Is it not disgraceful that you have to use a trick so some third party company doesn’t install software you don’t want on your hardware? I think that’s appalling!

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It was the AMA that was the last straw for me, on top of everything before. It had been going downhill, but that was where I lost all hope it would improve.

I don’t agree with you that small instances lead to poorer quality, if anything there’s a better sence of community in a small forum.

I’d rather have more in common with old style unfederated forums than big social media.

You don’t have to reveal your gender on here.

Sobering up before trying to find ways of organising songs would be my first tip.

That type of thing is concerning. What browser are you using out of interest?

I would always out of habit avoid any links that go to somewhere other than the advertised destination - so if it goes to an analytics platform I would copy and paste the text if the text of the link is a URL, or find an alternative. Always hovering links and being absolutely sure of where they go should really be taught as standard practice.

Presumably you can hover over the link to see the actual URL (which I think is best practice anyway), or is it more sophisticated than that?

I’m going to just pluck this out of the air and say “been to more than three other countries” is well travelled - for someone in the first world that’s not difficult and is an important thing to do for broadening the mind. Some people might say that’s a low bar, but there are enough that would say it’s too high as well which makes me think it’s probably about right.

It’s so real that I had to enable 3rd party scripts in uBlock Origin to get past the second page, is that intentional?

Yes, it definitely encourages toxicity, and a kind of herd mentality as well.

Yeah, I think I might turn it off as well, it makes things a bit like a shouting match.

It seems to be very heavy on edge but very light on actual Marxist discussion.

Too many of my relatives are Masons, I figure it would just be like hanging out with my old relatives.

Your hobbies aren’t set in stone, is it possible to find other ones (in addition) that involve socialising? You’re free to try out various things until you find something you like.

The only reason I asked is that I wasn’t 100% sure what it means, I could have guessed. I got that it probably means the same thing, I just wasn’t sure if it would cover a city/train trip the same way I was thinking. I, personally, wouldn’t use vacation. If they mean the same thing I think probably the Americans have the etymologically better term, if anything.

What a lovely, humble thing to say, thank you.

Respectfully, I’m assuming a “vacation” here is a US-ism for what we in the UK would call a “holiday” (i.e. a recreational trip somewhere), I’m not sure if there are nuanced differences. To see as much as possible of the local culture is generally my aim, that’s my main reason for travelling. I’m not saying that in a snooty “high culture” way at all, sometimes the most mundane cultural things can be the most interesting. Also to try the local cuisine. I like trains, so going to places I can explore by train are great - Interrailing around Europe have been some of my favourite trips. Also I did a great train trip around Japan pre-covid.

Those are questions of metaphysics, and you’re right they can’t be answered by science. But you have to ask yourself, if they can’t be answered by science, that is they can’t be measured or falsified, then what meaning do they really have? If you think of an unknowable, non-interventional god, their existence is the same to us as not existing, so it has no meaning. Same with any meanings of life, or questions about whether we live in a simulation perhaps, anything you can’t measure is just a story essentially, until you can measure it.