This was the way it was for me when I was younger. We didn't have to do anything. Just have someone around. We'd read comics, play games, do whatever. Just be around each other, doing anything or nothing. Sure, there'd be times we were very active together or go do something. But, it was very cool and fun to just have someone around and hang out for the company...

That's what I had going. I was fine with supporting the creators that I subscribed to. I have a whitelist on my ad blockers for sites that I support and have decent ads (if it looks like "Ow! My Balls" from Idiocracy, I block them). But, YouTube added WAY too many ads, unskippable ads, ads everywhere. It's too much, and the creators get less and less. I block everything I can on YouTube now. Some are still getting through, but most of the time I'm good. Still some great creators, and I'm going to start downloading the ones I really want to keep for reference.

We have a Mexican store here (one of several), but people come from ~90 miles to come to THIS one. None of the others in town, just this one. There’s a ton of others between here and there but this one is special. It’s not fake documents because I know other places that have those.

Not sure what they’re doing but they’re always busy and a ton of out of town/out of state people come and go.

So, the ones Trump said would vote for him? He loves the uneducated and gullible!

For some reason both sides have adopted a “with us or against us”

I hate this. I hate that if you are not 100% aligned to a certain groups policies, you're pretty much the devil in disguise. A leftist Democrat that supports the 2A? You're a "hard core racist bigot conservative that needs to home someone you love die in a shooting to see how you like it!". Those people are insane. It's not how the majority thinks, but those that do are very outspoken and loud so they have way more visibility.

There are a lot of people (on both sides) that can see how extreme parts of their "side" are and are very self aware of those things. They'll call out their own side for going too far, being too weird, and saying unfactual things. Those are the people that you can have real conversations with. You won't agree, you won't change opinions, but the conversation is generally very informative and you're not getting pissed off at each other (or you do, but you still show each other a mutual respect).

I cannot stand those with the "with us or against us" mentality. They really need to GTFO. And they absolutely cannot say they are patriots and support America first and everything that goes along with that. Because our country was founded on different principals, people with different viewpoints, and we created ways to allow those various viewpoints to exist together. We WANT to have different viewpoints instead of just allowing one to flourish and grow to an extreme and heavy handed policy. If you support the "Us" part of that, we are ALL with us, even if our views are opposing and we refuse to even meet in the middle.

That was the difference when I was a kid. When my sister had Barbie and I played with them, they weren't pretty women climbing the corporate ladder. They were fodder for my Transformers and other toys. :) The nuclear bombs did come eventually...

No respect for anyone but themselves was the telling part, though. Let's help others, homeless, less fortunate, immigrants, poor. Let's help others with healthcare, education, housing, food. "No! I'm not paying taxes so someone else can get something for FREE!".

Ok, now I know who they are talking about.

I use all the tools I can. Reddit has a great community in a lot of subreddits that are extremely helpful. So are many standalone forums for the topics I enjoy. Lemmy is just another option for great content. I prefer Lemmy to Reddit as a platform, but the content - I really don't care where it's hosted as long as it's free (free as in freedom of information, not just cost).

Reddit's gone to shit, but I'll still hit those SysAdmin and other subs for information. Too valuable not to.

Effective, sure. But, if a company is truly engaging, listening, adapting to the employees needs and feedback, unions would be a lot less needed or effective. When companies are exploiting workers, lowering wages and benefits, causing more problems and not listening to employees, unions can really make a huge difference. If the people are looking to unionize, the company is failing and the workers aren't being listened to and they want change to happen.

Unions can do a lot of good. I'm very pro-union. But, people don't go looking to unionize if things are going great and the company is really listening and adapting to employee concerns.