I understand (from my American perspective of course). I live in a swing state in the U.S. that went for Trump. I have the same fears and can only hope if war results from us that it is kept within the borders of this country. Obviously I would prefer violence not be the end result regardless.

Please just know that there are many many people here that are just as concerned and fearful as you are. The people I know that voted for him are either woefully uneducated or are misled by their religion (which in and of itself is a form of ignorance/being uneducated). And while they can still be dangerous, the true fascist zealots are still a minority.

I cannot excuse the people here who voted for this, at this point all I can say is that I am a human, you are a human. I don’t want you to hurt, I’m pretty darn sure you don’t want me to hurt. Let’s do our best to separate this fucking mess from the individual humans who are stuck in it and on the periphery of it, and hope to hell none of us become collateral damage.

Please do not make us a monolith. I am not my country, I was just born here. That kind of thinking leads to radicalism and violence. I can perfectly understand caution with “unknowns” from a group you have reason to be concerned about. Honestly from a personal safety standpoint we do this all the time. But to unilaterally decide we are all one thing and write us off (or worse) is false and dangerous.

I don’t know where you are in Europe but I love the continent and have visited many countries there. I do my best to be respectful when I visit and look up local cultures and norms so I don’t stand out and be “that American.” I’m not ashamed of being an American tourist, but I don’t want to adhere to the worst of our stereotypes. If other countries’ people decide we are inherently dangerous, being annoying may be the least of my worries should I have the fortune of making another trip there.

I’m not sure why Bernie is the exception for me…I feel like a giant hypocrite being ok with this. But dude does still seem spry AF.

A little too literal, but I like your style, lol

One of mine does that too. He only likes sparkle balls or rattle mice tho, so no risk of gross items from the garbage fortunately.

We have a wood floor and his favorite thing is to have me throw it in that room so he can slide halfway across it while fetching the toy.

He has definitely slid into the wall a time or two.

My cat is obsessed with grooming beards. As in…will not stop until you force him off. My partner plays a little game where they fight for kisses. The cat will try to get close and groom his beard and my partner will take advantage of the closeness to smother him in kisses. The cat is not a huge fan of the kisses so they do this thing where they both waver in front of each other like cobras, both trying to find an in to kiss/lick. Sometimes when my partner moves in for a kiss, the cat will lean backwards and turn his face to the side, denying the kiss. Then as soon as my partner backs off, the cat quickly moves forward to lick his beard again. It’s hysterical and I never tire of watching the game.

It’s my profession and I’m a little bit of a nut about it (in that I like the job, haha) plus many people do not understand taxes - nor should they because it’s been made SOOO unnecessarily complicated. So I’m always happy to try and explain our ridiculous system, lol. Thanks for reading it!

Generally those who own their home in cities have higher property tax bills. Prior to the TCJA, there wasn’t a dollar cap on your real estate tax deduction if you itemized. Now there is a $10k cap which includes your state taxes paid (like from your w2 or estimated taxes). For someone like me who lives in a somewhat low COL area…no biggie. My property taxes are pretty low and don’t come near that cap. But it’s pretty easy to hit that cap when you live in a city and your property taxes alone are 10k or more…but before that u also were able to deduct your state taxes paid. So many people who previously were able to itemize and even might be able to now if they got the full amount of property taxes, will only get the standard decision and thus more of their income is taxable.

There are sources that say that the property tax deduction primarily benefited higher income earners, but some of these higher income earners also live in higher COL areas and thus don’t make as much money as it may seem because it’s so much more expensive to live where they live.

I actually am a fan of unreliable narrators, but they can’t also be insufferable assholes. I can’t stand that book and I did read it when I was 15!

That said, I understand it’s not really meant to be a cherished story…but if I’m gonna read about someone I would actively hate, I’ll stick to non-fiction for that.

Prom: no. Graduation: no (graduated early, didn’t walk in the summer even tho I could)…but lotsa regular dances.

Same, I was 13

Out of pure curiosity, is your statement linking abortion opinions and psychopathy based on any studies you can link?

My wish would be that after he loses this election - and I think would truly become unable to run again (because at that point I think almost everyone would be able to admit he’s too old) - that everyone simply forgets about him. His ongoing trials would get no more than a blip in coverage, whether he’s sentenced to jail or slapped with probation, it barely gets talked about. There can be no worse punishment from that man’s perspective than screaming into a void and no one hears him and no one cares.

This is a total pipe dream, but I am willing to turn off any news program, ignore any news link and not buy any newspaper that has an article about him if it contributes to ignoring him until he turns into an old useless husk and departs from this world. I wish it could be done now but people still need to be consistently reminded how dangerous he is until their vote is locked in this November.

Even better!

In the app search bar I was able to get the chatbot just by typing the question “how do I chat with customer service?” For future reference.

Hmmm…truly new tech that came out after I was 35…

VR …yeah pretty cool, my partner has one but I’m not a gamer and don’t generally go for anything gaming anyways. Use it more widely for non gaming uses tho and I’m on board. Self driving cars …cool, don’t have one, never been in one, but I’m all over learning/using that shit if it becomes mainstream AI… personally not a fan, mostly cuz I think it could be like nukes where it’s used for more bad than good, but I’ve messed my way around ChatGPT and it’s whatevs. Probably eventually very useful if we don’t murder ourselves first.

Personally, having gotten our first school PCs when I was in 7th grade (92’ -ish), I find that I tend to at least be curious and want to learn about new tech. So I wonder if the late genX, early millennials might break rule #3 just cuz we were forced to know more about computers to run them and thus don’t view tech as inherently scary. Then again, I’m always fucking around with stuff and my siblings (2 yrs older and younger) are always like “woah how u do dat?!?”…maybe im just a lazy oddball always looking for a way to shortcut my life with technology.

What goes around…apparently. My 57 year old co-worker does the same thing and it drives me batty.

Well I haven’t dropped social media entirely because….I’m here. But about 2 years ago I got completely off of FB…I had been off Instagram for a while, never did TikTok and rarely used Twitter or chat style social media. I cancelled my Reddit account during the API thing and came here…but still occasionally lurk without an account there. And the reason is this…what I really miss is other people’s thoughts. Sane, crazy, silly, angry…whatever. I love to learn random facts, I love to watch a tv show and see what everyone else thinks, and I like reading what the average person thinks about world news and yes, even politics (though I always keep in mind that bots and trolls are a thing). I liked it on Reddit because if I read something that seemed off to me, it wasn’t connected to the face of my beloved Aunt, or well intentioned but batty mother. It was a face in the crowd but it was a way to find out thoughts from people outside my bubble.

Podcasts are helping because a lot are run by just normal people…so I get a bit of a “fix” there. But I love watching something or reading a random book and then just searching it on Reddit to see what other people thought. I really hope one day Lemmy grows enough to fulfill that for me. It’s getting closer for sure.

Ex-catholic here who unknowingly moved deep into WELS Lutheran territory (if u haven’t heard of that one…well, I’m jealous ;)). Sadly, they ain’t all like that. And unlike Catholicism…there’s like a million different Lutheran synods…with rules and culture that vary WIDELY.

It was a while now at this point and I have wondered if there was some “he didn’t like me as much as I disliked him” energy. It does seem unlikely that it was unintentional since it’s not a home pantry where everything is yours and u can just be absent minded about it. We all grow and change…sometimes i think it sticks in my head more because I really wanna know the motivation more than anything else.

Thanks for your insight!