A lot of focus is put onto posting, but I like to encourage commenters. I’ll post and respond all day, but if nobody is interacting, it’s going to stay quiet. Put the quiet to your advantage by doing things like:

If you like an image, say what you like about it. Lately, I’ve been having people talk about how they really have been enjoying dawn/dusk pictures, so I’ve been collecting more of that so I can post what people are in the mood for. It gives me good feedback, it gives people a chance to agree or disagree with you, and you got to participate.

Do you ask anyone any question? Take advantage of the relative quiet. With not having a million comments on every post, I have plenty of time to give you really detailed answers. I got asked how to differentiate between 2 animals yesterday, and I had time to make a nice visual guide, highlighting key differences and giving multiple visual examples of potential variations while still simplifying the process of identification. If there’s a million people talking like on Reddit, it’s hard to give people that much attention, but here it’s easy. I pretty much take time to respond to every comment.

Don’t be afraid to go off topic. Rules seem to be looser in many communities because of the low post count. This week, I posted something from a country with a different language, and I ended up having 3 days of conversation with a native speaker who filled me in on tons of subtleties of the language pertaining to our niche topic. I got to learn so much, and they got to learn a few things about English.

I feel you have to do something to have a good time here, but it needn’t be to post multiple things every day, but it’s more than just up or downvoting something like you can get away with on Reddit. We’re too small for you to have a free ride. But make someone laugh. Let them know that you liked their post with a short comment. If you don’t like it, say hey, do you have any content on such and such instead. Make a post saying, hey, what’s your thoughts on this? It doesn’t need to be something groundbreaking or insightful, you just need to give a sign of life so we know you’re here, and one of us will probably talk back to you.

Interact enough like that, and you may find what you enjoy doing, if that turns out to be posting, or you become the resident expert on a topic even if you’re not an expert, being a serial commenter, or whatever it may be. It’s a great opportunity if you make it one because it is so easy to get attention here if you try.

I’m not typically a social person, but being here has let me talk about what I want, when I want, and somebody will listen to it, and I can ask about things I want to know and get answers. There’s much less shouting into the void like at Reddit. Play Lemmy to its strengths and you will find enjoyment. And if you don’t like it, go to where you’re happy. Nobody’s going to hate you if you split time between here and Reddit.

It’s just frustrating in the same way as when you see someone doing any risky behavior. I don’t want them to be hurt, and maybe they’ll be fine, but I worry because I care about them.

Recent events have really shown me I must be more left than most people I know, because the amount of people recently that I’ve thought were liberal are talking anti-immigrant and anti-minority group things much more than I would have thought.

This is the message I keep trying to give myself and others. Our goals and priorities haven’t changed since losing an election. The fight may be tougher than if people more aligned with us may have won, but it was still going to be a fight either way. We aren’t starting from nothing, we’re still at the same point we were the day before the election. It’s our job to hold our ground that we’ve won until now, and to push forward into new territory where possible in the future.

I still need to protect the people and causes I care about. That is the motivation for change I have, and no matter who is in charge and how much they dislike it will change that. It’s up to me to give up or not.

From my understanding, 14th amendment protections are still being battled over in the courts. Many have sided in favor or sexual orientation or gender being something that should be considered in equal protection of the laws, but some have not, so this will probably be coming to the Supreme Court, especially if the majority in charge of everything see it as an advantageous time to do so.

Agenda 47, the immediate plans for implementing Project 2025, has eliminating gender affirming care as a key priority. More money was spent on anti-trans campaigning than on many other topics combined this election cycle.

In theory, the laws of individual states protecting LGBT people would still apply, but other parts of Agenda 47 call for economically hammering states that try to go against expanded executive power, sounding similar to how the national drinking age was raised by withholding funding for highways.

I think there is a time bomb on these protections right now, and I would be hesitant to count on them for very long. I feel like writing all this makes me sound alarmist, but that is how I feel based on what they’ve been saying and running on these last 8+ years. My best friends are gay, but also public educators. They’re Republican leaning centrists, and don’t seem to be concerned, so I may be off base, but I tend to trust people when they come out in the open as bad people without shame.

Should be hamberders instead of pistols as well, but he does look to have the heal lifts. Hell, the hat isn’t even too far off from the hair and the face has more orange than fleshtone. It seems to have more in common with him than I first thought…

Should be hamberders instead of pistols as well, but he does look to have the heal lifts. Hell, the hat isn’t even too far off from the hair and the face has more orange than fleshtone. It seems to have more in common with him than I first thought…

It’s a shame we’ve heard more about Trump these last four years than we have about the actual president, as it does seem a lot of good was done, but most people probably wouldn’t know it as a pile of buffoons have been shouting over it the whole time. I don’t know if there’s been a single day in the last 8 years I haven’t seen his name or heard his ramblings.

I’m sad to be losing the protections that have been attempted for the environment and green energy, and the realization I had yesterday that we’ll be losing Lina Khan, who looked to have such a promising career helping the American people. There were a lot of flaws and oversights still, and the weak support of Ukraine and the situation is Gaza are pretty damning mistakes, but overall it felt like things had been going in a good direction from where we were with COVID and Trump.

