This isn’t an issue of Lemmy itself, but I realized after I made the switch that I personally am a bit burnt-out from the Reddit model in general at this exact moment.

I’m using other Fedi apps more at this moment in time. I’ll probably be more active later in the year, but it’s a nice little break being on the smaller Fediverse apps where things are a bit more personal with the people I’m interacting with, which has been fun for me.

I think Lemmy/Piefed will grow to get more Reddit sized with time. Personally, I get like 10x the engagement on comments and posts here than I ever did on Reddit, which to me makes it much more joyful to be around.

MeetMe was one I used; Interpals was a website I used for penpals. Some other ones that seem alright are Hoop, Meetup, and Peeps.

Rotating shifts just sounds nuts. At that point it sounds like there was a clear hiring problem if they needed people to rotate their shifts.

That makes sense, if you’re working 12 hour shifts then at least your weeks are more predictable and you can have more baked in recovery days between shifts.

Contrasted with rotating 8 hour shifts where some of your days can be during the daylight and other shifts throughout the night, with less recovery time in between to prepare for the sweeping changes.

Are shifts typically 12 hours due to a staffing shortages or is it for better patient care? I’m all in favor of hospitals being efficient and optimal, but if more funding is required so that the hospitals are staffed properly then I don’t see why that’s not something being funded by the government.

The art style was stabbing my eyes back then. I could not do the thick line character outlines in the setting they chose. If they had a different background art style it could have worked for me but that was not happening.

That’s good that you are trying different things out, you really want to be casting a wide net to find your perfect matches. I’m of the belief that there’s probably only about ~5%-10% of the population that’s we are a perfect match for and vice versa, but that’s still a ton of real people and many of them may not be on dating apps.

I’ve been coaching a friend of mine that has had similar answers as you. He tried a different app and his match rate was still close to zero, if not zero. Oddly when he turned one year older his match rate went up a lot, so maybe there was a decent amount of women he was attracted to that wanted someone a bit older and more mature.

That’s good that you have had a friend look over your profile. I feel that dating profiles specifically are a bit clickbait-ish. Having some good quality photos couldn’t hurt your chances to having a conversation, do you have any pictures that show you socializing with peers and other women? I would encourage you to ask any women that are friends SOs or family to help give another look over your pictures and even your bio.

What I liked about some of the friend finding apps I mentioned is you could reach out without having to match with anyone. I was shocked at how many more conversations I was having with even people less than 5-10 minutes away from me.

That’s totally understandable to be limiting the amount of events for your own health. Being able to have fun while going out is an important part of it.

It’s okay to focus on yourself a bit more as well. I feel that dating comes second to your mental health. It’s important to show yourself some love to be able to share that same love with others. Growth and change don’t have to be linear, each step you take is worth the effort even if you feel like it’s been up and down. Self-optimizing feels like it should be helpful, until those shortcuts start hurting, as I’ve been sorely learning lol.

I recommend taking breaks from looking whenever you’re feeling burnt out, for your own sake. Sometimes it can be where you are that is impacting your outlooks. For instance if you’re trying to meet up with nerdy women in an area that isn’t very nerd friendly then there can be less nerdy women around your local area, at least on some of the apps.

I feel like so much of it really is about time and place being the main factors for finding your match. The owners of the dating apps want you to be on their dating apps as long as possible because they profit from it. Men and women get sick of these platform and pay for the pro-features that put their profile at the top of the stack for others to view. Many issues with modern dating is caused by these for-profit dating apps.

Are you liking lots of people on these apps or are you very selective about how you give out likes? If you’re not very selective you’re probably being flagged as a bot and it’s putting your profile at the bottom of the stack of profiles.

Are you using friend finding apps as well? I found that on those, the expectations are way more normal. If the goal is just to meet someone cool and then there could be a relationship after then that already lowers those guardrails that the dating apps cause, from my experience.

I highly recommend changing your approach if what you are currently doing is not working. I recommend joining a running or biking group local to meet people, or even looking for speed dating events in your city.

