This administration is pretty clearly pro-rape of all kinds. Child rape, spouse rape, rape by athletes, war crime rape, detained minority rape, rape of female soldiers by male soldiers... hey have we raped anyone in Okinawa lately? Because that shit is just a matter of time before we do that again at this point.

I don't think we are anywhere near civil war. I believe we might be on the verge of state violence against protestors.

You'll know we're on the brink of civil war when there is open combat between militia or national guard and the military and the military doesn't instantly put them down.

A military coup might be slightly more likely or at least doable. But I'm not sure there is anyone left in charge who might lead that. Plus, it is by definition treason, and no soldier takes that lightly. And the resultant government might not be what one might want.

I hate to say this, but the US isn't going to pull the rest of the world out of this mess. The way forward is through. Or wait for cholesterol to do its job and hold your breath for real elections this fall.

Just to be clear, thank you to a quality comment when you don't have anything more to say is fine. The weirdness is when someone responds to every single commenter with something so generic and pointless you aren't even sure if they've actually read the content.

If you genuinely appreciate someone posting, feel free to say thanks. Also this is just one person's opinion and you should take from it what you find valuable and ignore the rest. No one says this is gospel. 😉

I'd probably feel differently if an ex were still in your life vs not. An ongoing reminder of that shared relationship could make someone a little insecure. If they are out of your life though? That's just a documentary of your life. Everyone has a past.

Pretty loaded comment here. Most humans band together to help one another in times of crisis. Other than a few psychopaths who take advantage of the suffering, and I see no reason to think that behavior is less among any religious group than another. If Gaza seems better than other places it's probably because there is little profit in fleecing your neighbor who also has nothing.

I support less fortunate members of my community without regard to religion. I don't care nor do I identify myself as an atheist. We all walk our own path and we all need support from time to time. Faith has nothing to do with it.

if you seem to be in a place that doesn't seem like a friendly place to chat, might be a sign to just leave that community and find an appropriate alternative.

This is a really good point. There are places for nuanced discussion of AI, for example, but most of Lemmy hates it. Understand that some stuff isn't going to be received well in certain places regardless of quality or intent.

If you are a rookie realize that people will judge you for a young account age, since you could be seen as a bot.

Good point. I am wary of accounts that pop into existence and start focusing heavily on a particular agenda. They might be genuine or they might not, but it's a clear sign for me that I don't want to engage because they are looking for a pulpit, not a conversation.

I'm not really qualified to respond about creating great discussions because I pretty much just reply. But from the prospective of a participant, yeah I think it's good to upvote any commenter that isn't actively being a jerk. Even disagreeing comments can promote good conversation.

I wouldn't suggest replying to every comment unless it contributes further to the conversation. That's a judgment call, but posts where OP is replying to everything with "Thanks!" or "Yep" rub me the wrong way. Certainly reply to try to sustain conversation when there is more to discuss, and try to frame it in a way that invites not just the person you're replying to but anyone to respond.

I think most topics are near death after about a day, but I browse by new and the only time I see more comments on posts I've already visited is if I get a reply or I'm looking through my comments later and open the topic to see what people said later. Topics that get more engagement live longer because a lot of people browse by hot.

Low effort to me is posting a link without summary or comment. The reality is unless the headline is a good summary or there is another comment or OP giving some context for why the link is interesting, I never click them, and then I have nothing to comment on either (usually).

Cross posting is fine. It's slightly annoying when I'm a member of all five boards something is posted to but I've gotten accustomed, and sometimes the conversation can be different in different boards.

As far as Lemmiquette, I personally like people who stand by their words rather than deleting things that turn out to be unpopular. I don't mind being the lone voice of an unpopular opinion. The threat of downvotes just makes me think harder about whether what I want to say is important to say right then and there and if I have time to back up any pushback. I don't disagree as often as I want to, but I generally don't delete comments unless it turns out I was really misreading something and responding to something in my own head rather than in the post/comment.

Make sure fediverse links are properly formatted so they go to the user's instance cache instead of a direct url to the host server.

I am very quick to block folks I don't think I can have a fruitful conversation with in good faith. I suspect as a poster, one would want to do less blocking than I do, but still I recommend doing it for peace of mind. Negative engagement or returning bad behavior just winds up making you look bad. A block prevents you from being tempted to respond to incendiary comments.

Oh and from personal experience, saying "I agree with 95% of this, but let me respond to this one thing where I disagree" is read as being an absolute refutation and can provoke defensiveness. Try to at least quote some of the stuff that you particularly agree with to take some of the bite out of any disagreement. Some day I'll learn that better.

Good luck!

Looks like a planned exit. The private investors behind Threema (Afinum) say they have a 5-7 year investment window after which they sell to lock in profits on their investment. This acquisition would be consistent with that time frame.

Grain of salt: I've never heard of any of these companies and just did some quick research because I was curious.

I'm browsing All for the first time in over a year. If I scroll down far enough I find read articles I saw on my subscribed feed. I don't think it's default behavior.

It's also possible I set something years ago. Anyway I think this is it:

Sometimes it's more than I can take and I take time away from social media. And it's not lack of caring, it's just a weariness of feeling helpless. What can men do in the face of such reckless hate? But I can't do it forever. Evil can't be left to its own devices.

The Boys Are Back In Town by Thin Lizzy is our song. Has been since after high school and we both joined different military branches. Of course he lives in the Deep South these days and I'm in the far north, so it has been kinda irrelevant for 20 years. But I always think of him when that song comes on. We were close like brothers in high school. I've had a couple of good friends since, but no one like him.

Sun, I am disappoint.