As someone who went into the Biden presidency with extremely low expectations, I think he largely did good given with both what he had to work with, and with the expectation that something would have been done by the justice system to ensure Trump was kept out of office legally. I guess add that to the huge oversight list…

I’m left very torn on how to approach the future. If the left starts playing dirty like the right, I don’t feel that will get them to stop doing it. When both sides are just resorting to dirty tricks, I don’t know how we get a civil society back. At the same time, counting on norms and elected officials respecting their offices seems to be all but dead, at least if we wish to still to try combat some level of authoritarianism.

I would have much rather had a dottering old man eating ice cream and telling old anecdotes than anything coming our way though.

This is one of my favorite things about using an Aeropress. I use half the water to brew the concentrate, which will be just off boil, but then the water I use to dilute to final strength can be any temp I want, so it is immediately drinkable. There are many other advantages, especially if you like to experiment, but this one to me is huge.

My take is Bugs is the embodiment of society as a whole, but since Trump is bigger and heavier than Sam, the edge of the cliff will break off and we all go off the edge together.

A few apps have multi-community support where you can group whatever you want, how you want, in one stream. I’m using Summit, but I feel a few other of the bigger apps support it now. I group the AskLemmys, tv/movie communities and different art communities into groups so I can view by category.

The next 4(?) years:

The fighting is one of the big reasons people aren’t supposed to play bird calls to lure them in.

I know the owls can identify each other’s calls and know who is an actual threat or not, so when someone comes in playing a new bird’s call, they go into panic mode. It makes them waste precious energy and takes them away from their hunting and actual territory guarding.

Most owls generally hate other owls and only get together to have babies. They’ll share territory with a mate, but they don’t typically hang out together unless they have to.

Their voices are designed for projection… For better or for worse! 😅

Most of the owl calls are more “get off my lawn!”

My first thought was what’s up with California?

I could find a bunch of articles talking about the usual stuff like conservatives and evangelicals arguing in favor of avoiding a ban, but Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are also frequent supporters of avoiding a ban on child marriage. The only reasoning I could find was “we don’t have enough data,” but I’m struggling to think of any positive things about allowing it. From the articles, it sounded like fringe religious beliefs and questionable things regarding immigration laws, but I am skeptical the pros of allowing child marriage for those outweigh a number of cons I could name.

I wasn’t able to find any actual articles from PP or ACLU themselves about it, so does anyone have any insight? This seems a bit out of character for both orgs.

Exactly. I’m from a pretty small-town area, at least back then it was. We hardly had any diversity in school, and how are you supposed to really understand different things with no exposure?

As I started working different jobs, I’ve met people of numerous cultures and races, those who have been homeless, people who have been subject to different kinds of abuses, rich people who are nice, rich people who are jerks, and people that have all sorts of beliefs and justifications for them. I don’t think most of us are born into that type of situation, and it’s possibly not in a young child’s interest to have that kind of understanding thrust on them too early, so we need to have realistic expectations for people to figure things our.

There also shouldn’t be a deadline for it. I was always happy to hear one of my grandparents form a progressive opinions, even after 60-80 years. It’s never too late to make the world better or to be kinder to your fellow people. Some people never get there, so we should always be proud when they do. At some point, they’re more on our side than not, and gatekeeping isn’t going to speed it up.

I was raised with Republican beliefs, but got off that train during the 2nd GWB admin. The times were there were any middle ground to find between mixed political couples is long gone. When the only topics anyone spends time debating are morality, religion, and discrimination, what middle ground can exist? Facts don’t weigh into debates for Republicans anymore. They have chosen feelings in the face of data. They choose to knowingly follow ignorance. It becomes a zero-sum game, where they either wear you down into going along with them, or they get ignored and cut off.

Being open to others’ opinions, experiences, and education helped me to see a different world view, but it didn’t seem so frowned upon back then. But now the desire to get rid of the Board of Education, promote a purposefully biased curriculum, and treated the educated as an enemy, I don’t know how people are supposed to get shown a different truth than what they have been indoctrinated into.

Very true! Thank you for the reminder. I need to get out there to see them!

Old growth forests are not only critical for carbon sequestration, but many species of animals require not just forest, but specifically old growth forest for them to survive.

Almost all of the 256 living species of owls nest in trees, but they cannot make nests. They require existing nests from other animals or hollowed dead and rotting trees for nesting cavities. Martens, fishers, woodpeckers, insects, plants, and microorganisms also require damaged, dead, or dying trees to provide suitable habits.

Planting new trees is great and all, but these “forests” are essentially monoculture deserts where the trees are the only things living. It takes 100-200 years until a forest is suitable for many other living plants and animals. All new trees are good for us cutting down as soon as possible. These new trees are the ones we should be using for raw materials, and any old growth forests we haven’t yet destroyed should be preserved. They are just as priceless and irreplaceable as the rain forests!

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