I guarantee there are people out there that would match your tempo perfectly. The caveat is putting yourself in spaces to meet these potential matches. Do you read, have any pets, or have any fun hobbies a potential partner would find attractive? If you do have any of these things, then mentioning it in your profiles and such can matter.

Someone I know, that I was strongly convinced was going to marry a body pillow, is married to a woman he has dated for a few years now. I firmly believe that there is hope for anyone to find a perfect partner. The crux is that you might have to change what you are doing to encounter some of these people.

I highly recommend using friend meeting apps, going to social events like running/biking clubs, or even going to a speed dating event in a city near you. There are countless perfect matches for you out there, but putting yourself in the right spaces to meet these people is what matters.

Those dating apps flag your account as likely a bot if you’re swiping “like” very often. These apps put you at the bottom of the ‘stack’ on these ‘like lists’ for women, so your account is literally never coming up for them to see you. If what you’re currently doing isn’t working it’s important to try something else, just like you might do when you’re out fishing.

Biden was pro-Israel, I don’t see him personally having the funds stopped since he believed whatever he was being told about them trying their best and using the funds and weapons for defense only. Harris was not pro-Israel, imo, but she was directed to be lock-step with Biden on the campaign trail and not piss off the pro-Israel PACs.

We know that Netanyahu and Biden were working on a peace deal. There were some reports that this peace deal was pushed back though due to Trump and Netanyahu talking. It’s possible that Israel saw the ability to push the deal back as a win-win. Israel was going to have to scale things back quite a lot under Harris.

From Netanyahu’s own perspective it was more advantageous to them if this was an issue for US voters, and they’ve more or less been given more power to do what they want. Also since Trump has not come down hard on how they did engagement. I believe this is why the peace deal did not happen before the election, despite it being pushed for. Plus they already knew Biden wasn’t going to play hardball with them.

There were lots of different parts at play in 2024 ultimately which made it quite a mess. Both political parties receiving notable donations from pro-Israel PACs definitely made the situation more complicated, especially when some of those PACs would run ads that heavily implied false claims about those candidates that weren’t avidly pro-Israel.

I disagree that you can’t have those reforms be done that way. I agree with you that the changes are not in-line with unchecked capitalism, but the whole concept of the “invisible hand” is just for show anyways.

To give some accessible examples; you can’t house homeless people or give people healthcare and higher education because homelessness and debt is a whip to keep the workers working for whatever wage and conditions are offered by a capital owner.

Corporations and bought politicians may try to prevent the help from trickling down, but help can actually reach people in areas that care about helping more than just extracting wealth.

I think the problem is that issues are pretty complex and always involve money being spent to address or fix the problems. The core issue is people have been hesitant to individually fund the solutions since it’s easier to spread the costs out among everyone (e.g., individual states understandably didn’t want to bear the burden alone and wanted the federal government to bear the costs). At this point in time though, that looks to be not an option blue states can count on anymore. Blue States need to individually fund these programs to help people in their state, and only afterwards could those help options scale to help people federally.

You can’t deconstruct racism because it was invented in the first place to keep the working class at war with itself rather than struggling against the conditions set by the ruling class.

I agree with you that racism isn’t something that will go away any time soon unfortunately. I believe social media has only made issues worse regarding this with all the bots and bad actors trying to stoke some people’s racism and hatred.

If those people have something/someone else they can blame for their problems then it’s another way of getting around people’s racial biases. Bernie Sanders for instance has been having success recently among people living in rural West Virginia to direct their frustration towards the billionaires causing their problems rather than towards working-class people.

You can’t stop imperialism because infinite growth requires infinite and unrestricted expansion into new territories.

The big corporations are more or less starting to hit that wall now where they can’t really expand too much more. Foreign markets have become more and more saturated with existing businesses which make it harder for these conglomerates to get a foothold. They’ve been underpaying about as much as they can get away with and cost cutting about as much as they can as well. They’ve big corporations have more or less sent themselves into a downward spiral where pretty soon no one is going to be able to afford their garbage. When a majority of people’s income is going forward their bare necessities rather than on things they want it doesn’t bode well for the corporations who have nothing left to fleece away.

