The math is not right. Percentages don’t multiply like that.

A change from 0.25 to 7.25 over 71 years means an annual increase of about 5%. That 5% annual change, starting with $7.25 15 years ago, would take us to around $15 today.

You all are going to give me Homestuck flashbacks.

Wars tend to involve civilians getting hurt, because yeah, it’s cheaper and easier to disregard international law.

I wouldn’t generalize that to evil always winning vs good, though. Human life is complicated, and mean, but progress gets made anyway. There’s a reason most people dislike war.

Ah, yeah. I consider myself lucky to be aroace because most people struggle less with “imagine not being attracted to people” than “imagine you want sex without romance,” which requires defining what those mean, and also convincing them that you’re not just afraid of commitment. I imagine it’s getting more publicity over time but the average person (and even the average queer person) just hasn’t heard of the split attraction model and has never thought of romanticism and sexuality as separate things.

Yeah, pretty much. I’m not repulsed by romance/sex but I enjoy songs more when they’re about other things. Lemon Demon sings songs about stuff like [having a toy train set] or [being a haunted, half-human arcade machine] or [being Ronald Reagan in a romantic relationship], Tally Hall sings about various subjects in weird ways (see The Bidding or Turn The Lights Off), and Will Wood sings about mental health and how things interact with that (see Love, Me Normally or Dr. Sunshine Is Dead)

I agree that Threadiverse is the best choice for a name for combined Lemmy+Kbin. I think I’ll still just say Lemmy when introducing it to friends, but it’s definitely helpful to have an agreed-upon word that correctly represents that Lemmy and Kbin work together in a way that, for example, Lemmy and Mastodon don’t really.

If you’re looking for something arcadey and replayable, the Touhou series might be worth looking into. Great music, too.

I tried out Lemmy because I wanted to support the protests against Reddit corporation, then I found I like the topic-based format a lot more than the person-based format most sites use. Tried out Mastodon to support having a good Twitter alternative back during the musk takeover, didn’t like it as much and stopped posting there.

In general I’m excited about federated social spaces, since they allow for better moderation and less enshittification than the walled gardens that populate Web 2.0. If more Fediverse social media sites come around that start gaining genuine traction, then I’ll use them just because they’ll make me feel excited for the future.

I’ve also used Tumblr because my favorite youtuber recommended it, and I liked the posts that got screenshotted off of it, and I stuck around because I liked learning about disability and queerness (and discovered from tumblr that I myself am asexual). I only ever lurked, though. Lemmy is the first social media platform that I’ve genuinely interacted with, unless Discord counts.

A big part of this can be the family people grew up in. I have a few friends who interrupt constantly because that’s just how their family has conversations.

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/104422

Also, IKEA ran an advertisement in support of gay marriage, using the shark. I forget, though, if that came before or after it becoming a trans symbol.

It's exciting to see the positivity and hope everyone seems to have about lemmy/kbin and the fediverse. I think in general new and smaller social media places tend to have a more positive atmosphere. But it might last longer this time, both due to the lack of corporate interests and just because things can be small and new on the fediverse without it being as much of a problem. The fediverse overall encourages a consciousness of the types of communities you are joining and the cultural differences between them, I'm sure eventually there will be many different communities with different atmospheres and we'll be able to make informed decisions about which to join.