I remember it pretty much that way too, but not recently and not at a department store. Heck, I just browsed through commemorative euro coins (no dice) because I felt it was somehow connected to Europe in the nineties…

Then I am happy for you

“Victim” is an interesting term, but quite accurate. There’s such a an effort and investment into converting people to that cult. I wish you the best with your mother, hopefully the other half of your conversations is more pleasant and eventually overtakes the conspiracy theories.

I don’t. We don’t talk. Relatives of mine, including one of my parents, sank into vaccine conspiracies, then followed that pipeline to Qanon, and then explained to me how they were waiting for Trump to lead his secret army to take down the government of my non-english-speaking, european country.

I gave them their keys back, I got my keys backs, I blocked them everywhere, I nuked my accounts on the social media they use (and where their posts steadily got worse). It’s a hard decision, I still think about it often still (it’s been nearly two years), but I will never talk to them again.

I get my hosting for free from my workplace, which is cool but doesn’t give me much leeway on what I can install. It’s a plain PHP/MySQL system. Docker is out, and a lot of stuff with it. I’d run a server from apartment if I could, since I’m sitting on piles of old hardware, but I’ve yet to figure a way around my ever-changing IP address.

Right now, I have FreshRSS and my own websites, and Rss Bridge

I’d love to run more “Old School Tools”, I just need to find them :)

Honest questions: What worthwhile alternatives exist already? If there are none, what can be done? What can be built to improve discoverability of authors while moderating what is visible?

Podcast addict is both incredibly customizable and feature rich. Absolutely worth trying.

Or it becomes mostly unmoderated, near a major election, at the same time as twitter turns into disinfo central.

Thank you! The encouragement sure helps

Congratulations to you on getting there ♥

I am taking supplements, but I need to figure my shit out because I fuck up either on the B12 or iron, each time. My first “bad” B12 deficiency came with some nerve issues and I do not want a repeat of that, it doesn’t entirely go away.

My goal is to entirely cut out meat, though. Right now, I don’t buy it for home food, but if I’m out with friends or coworkers, I’ll get whatever. It’s iterative, and as more alternatives become available in public places, I’ll get there.

I don’t feel like that’s a fair comparison. Meat consumption has a lot of issues, but the consumer, at the end of the production chain, does not eat his steak with the mindset of “how much more can I make an animal suffer for the lulz, and can we take pliers to it first?”. Mostly, they are apathetic or unaware. (Disclosure: I have reduced meat a lot myself but am not entirely out yet and I keep giving myself B12 deficiency.)

I’d compare with much higher in the production chain, the people who devised and enforce inhumane practices.

I feel like the pendulum swings on the cruelty (at least in areas of the world we pay attention to…), while the damage caused by human civilization just keeps growing and growing. And it’s definitely easier for the scum to coordinate through the internet, but also to recruit and infiltrate minds.

I’m just sitting here being nihilistic, “Après moi, le déluge” about everything, and listening to my “collapse” playlist. The relatives I used to love went full Qanon, so I only have my cat to worry about, now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have no fucking clue but it gets tiring…