Welcome to the internet.

Have a look around.

This has never been forbidden.

Hey now, there’s nothing wrong with star trek.

Niche communities… Sure.

Funny enough, from some of the replies I get to my posts, some of them relating to us politics, I can only assume that people either don’t notice or don’t care about what instance I’m connected to.

It’s a fun game… At least, I’m entertained by it.

No apology needed. No offense taken.

I know that text replies, especially terse ones can be interpreted in many ways. Often I tend to be rather verbose to get my point across accurately. Some then complain about the verbosity of my replies.

It’s a struggle to find the right amount of terse while being verbose enough to not be misunderstood.

I usually want whatever is best for the majority. I’m done college, and I paid my student loans, I’ll vote for student loan forgiveness and a restructuring of that system so others don’t have to go through what I did.

I’m pretty healthy and rarely need hospitals but universal healthcare is something that everyone should have.

I would also vote for UBI, though I would get no benefit from it, as I’ve been employed pretty much non-stop since I left college.

I would also vote to raise the minimum wage, though my salary is significantly amount the minimums.

My principles are in line with what most people would consider to be the greater good for all people. I believe in true equality, and I don’t feel like that’s what we have, some people just aren’t given the same basic rights, especially in America with roe v. Wade being overturned. Bodily autonomy and the right to love, and marry whomever you want. I don’t believe in lowering the bar to give the illusion of things being “fair”, eg, allowing people who are otherwise mentally or physically incapable of doing a job, to do the job just because they’re a particular race, gender, or something else (making it more about who they are than whether they’re the best fit for a job).

I don’t think I need any convincing to vote for what’s good for someone else.

Why? How does knowing how politics worked before I could vote, help me as a voter today?

I understand enough about politics to cast my vote and beyond the act of voting, I generally don’t follow politics. I vote based on party platforms (what they intend to do) and the likelihood of those things happening. Eg, if a party was to say that they’ll make everyone rich, I would consider that statement to be delusional, unrealistic and not something that could be fulfilled even if that party was voted in. This is an extreme example, but I think you get my meaning.

Beyond doing my due diligence in figuring out who I want to vote for, and then voting for that party… What else do I realistically need?

My district always elects the same party anyways, whether I vote for them or not. I’ve landed in a gerrymandered location and that party basically always wins, but I still vote regardless.

IMO, I shouldn’t need to take a political history course to be considered to be a responsible voter.

You think politics are in my control in any way, shape, or form? They’ve gerrymandered my vote to irrelevance.

I still vote, I look at the platforms and vote for whomever I feel serves my interests the most, not that the party’s platform means jack or shit. They’re all just pandering to whatever they know you want to hear, and once they get into power, they do whatever the hell they want.

My district leans a particular way, and whether I vote with them, or against them, the same party is elected to govern. I’d say my vote is pretty useless in that context.

I was too young to vote, pre-9/11, and had even less interest in politics than I do now. I’ve vaguely followed along since I got registered to vote when I got old enough to do so, but it’s not like learning about what happened before I was registered to vote will help me in any way. I make the best choice based on the information that is available, and in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

Alright, just stay off my lawn and we’re cool.

Yeah, what’s this fucker on about? I’m an adult that doesn’t even get carded at the liquor store anymore, I fucking swear whenever I damn well please and as often as I give a shit to. Nothing wrong with some cursing, especially at those young fucks that won’t stay off my goddamned lawn. Shit, they’re at it again.

Brb, gotta yell at some asshole kids.

I was alive for 9/11 and I don’t know the difference.

I don’t care for politics.

That’s quite the lesson you just laid down.

It’s actually made things a lot more clear for me. To put it as tersely as I can, UTC is the international time, GMT is a timezone, which also happens to be UTC+0.

So GMT is a place/zone/region of earth, and UTC is a time coordination, with no physical location (beyond the prime meridian, which is where it is tracking the time of).

Awesome.

When I need to sleep and can’t, my go to is a relatively mindless game that I’ve gotten exceedingly good at automating my way through. Something like Sudoku, solitaire (specifically Klondike), or something. Usually on a digital device so I don’t have to move too much to play and I don’t have to worry about physical cards, shuffling, etc.

If it’s a particularly bad night I can pair that with some music. I find either ambient trance or something similar, to be the best for this. One of my favorite “go the fuck to sleep” albums is called “Dreamland” by Robert Miles (may he rest in peace). Alternatively, I find nature/rain/thunderstorm sounds to be particularly calming for me, though YMMV. The calm pitter-patter of raindrops falling seems to really put me in a sleeping mood.

Combining these generally gets me ready to snooze the fastest. The other option I have is mediation, but you need to be practiced at getting into the right headspace for it to be effective. Meditation isn’t really what you’re after since you have said that basically sitting around with nothing going on is when you start to panic, which is generally how mediation begins, so I’m not sure it will be super helpful.

