I used to do leathercraft commissions. My best customers were LARPers ordering armour, scroll cases etc., and kinksters buying fancy collars, cuffs and harnesses. Sometimes these were the same people

Nah. Some humans saw that and thought “if we can con enough people into working 40 hours weeks, I can buy a holiday home here”

starting to write and then cancel my post.

I get what you mean, I do a lot of that myself. Although it’s unfortunate that I often find it easier to hit send when replying to internet strangers than I do when messaging my friends. I suspect it’s because online feels far lower stakes, even though my friends would be far more charitable to a poorly articulated idea than the internet would.

If it helps, I don’t think you should feel bad about cancelling unwritten messages. Maybe sometimes you don’t actually know enough to have an opinion on a topic, so refraining is the wise thing. Maybe other times, you have Thoughts, but they’re still sort of fermenting in your head and they’re not quite ready yet. Or maybe you’ve distilled your Thoughts down so that you know what message you want to convey, but you don’t think that this particular conversation is the right time or place for them (possibly due to realising you’re in conversation with someone who isn’t arguing in good faith and continuing would be unproductive). These (and more) are all valid and good reasons to not actually submit a post or comment you start writing.

The advice that I try to give myself is that we’re under enough pressure as it is without helping more on unnecessarily. Sometimes that pressure is because we have something that we desperately want to say, but it’s hard to articulate it in a way that doesn’t feel like we’re dishonouring the meaning of what we intend. That pressure is hard to counter because it’s coming from the weight of the thing we want to say, but I ease it by reasoning that the important ideas will find their own way out of our heads and into the world, if given time, and that they will still be important.

I figure that there’s an infinite array of conversations on the internet that could’ve happened but didn’t. It’d be a shame if we let the conversations that never ended up happening distract us from other conversations that we’re actually having. Which is all to say that it’s okay if you start replying to this comment and cancel it. Maybe in the next life thread, eh?

I tend to play it at my friends’ New Year holiday, which is a context where we have like, 12 different decks of playing cards to pick from, which helped with that scoring issue. Regarding the cards taking a beating, that scans with my experience — there was a sort of communal pool of cards and games during the holiday, so it was fuzzy about who owned what, there were a couple of sets of playing cards that weren’t meant to be used to play racing demons (they did seem pretty fancy).

I seem to recall that an issue we faced somewhat (even with a pretty large diversity of playing cards styles) was that some styles were harder to read than others (such as due to stylised card designs, or low contrast colour etc.). We had 3-4 decks that were equally easy to read, yet visually distinct enough for scoring, so we were good most of the time. If there were more than 4 at the table, it’d start getting trickier and people would have to start using decks that were harder to read (I.e. decks like this. We tended to rotate the decks each game, so if there were awkward decks in play, it wasn’t the same person using it each time at least. I wonder if the other issue you describe with playing cards is this contrast/readability problem that arises when having to find cards with different backs.

I got a hell of a lot smarter when I allowed myself to not have opinions on things. Like if a friend asks me if I have heard of [thing], I am nowadays much better at saying “No, I havent, tell me more” or “I’m not sure. It sounds familiar though. Remind me?”. A big part of this is being in spaces where it feels safe enough to be vulnerable in saying “I don’t know”.

A cucumber does not have a flared base.

Yeah, this is a big thing. A sentiment that comes to mind is “we judge other people by their actions, but ourselves by our thoughts”. Sometimes I reread past comments of mine and cringe at how ambiguous the tone is.

Yeah, I think this is fairly common. I’m pretty good at not being overly adversarial online, but that takes me a bunch of active effort. Sometimes that means taking a big breath and moving on.

