Michael

Agreed.

Zorin OS has done great work with making GNOME more usable/accessible.

KDE was fairly seamless for me, my workflow basically didn’t change from Windows. It’s still a bit messy, but they are getting there.

Nice, that’s big. Thanks for the link.

If I was there, if I was involved in law enforcement, if I had access to the crime scene and raw footage and evidence, I might be able to speculate. Armchair speculation is insufficient for me.

There are plenty of events that raise legitimate questions and concerns - like suspicious, high profile deaths that are immediately ruled as suicide. Everybody is free to hold their own positions and perspectives as far as I am concerned. Question on, sate your concern and curiosity, you’ll get no arguments against that from me.

Of course, a true conspiracy unfolds because the masses are unaware. The masses are gaslit if they start catching on.

But in the absence of compelling evidence, it’s pointless to wildly speculate about from my perspective.

I believe action can come in a lot of different forms. I very often give advice online, barring my ability to do anything in the real world - due to my body not cooperating. There’s a lot on my list for myself, the people I love, and the community around me.

Advice still isn’t the same thing as direct support and intervention, despite giving helpful tips and (hopefully) life-changing advice to probably hundreds of people by now.

If I was pretending, I would’ve already deleted my account. I don’t choose to lie. I recently moved to a new area and I have checked out my opportunities for volunteering, but unless I travel to a major city (which I am unable to currently do), my impact will be minimal unless I spearhead an organization or group myself. I live in a very rural area with relatively few homeless or overtly disadvantaged people.

But, of course, it’s okay to disagree. And, it isn’t a big deal at all. I chimed in to not virtue signal, but to be the person that I am, and to show that the world may not be as cold as your (valid) perspective sheds light to.

I believe your experience is what you make it. I could easily fall into doom and gloom and let that be my reality, or I can open myself up to the idea that people who care are limited by their reality, but given the time, opportunity, and means would help others out.

A vulnerable person could read your perspective and hurt themselves or worse. That was my specific reasoning for response. Hope that makes sense.

Thanks for the response, I enjoyed reading it and our sentiment largely aligns.

Hope probably requires action too, otherwise nothing backs it up and grounds it into reality.

Thanks for chatting, sorry it wasn’t worthwhile for you - it was worth it for me.

I’ll keep working on myself, and when I am the shining beacon that even you could stand beside, maybe we could have another chat about caring and action.

You’re saying you don’t do anything to help them but you want to seem like you do.

I am not doing well. It’s not an excuse and it doesn’t make me lesser. I am working to be healthy. You are free to perceive reality however you wish, I choose to believe the world is a friendly place. If I was healthy, I would be able to do more for myself as well as others.

I have experienced some pretty terrible things. I know very well that life can be unkind, but I still persevere and I’m working towards healing. Thanks for your feedback, not everybody is the saint you expect them to be, but it doesn’t make them lesser or bad.

Considering that I have volunteered my time to help and feed the homeless when I was healthy, and have volunteered a significant amount of time in my life, I’d be willing to if I had an organization alongside me.

Why do you feel the need to purity test me?

Well considering that a lot of people suffering are experiencing economic problems in my country or problems with their environment; like not being able to receive health care and suffering from treatable physical illness, not being able to get out of sticky situations with abusive people or dynamics, having employment issues, or being homeless/in debt and so forth - I can’t exactly give them a place to live or give them money because I really have none to give.

In those cases, what can I personally do for them? Of course I can listen, I can give solicited advice, and I can point them to the resources they have access to.

I advocate for those resources to be more accessible for all. Health-allowing, I want to volunteer my time and become more politically active.

For me, I have a stigma to medication because the side effects are terrifying. I almost died from SSRIs, I got very ill and also suicidal. On benzos, I got paradoxically anxious and angry after cessation/when I wasn’t taking them (I am not an angry person). I took them as prescribed - always.

I only got more and more unstable after taking various psychiatric drugs, and everyone in my family who has taken psychiatric drugs was not better off for it. Seems like suicidal ideation is a common reaction for those in my family. Perhaps there is a genetic cause for it, like how we metabolize drugs.

