Whenever I think about the movie Children of Men, all I can think is that the answer to the Human Project’s question was microplastics.

Instead of asking why women couldn’t have children anymore, they should have been checking men for forever confetti in their balls.

That on it’s own is fine.

But I said no. I shouldn’t have to say no more than once because it’s annoying to continually say no. It is weird that they put nearly two weeks of effort into trying to get me to do something when I already said no.

We already worked a physically demanding job and I rode a bike to and from work. I was already happy with my body but they weren’t happy with my arms.

I’m quite fortunate enough to have found people who appreciate my hugs. Not quite bros. Or maybe they are. Depends on peoples perspective. In any case, my arms just fine as they are for them :)

I’ve had a lifetime of people labeling me as something and trying to enforce that label on me. When I eventually do something that sits outside of that label, those same people get angry at me for breaking the expectations that they set for me. Expectations that they never explicitly told me but assumed because of that label they placed on me.

As a result, I pushed back by “delabelling” myself, mostly. If I must label myself, I attempt to use the most broad term possible as to avoid cornering myself. Sometimes it’s too easy to use a label as a conversational shortcut.

As a personal result, I tend to avoid labeling others. In my mind that puts me on even level with the people around me. It avoids me talking to specific groups of people and allows others to participate in the discussion, no matter how those other people view or identify themselves.

I’ve watched how words, labels and categorizations have become weaponized and used to divide people. Which is absurdity. Words are ever evolving and dying so to me it seems pointless to allow words to strongly influence me.

These days I surround myself with people who are able to show me who they are over people who spend their energy telling me who they are. Real confidence doesn’t need to waste their time on only words. Those words should add to that person as a whole. That’s how I want to view another person.

Not trying to convince you to change your mind, I do see the value in using words or labels to find community, especially in times like these. I think you seem open to at least seeing where my unorthodox views come from.

I tend to ignore terms like neurotypical and neurodiverse because I just view everyone as neurodiverse. And if everyone is neurodiverse, then nobody is neurodiverse. That just means to me that people are people. Some more insecure than others.

I also think that everyone is gay. Which means I personally don’t really view anyone as gay, just people doing normal people things no matter who they love. Some people just happen to be insecure as fuck about loving another person.

What I do see are a lot of insecure people attempting to set and enforce normal behaviour because they are afraid of being weird while ignoring the fact that being alive is the most weird and pointless experience ever.

Gotta have a little fun with the weird, pointlessness of existence, that’s what can make life beautiful and interesting :)

I was just having some fun by pointing out that women aren’t the only mythical creature whose signals are hard to read.

I do agree with your last point thoroughly, bullshitters do be bullshittin’ it. A lot. Too much I would say.

I’m quite literally a bro they can hang out with, and have always been. I just lack the big strong arms they want me to have to cuddle them with D:

Part of the confusion is the men I have had experiences with spend a lot of time talking about women but then invest an uncomfortable amount of time trying to turn me into a man that they want me to be for them.

One guy spent nearly two weeks trying to get me to take creatine and go work out with him. Like if he wants me to cuddle him with big, strong, manly arms, he was going about it in a weird way.

It’s just as confusing when men love that I treat them as unique individual but get upset with me that I also treat women like unique individuals, almost like they are jealous.

The signals are there but I can’t read 'em!

I’m autistic as fuck so I can’t read anyone’s signals but men are just as bad. I could never understand why men worked so hard to get my attention and got all weird when I didn’t give them that attention.

They also spend a lot of time trying to shape me into the type of man they want to be around yet they would never outright say what they are doing and why I should change for them.

Then they would get all jealous when I actually hung out with women and get even weirder about it when I wouldn’t engage them in the weird conversations they wanted to have about women.

Like dude, if you want a hug or a cuddle, just say so because these roundabout games you’re playing is confusing as fuck.

So now I wander the earth thoroughly confused…

I don’t need anyone to take care of me when I’m older. I decided that my retirement plan will be extreme sports. Base jumping? Wing suit? Steel toeing cops in the nuts? So many thrilling choices! Whatever happens, happens.

I was considering a single user instance but I noticed just how much data was being transferred throughout the day and decided against it.

