That is neat on getting your kids into a better online environment where development isn’t purely incentivized. But surely you must know that’s not the end-all of a kids user experience when being online. You’re not always gonna have them on just your setup either, they will be at their friends and on foreign devices. There’s unfortunately not much you can do in that instance without making a huge fuss.

Is everyone just young without kids and had free reign on the internet and got by ok so it’s more relaxed to you? Were you in a situation where middle school and that age have direct communication to each other? I know teachers and other parents with horror stories of the shit that comes out. It’s mostly what would be considered old school frat boy or fraternity shit but at a way earlier age, some grow out of it but I imagine others just carry on since it never effected them and then we wonder about the trolls who exist on social media lol.

lol I don’t want to get lost in analogies, but these sweets are in their pocket. Their friends are giving them new brands and better sweets. You know what sweets you have in the cabinet, you have no idea how many sweets your kid is eating per day. This is all pretty generic through when considering the entire childhood. Of course you’re gonna be there and watch your kid so they’re not over doing it at age 4, but 12+? Eh, it’s an uphill battle you should stay vigilant on till they’re legally and showing at least basic adult responsibility.

If you’re nearby your kid when you’re in the park or they’re at school interacting with other kids (etc), you’re gonna be curious and want to make sure they’re doing alright but just kinda peripheral paying attention to their actions while mingling yourself. It can be treated respectfully and non intrusively by just checking your router (other devices), what kind of traffic is coming in and out (generic safety), and maybe something along the lines of just asking to see their app activity in their account to get an idea of how they’re spending their time without diving right into their private data.

I don’t really understand the disconnect going on here and maybe everyone is a lot more innocent than I was. I for sure was up to some bullshit online at a young age and that was dial-up. We’re really looking at everything like how the election went, social influencers, and young people getting radicalized online and just throwing our hands up saying it’s all good?

Give me fuel give me fire give me that which I desire?

Oh boy, good luck with that outlook in today’s age. You can trust them to get into shit, I believe helicopter parenting has become prevalent because we’ve lost the “village” it takes to raise a kid. You used to be able to trust a parent to step in if they were over at someone else’s house and a discussion got nasty or a fight broke out. You would have neighbors who looked after the kids and would let you know if they were up to some shit. Now the kids talk on discord and other apps, completely unsupervised or at times even inaccessible (after the fact) if they’ve set it up right. You’ve got algorithm’s trained on millions of users to suck your kids in, never ending entertainment with minimal effort.

As a parent, who is completely conscious of everything going on around social media and technology, you will absolutely need to step in. Most adults can’t even handle it, you WILL have to be the parent who sets boundaries on the stimuli their brain craves but has a negative impact on their overall health. You don’t instill healthy eating into a child by giving them unlimited money and telling them to make their own decisions. You work with them, share your experience, let them cook sometimes but monitor over and see the results of their activity. Are they making healthy choices or ordering door dash?

Make it more difficult for them by setting restrictions they have to learn to bypass, even if it feels ridiculous it’s a whole different setup for effort-reward. It will interest them into getting into deeper components of technology and how everything works. It’s absolutely what kids are suppose to do, just like we always figure out a way to get away with shit which ultimately improves various skills.

Oh yeah, equipment is definitely a perk. It’s kinda amazing how cheap shop vacs are too compared to going to a car wash repeatedly. But I think you jostled a caveat to all of these hobbies, being not broke lol. Could really put a strain on a relationship when you would previously sacrifice to get something but now you’re asking a partner to do the same.

If it makes you feel any better, I have a relative who’s single and I’ve been helping him clean out his shop on the weekends. Just a shit load of fishing and kayaking gear that I’ve had to make a whole like 20 ft wall just to organize. He works 60 hours a week because he’s the only one there paying bills (his parents house, he’s deeply attached) and hasn’t touched his shit in probably a decade, we’re all screwed really.

Hiking - sounds attractive, but the woman may not actually enjoy hiking especially doing multiple day trails

Woodworking - “wow you made this desk yourself?!” Reality: Spent weeks designing and getting the right materials, spent more weeks in the shop getting everything right, spent months all together away and in a shop so you could present… a desk (the novelty runs out real quick with a partner)

Same with a lot of them, if you’re really into a hobby and it is presentable… You’ve spent a fuckton of time on it. Something you could do while you were single, 10x harder to pick up or continue doing in a relationship since your time is now divided. It becomes one of those, “Yeah they love doing photography and they’re really good at it!” (cue partner standing there who hasn’t taken a picture in over a year looking sheepish).

seriously? I’ve known several women that fucking love banjo. I would say I’ve heard more women talk about how cool banjo playing is compared to actual guitars (then again I think it’s just a known thing with guitars that doesn’t need to be brought up). It might also depend on where you live I suppose. Roll into an Appalachian town stringing a banjo and you’ll be the pied piper of the mountain women.

