Also Mustelids, because Mustelids are hella cute and who can blame nature for wanting to create more cute things?!

I think I experienced similar feelings which usually appear when I was comparatively “better” than during the times that counted as major depressive episodes, according to the professionals I dealt with.

But honestly the way our psyche deals with depression is highly individual and good, responsible therapists/psychiatrists/neurologists/… consider a variety of symptoms before making a final diagnosis. With the exception of a high risk of suicide which will immediately place the sufferer in the “major depressive disorder” category, because of the immediate danger to their lives.

What I want to say: Probably only an expert will be able to tell you exactly what kind of depression you have/had. And I cannot claim to be one. I am simply someone who suffers from it too and I read up about it.

I am sorry for being the bearer of sad news. Suicidal thoughts are the most easily recognizable of the symptoms. And even if they are less persistent between major depressive episodes, a lot of us are still stuck with depression in one form or another for the rest of our lives.

And that’s the difference between minor depressive disorder and major depressive disorder. Thank you for attending Depression 101.

I moments of crisis, I will just start crying, but I can do that very fast.

CxU: Die AfD sind keine Rechtsextremen und müssen nicht verboten werden; aber die bösen Queers sind totalitär. Alles klar.

When “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” was shot, Harrison Ford was 47. Sean Connery was 59 and played the father of Ford’s character.

I pity the guy. He tried really damn hard (without much success) and then I had to murder him.

If you point boils down to: I never experienced this, therefore you must be lying; we can stop having this conversation.

I really do not appreciate the insinuations, particularly not “If the biggest hurdle you’ve ever experienced in unionizing an office is “tankies””. Have I said that? You have no basis for this claim and if you really want to question my union activities in order to score a point, that says more about you than me.

Internet communities where an administrator imposes some kind of auto-ban rule for using keywords they don’t like. Or power users posting spam in the chats because they’ve got the tact of a ball-peen hammer.

Well, as I have done some modding here on Lemmy and previously Reddit, you can probably count me among one of those administrators/mods, because that’s where I encountered many of them, apart from the particular incident in my previous comment.

The communities I have managed always had tight rules in regards to what was allowed and what was not. Yet far too many tankies did not care much about those rules at all. A particular favorite of the tankies was…

…and it was explicitly forbidden for anyone to use that. So guess, how much “fun” it was to argue with tankies in modmail why they were supposed to be allowed to use that term because they were “suffering under capitalism” and the users they argued with “deserved” to be called that.

It was not only the disregard for the rules that was aggravating, but their complete lack of empathy for whoever they argued with. They completely denied that other users could “suffer under capitalism” too, showing exactly the lack of empathy for others that I decried in my original comment.

You may have made different experiences, but these interactions and the previously mentioned unionization effort shaped my perception of tankies. And ultimately that’s where things come down for me: If people cannot leave their ill behavior at the door and show no respect for others who may be in a similar situation as they are (let alone work with them), they do not deserve to be part of that community.

I am not going to respond to you in detail, because - I think - we mostly agree with each other, but allow me to explain where I am coming from with an anecdote: I was once part of a grassroots movement which aimed to unionize a particular sector of the entertainment industry. (Sorry, for being vague, even after all those years, the events are still a sore point for many involved.) There were a few hundred people taking part in all of this.

One chunk of people who joined the group were the worst kind of tankies who would hurl abuse at anyone who did not agree with them. The reasons for that behavior varied and ranged from the entirely trivial to the usual “Stalinism was great, anybody who says something different is a CIA plant.”

One regular point of contention was tankies’ demand to include praise for China in the group’s official communications, which was way off topic for what the group was about. Of course, most of the group refused and - because the tankies were a very vocal minority, they could not ultimately prevent democratic decisions of the majority. Which - of course - annoyed them even more and created even more drama. Rinse and repeat.

The group ultimately imploded during the Black Lives Matter protests. One major reason for that was because the tankies prevented a statement of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. AFAIR the justification was something like “fighting racism is a distraction from the real struggle of the working class”. Most of the PoCs left the group in exasperation because the group could not even speak out against racist police violence without the tankies completely derailing the proceedings.

The reason why I bring this up is because this was a group of workers who were actively working on organizing a worker’s movement. But it was not enough for the tankies, they had to bring in their political sectarianism and demanding adherence to it, while simultaneously claiming that the others in the group did not represent workers like they did and thus the tankies were justified to pressure and abuse the other members until they agreed with the tankies’ positions.

So yes, empathy cuts both ways. And I may have empathy for tankies on a personal level, but if people can’t leave their ill behavior at the door and show solidarity towards their fellow workers when trying to get a grassroots movement off the ground, then these people have no place in it.

Of all the ideologies in the world, they chose communism. Why? Probably because they hurt. Because they saw the ugliness of capitalism and wanted something better. Because, at some point, they were moved by the idea that we could live without exploitation. […] The pain turned inward, and now they lash out at anyone who doesn’t match their script. That’s not an excuse. But it is something to hold with empathy.

I wish I could easily subscribe to your call for empathy. The reason why I can’t is because I have seen so many tankies deny the pain of others. It’s not just the historical revisionism and the denial of Stalinist atrocities, but denying that people in the here and now are suffering like they do. Often this was tied to them insisting that they had every right to abuse others, because they themselves were suffering from capitalism. They completely failed to acknowledge that everyone around them was suffering under the very same conditions.

And there is the crux of the issue: One unspoken, implicit tenet of their beliefs is the denying others the same humanity they claim to uphold and represent. They demand to be accepted and their behavior to be tolerated, but will not grant the same basic rights to others.
The same notion allows them to deny the humanity of victims of Stalinist and Maoist terror.

And that’s why I have a hard time to show them empathy, because I know they will not show the same empathy towards me.

Fun fact: The mouse was already invented in the 60s and was part of the famous “Mother of all Demos” which shaped modern computing like no other single event since then.

The Wikipedia article about Jonathan

Yes, I think we are both in agreement that there is a distinction between intelligence and education. And - while these two points often get thrown together - it matters in political contexts, particularly because the Trumpists attempt to destroy the education system which they see as an obstacle to their rule. Critical thinking and language skills matter.

AFAIK that depends really: Sure, those who are not really part of the “cult” will likely drop out, but the “ever faithful” will double down, because they will consider such hardship to be a test of their faith.

That effect can be seen here:

The problem is that it’s not a question of intelligence.

Trumpists and their ilk are living in echo chambers of “alternative facts”, perpetuated by Fox News, Murdoch newspapers and an nearly endless amount of rightwing influencers (starting with Rogan at the top). They are not looking at what’s happening, because they are surrounded in a very comforting bubble of disinfo and propaganda that confirms everything they wanted to hear: The illegals get deported, the queers get finally put in their place, the liberals are frothing with anger, finally men are back in charge who tell women where they belong and America is going to be “great” again any moment now.

It’s fascism and fascism has always been a “cult”: The early pioneers of fascism (particularly D’Annunzio and later Mussolini) explicitly said their aim was to create a “secular religion” around the nation, the people and the leader. And you can only be a member of that religion if you accept its “truth” and reject everything that contradicts it.

Very smart people can adhere to a religion for a variety of reasons and the most obvious one is (and always has been) because it promises them power over others.

Obligatory footnote: EvoPsych is mostly bunk, deeply intertwined with eugenics and riddled with homophobia, sexism and rape apologia.