The main difference is that they’re there specifically for the social experience. These folks are not going there to date you, no, but they are going there to socialize, so the barriers to socializing with strangers are greatly lowered. Maybe don’t just go there with dating front and center in your mind; instead focus on just meeting and getting to know people.

I mean, I would think it’s the billionaire financiers that are directly funding the right, but the movies probably don’t help.

So, this is one of the unfortunate traps of our time, especially if you live in a place with car dependent sprawl. Women don’t want to be solicited while at work or on personal business (groceries, gym, etc), and, really, nobody does. You want to work at work, and you want to do your business and go home otherwise. This goes doubly or triply so for complete strangers. There’s really no third places (as they’re called) left, where people go for the express purpose of being social and together. That’s what’s missing here. As someone else said, you are, unfortunately, both a little right.

It’s particularly bad in places like the US that have car dependent sprawl because

• cities often have had their zoning ordinances weaponized by NIMBYs, and it’s probably outright illegal to have a small cafe or shop in your neighborhood, or they’re required to have some outrageous parking minimum or something like that.

• driving sucks more than you may be aware of while you’re doing it. If you have to get into your car to go to the grocery, you don’t want to make five stops at smaller grocers throughout the week; you’d rather just make one big stop at the big box mart and just go tf home. If you want to stop at a cafe, well, just swing through the starbucks drive through so you don’t have to be bothered with getting out.

Well, chances are that most of your interactions at chain businesses and stores are anonymous, so you’re not meeting other people in your community there, you’re not creating any bonds or relationships there, you’re doing your business and getting out, which, frankly, is what they want. You’re especially not making any friends in the drive thru line. For nearly seventy years now, we’ve built our cities to be homes to cars, not people, and it’s bearing fruit in the form of the loneliness epidemic.

My advice to you would be to go out of your way to find situations where people are getting together for the purpose of being social or having fun. Look for classes put on by your local city parks, go check your local library’s bulletin board for events, check social media communities for your nearby city or town for groups that meet regularly. If you’re religious, seek out some religious institutions that you find palatable.

Because it’s our money for the whole family, and we carry the scars of having had to ask for credit card limit increases to buy gas to get to work to pay the credit card.

“We care about efficiency and the budget”

“Cool, so we could move way more people at a fraction of the cost if we built this passenger rai-”

“Woah there buddy, you didn’t actually believe that stuff I said about the budget and efficiency, did you?”

Oh, I knew the feds had cancelled grant money to it, I didn’t know the state killed it. I know they’re all in the pocket of big oil, but it’s just wild to me how trains are apparently woke.

Well, you’ve got to start somewhere. CAHSR has been the impetus for a lot of sprawled out central valley cities to get their shit together. Fresno is probably the prime example of this. We’re trying to drag Merced into getting its shit together, though kicking and screaming it may be.

If it was a new interstate or an extra lane on the Katy freeway, nobody would be saying shit. My favorite example is how there’s in interstate project in the northeast that’s pretty much as overbudget as CAHSR and basically nobody is talking shit about it.

I don’t really care that they’re running .ml. It’s fine if it bothers you enough to not donate to them, that’s your business. My SO is never going to agree to let me donate to Lemmy, so I’m going to see if I can eek out some time to learn the codebase and contribute that way.

Imo, it’s people just rationalizing not wanting to give $5 away. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with deciding you don’t want to donate, that’s your choice, but be honest with yourself. If they weren’t commies, people would be finding some other excuse to not donate.

Eh, if you want to contribute to Lemmy development, then contribute. If you don’t, then don’t. I think a good 70% of this is people giving themselves an out for financially contributing to something they get a lot of free utility out of. I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to make up excuses; don’t contribute if you don’t want to, but understand that means that the devs might have to move on from Lemmy development and prioritize other work.

Stuff that Ed (single D as opposed to Double-D) would do or say.

Not gonna lie, as a parent now, I would hate to have my kids watching it. We’re an AuDHD family, there were so many single-D behaviors I repeated because I thought they were hilarious (and I was the only one), and I just know my son would too.

I’m not sure if you took my meaning. Alcatraz is inoperable. If we moved to cars as a metaphor, we’re not talking about “it can’t pass smog”, we’re talking about “Boomer’s fixer upper that’s been untouched in the front yard for forty years and is basically unusable as even scrap metal”.

This is basically a private ambulance convention

Unashamed Ed, Edd, 'n Eddy enjoyer here. It was a dumb fucking show, and I enjoyed it so much.

Tbh, of all the tankie triad, .ml is the chillest, and my own experience is that, unlike the Nazis, they generally don’t cause issues off server. Now, if you wander into Hexbear and spout some mainstream view, well, good luck, partner, but it’s their server. Besides, I sometimes ask myself what the CIA would do and try to do the opposite for the sake of all mankind. It doesn’t really bother me that they run .ml.

Fascism 101: never take fascists at their word. Pointing out hypocrisy is meaningless because they never meant it in the first place.

GAWD DAYUM

Alcatraz is a derelict. Getting it up to a functioning prison standard would almost assuredly take knocking it down with heavy equipment and starting over from zero. You could probably, unironically, finish high speed rail for the same time and financial cost, but then you couldn’t try to impress people by showing everyone that you’re the world’s only banana republic dictator with no drip.