I think it’s admirable that you care about contributing through commenting; I saw a similar stat when I moved to Lemmy and I have also been more active in commenting. However, if you’re not enjoying how you’re typically engaging, perhaps a different framing could be useful: rather than (or in addition to) thinking about commenting as you contributing to the community/platform, think about it as something that you’re doing to enrich yourself. For example, sometimes when I do get into spicier discussions, it’s because I am responding to someone I disagree with, but whose points have caused me to think differently. Or maybe I am enjoying the practice in articulating my views on a complex matter. Or maybe it’s cathartic. Thinking about what I hope to gain from a discussion helps me to avoid unproductive discussions where it’s just mutual attacks.

If you can’t find a middle way, it’s also okay to not comment on things. My opinion is that we do owe a duty to the communities we inhabit, and in the online world, that might imply that it’s good to be contributing via commenting. However, informational self-care is incredibly important nowadays, and it’s so easy to become burnt out. It’s okay to not engage in behaviours that cause you harm (or aren’t encouraging you to grow in the way that you would prefer).

That game looks pretty similar to a game I know as “Racing Demons”, played with regular playing cards

Yeah, I’ve been increasingly cynical about this kind of thing. I wouldn’t say that I’m against developing carbon capture technologies, but I am immediately suspicious of anyone who suggests it as something that could help against climate change.

If you’re one for video essays, you might enjoy this, if you haven’t seen it already. https://youtu.be/uCuy1DaQzWI

I also find it hard to do evil play throughs. I tried to do one on Baldur’s Gate 3, but I couldn’t bring myself to because of how it affects your companions. It doesn’t help that I had already seen most of them work through their trauma on a more good aligned play through

I feel like I’m haunted by linear algebra because it keeps cropping up in all sorts of places

A friend of mine had a partner accidentally draw blood when he (consensually) bit them. It got infected and they needed quite serious hospital care. I suppose that counts.

Oh, I love the vicarious enjoyment from introducing a friend to something I love. It feels like the closest I can get to re-experiencing something afresh without losing my memory. I am envious of Drag for this opportunity.

“(But sure, Ebola needs our DNA in the sense that otherwise we wouldn’t be alive. But so do nuclear weapons in order to kill humans.)”

For me, the fact that Ebola is an RNA virus made the meme more absurd and funny, in a “cut off your note to spite your face” way

If I wanted an autistically over-literal answer, I’d either ask myself (or come to Lemmy)

Stochastic parrots is an excellent phrase.

You’re right, and thanks for checking me on that. On reflection, I said it was trite because I think I felt uncomfortable with the level of vulnerability I was feeling when writing that comment, so I tacked that onto the end. The vulnerability came from a place of “who am I to give advice when the advice I’m giving myself hardly feels sufficient, because my inner monologue is basically a screaming possum most of the time”. Lots of people are feeling similar, which is why I made my original comment in the first place.

I think a lot of us are struggling under the pressure about not knowing how to cope with this dreadful situation, and for me, that meant feeling like I needed to come up with the perfect words that would be useful for everyone who is struggling. It is sufficient for me to go “for me, this is a useful way to think (and other people may do also)”. It’s silly for me to dismiss myself as trite just because I feel like I am only valid if I have a Solution. As you highlight, this is a collaborative process, so muddling along together is how this goes.

This is only tangentially related, but I’m reminded of a thing from Plato where he was complaining that communicating through writing was a bad way of doing philosophy. His concerns weren’t just around communicating ideas between people; he was even opposed to writing as an introspective tool to help a person think through their ideas, or make notes to come back to.

"And so it is that you by reason of your tender regard for the writing that is your offspring have declared the very opposite of its true effect. If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.”

• Plato, “Phaedrus” ^([citation needed])

It’s interesting because I don’t think he’s necessarily wrong about the skill atrophy angle of it. It’s just a question of to what extent we need those memory skills in the modern era.

My occult phase was from a different angle: I really enjoyed immersing myself in something I didn’t have to explain or justify objectively, where I could just enjoy the vibes and not think too hard.

I think of it as analogous to how some of the people who are most into being submissive in a BDSM/sex context are people who seem the opposite of that in their careers/regular life. The contrast is a relief.