They don’t know what Reddit is in the least. Using email can occasionally be a challenge. They’re hippy artist types. Mostly they only know Facebook so they can sell their art. It’s a different life.

Fair. I’ve been trying to explain Lemmy and the Fediverse to my non-tech friends and it has been…entertaining.

I’m not a millennial, but I do kinda sorta work in IT, so half guilty as charged. Back to practicing my consummate Vs now.

I wonder what my Trogdor the Burninator sticker is secretly telling people about me.

Go read the news yourself then. It’s all out there. People have lost access to health benefits, water hygiene standards are being relaxed, critical cybersecurity initiatives are being cut, national parks will be less accessible to all (some of Colorado’s have already announced they’ll be closed two days a week), the impacts are both immediate and longer term, and far reaching. If you want to hear about immediate direct impact, a critical domestic violence center in Colorado that has been providing cross-departmental case management and victim advocacy since 2016 will likely have to shut down because its federal funding was cut by DOGE and victims are currently being turned away. The immediate, very real, impacts are EASY to discover with a minimal amount of research effort. The larger ones are just starting to make themselves known.

Yeah, there may be more that hadn’t made the published list yet. sigh Hard to keep up…

ETA: I don’t think the IRS is on there either. DOGE is cutting their funding too.

• Department of Education (ED)
• U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
• Department of Defense (DoD)
• National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
• General Services Administration (GSA)
• Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
• Department of Agriculture (USDA)
• Department of Commerce (DOC)
• Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
• Department of the Treasury (TREAS)
• Department of Labor (DOL)
• Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
• Department of Justice (DOJ)
• Social Security Administration (SSA)
• Department of State (DOS)
• Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
• Small Business Administration (SBA)
• Department of Transportation (DOT)
• Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
• U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
• Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
• National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
• Department of Energy (DOE)
• National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
• Railroad Retirement Board (RRB)

From the official DOGE website.

You are singing my song. It’s 68° in late February / early March in Denver and a friend said “I hope you’re outside enjoying this lovely weather!” I’ll refrain from replicating my less than polite answer. Perhaps northern Finland would be willing to take me in?

This post stated “…as depressed as me” that implies they are looking for kids to pull them out of some level of depression.

That’s a terrible strategy for everyone involved, but especially the kids. If this was your chosen depression coping strategy three times over, PLUS in the US, I guess good for you, but generally speaking it’s not supported by broad societal studies.

The article I chose was just a quick search, but there are quite a number of studies that support not using childbirth as a mental health coping mechanism.

You sound a bit defensive and passive aggressive to me. I hope you are truly, deeply fulfilled and are just having an off day.

Not really. Judge for yourself, and follow the legit studies. If you’re already happy, in a good relationship, and in a country (not the US) that heavily supports parenthood, and you’re the father, then at least you might break even.

(tl:dr) “Parents will always be quick to proclaim the gifts and blessings their children provide, but a more detached appraisal calls into question this conventional wisdom.”

https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-having-children-make-people-happier-in-the-long-run

Having kids will not help your happiness level…

My hero!

Another thought this just popped into my head is that the next generation may not have been brought up with the same fundamental hacking skills that were somewhat inherent in being technical in the late 70s-mid 90s. Could you still learn them?…Of course, but having grown up with BBSs and LoD (Legion of Doom, and the like) and pre-WWW, some things were just more prevalent when it came to learning about the guts of systems and “cybersecurity” (that word didn’t really exist back then).

In this economy?!?! /s…kinda

Actually that makes sense, and saddens me a bit there wasn’t a contingent to pass the torch to.

What actually happened to them? Did key members get tracked down or something?

There’s a health insurance industry executive conference coming up and they just voted to hold it remotely rather than in-person (as it was supposed to be).