Definitely. I knew one guy who was an EMT. He was very casual about it unless he was drinking.

Bad America, no!

I’m guessing the whole world has been doing some hard mulling since 2016…

Might take a little longer than a month to figure out what to do if your next door neighbor who also has the biggest military the world has ever seen goes full fascist.

That last point is really interesting. Conservatives and right-wingers can’t grasp that other people don’t think like they do. I remember during the January 6th insurrection how all the people doing it really seemed to believe they would be seen as heroes. It’s like they had no idea over half of the US didn’t agree with them.

Meh, if it drops it drops. I’ll never have the relationship to social media I used to, because I don’t want it anymore. If Lemmy can give me a few posts a day of things I might not normally see, that’s enough for me. It doesn’t need to be the next Reddit or whatever. After quitting Reddit I’m getting back into things I haven’t done in years. I don’t need that again.

I think Trump is younger. He’s a monster, but still younger than Biden.

I hate to break it to everyone, but we’re all weird. You just stop trying to hide it at a certain age, or forget to. But yes, Biden weird and Trump weird are two different universes.

Or, hear me out here, maybe if they’re going to jail they aren’t “good guys”. Or has the right decided our legal system isn’t perfect after all? Can’t have both!

Yeah, it seems like all the answers I get boil down to: people don’t like them because they just don’t like them. Which is perfectly fair, I’m not sure why I was expecting a more nuanced response from anyone. It’s sort of like how some people like chocolate and others don’t. Who can say why really? It is interesting though that Lemmy seems to have a disproportionate share of vocal meme detractors.

Insurance is for something that might happen. Everyone will experience health problems. It’s a contradictory situation at its very core.

That’s certainly one answer, I agree.

Well, would you be willing to do what they’re doing in the name of “winning”? That’s the real dilemma. How exactly do you maintain your own morality against an amoral adversary? Is it possible? It’s the old trope of “becoming as evil as the evil you’re fighting”. I certainly admire pacifists for being able to hold to their ideals, but for me there’s no easy answer.

A short sentence.

I don’t think they’re entirely negative. Memes can be very creative. Nor are they all political. That’s a weird argument to me. As far as humor, I think we’re just demonstrating how subjective it is. I find plenty of memes very funny. Yeah, can’t say I agree with really anything you said there, at least not as a blanket statement.

Okay, I appreciate such a considered response. I do agree it gets old seeing the same exact post over and over. Reddit was getting really bad with that. Of course there’s always the question of why some people find something funny and others don’t too.

For me though, setting that aside, I just find the variations on a meme can be really fascinating. Then you have memes referring to other memes or imitating them, sort of like you described. Memes that descend into abstraction so as to become practically incomprehensible… I’ve had to research a few just to understand whay they were even talking about. I think at its best memeing is like some kind of collective conceptual art collaboration. Or like graffiti or music sampling. So interesting.

Oh, the wealthy in the US have it figured out perfectly.

So, I’m not trying to be snarky at all, just genuinely curious, as I’ve seen several people on Lemmy brag about how much they hate memes… Like, why? Do you not enjoy humor, or just not find them funny or something? It’s a bit like someone saying they hate dogs to me. I honestly don’t get it.

Fair enough. Climate change was a bad example. Maybe I could have said something like aliens. I’m far from an expert on anything to do with anything related to aliens, but I’m willing to recognize that it’s an open question. Similarly, I’m not really saying we should imagine we have the answer with Covid, I just don’t think there’s anything wrong with recognizing that it’s an open question. In one of my first comments in this thread in fact (I have apparently been talking to multiple people and not always realizing they’re different…), I stated up front that I doubt we’ll ever have an answer. I suppose the point has been belabored quite a bit at this point. I appreciate your insights and that you took the time to share them without getting too… um… Reddity?

Only works if you’re rich, sorry.