Because the economic conditions of the modern world allow for tyranny and the people haven’t figured out that we need to unite and overthrow the tyrants to build a better society.

But that never happened. We never decided that. No one even asked me. Again, I never opted in and there’s no realistic way to opt out. I’m far more afraid of the state than I am from my neighbors, and if I had a real choice, I would opt out immediately.

I think there can sometimes be tension between these two ideals, as with any two disparate goals but I think they are often more aligned than people think. Freedom from terror and violence is an important freedom as well.

Social contract theory is statist propaganda. Even before I knew anything about politics or political theory I was so confused by this idea.

It’s just there to create an illusion of consent for state oppression. Even though there’s no realistic way to opt out, and we never even decided to opt in in the first place.

What kind of crazy contract is that?

This is just not in any way accurate. Free speech means the government cannot penalize anyone for speech with specific narrow exceptions. Deporting them for such speech is obviously penalizing them. Laws or no, this is unconstitutional.

I can see why you would say this but the real issue in my opinion is not the annoying users, but the extremely intolerant mods and admins who will remove any factual information that is inconvenient to their narratives and ban you for trivial infractions. Even mild criticism or discussion of historical facts around the CPC or Hamas will result in an immediate ban, sometimes from the entire instance. It’s not possible to have healthy discussions on these instances.

I don’t mind discussing those ideas elsewhere but it simply can’t happen on Lemmy.ml due to the restrictive moderation.

Probably fine as long as you don’t talk about politics or anything related to China or other “socialist” countries. But yeah I get the feeling.

Someday I hope someone else will be running this project, or we all end up shifting to another federated software like PieFed or Mbin. You could consider contributing to those projects instead if you are wary of the lemmy devs–they’re all interoperable. But the idea behind the fediverse and open source software is that even the devs will have limited power, so I think we’re still better off than on Reddit, despite these issues.

I’m a special snowflake and I don’t really identify with people in any particular area. Though I guess I do know my tribe when I meet them. But we don’t really have a name. Intellectual hippies maybe.

If I had to pick one then probably my neighborhood is how I would identify.

So you want him to become more tolerant, is that your goal?

I don’t think it’s always necessary or even helpful to sever relationships solely because someone has toxic political beliefs.

I would think more in terms of what problems do you see with this relationship and what actions, if any could potentially solve these problems? What are you trying to achieve by ending this relationship?

It holds slightly more ground but it’s still hateful propaganda.

The existence of conscientious objectors alone renders its logic invalid. And there are many other issues as well.

Does it have similar functionality to discord? I looked into signal but it’s basically just group chat and there’s no way to organize subtopics so it’s not too useful for what I want to do.

What makes it part of the fediverse then?

This is the objectively correct way to eat kiwis whether society is ready or not.

You can post separate comments and ask people to upvote the one they agree with, though there’s no way to restrict how people vote up and down and the exact vote tallies will vary depending on your instance due to the way federation works.

If you want to have a very rigorous and well-controlled poll an external site may be the best solution, but for informal things the above may suffice.

I would advise you not to hate people you don’t know just because they fly a flag but your feelings are valid. Nationalism is a toxic ideology founded in violence and oppression at its very core.

Kind of like how some parts of our universe are so far away that they’re physically unreachable.

I think the age gap is all the more reason to go. Large age gaps aren’t automatically exploitative but they can more easily become abusive due to differences in power and life experience.

I would keep an open mind but also watch for signs of abusive or controlling behavior. If this does happen, it will be better to be present to support your son if he needs help than to have the moral purity of not having been involved at all.

Looking out over unbroken old-growth tropical rainforest as far as the eye could see. It was beautiful and gave me hope for our slowly dying world.

People have already pointed out that this is very normal, but I also want to push back on the framing here.

Does it actually matter whether this is normal or not? Everyone has sex a little differently and that is OK. This is the way your partner’s body works right now.

That said, while you haven’t stated this explicitly, it sounds like maybe you are wanting the receptive part of sex to last longer. If so, there are a number of strategies that can make this possible. Going slower or changing things up, etc. It is probably a good idea to think carefully about how you make this request though. Due to the unrealistic expectations you have fallen prey to, this can be a sensitive topic for many people. I wouldn’t frame it in a way that suggests you aren’t satisfied, but rather that you think a few of these strategies would be fun to try to see if you can extend your sessions and have more pleasure.

But good sex is not a natural talent that people just have. It happens by clearly communicating and pursuing both your and your partner’s desires. That’s an important skill the practice to improve things.