It’s someone else’s blog. I get that. They can do whatever they want, but man…
I remember when this site was “a directory of wonderful things”, and it was. It was chocked full of art, makers, songs, weird videos, all sorts of stuff.
But anymore, it’s just outrage du jour. Of the 18 articles on the feed (i.e. not a shop link, nor in the skyboxes), seven are explicitly about politicians. If you include the articles in the top skybox, it would be nine out of 21.
Yes. MTG and Trump are fascist fucks. Yes, we need to be diligent. But Jesus, there a million other sites that cater that. I know. I read a lot of them. There’s a paucity of sites that cater to the cool and weird.
To add to @Bunbain’s actually productive comment, if you have any cool art stuff to share, this is a good place to drop it (and to find art-related content from other mutants, of course)
Yes. But we’re not actually being shelled by artillery. There is ample time for people to look away from the outrage du jour and pay attention to things that are interesting, uplifting, funny or beautiful.
Constant doomscrolling, and focus on nothing but the bad stuff going on, breeds despair and burns people out.
(This is why I’ve suggested before that, for example, everything MTG says and does should be collected in one single megathread. This would allow folks to keep track on what wicked inanities she’s spewing now, if they need and want to know, but wouldn’t clutter up the BBS with dozens of threads about her.)
Anyone here who’s not literally in Gaza or Ukraine or similar place, where there’s actual shelling by artillery going on.
Yes, I’m all too aware that there’s an awful lot of bad stuff going on. For example, in the US, the Republicans are being terrible, various forms of bigotry are flourishing, people are still dying of Covid-19, the climate is shifting rapidly, and so on. I’m not suggesting people ignore all this.
But it does nobody any good, if you’re immersing yourself in this stuff all the time. This isn’t an actual shelling (or a hurricane, or a wildfire), where you really are in deadly danger if you stop paying attention for a moment to look at flowers. These are trends, they move slowly and can’t be shifted by the effort of a single person by themselves.
You can take a day off from following the bad news, or a week, or a month, for the sake of your happiness and sanity and stress levels.
Ignoring the danger coming for us all is irresponsible.
And ignoring it, especially when it’s causing REAL material harm to some people, is not helpful either. We have to pay attention, because we’ve ignored this shit for far too long, and now this right wing, fascist movement is ready to take over the country.
That’s not the only way people can be hurt. That kid Nex didn’t get killed by bombs, but by people who didn’t believe that they had value, by bullies emboldened by the GOP and other right wingers. A child is dead because of this shit, and I doubt Nex is the only one.
Yes, but some of us don’t get that luxury to “turn it off”.
Yeah, I miss the Doctorow/Jardin/Niven days. I honestly don’t know why I keep coming here. What I’m really looking for is desktop manufacturing, amateur engineering, arts, music, pop science, and counterculture. This place used to be all about that stuff.
If I wanted the soulcrushing end of days coverage of contemporary politics, I’d look… Well, basically anywhere.
Those threads are available, and very interesting. There are lots of subjects and threads I don’t follow. If something is too distressing or uninteresting for you to consume, then don’t. It’s really all about free will, yours and ours. Tastes and interests differ. Pretty simple, actually.
No one is forcing anyone to frequent this forum; we’re all here by choice.
That said, pining for the past doesn’t change the present reality we have no choice but to inhabit.
BB is not the same as it was even 5 years ago; that’s true.
Change is inevitable, and not always for the better, unfortunately.
Thankfully, there’s a mute feature to tamper down most of the rage bait, all the insufferable “AI” proliferation and any other content which does not interest me.
Because at the end of the day, I was never here for Cory, Xeni, Mark, or Maggie, (as awesome as I have heard she was.)
Personally I have remained a member here as long as I have because I value the community here, and the camaraderie that most of us regulars share.
I don’t believe in sunk costs; if I no longer felt that way, I’d move on:
