Ask Lemmy

So I'm European and am aware that American culture is very different in many ways. Idk if this is just some type of thing about American culture and mentality in general that has always been there or if it is a trend that started recently in the past few years.

I don't wanna generalize any country and know that not everyone is like this but I definitely noticed this type of pattern.

I increasingly noticed in the past years that many Americans are very hateful/cruel, are lacking empathy, become more and more aggressive and it seems like it’s becoming worse.

I'm not sure if this is maybe related to Americans needing to be "though" or something because I always hear about that the American mentality is pretty competitive and individualistic and instead of saying "we will go through this this together" they often have this mentality "it's either me or you but it can't be both who will win". I mean I'm pretty sure that all these things like this biking culture, driving big "manly" pick up trucks, wrestling etc. are pretty prevalent in America compared to other countries and American culture generally seems very loud and direct. I think here in Europe people are way more reserved and I guess the strongest opposite to Americans are probably Japanese people.

But to me this seems to go to the point where many Americans seem to have this attitude and are very ignorant and arrogant and basically think they're better than anyone else and they only care for themselves.

And it feels like it's so extreme to the point where everyone is hating, attacking and bashing on everyone and instead of being stronger united they're just fighting against themselves and putting each other down and they always focus on the negative.

Especially online it seems like that no matter what the topic is and independent from whether they are Democrat or Republican they're constantly bashing on someone and baselessly calling them "weak" even though in reality they're probably the ones who are weak and trample onto people cause they're obviously dissatisfied with themselves and aren't able to man-up to face the real issues. You just can't blame everything on others and have to take responsibility for yourself!

Some stuff that I've seen on American news like "Fox News" just seemed crazy where the reporters personally attack and bash on people which is something that would be unthinkable in Europe.

Even though many people were saying that Americans have this "fake friendliness" I'm thinking that even that disappeared in the last few years and they're becoming more open to show what they really think which seems to be that they "don't give a f* about you".

Many Americans that I encountered seem so aggressive like they always need to bash onto something in this toxic way even though they're actually in a very good position and have a lot to be grateful for. Like in other poor countries people have real problems and are literally starving because they have no food or they have war in their country.

I'm always thinking "dude, you need to chill" cause literally no one is attacking them and they're fully secure. But it seems like they're always searching for a fight or something.

It seems like many of these people are so disconnected from nature and become less human and I wonder why they can't just spend meaningful time with other people being positive and not constantly waste their time with hating or complaining about something. Because this just doesn't work and in a society with multiple people especially in a world where everything is more connected than ever we need to hold together and have empathy for one and another. That is one of the core morals that a human needs!

It seems like many Americans generally have this "cruelness" about them cause I also heard things that many Americans are physically beating their children and even the fact that guns are popular and legal in America to the point where you can't even safely walk alone in public during the night or safely send your kid to school and also this general mindset of America is doing everything the best and "America first". I really don't wanna bash on Americans at all and only want to share my experience because I just haven't experienced this type of hate here in Europe in that extreme way and it just makes me very uncomfortable because I feel like this mood is affecting the whole world since American media and influence is prevalent everywhere.

To me it feels like this won't end well and it feels like it's just a matter of time until something very bad happens like the second civil war or so and the storm on the capitol might be nothing compared to that. But maybe that's the only way they will finally learn if they're lacking these core morals and integrity and they don't get educated about that in school.

It also seems like they can't handle critique and can't admit it/stand to those things. When I once asked a similar question on Reddit the only thing I got back was bashing and personal attacks and I hope it's not the same here, cause that is literally just proofing my point. There needs to be constructive discussions.

@[email protected] At what point do you feel something should have it's own account?

(e.g. Business, Project or Idea)

And please don't tell me "just change jobs".

For a few days now if I use my sh.itjust.works profile comments are slow to load and often posts timeout and refuse to load at all. I even tried posting this question using my sh.itjust.works profile and it wouldn't post at all. Is there something up with their servers or something?

In my house, the heater basically stops working every year and my dad put some like "bandaid" solution over it with manipulating some wiring, idk what they do. But like, every year, the heater would stop working like several times throughout the winter and constanly needs to be fixed. But this year it just stopped working completely. Like I google it and those heaters are like $2000 to $2500 brand new, so yea, I get it, parents want to save money, but like, having the heat stop few times a year feels like living in a developing country tbh 😓. So now I'm basically just relying on those portable heater things to stay warm, and my cat is feeling too cold so she's staying in bedrooms most of the time because its where the portable heaters are at, when she normally just wanders the entire house.

I am trying to use the search bar but it is not the best, not showing some of communities on different instances.

Is it possible to see the full list of Lemmy communities? I am using Voyager BTW.

I swear sometimes I feel like I'm reading a bad newspaper comment section, like everyone is a poorly trained AI that just spouts default politically-oriented replies. The New York Times comment section for any given topic (not just current events, also culture etc) is way more interesting than most of it here.

Note this also applies to a LOT of reddit but there are some subreddits that are more interesting. A lot of them have their own circlejerk but at least when I first find them the "game" is new so I'm eager to read what people have to say.

Where on Lemmy is the actually good or interesting discussion happening, please, I really want something better, I am eager to contribute too, it's one of my resolutions for 2025.

I’m a business analyst, and a big part of my job involves working with engineers and product managers to gather detailed, in-depth information. For reasons I don’t fully understand (though I have my theories), I often find that engineers, in particular, seem oddly reluctant to share the information I need. This makes the process more challenging than I’d like. Does anyone have tips or tricks for building trust with engineers to encourage them to share information more willingly and quickly?

