This post is focused mainly on my own personal feelings and impacts but don't think I don't also see the broader societal impacts. I'll touch on them too, but mostly this is just my personal perspective. I figure it may resonate with others given that Lemmy has so many "tech people."

I have a "safe" software job which for years I've considered quitting in order to improve my mental health. I have been saving money for a long time. Prior to LLMs slowly automating jobs like mine away, I felt like I could quit, take a couple months off, and then find a better job. Maybe even come back to the same company after some recovery from burnout. It's taken several years to feel able to do such a thing.

Today, however, I am afraid to do that. I am worried finding a job will no longer be somewhat trivial like it was a decade ago. There will be less software jobs, and the ones that exist will be pushing LLMs on their devs hard. My current job is doing that, less overtly than many companies would, but I am feeling the pressure.

So besides the feeling of having my options eliminated, I'm feeling actually likely to be laid off in the next few years, so I'm "lucky to even have it". In the meantime, there is a malaise in the air on my team. People are using LLMs for work but I think most everyone has pretty mixed feelings about it. Especially given the climate impact we're setting in motion.

Then outside my workplace, it feels like the general population is engaged in a mass psychosis. Many people genuinely are convinced that slop is good enough for most things. I know that teachers are using it to create shitty lessons in schools, and students are using it to avoid doing work. There literally is no chance that society will not see a slew of very negative consequences from this.

The creativity I expressed in my work is being devalued and stolen and I cannot even feel safe taking any time off or can find another job without a lot of pain, or any solace in the fact that I should be set for retiring without much worry. I know that it was a privilege to have ever felt able to take off, however it feels bad for that opportunity to have been taken away by ruthless capitalists pushing shitty robots on every living human.

I'm thinking about all this a lot, and it's hard not to. It sucks. That's all.

Before I really get into this, I'd like to acknowledge the genuinely cool people here. People with cool hobbies, who post photography and other cool art... People who are enthusiastic about something that even mildly interests me. You are the reason I scroll Lemmy for embarrassing amounts of time. I've learned a lot over the past three years from cool people like you. Folks like you are what makes anything about the Internet worth a damn period, and I wish we could clone you all! Another thank you to the people who have been cool to me even when I myself was being toxic. A few of you managed to be kind and offer helpful advice even when I probably didn't deserve it, without coming off as fake or condescending. It usually brought a tear to my eye and made me have a bit more hope for the future. This has happened more than a handful of times and I appreciated it each time.

Now for the shit I need to get off my chest...

Admiral Patrick is a fucking asshole for multiple, already-discussed reasons we can all agree on. He was wrong about quite a lot, but he was right about one thing: a lot of users make this platform often hard to handle (and no I'm not proposing a system to shadowban anyone). I could write up lots of detailed examples but we all know what I'm talking about. Many people are incredibly rude, condescending, hateful, and intolerant when it comes to certain topics, and they don't even feel the need to limit their hatred to people who "deserve it". Anyone who dares challenge them catches all those flavors of negativity. I've had to block so many users, communities, and instances I couldn't begin to name even 5% of them.

I would say this toxicity is not unique to the fediverse, but it goes largely unchecked here because certain users share their hatreds and bloodlusts and form cliques based on it, mods/admins included, and the thing that more often is kept in check by those individuals is pushback against the zealotry/toxicity. Nearly all of it is related to black and white thinking and snap judgements.

If you take issue with one minor point, you'll often get a hateful reply assigning you horrific viewpoints. The way I interact with the platform anyhow, it's a very unwelcoming place without lots of blocking in place, and the blocklist is always growing. I always want to see "All", so I'm not siloed into small communities with polite people who want to discuss a cool nerdy interest. If there were more users here I would probably try to make that my usage mode, but there aren't enough users to make that work for me.

What makes me consider leaving this place nearly every day is how absurdly common it is to have someone jump down your throat and cram words in your mouth. Over something they literally had no understanding of and don't want to understand. They want to take out their sadness and anger on you because you represent the "enemy", if you challenge them at all. I'm self aware enough to know that I do it too sometimes too btw.

Conservatism is the ultimate in toxicity, and frankly we don't have much of that brand here. To hear many lemmings tell it though, there's secret conservatism hidden everywhere and only they are above it. The purity testing, the hatred for people with slightly different positions (even if the goals are identical), it's painfully exhausting. The other day I saw someone baselessly called out as a Zionist (who wasn't even present in the thread at the time!) and when I stood up to the accuser on their behalf, they soon slid into the thread to insult me and say the accuser was right to be randomly accusing them, even though they are not a Zionist. That's yet another sign to me that the toxicity is deeply ingrained. "Hey I'm not [bad thing], but I will stand up for stranger's right to say it about me any time!"

This also reminds me of another weird quirk I see here. Because the user base is small enough to recognize top commenters/posters, it's common to see specific users get shit talked when they are not even present. That usually rubs me the wrong way. One user even made a very in depth audio recording talking several minutes of shit about a top poster here and you'll never guess what happened when I called that out as shitty! Banned in several communities and toxic comments galore. How dare I come on on my high horse to point out how childish and shitty that was.