Look, I don’t know if you guys haven’t been paying attention but places have been getting ravaged for decades because of what we’ve been doing. Everyone around me was flabbergasted with what happened in the NC western mountains. They videos were exactly like those I’ve been seeing in the Philippines and other countries that we just completely ignore when there’s a natural disaster (maybe a 30 second blip in the media headline for 80% of it if they’re in a really poor region).

The Western mountains were devastated because of the infrastructure in natural valleys and huge amounts of sediment deposited by centuries of mining those mountains out (you can see the natural rock formations that returned, lots of people know the land they built on wasn’t there before it was developed). The hurricane wasn’t man made, but everything fucking else about that catastrophe was because of our activity.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I’ve been waiting for the democrat heroes to save the day since I started voting during Bush’s administration that I was thoroughly against and thought our invasion of Iraq was a war crime. Now we continue to this day with a never ending war machine and a corporation first politics that hasn’t ever changed. I’m all for us talking about some alternatives and pushing for everything and anything right now, not waiting to form something later to help “sway” the democrats policies (which it really didn’t in the long run did it?)

People really don’t know the extent they went to for this.

These were plastered up everywhere. Always wondered how effective they would be.

Edit: Signs say “Kamala Crime/Trump Safety” and “Trump low prices/Kamala high prices”, incase the image is down or text to speech.

I mean yes, that’s been the playbook for 8 years. More like 16 if you count what people actually thought Obama was going to be (and had record turn out). Try, try again?

It always makes me wonder what delicious flavors nature has provided that I’m missing out on. Just like Banana’s in the states, we have a “main” variety of apple which is “Red Delicious” (it’s just a name, not delicious). This abomination is the prettiest picturesque apple you’ve ever seen, but it tastes like cardboard compared to any other apple species. I wish we still had access to all the different varieties of banana’s that used to be around but guess we’ve fucked that one up.

I think you’re also missing the caveat of different levels or types of stupidity. Musk bares the resemblance of the “Emperor with No Clothes” type. Even if he’s aware, he’s still parading around like he’s the greatest while everyone thinks he’s a fool for his actions. It’s definitely a certain level of stupidity to pull that off without self reflection.

I just don’t get why we’re not training and endorsing out the next group with all this press. Sanders and Warren need to back and/or start a coalition of progressive up-and-coming leaders that they can help hone and introduce to the larger political landscape while they have the energy and influence. They need to stop being the only torch bearers and start bringing in underlings. Idc if they follow them around like a posse, might actually be better if they did. I would cuddle with Sanders all night if I could, I’m just tired of his name being the only one catching attention. The will try to bury any movement with him when his time comes, best to get ahead of it so momentum can keep going.

Holy shit, you just mind blasted me with a memory I had lost. That whole shit show between Bernie and Warren during a debate where she acted all fluffed and pissed off because Bernie was apparently somekind of sexist?! or at least the media and her team tried to play it that way but it completely backfired if I remember right.

Some helpful caption/subtitles is for videos which don’t have dialogue but add information to what’s going on. One example is primitive technology but there are plenty of other skill presentations/tutorials where the how and why is spelled out in the subtitles while the actual audio is just peaceful melodies to enjoy watching someone work too.

Do you guys really believe the populist position is to “vote the Democrats out” and that Gaza was really the reason for voter apathy that effects half the population? Couldn’t be messaging or effective policies being lacking, definitely blame anyone against a continually funded arsenal in the hands of aggressive governments.

TIL- Muliebrity (Muliebrity means womanly nature or qualities, or the condition of being a woman. It comes from Latin muliēbris, derived from mulier, meaning woman)

Feel about the same as your case. Every one has preferred pronouns, I like to point out to conservative relatives that “sir” and “ma’am” is just another form that they learned growing up for certain individuals. It’s just basic manners.

I used to be more lenient, but it’s 2024 and people running for elected political offices with ZERO online presence just pisses me off. I know this is gonna blow everyone’s mind, but a large percentage of voters wait till the day before election to research any candidates, sometimes for less than an hour before giving up. It’s probably why most of them don’t fill out information so a voter just chooses them and they’re less likely to dissuade someone if they don’t say anything, at least it might’ve worked in the past.

It needs to be a required special-credit for highschool graduation to fully research and demonstrate you know the candidates on the ballet for your local election and register to vote. This could be bi-partisan, get everyone involved. It doesn’t take fully re-working a shafted education system to get more engaged voters.

I’m just kinda miffed by the whole situation with Oregon, first the drug re-criminalization and now a RCV vote just got squashed. Can’t wait to hear about everything that went down like with Alaska and Maine.

oh I like that, it’s not in my usual rolodex but covers the feelings of all of them. A little new-age for me, but it checks out as a good alternative.