EDIT: Here's a summary with more details for those who requested more info: I’m working on optimizing processes related to our in-house file ingestion system, which we’ve been piecing together over time to handle tasks it wasn’t originally designed for. The system works well enough now, but it’s still very much a MacGyver setup—duct tape and dental floss holding things together. We got through crunch time with it, but now the goal is to refine and smooth everything out into a process that’s efficient, clear, and easy for everyone to follow.

Part of this involves getting all the disparate systems and communication silos talking to each other in a unified way—JIRA is going to be the hub for that. My job is to make sure that the entire pipeline—from ticket creation, to file ingestion, to processing and output—is documented thoroughly (but not pedantically) and that all teams involved understand what’s required of them and why.

Where I’m running into challenges is in gathering the nitty-gritty technical details from engineers. I need to understand how their processes work today, how they’ve solved past issues, and what they think would make things better in an ideal world. But I think there’s some hesitation because they’re worried about “incriminating” themselves or having mistakes come back to haunt them.

I’ve tried to make it clear that I’m not interested in punishing anyone for past decisions or mistakes—on the contrary, I want to learn from them to create a better process moving forward. My goal is to collaborate and make their jobs easier, not harder, but I think building trust and comfort will take more time.

If anyone has strategies for improving communication with engineers—especially around getting them to open up about technical details without fear—I am all ears.

Not just websites and online services but games, stores, restaurants, etc are they? Have you noticed significant quality reduction with nearly matching price increases?

Several movie and TV sites have come and go where you can just visit and watch without even creating an account. Quality might not be as good as a paid service and they are no doubt in the grey-to-red zone legally. I don't see the same service for music.

Why do you think is there such a difference in trends?

I am about to begin receiving a benefit to the tune of an extra $2k per month that I don't have a need for. I'm fortunate enough that all my needs are met financially and this is truly bonus income. If it didn't exist, my life wouldn't change significantly, and it's not enough to quit my job. Trying to get others thoughts on what would be good uses of this money that would benefit me and my family.

Thoughts:

• ALL_IN_VTSAX - hit FIRE goal earlier than planned
• kiddo's college fund - hit funding goal earlier than planned
• do fun things - vacation fund, memories with family
• fund hobbies - buy things I don't need but "lower-guilt" use of spare funds

Probably a combination of all of the above, but interested to hear the thoughts of others.

I'm also reminded of:

When you have more than you need, build a bigger table.

Curious of ways to help influence things in a bubble larger than my family too.

I see a lot of people blaming tiktok and "brain rot" content for the increasing ADHD diagnoses, but I think its a matter of better detection, similar to how OCD and autism diagnosis have increased too.

Also as someone with ADHD, it feels like shit that it could be "my fault" or that I have brainrot.

Please redirect if there is a more appropriate community for this question.

I'm dealing with dry air, and the humidifiers I had bought before got the tiniest grits of dust or something in them and leaked their whole tank of water. Turns out they needed purified water or distilled water to function long term.

I just want to put tap water into a thing and get humidity into the air. Any suggestions?

Edit, they were indeed ultrasonic humidifiers.

I want a single feed that I can customize and preferably weight based on how important I think something is.

The perfect solution would support Lemmy, RSS, Mastodon and maybe even Bluesky. And would allow me to increase the visibility of certain content. For instance a specific RSS feed

So I accidentally turned backup on with my butt or something the other day, and Google Photos decided it was fine to upload to the cloud all my photos which I keep locally on my device.

I don't need or want cloud backup, thanks very much, and I didn't enjoy having to research how to delete all the images from the cloud while keeping them in my device, and enjoyed even less then doing all of that manually.

Zero out of five stars, I did not enjoy and would not recommend.

Now, can you recommend a free app that lets me browse and manage my own personal local collection of images? My preference is for something with an intuitive, easy to use interface. What are y'all lemmings using?

Dollar Tree.

It used to have been an unreal experience witnessing the existence of these stores when they came out. Everything for a $1. No joke. The quality of some things have had corners cut and the quantity might've been laughable, but there was a good solid purpose for these stores.

And then I started seeing the signs after a few good solid years of shopping there. The first sign was how they stopped selling eggs. This was before the Bird Flu. They stopped selling eggs because they simply couldn't afford to buy stock and then the price hike to $1.25 happened.

And now they've hiked the prices again to $1.50 for some products in a handful of stores. Additionally, they've incorporated items going from $2 ~ $15 so they have long lost the role and title of being the most affordable places to shop.

Gone were the days.

Hello,

I was with my brother and his group of friends, and one of his friends was talking about various drugs. My brother told him, "Shut up, you're going to put us on a watchlist," and he said it in a serious tone. It felt pretty dystopian when he said that; honestly, it was a bit eerie, mostly because he's being controlled and self-censoring without anyone there, and he seems to be aware of the freedom he's giving up, yet he continues to act this way. I've talked to my brother about privacy and why it's important many times, but he would rather live this type of controlled life and doesn't care because "they already know everything about me anyway." He's in his early 20s.

Has anyone else had moments like this?

I try to join about 5 minutes before because I'm terrified of being the first person or the last.

A week ago on the radio, there was an interview broadcast where someone remarked "if dueling was legal, mass shooters and terrorists wouldn't be terrorizing, they'd be dueling" which led me down a rabbit hole which led me to wanting to make something out of it as it's now one of my fixations. Throughout history, though, it has come in many kinds, from guns to swords to jousting and, at one time, Canadian logrolling. What kind, real or fictional, is your favorite?