All this gets very deflating. Coming from reddit, it was very refreshing to see leftists everywhere, and intolerance of views being mostly aimed at conservatism, but everyone adjusted and started infighting almost immediately. I fully expect to be called a liberal or a zionist for writing this post, because, see, some users already know everything about me that matters: I implicitly called out their zealotry and am thus the enemy. I fucking hate it. I know there are many reasonable people here but honestly? They're probably often afraid to say anything because they'd rather not get an inbox full of shitty messages. All of this goes back to black and white thinking. And the oligarchs have gotten exactly what they want. Instead of banding together we're slinging shit at each other constantly. Fuck that. People are capable of being better than this but every day I'm learning they just refuse to be.

Conservatives have the toxic views, but so many leftists would rather see you dead than disagree with them on anything. What the fuck is wrong with them? I get being frustrated, WE ALL ARE. But you are NOT HELPING with this shit. Cut it the fuck out.

I got a little sidetracked though because a lot of these issues come up when politics are discussed, but it's not only politics. The fediverse-specific type of toxicity is mostly political in nature but then you also get all the normal asshole behavior you see on reddit and elsewhere. People who care far more about stating something in the exact way they understand it and become offended if you even try to add clarity to what they said for other users. Pedantry, snide dismissiveness, bigotry, most anything you hate about reddit is here too. Some other things that are sort of unique here, IME anyhow: weird/awkward horny posts. I do not want to have to block the same users account 5 times and be told I'm a prudish asshole if I say so. I simply want to use my phone in public without weird shit I don't want to see, ever, popup in a feed. I have probably blocked 50 communities for NSFW stuff I'm rarely if ever interested in, dozens of furry and hentai communities, some portraying sexualized children, etc. Is my having to block these things the issue, partially yes, but I'm only bringing it up here because of the fediverse mantra of "dude just block it okay?! No one cares about your little hangups!" I get it, it doesn't bother you to need to block 37 communities of dragon cocks and twelve year olds bending over or whatever, but if anyone complains about those, can we not chill the fuck out and let them vent for a second? Many if not most people don't want to see that shit.

The last thing about this place that's been getting my goat lately is hatred against large groups of people. Ya know what, you will never convince me or any truly decent person that it's okay to blanket-hate Americans because of what their leadership is doing. I don't want this to become as big of part of this post than necessary, but I just had to say it. A lot of Americans are shitty people, yes. As an American I'm insanely aware of it. I'm embarrassed, I'm sad about it, and there's a feeling of hopelessness I wouldn't wish on anyone that comes from watching this country's citizens reveal publicly so many awful things about themselves. More than I understood to be possible. Guess what though, saying job losses in America is hilarious still makes you a shitty person. I'm not sure what the best way to describe it is but I call it bigotry myself. What you're doing is literally saying "those people are terrible because of where they were born; they're all the same there". You can pretend that all Americans are to blame for trump or whatever you wanna say but that's just not factual. Sure, American society is if you zoom all the way out. We Americans let it get that way here over the years, but it's idiotic to suggest people who became homeless in America "deserve it" because of something you oversimplified. Even if 90% of them did, you're still a hateful asshole. And yes you're the same level of shitty if you laugh about terrible things happening to random Russians (not soldiers, politicians, etc). Those people may not support one fucking thing being forced on them by that dictatorship, and further, even if they did, it should not be so hard to understand that such a high degree of propaganda can convince people of lies.

Anyhow, that's my rant. I keep saying I'm going to quit Lemmy but so far the cool people mentioned above and the dopamine hits keep me coming back. I probably won't last forever though. The toxicity level seems to keep rising even after I block more and more toxic users. It sucks. That's all

Basically the post title. If you are going to say you do not like something because it contains some ingredient you don't like, without trying it, you probably would benefit by having a more open mind about food and you're doing life wrong.

Obviously, valid exceptions would be if you're allergic/sensitive to an ingredient. And there may be some other valid exceptions outside of that, but in general, I think this is true.

What's an example of what I mean? I HATE eggs generally, I almost always strongly dislike their texture as a dish unto themselves. They smell like sulphur, they're often oozing liquid or they are are plasticky/spongey. What's that you say? I just haven't had them made the right way? Au contraire, because therein lies my point. I have had eggs made the right way. Or rather, not the eggs themselves, but the structural or textural qualities they add to a dish. I normally don't like omelets because of this egg aversion, but if an omelet is well made by my standards, the egg is just the wrapper. A thin, barely noticeable container in which to stuff other delicious ingredients. I absolutely do not care that omelets contain eggs, I care that they taste good, and don't make me notice the qualities I hate about eggs. I also of course enjoy around a bazillion other breads and desserts made using eggs.

I recently posted here about my hate for crunchy vegetables and heard that my opinion is garbage from many users. Ya know what though? I'm not an extremist. If you tell me "oh sorry you wouldn't like this, it has crunchy vegetables in it", you're jumping the gun. Because if I try it (and I likely would), and the crunchy texture does not outweigh the good qualities of the dish, I'm probably not going to dislike it.

