be posting, or you become the resident expert on a topic even if you’re not an expert, being a serial commenter, or whatever it may be. It’s a great opportunity if you make it one because it is so easy to get attention here if you try.

I’m not typically a social person, but being here has let me talk about what I want, when I want, and somebody will listen to it, and I can ask about things I want to know and get answers. There’s much less shouting into the void like at Reddit. Play Lemmy to its strengths and you will find enjoyment. And if you don’t like it, go to where you’re happy. Nobody’s going to hate you if you split time between here and Reddit.

It’s just frustrating in the same way as when you see someone doing any risky behavior. I don’t want them to be hurt, and maybe they’ll be fine, but I worry because I care about them.

Recent events have really shown me I must be more left than most people I know, because the amount of people recently that I’ve thought were liberal are talking anti-immigrant and anti-minority group things much more than I would have thought.

This is the message I keep trying to give myself and others. Our goals and priorities haven’t changed since losing an election. The fight may be tougher than if people more aligned with us may have won, but it was still going to be a fight either way. We aren’t starting from nothing, we’re still at the same point we were the day before the election. It’s our job to hold our ground that we’ve won until now, and to push forward into new territory where possible in the future.

I still need to protect the people and causes I care about. That is the motivation for change I have, and no matter who is in charge and how much they dislike it will change that. It’s up to me to give up or not.

From my understanding, 14th amendment protections are still being battled over in the courts. Many have sided in favor or sexual orientation or gender being something that should be considered in equal protection of the laws, but some have not, so this will probably be coming to the Supreme Court, especially if the majority in charge of everything see it as an advantageous time to do so.

Agenda 47, the immediate plans for implementing Project 2025, has eliminating gender affirming care as a key priority. More money was spent on anti-trans campaigning than on many other topics combined this election cycle.

In theory, the laws of individual states protecting LGBT people would still apply, but other parts of Agenda 47 call for economically hammering states that try to go against expanded executive power, sounding similar to how the national drinking age was raised by withholding funding for highways.

I think there is a time bomb on these protections right now, and I would be hesitant to count on them for very long. I feel like writing all this makes me sound alarmist, but that is how I feel based on what they’ve been saying and running on these last 8+ years. My best friends are gay, but also public educators. They’re Republican leaning centrists, and don’t seem to be concerned, so I may be off base, but I tend to trust people when they come out in the open as bad people without shame.

Should be hamberders instead of pistols as well, but he does look to have the heal lifts. Hell, the hat isn’t even too far off from the hair and the face has more orange than fleshtone. It seems to have more in common with him than I first thought…

Should be hamberders instead of pistols as well, but he does look to have the heal lifts. Hell, the hat isn’t even too far off from the hair and the face has more orange than fleshtone. It seems to have more in common with him than I first thought…