The system of capitalism manufactures its own required conditions through cruelty and social inequality (and yet, it’s these very things that lead to resistance), and without those necessary components the whole system collapses. The ruling class will not allow this to happen, because this system serves their material interests, and thus fundamental change cannot happen until the working class; whose material interests are directly opposed to those of the ruling class; is in power.

The billionaires and big corporations have gotten a bit too greedy lately, the bubble they created where people are just comfortable enough not to care about how rich these people are is very close to popping. The fact that working class people can’t even afford to buy a home is a bad sign for these corporations, just where are they expecting working class people to have families after all?

The interests of working class people to have their needs met is growing by the day. If inflation keeps soaring as we have seen, then progressive change is going to be demanded from our representatives. I believe Blue states should be the focus for that since any corporate politician paying lip service can be primaried with an actual progressive willing to fund programs to help people.

The ruling class will pay lip service and the occasional half-measure in order to obscure this reality and make “reformism” seem possible, but 1) that is all they will do especially in the absence of a real threat to their power and 2) they will always eventually claw back even the smallest and hardest-fought of crumbs. Crumbs are good and all but there comes a point where our energy is better spent fighting for the whole cake.

The game is close to being up for the corporate leaders where they actually will need to do their jobs; people are needing these programs now more than ever since wages have not kept up with inflation. The demand is they either help their constituents or they lose their jobs at this point. They can try to push things back and try to keep getting their donor money, but people have caught on. The cake can be owned if we primary any Blue state congressperson that isn’t willing to pass progressive programs. If we wanted to make it even easier to primary people, then we could also vote in an alternative voting system in Blue states.

I wouldn’t say those three things are inherently logically incompatible, but there would be a lot of grey areas.

The power structure of the federal government doesn’t make it any easier to actually exercise the federal government to accomplish helpful objectives, but making things worse is a relatively easy exercise.

The focus on state level politics seems much more meaningful to actually accomplish any goals, since at least there is not as big of a hurdle where land and money have more power/representation than real people.

For the record, I said several authoritarians, I didn’t say every one was one. I would say your reading of my comment was uncharitable at best and rude at worst.

Marxism itself wasn’t necessarily tainted, but his ideas of socialism and communism definitely had a social stain associated with them. So by association it had a black mark.

I think it’s pretty clear that we haven’t seen it for what it was supposed to be, when it was weaponized by authoritarians and then attacked by capitalists. It’s supposed to be a grand thing of the people coming together, not stained in blood.

I think you may have misread what I said there about the reformist part. His ideas were revolutionary for the time, but many of the ideas could be applied by reformist.

I think his ideas can reform a capitalist system. It’s probably one of many ways his ideas get off the ground. The big thing was changing the system, it’s not necessarily all about how you get there.

What do you mean? A reformed and reforged system is a new system.

I could give you a multi-hour long breakdown of my views but something tells you’re not interested in a long-form dialogue here.

I think you’re spot on, Marx specifically has a lot of connotations the general, uninformed public is terrified of.

I remember when I had to read it for a class the first time and the vibes in the room was exactly like you’re opening some of book of sin. I was scared of a book, as a college student at the time. Then we actually started reading it, and it was like “wow this guy gets the issues of the system”.

While I personally have agreements and some disagreements with Marx, I think he helped give me a lot of solid ideas that the system itself could be reformed and reforged.

I think it’s a shame that his ideas had carried a public taint to them for so long, due to several authoritarians co-opting his message. I have no clue why it’s not required high school reading at this point, since I feel it’d go a long ways towards helping more people get curious about improving and changing the system for the better.

I feel I get that way when I’m out of practice for too long. These days, I just need a bit of coffee and I’m usually good to go with some light small talk lol.

Such days don’t need to be so far away. I feel that taking in the joys of the moment has helped me a lot with being able to thoroughly enjoy the small things in life again. There could always be unpleasantness in front of me or behind me, but in this moment I can make space for the life I want to be living and being the person I want to be.