Yeah, pretty sure its the devs of the game that are ultimately responsible for moderating their game forum, making internal employees or trusted players mods and so on. The main issue comes from communities that aren’t being moderated, or from the general steam forums.

Not as bad but still quite terrible are probably the steam forums. There are some systems in there that literally encourage and reward saying the most stupid/offensive shit, and with a very lax moderation it’s just a complete mess.

That name rings a bell

Long walk through the park is quite nice - no cars, no pollution, just lots of birds chirping and strangers passing by

Showering only every 2 weeks during summer back when I was living in a peasantoid lodge where getting water and a bath/shower ready is a major pain in the ass.

Been in the same exact position :(

Hope you get to make up for the lost time

In a number-go-up kind of sense, yeah - it’s inherently gamification of social media and it is fun for some of our brains. However, I also think that karma or any other kind of “engagement accumulation” turns social media from a place of discussion into a competition for attention, where you’re more incentivized to post solely for upvotes. Only a small minority takes posting seriously like this I admit it, but it does make the experience worse for everyone.

That’s not to say the mindset doesn’t exist without karma, only that it gets amplified.

That’s pretty normal, we all do stupid shit as kids because of our environments/friend circles or just general growing pains.

Recognizing that what you’ve done is actually horrible is the most important step in terms of maturing and growing up, though of course it’s not the full battle. After all, how would someone change for the better if they don’t have such realization?

All in all you’re likely not a bad person, just someone who needs to/is in the process of maturing.

Speaking of YouTube channels, I like Josh Strife Hayes when it comes to talking about toxic masculinity, bad role models, becoming a more positive and better person - things like that, though he mostly does this on streams, clip channel of which is Josh Strife Says.

I like this video in particular, but there are other clips that speak about similar topics.

Been there, all depressed because of current state of the world, and learning that the “solutions” or “ways out” by the media are false or just delaying the inevitable/distractions, and judging from your comments you might be feeling the same thing.

However, if you do that, not only would your daughter suffer but the world would also lose someone truly radical in today’s society, someone who would truly sees past the ideology and propaganda we’re subjected to. If everyone like that were to off themselves or start heavily abusing substances as a tool of escapism, the world would never change and people with a future ahead of them like your daughter would be doomed for certain.

It’s important to cling onto hope - a better world is possible and you can be a part of building it, both individually but more importantly, collectively. Drop subtle hints in your conversations about what you think is wrong nowadays, who the real enemies you see are, plant the seeds in your colleagues and hope they’ll come to the same conclusions by themselves. If you see any resistance organizations aligned with your views politically, why not join them - after all, you’re not alone. Point is - there is still hope for change.

Though if it works and it does make you feel better, you can also start focusing on positive/good news, even though I’m skeptical it would work, pandora’s box and all. Maybe even seek counseling or therapy if you have access to it.

Coal mining, I fucking love mining coal

Depends on context - if it’s a yes/no question or something that can be replied to with a simple “great” or “okay”, thumbs up serves as a “yes” or as a gesture that the person has read the message and doesn’t have any problems with it.

It might be considered rude though for more complex discussions, where you need to respond in sentences

Realistically, it’s an impossibility. This view is mostly propagated via liberal news sources, having the main battle be conservatism vs progressivism or left vs right (as opposed to class struggle, the poor vs rich, working class vs capitalists), and since the democrats are more progressive than republicans, they’re the “good guys” who should be supported.

For it to be destroyed, we’d have to catch up to their level of influence and reach or even surpass it, to show people that they’re a party of capitalists who sometimes are progressive, and not an actual ally of the working or middle classes but only pretending to be one. Maybe going one step further too and influencing progressive movements democrats support to pay attention to economic aspects too, given how their root causes aren’t purely social?

But again, it’s impossible for us workers to have such reach, given how well funded media is.

My european mind can’t comprehend making tea without an electric kettle, something that is very rarely used in the US

Replace with something else - back when I was actually addicted to soda, I realized how expensive it all was and replaced it with drinking tea.

Of course, might not be viable if you’re an american.

I had issues with keeping a stable sleep schedule for years, but now I found a method that works for me: every day, set your alarm clock to the same time no matter what (in your case 5 AM) even on weekends. Then, try going to sleep so you always get full 8 hours, if you fuck up and go to sleep too late then tough shit - you’ll feel tired tomorrow which will serve as a punishment that your brain will hopefully recognize.

They key is to be consistent and not sleep in.

It’s just a sad state of affairs. Digital video games are 1’s and 0’s that you can copy for basically free (with the only cost being hard drive space which is dirt cheap), so preservation shouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, we live in a world where logic sometimes has to take the backseat in order to maintain the current ideology, and video game preservation is one of those sacrifices.

A somewhat political fact, but one that made some of my friends dumbfounded:

When a bank issues a loan, it generates that money literally out of thin air and credits that money to the loan account rather than using deposits they already had. For example, if you want to borrow $100,000, the banker approves the loan and doesn’t hand over cash or move existing money around - instead, they just go on their system and credit your account with the sum, that’s it.

Waking up at the same time every day, no matter if it’s a weekend or a weekday and no matter if you stayed up too late and won’t be getting full 8 hours of sleep.

As obvious as this might sound, this has really helped me to regulate my sleep schedule, something I’ve really been struggling with for pretty much my entire life.

Don’t fall into doomerism - news companies are companies, and negativity gets people on their platforms for much longer than positivity, it’s easy to get addicted to it. Set time limits or limit the amount of news you consume per day/per week.

Recognize that caring about something requires mental energy - if you had 1 friend who asks you to care about their hobby or learn a bit more, then you might agree, but if you have 20 friends with different hobbies asking the same thing, then there’s no way you can care about all of them. Similar thing applies to the news, recognize that you can’t care about everything and try learning how to stay informed without giving up lots of mental energy stressing about things you can’t really influence.

It’s admirable wanting to keep up with the news, but it also can be a bit of a trap and does require a degree of skill to not fall into what you describe in your post.