Idk depends where you’re at. In the US some regions you’re basically not a participating part of society without one particularly out west. On the East coast there are several cities where having a car becomes more of a liability than anything. Public transit is good enough with some caveats.

Having had a car in the bay area I literally would not have survived without it. I’ve since moved east and had my car break down a few weeks ago. Honestly not as bad as I thought it would be. Definitely had to cut some things out of my schedule that were on the opposite side of the city and get used to the occasional crackhead/tweaker but I’m honestly saving more money than expected. The convince of a car only really shows up with dating and cutting 10-30 minutes from most of my travel.

All that to say I mostly agree with you.

The Pepe-ification of US political discourse.

I started playing a game with myself during my freshman year of college: how many species can I identify? At first I could only easily distinguish between birds and mammals. Then I was like oh well maybe I should bay closer attention to plants, then I realized how do I tell the difference between trees? Ok leaves are easy enough things to spot but why are some plants woody and some are… Wait how do I describe that? (Word I was looking for was herbaceous).

I took a lot of shrooms during that time, realized Im not built for an office environment and decided to study horticulture and botany even though it wasn’t offered at my university. I decided that I’d become a horticulturist and everyone around me probably thought I was smoking too much weed.

They were probably right, but I stuck to the plan regardless.

It’s so weird how bitter some plants tasted as a kid and how I can now pick up subtle sweetness in them. So many things I hated as a kid and couldn’t even force myself to keep down are quite tasty to me these days

When I saw people’s already processed orders getting cancelled with no reason other than to price gouge I was infuriated.

The level of greed in this world sickens me.

I’m kicking myself so hard right now. I went in and upgraded my PC when word of tarrifs were coming back in 2024 but decided to chill on ram because the prices were still low and I felt I had enough. I have 16gb of DDR5 and my rig feels like it’s chugging with newer software.

I should’ve bit the bullet and future proofed with a 64gb set up. My ass decided to buy a house instead 😮‍💨

Honestly I started hooking up with a girl who worked in the same building as me for a few months after I broke up with my ex at the time. She was hot and clearly interested in me so we started flirting and it didn’t take much time to escalate. We were both in our early 20s and she was a year younger than me. She said she was divorced, which was a red flag by itself at our age but I ignored it and gave her the benefit of the doubt…

So anyway that was a lie that turned into," oh we’re actually just separated", then “well, we still live together…”

Again I was a mess myself and she was literally one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met. We continued to hook up under the assumption that all parties consented and we’re aware of what was going on which was fine but in hindsight was still dumb. She was constantly lying, little things and big things. I never really knew the truth and she always had weird justifications which I didn’t really push her to explain, I just filed them away as ‘evidence’ for lack of a better term. We fuck for hours at my place then she’d go home looking disheveled and smelling like sex only to complain that her husband was in a bad mood. That shit was just disrespectful and I had no ntention of rubbing it in the other dudes face like that.

It got to a point where I was like, damn do I have to worry about this dude coming after me at some point? He was in the army and they got together at 18. I don’t know how much he knew about me but with the tension between them, our relationship was quickly becoming a liability. He had firearms, I didn’t. She also only had male friends, many of whom were clearly in love with her and pining for her affection, so more men who were against me.

We were on again off again for a while. One of the last times we hooked up we went to her house and as I took my shoes off I saw size 13 Nike SB Dunks, I didn’t even mention them but it was clear that I wasn’t the only dude she had coming around. And it sure as hell wasn’t a relative. At that point I was mentally checked out and done with the drama. Realized I was gonna get caught up in bullshit if I kept fucking around with her so I told her straight up I’m done because I can’t trust a word she’s saying.

I liked her a lot but we both had our issues, her problems were definitely more substantial tho, not to absolve myself or my actions. I wasn’t into it in the end; the infidelity and lying became far too much on top of the other mental/financial instability.

Apparently he was constantly cheating on her but IDK, so much of the story was iffy. For now on my rule is I’m open to dating a divorcee but only after the divorce has been finalized for over a year. Im not going through that shit again

The user interaction metrics they’ve added have been interesting tho. Millions of south and SE Asians are flocking to reddit.

It’s been wild to watch how the site has grown over the past 15 years for me. Back durning trump’s first term I deleted my account and alts due to paranoia. I’m starting to think I should do the same for newer accounts or abandon the site entirely; hense my presence here.

I heard murmurs about Lemmy when the API shit was going down a few years ago but it was so small back then the switch didn’t really make sense for me. Now that the paranoia is back I don’t feel as comfortable/safe commenting on reddit anymore

Despite what top comment says, what other options are there? Why wouldn’t these be the initial comms options besides jamming? I’d argue for yes up until jamming happens then you pivot. Saying no because of a roadblock and offering nothing else just reads as apathy.

I volunteer usually doing horticultural related work on restoration projects and in urban farm spaces.

This includes everything from planting to weeding and even sees construction of things like garden beds and other platforms for growing

_“I’m so appalled, Spalding ball Balding, Donald Trump taking dollars from y’all”

So Appalled - Kanye West

Children.

Fully and wholely children. Politics matter; shutting your ears and eyes to reality is not a viable strategy long term, honestly not even in the short term.

Children arent expected to participate in civic matters, at least to the degree adults do. You shirk those duties you are a child in practice. I’m not saying you need a stance on every thing that happens in a society but saying I don’t do politics (no the same as saying I’m not informed enough to have a strong opinion) is not becoming of a responsible adult in a functional society. Unfortunately we have a lot of people who say they’re not into politics as a cover for their beliefs in bad policy.

Huge difference between having it and not needing it and needing it and not having it.

I think the person you’re replying to is 100% correct since you’re coming at them so heated