Yeah, sounds like you had awful digital hygiene. Not that it helps to have good digital hygeine like I did. All it takes is the majority of people's opinions becoming sufficiently extremist for your life to be irrevocably ruined.

Unfortunately, emailing people won't actually get your data removed. They are supposed to, legally speaking, but they have already sold your data to those who maliciously make use of it. That's the only reason they let that law be in place, because once they sold data, the new owner is not obligated to delete their copies of that data. And they sell this data multiple times, meaning there are now countless owners of data about your personal history. Not just for advertising, either. It is increasingly obvious it's being used to sway elections. If you value democracy, get an ad-blocker and refuse to disable it for any reason.

That's fair, just realize some of us are tired of online pessimism to such a degree that an AI - telling me there are in fact potential solutions and to keep trying - is actually good for our mental health. I only use Perplexity for research and musings that I sometimes post here to be discussed, not to completely replace human interaction on the Fediverse.

Fortunately, no. But they will probably eat the harmless giant grasshopper-things (wela) that also live in New Zealand backyards.

There's also giant crickets in Africa, and several giant beetles in Japan. I swear I don't remember where I learned all this, I've never even been to New Zealand or Australia or any of the other places (aside from South America).

Fair enough, but if you're on the internet post-2017 looking to reduce your stress, you're in the wrong parts of the internet. Find a forum that's been around since well before then on your hobbies (niche hobbies like old fandoms tend to have the best results), other than that social media killed the internet.

I mean, you're both kind of right. I'm no doctor but it seems like something doctors (good doctors, anyway) would seriously consider in regards to this. On the one hand, they're leaving people to the wolves. On the other, there is nothing you can do in the US if it gets that far that will outweigh the good you can do elsewhere. But then, is that actually true? This isn't the literal same as WWII, it's just extremely similar, a pattern we are able to recognize this time around because it happened before and was well-documented. It's possible that this time, leaving would in fact cause more harm than good. But if you have a family... Well, I can't blame you for protecting your own kids over your patients and their kids, as long as you don't throw someone else under the bus.

It's complicated. When there's that many variables, all you can do is trust your gut. No one can predict the future that well, if at all.

The giant spiders are Australian. I mean, it's Australia, everything has two health bars. That said, there is a harmless but creepy-crawly-looking giant grasshopper-looking thing called a giant wētā that - like actual grasshoppers - likes to live in and lay its' eggs in people's backyards. Here, educate yourself!

If you hate bugs, I'd recommend heading to South America (make sure to check local political stability of each of the nations) and staying in a city, or heading to northern Canada and buying a tiny shack to ride this all out away from everyone else. Japan is a possibility but... fucking murder hornets. Literally in Tokyo suburbs.

Oh yeah, Trump? Well, come near anyone to defend those fucking nazimobiles (provided there was no one in them, I'm not crazy) over people and see how long you last. This is war, doesn't matter that you're a handful of people with a shitton of money, WE WILL END YOU.

The article itself fits, thank you.

In the US, absolutely. Fortunately it doesn't have to be that way, however I do not think there is any coming back from the police being the direct successors of slave patrols. Best for the states to just separate into several nations and eventually form some sort of EU-like economic pact, otherwise North America will be the new Africa.

I don't think he's disagreeing with you, he's saying that the law has said "No, police are just somehow allowed to do whatever they want and fuck you." and that's grounds for violent revolution because THEY JUST SHOT A KID. THEY WILL SHOOT YOUR KIDS. IF YOU ARE UNDER 18, THEY WILL KILL YOU.

This was chosen by design. It's the most racist and selfish fucking bullshit you could spew, it ruined policing in the US and that's what the republicans wanted.

Um, I assume you typo'd? Does this fix it?

Yes. Their cult’s obsession of demonizing pleasure in general is disgusting. It’s probably why they want everyone else to be as miserable as they are

At this point, micro transactions for cosmetics are like candy. Kids will resent you and the values you try to impose if it makes them less able to participate in group activities. Restricting it to an allowance makes sense, disallowing it does not. I say this as someone who was banned from playing any video games as a kid for bullshit reasons.

There's a reason that, when people realized smoking was toxic, they petitioned governments to ban them in increasing amounts and thus eventually de-popularize tobacco, rather than try to get kids to not smoke. If all your friends are allowed to, fuck whatever the reason is that you can't.