The only additional advice, which is a bit of an offshoot from the mediation thing, is that trying to not think is a contradiction. You can’t try not to do something; unless you have some issues with impulse control, the “act” of not doing something is the antithesis of trying. You can’t try to clear your mind, you clear your mind by not thinking, if you’re thinking about clearing your mind, then that’s a thought which, if present, precludes you having a clear mind.

You have to stop thinking, not just try to put things out of your mind, but stop all active thought and analysis. It is way easier to say, than it is to do, and I wouldn’t pretend it’s easy at all. I learned how to do this through meditation, and it’s a fat departure from how you normally operate mentally, and not an easy thing to achieve. One of the strategies I’ve used is when your brain assaults you with a thought, you recognise it’s existence, but refuse to interact/engage/analyse it at all, and just let that wash over you, and into oblivion. Again, easier said than done. Not allowing your thoughts to latch onto ideas and allowing your mind to be quiet, without commenting on, about, or examining every passing thought, does not come naturally.

I think of it a bit like this: take the example of your mind being a street in a busy city, every individual on the street is an independent thought you might engage with. This idea is a bit like sitting by yourself and watching everything around you without getting involved. Someone walks past screaming about some topic, like how the world is going to end and you just watch them walk by and don’t comment on the matter. You recognise they’re there, you just don’t get involved. Your passive demeanor does not and should not imply you either agree, nor disagree with their statements or viewpoint, you are just present, observing them making a scene. Eventually they move on to yell about it in another location and you give it no further thought.

I hope that makes sense. Of course, modern society with all the social interactions we have, whether online or in person, always gives us the option to engage in discussion about everything and we’re often encouraged to do so. People will outright ask for your opinion when having IRL conversations at times, which is a prime example of this conditioning. If you’re able to break away from the need to have an opinion on everything and anything that crosses your path, and value people’s opinions exactly as much as required, which isn’t much, then you can break free, and you don’t have to bother yourself with everyone’s opinion and making yours heard. IMO, there’s no value in sharing your opinion, especially when the recipient of that opinion has their own opinion which obviously will not change based on what you could say, so why bother even having one? It takes mental effort and time away from what’s important to you to engage in such trivialities, when the outcome is unaffected by anything you think or say. Why invest the time and effort having an opinion when nobody cares what your opinion is enough to for it to have any impact on what happens? This isn’t a value statement about you or your opinion, this is a value statement about any would be recipient of your opinion, they don’t care, that’s a problem, but it’s a problem for them to solve; your opinion is valid, and if they can’t see the validity in your opinion, why waste your time and effort creating one just so they can ignore it.

You cannot control the actions of others. You can’t change what they care about. Both of these things are issues that the opposing individual must address about themselves, that you have no way to change about them. Save yourself the grief, and just don’t bother with it. It sounds like you have enough on your plate, you don’t need to add their crap to your pile.

With all that being said, it’s a radical departure from the accepted social “norm” so it’s a lot of stuff that’s easier said than done. I’m sorry that you are going through this. I don’t know all the details and I don’t have the answers; but I’ve been though some rough shit, and it always sucks. I value you and your opinion, so if you want to reply, I’ll be happy to hear anything you wish to share. IMO, it sucks right now but the fact that you’re reaching out to anyone for help is a positive sign. Do not be afraid to ask for the help you require, it is not a sign of weakness to need help, it is a sign of strength and character to recognise that you require assistance and you are willing to ask for that assistance. It’s brave and demonstrates a strong understanding of when you are unable to handle things alone.

We all need a little help sometimes. If you want to DM me, to inquire further on anything I’ve said, or to simply rant/vent, or if you just want to chat about technology (or literally anything) as a means of distraction, I’m happy to oblige. I believe my matrix account is linked to Lemmy, so that’s also an option.

All the best OP.

IMO, the biggest problem with timezones is that the people who initially created them were fairly short sighted.

That and there have been way too many changes to who lives in what timezone. The one that boggles my mind is that apparently there’s a country in two timezones, not like, split down the middle or anything, but two active timezones across the entire country depending on which culture you’re a part of, or something. It’s wild.

I still don’t know if there’s any difference between GMT and UTC. I couldn’t find one. They both have the same time, same offset (+0), and represent the same time zone area.

I use UTC because I’m in tech, and I can’t stand time formats, so I exclusively use ISO 8601, with a 24 hour clock. Usually in my local time zone, via UTC. We have DST here which I’m not a fan of, but I have to abide by because everyone else does.

My biggest issues with time and timezones is that everyone uses different standards. It drives me nuts when software doesn’t let me set the standard for how the time and date is displayed, and doesn’t follow the system settings. It’s more common in web apps, but it happens a lot. I put in a lot of effort to try to get everything displaying in a standard format then some crudely written website is just mm/dd/yy with 12h clock and no timezone info, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I like this one more.

Weeeeee

I go over hand and my one handed TP game is on point.

Get good.

Imagine getting an asshole splinter?

Booooooo.

OP is still right, but I hate what you’ve posted.