A reasonable guess, but i think I (re-)read all of Pratchett as an adult and didn’t come across it

Any ethical super intelligence would immediately remove billionaires from power. I’d like to see that.

I feel like, as an average white ~40 year old guy in a major city, getting dates and sex wasn’t that hard. But from what I’ve heard, the bar is extremely low. Like, all the woman I talk to (and the men who date men) have horror stories.

I think my worst dates were like… they mildly insulted me.

Neither of those come close to, like, various threats, violence, boundary breaking, and unsolicited dick picks that seem too common.

This is one of those “people hate every piece of capitalism, but refuse to connect the dots to see the picture” things.

If republicans had empathy or critical thinking skills, they wouldn’t be republicans. They’re little better than toddlers.

Tesla is lucky no one took matters into their own hands. Sleep deprivation makes people crazy. Keeping people up all hours with dubiously legal construction noises and lights? If I was on the jury for someone who burned the place down, I’d nullify.

The other day I saw someone posting about wanting to bring webrings back.

Unfortunately, it’s really hard to get people to care about things. “This site is convenient and your friends are here” trumps “and it’s run by nazi sympathizers” for most people, somehow.

That reminded me of https://dogparkdissidents.bandcamp.com/track/rainbow-drones-2

Rainbow drones with lesbian pilots
B stands for bomb in LGBT
Let’s go!

One of the reasons I’m glad I live in the city. There’re free concerts in the parks. Free movies, sometimes. I can bike or train to the beach. There’re meetups for all sorts of interests. When I lived in the suburbs, it was a wasteland. At best you could drive somewhere interesting.

I read a fiction in high school about like the afterlife, and it mentioned the best English playwright wasn’t Shakespeare. It was some nobody who only showed his writing to his neighbor, but the neighbor was an asshole and told him it was trash. Don’t remember anything else about it but that stuck with me.

That’s good but there’s a lot of room between creepy and effective

I never paid for it out of stubbornness.

Are you writing good messages to potential matches?

What part of the world are you in?

In my experience, tinder is pretty bad. I don’t use facebook so I can’t vouch for that one, but I assume it’s also bad. I never got a single match on Bumble.

Hinge, I got pretty good results on. Even though they’re all owned by the same Match Group, hinge seemed to work better. I could get about a date a week on hinge, as an average guy.

I think it worked better for me because you can send a note when you see someone you like, so if you can write complete sentences you’re already a cut above the average guy.

The CEO of my old company, who is middle eastern, said that “the republicans will unlock the economy”. He seemed sincere in his belief that it would be better for everyone.

I kind of hope ICE disappears him because the irony would be weapons grade, but I’m not sure even that would get him to admit that maybe trump and musk aren’t great.

Sometimes they wear a hat or armband for easy recognition.

In 2020, Joe Rogan moved from Los Angeles to Austin after visiting and realizing he didn’t have to wear a mask at a restaurant.

What a profoundly stupid man. Him and all his idiot followers deserve far worse than they’re getting.

I’ve been buying mostly mostly from Bandcamp. It’s worked out well. I have a big library, and the people making music got paid.

I did see a job post for a role that was just reviewing AI code. This is all terrible

Tell us more about your current usage. What are you doing and where is it failing?

Some of the other posts already hit the highlights. Have a variety of well lit photos. Your profile should be short, but with some unique-ish hooks for people to talk about (eg: “reading ‘such and such’ for my book club!” - several things for someone to ask about there).

When you do match with people, don’t send generic messages. Don’t just send “hey”. Go read https://nohello.net/en/ for a post about that in other contexts.

After you’ve had one or two successful exchanges, clear any deal breakers you might have (eg: “really enjoying this conversation but wanted to make sure you saw on my profile I have a toddler. Are you okay with that?”). If that succeeds, ask them out.

Don’t provide too many choices. People get overwhelmed easily. “I’d love to talk more about (whatever we we were talking about). Do you want to go on a date? I like (local bar), but (other bar) in your neighborhood looks fun, too!”. Two choices. They’ll probably pick one.

More specific advice may be available if you tell us more about your specific experience

I think mastodon does that but not twitter