There you go again, always doing the Fedi-lord’s work! 😆

It did add some new communties for me.

So I keep being told! 😁

I really do like animals though, so the posting is the only real thing I wouldn’t do without Lemmy. The level of reading is a bit higher too since I’m the only one to answer questions active may have. Having one specific thing to focus on really helps me direct my energy.

Ok, I think I’m starting to get why I’m enjoying talking with you. 😁

I am somewhat unique in that I am the main content provider of my community, but I am not a mod. I’m doing what I do because I wanted to see the community succeed and not die out. I didn’t know too much when I started posting. I shared a few photos I had taken on trips, and by the time I ran out, nobody was posting anything still.

Now I’ve read hundreds of hours of subject matter, talked to experts in person, traveled hours to see the things in person, spent money to get hands on time with the animals I talk about. I’ve got over 1200 posts I believe about owls now. But I’ve stressed since the beginning that I am not a mod, I’m not an expert, and I want to be corrected if I’m wrong because I’m doing it for a love of the animals and a love of knowledge and learning, and I feel a duty to the community for them being my audience to practice teaching what I’ve learned.

For most of my working career, I wanted to finally be in charge. I got the chance once and it was nothing like I had expected. I got less done than ever and most of the time was spent dealing with people’s bickering about pointless things. I felt less people listened to me or respected me than when I was just a regular employee.

I like to be efficient because I hate doing things I’m made to do any longer than necessary, but making money is sort of a requirement for survival. I find the best ways to get work done, and people end up gravitating to what I do, and if they want to learn my “tricks” I’m happy to teach them. I think it’s important that everyone has the opportunity to advance if they wish and are willing to put in the effort. But I don’t want or expect anything back. I’m happy to see them learn and grow.

I’m not concerned with being right or wrong, though of course I prefer to be correct when I talk. But if I make a mistake or misunderstand, I need to know about it so I don’t keep making the same mistakes. Tell me in a respectful way, and I will be grateful, and do the same for you. That’s how we all get better.

The things I love about learning is that the more I learn, the more I see I have to learn. I never want to stop wanting to know more, and that is self-gratifying and keeps me from worrying from outside praise.

If we have a revolution, I’ll want to lend my ability. To the lefties, to the MAGAs, to the anarchists, and to the unaffiliated. We’re just a bunch of know-nothings, and if we make it through a revolution, we’re going to need to live together. I don’t care much who you are or what you believe. I’m interested in your actions, in how you treat others and the world around you. Anyone can have “ideals” but what kind of life do you live?

I’ll have to check out AskUSA and see if there’s room for me to participate there. I also liked your video, though the comment section there looked about like what it would look like here. He summed up the Middle East situation very succinctly in much less time than I could have, and it was pretty impartial and reality based. There shouldn’t be anything in what he said to argue about, though it’s all absolutely open for reasonable debate. I think he’s stated things very respectfully and nothing was out of line. I don’t agree with it as a person, but his take in why we as a country are supporting what we are is totally plausible.

I’ve been thinking lately how any revolution would even be possible. I grew up in the 80s with things like Red Dawn, but nowadays we have satellites, thermal imaging, photo recognition, license plate scanning, gps tagged personal communication devices, and every doorbell is part of a photographic spy network. The Wolverines wouldn’t last a weekend.

Again, I don’t want to crap on anyone’s ideas necessarily, I just don’t find too much of it useful to me outside of some unique case studies and philosophy. Which is fine is we’re intending to talk about that. But I’d rather the political subs be about what candidates we do like, what bills we can support, etc. Yes, we have deep institutional problems, like any country, but tell me what we can achieve. We’re all fallible people, and we’re not going to get some messiah candidate to just appear. All politics is compromise. I don’t need to love my dear leader, but I want to see them do more good than harm, which I feel is something that is still achievable.

Well, I thank you for your pretty rational to me opinions, but I don’t want to go on here forever. The initial post was about not alienating more people than necessary, and I try to limit my political preaching to stuff about the environment. Thank you for the conversation though. I’ve enjoyed it, and your post history is pretty calm and regular talk, so you seem like a legit decent person. I’m glad you are here.

I’ve been open to most of the ideologies, but nobody ever presents a practical way to implement them. No one is up for mundane things like general strikes or labor collectives, so it’s hard to convince me we’ll see a Communist resurgence or horizontal power structure implemented at large scale anytime soon. I’ve no objection to the ideas behind those things, but praising ideas on social media and taking power are very different levels of involvement. Even the successes of Communism or Anarchism don’t seem to have ever been that successful on a large scale or long term. I need something that is going to work in the near term, and if you have no idea, you shouldn’t be afraid to say so. Being disingenuous isn’t doing anyone any good. I want to be hopeful for the future too, but lies and pipe dreams aren’t going to achieve it. It’s not foolish to want those things, but without a roadmap to get there, it’s not going to just happen.

We’d all probably prefer quick answers to our problems, and an authoritarian will offer that. I suppose it’s all well and good when an individual’s opinions and goals are in line with the authoritarian, but what about everyone else? My extended family largely believes things very much the opposite of what I do. They’re not what I’d consider bad people, I think they just got sold lies. In some type of civil war situation, we’d be on different sides, and why would I want that? I want them to learn and improve, not to die. You can have people wanting to make some type of utopian auth-left state like House from Fallout or Tony Stark in Age of Ultron, but when you turn over that much power and control to one person or a small group of people, what happens when your vision and theirs no longer line up?

I’ve given up on reading much of anything about Trump and Co, because they don’t keep their word and just do what they want anyway, so there isn’t much point to reading about what they’re “going to do” before they do it. The left media complains about it, but won’t say what they’re actually going to do about it, and I don’t see anyone promoting any new people to rally behind. What are they offering? I’m already mad at the alt-rights, so I don’t need more help being frustrated. I’m craving solutions, not more rage-bait.

I don’t feel the need to discuss the pros and cons of all things like if Nazis can be good or if climate change is real, but if people from differing stances want to discuss things while being receptive to other views, that’s the type of thing I can get behind. Nobody is going to work together starting at a place of extremism. But if we discuss the actual concern, the environment, racism, economics, social equality, immigration, what have you, we can understand each other, look for root causes of frustrations, and come up with realistic and implementable solutions. I just don’t feel that from hardly any source right now.

Though I don’t know if I’d absolutely put it how you did, there is an element of truth I think it’s hard to argue. This place was started by hard Left ideologues, and I learned quick that American far leftists aren’t near as far left as those from other places sometimes! I do feel rather centrist here compared to most places in my real life.

Everyone is fairly free here to speak their mind, whether that’s something brilliant, stupid, or somewhere in between.

I was very late to Reddit and avoided most of the drama there, but even though I don’t agree with much of the Lemmy founders’ political leanings, I do respect that they made this place viable and that the rest of us get to use it.

I also agree extremists to either direction start to look more alike the more extreme they go. The environment is one of my highest priorities, but things like eco extremism I can sympathize with, but I don’t want to see people killing each other to protect it either, and I don’t know how many laws I’d personally be willing to break to do it.

I did watch How to Blow Up a Pipeline today though, and I didn’t really feel bad about much anyone did in that… They specifically made sure they didn’t hurt anyone or the environment, though some characters debated if hurting people causing the problems was ok.

This is very true. The majority of what I share can be appreciated at surface level, but the people that actually interact and participate I like to think are there to be open minded and to learn new things.

If I’m looking to teach people things, the audience will be coming from all different backgrounds and opinions, but my primary goal is to show them new things and to get them to think more critically about them. Even if I’m not in agreement with them on things at times, they are still taking time to show an interest in what I’m talking to them about. They deserve to be free to say what they want, but there’s no more obligation for me to have to agree with it than there is to listen to everything I have to say.