I don’t know a single person in my life who has had a good experience, but if you or someone you know has had a good experience, I’m happy for you. It’s just unfair to say it’s magical thinking when there are real life reasons why people are hesitant.

See Soteria Houses. Schizophrenia or psychosis is not always a permanent state that requires medication for the rest of the patient’s life. Soteria Houses achieve remission in individuals with little to no psychiatric medication. They use antipsychotics for stabilization, in controlled doses, and usually (to the best of my knowledge) only for a few months - though every case is different.

I care, and I know a lot of other people do as well.

I’m not making a argument for chemtrails. It’s pointless to speculate about, there is no evidence or smoking gun.

I’m just suggesting that we be kind and empathetic towards individuals that do believe these sorts of things. Is it out of character for the US government? Nah, not really.

Many of these people probably were living in or around 1969. In their lived reality, the US government was doing shit like this. Have things really gotten better?

These are the people voting Trump in, dude, you cant actually be this dense

Of course these individuals share responsibility for potentially voting for him, but we ALL share responsibility for him rising to power.

No, but I do try to make the world a less stupid place when I can

We don’t need to call out stupidity to make it a better place. Expressing yourself with clarity and confidence of thought is infinitely better.

If they’re too stupid to learn basic science then I reeeeally don’t care

You don’t need to care about any of this.

Ok? They’re also very stupid individuals, I don’t care at all what makes them believe the blatantly stupid thing, only that they refuse to accept reality

If somebody you love is frightened (in a general sense), what would you do? Calming them down and helping to see the truth would be one potential path to ease their suffering. What would making fun of them do?

You’re doing an awful lot of defending of people who are choosing to behave the way they do, it’s weird. Gonna file you in with them and call it a day, you don’t seem to be too far from them in the ol’ comprehension skill

Do what you want, I’m not going to apologize for my behavior or take it personally. If my crime is being too empathetic, guess I’m guilty.

The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee called for using far-right candidates “as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right.” Clinton’s camp insisted that Trump and other extremists should be “elevated” to “leaders of the pack” and media outlets should be told to “take them seriously.”

Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and mainstream media played a pretty big role in Trump’s rise to power. Everybody is responsible for his rise to power, but the facts are facts. They intentionally elevated him.

They’re willingly living in stupidity. If we just let people do that we get people like Trump, so Id rather avoid that

These people don’t have power over others like Trump.

Neither can I, but as I said you’re purposefully ignoring a big part of what’s being discussed: the part where they don’t ever tread back out of delusion. There’s 0 defense for that

You aren’t responsible for other’s beliefs. You are loosely reveling in their suffering, whether you realize it or not. They are very concerned and are likely vulnerable individuals.

Plenty of things happen in this world that each respective populace doesn’t consent to.

Seriously, why single them out for going a little crazy? It’s not like I haven’t pointed at somebody and laughed in the past, so no judgement here, but the whole system and world order is nuts and we need something new.

If you are worried about people holding factually incorrect or wrong beliefs, e.g. delusions, then advocate for decentralized media, unbiased news organizations, etc. Help elevate voices that help others to climb out of their delusions and fear.

Why go out of your way to disprove them, laugh at them, or name-call them? You can just empathize with them.

For me, I’d rather address why the government HAS felt it had the right to experiment on us. I can NOT blame these individuals for treading into delusion with our current system being the way it is, especially considering the history.

I read enough of OP’s comments and looked at their past commenting/post history and it was pretty clear that it was a cry for help. It wasn’t for karma - they deleted their account. OP was nothing but polite and responded to many comments.

Of course, I do realize that there is a lot of junk, especially on the front page.

It’s not hard to give somebody the benefit of the doubt, be compassionate, and direct them to services and resources that can help them. It takes much more effort to be hateful, doubtful, and judgemental.

OP’s last comment was them admitting that they should be institutionalized, they also admitted that they were probably being lazy given the massive amounts of comments accusing them of such behavior.

OP didn’t give off the air of being unable to live independently, they just couldn’t do physical chores, like taking out the garbage, because their heart rate would go up to 200~ upon standing.

If OP just hired a cleaning service - problem solved.