I’m drawn to IRC and Gemeni because it seems to use far less data. I’ve lately been into lowering my electrical power usage while still being able to use the internet. That also includes the type of programs my computer and devices use.

Practical or not, it’s been an interesting hobby for myself to learn.

It will only be for a select number of people I know and am comfortable with being there. This is going to be hosted on a Raspberry Pi so it’s not going to be set up for a large number of people.

I don’t want to moderate images or videos which is my main concern when it comes to moderation.

I read the experiences of moderators from the initial CSAM attack on Lemmy and that was already discouraging. I also spent time in PieFed’s matrix channel and hearing the additional tools being requested made me realize I just don’t want to deal with that at all.

I have plans to set up both an IRC server and a Gemeni site on my Raspberry Pi if I can figure out how to get security working on my preferred reverse proxy program.

The internet today is so overwhelming and all I want is the simplicity I felt when I first made my way online as a teen.

I tried hosting a lemmy/piefed instance but I soon learned that I’d have to be a moderator. After hearing stories from other moderators and seeing the types of tools required/requested by moderators, I decided that it’s just not worth the effort and loss of sanity.

before I jump to conclusions.

Population control is not a solution.

I didn’t state anything about population control.

I’m merely exhausted by the complexity that people must deal with for each person we add to this planet. That complexity would be far more manageable if humans didn’t reproduce exponentially.

Yes we can support support 8 billion people. But why? From my understanding we got here mainly because capitalism and war has a high demand for warm bodies.

Maybe we can learn from our mistakes and deal with them rather than making excuses to remain on course for pain, suffering and disaster. Us humans learning and overcoming our current situation has the benefit for all life on this planet.

It’s hard watching the people around me make the same mistakes they always make and complain about the same mistakes they always make.

It’s hard watching large organizations and states make the same mistakes they always make and blame everyone else for the mistakes they always make. Even when history proves them wrong.

I can never understand why people argue for 8+ billion people on this planet when we collectively refuse to learn from mistakes.

I’m tired…

Maybe it’s something sightly outside no js/ccs/html but I am curious if there are any super minimal social media sites.

I want to do something locally within my town and it would be nice to host something simple and tiny with my raspberry pi as the server.

I’m assuming bulletin boards are quite minimal in comparison to other types of social media but I’ve never been a fan of how they handle previous replies with those boxed quotes.

I’ve also been nostalgic for irc lately. Everything on the internet these days has become overwhelming. Over the past 1.5 years I’ve been turning to simplicity and it’s a craving I that’s hard to ignore.

I think I’ve worked in automation long enough to feel super uncomfortable with the idea of a tattoo print machine being anywhere near my body.

Even if I had a kill switch in hand, it still makes me uncomfortable. In general machines don’t care about fleshy bits at all. If something happens, for example a sensor ages and becomes defective, the printer has the potential to cause serious harm.

I probably also hold a bit of bias, I prefer the imperfections of human, hand made art over digitized perfection from machines.

I’m the same here. I don’t know enough or care to know enough about systemd. I simply enjoy the minimalism of Alpine.

The downside is that I have to learn a bit more to make it work how I want but as a hobby I enjoy it.

When I first started with linux, Mint with systemd just worked for my laptop. For the people who are less computer literate, that should be good enough. They don’t want to worry about how to make their computer work, they just wanna do basic computer things without hassle.

I get the impression that men in particular love Rome for the image of historical, European masculinity. Well, all the parts that reinforce modern views of masculinity while ignoring all the really gay aspects of that historic period.

I personally think these guys will go through the most extreme mental gymnastics to continue hating women in place of any deeper, more meaningful connection with other men that doesn’t include violence in one form or another.

Which all seems to happily align with the building of a fascist ideology…

The automation industry is too dependant on so many other industries. I learned this real quick after the COVID lockdowns of 2020.

The shipping delays, as well as the overall lack of devices and materials caused huge waves but management made it seem like manageable ripples in a pond.

I made an educated gamble and got out of that industry in 2021. I couldn’t predict Trump’s tariff wars but I felt a disturbance early on.

I’m speaking from a North American perspective but the automation industry is global. This doesn’t surprise me but even the headline alone brings a sense of disappointment.