I have known plenty of people who literally judge food constantly by what's in it. "Oh falafel is made of chickpeas? BARF I wouldn't like it and I won't try it!!" It doesn't matter to them that they literally may have never guessed that chickpeas are in there if I hadn't mentioned it, now they know and their minds' made up. "But I don't like mushrooms, so I won't try that pizza :(" ... this idea makes me sad. I'm both a slightly picky and very non-picky eater in different ways but I can promise you one thing: if I based my food preferences primarily on the ingredient list, I'd be picky as hell and much less into food. I'd probably be borderline malnourished because I'd have never matured beyond 10 year old me, thinking most foods are "yucky". And that would be sad (and unhealthy).

I'm guessing a lot of users won't admit they judge food by what's in it, but I'm confident that if people were honest about what people actually do, they'd consider this opinion unpopular af. Think about it: I bet a large percentage of you don't like eggplant (or some other specific vegetable) and would refuse to try some new dish because it contains eggplant.

There are some exceptions at times (like pickles), but for the most part, I hate the texture of crunchy vegetables. Particularly onions, broccoli, and cauliflower, but pretty much any veggie, is worse uncooked or undercooked imo. I hate most raw vegetables by themselves or in salads, but undercooked ones may be even worse because I was promised and expecting something cooked. Crunchy peppers or onions ruin a pizza as one example. Under-done carrots and potatoes in a curry, which I had yesterday, is another perfect example.

This may not be a universally unpopular opinion but I definitely feel like I've had a lot of people seem surprised by me not liking raw veggies.

Hello, I'm wondering what the consensus is (if there is one) on the best hardware and software (open source very much preferred, runs in Docker is a must) to use for privacy-respecting, self-hosted security cameras. I have always wanted to avoid feeding the surveillance state and have never had a security camera but unfortunately I recently saw evidence of someone trying to break into my home. I searched Lemmy for posts on this topic and only found one from two years ago: https://lemmy.world/post/12726787. I assume things are a bit different now so I'm basically making the same post again as OP. Thanks in advance for any tips anyone may have for me.

PS. My experience level is that I currently run several self-hosted solutions via Docker and have been doing so for a few years. I am not a networking guru but I do understand the basics, and I've setup pihole in the past (but deactivated it due to some false-positive issues). If there's a reason to stand that back up in order to prevent otherwise private cameras from "phoning home", I can do that.

For me, the only thing that works is spending time with my partner or friends and taking the edge off with cannabis. During the work day, I have felt a lot of despair for a long time. Trump fans and the public's reaction to vaccines and COVID in general lead me to believe that there's just no such thing as peace on a societal level. I'm not sure that ever existed in any way, but I think it used to be incredibly easier to delude yourself into thinking the state of humanity is much better than it is, or at least much better than this.

And I don't think deluding ourselves is even slightly a solution. In fact I think that's a major source of why society is so fucked today. People tuning out and letting shit get worse. Capitalism running wild while most people just shrug their shoulders if forced to address it, but typically never even thinking about it or how things could be better.

We aren't cut out for this shit. The effects of bad news streamed 24/7 like an IV drip has got to be worse for our health than smoking. I suspect I will die 15 years prematurely due to stroke or some other blood pressure related failure.

Another exacerbating factor is vocally negative people. No matter what happens, even if something good happens, there's always someone lurking in comment sections telling everyone how stupid they are if they see anything positive about that news. Some days I really think I need to be a hermit in the woods with no Internet. Because the load of the modern world is just too much to bear.

I've tried therapy and various drugs. Nothing's helped much or for very long. I think about changing careers but that has a lot of risks I'm unsure are worth it. In fact I'm not even sure it would help. Has anyone successfully changed careers and gone from feeling how I describe here to a much healthier state of being? Or have you found anything else that helps? I know hobbies can help, but I'm at the point today where I just have no motivation to get back to mine.

Interview with formerly decorated lawyer under Trump's first term who is now sounding the alarm about lawlessness at the DOJ at direction of Emil Bove.

Former Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni speaks out about the disregard of due process and for the rule of law that he says he witnessed in his final weeks at the Department of Justice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcSHMkyM0aE

This feels somewhat significant. Not the first one to serve and later come out against the Trump administration, but every day things seem to escalate further toward absolute authoritarianism and thus it is scarier than ever for whistleblowers to go public.

Thanks @9limmer@lemmy.zip for bringing this to my attention in a comment elsewhere in this community.

May not be in the exact spirit of the community, but I thought it was funny how the sign was broken.

Nothing scary about this at all.

Update: apparently already backtracked: https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-preparing-executive-order-telling-education-secretary-dissolve/story?id=119499614

This might be the normal Trump tactic of floating horrible ideas, so don't be surprised if it comes back later.

I know that karma is a contentious issue on Lemmy, but I like having the feature where it is displayed on user profiles. For trolls especially, it helps to know if they should be ignored or not, like if they have -3000 karma for example. I have always noticed karma appearing in boost when viewing a user's profile, but today after logging out and back in, I noticed I no longer have that feature. Karma is no longer shown on profiles for me.

It doesn't seem like anyone else is having the issue and the recent changelog entries don't mention it. Did I inadvertently change a setting and now I just can't find that setting to change it back?