this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
99 points (96.3% liked)

Ask Lemmy

34982 readers
1583 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

No political posturing.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 hours ago

Having calm discussions without screaming. Even if its a passionate discussions for example about Cheese. (Yes this gets very heated with me and my friends haha love them so much)

Openes to new facts even if it challanges your world view.

Empathie

[–] klemptor@startrek.website 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Organization. By nature I'm extremely organized. People are always commenting on how well organized my home is, but this is just what's normal for me. I get kind of neurotic when things are in disarray.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 1 points 55 minutes ago

you might have overdosed on Tylenol.

[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Spotting fake BS on the internet. It just seems so obvious to me when someone is making up a story for clout, or to plug a GoFundMe scam, or to push an obvious narrative of hate toward a group of people. And then I go into the comments and want to fucking scream.

And then, when you point out that something is fake, half the time people get all defensive about it. "Who cares? It's still a good story" or "Well, it might be fake THIS time, but I can imagine people actually doing this, so I'm going to internalize this as more proof for my biases."

I don't get it, how is it so hard for people to spot? Like, yea, there's the occasional one that's done so well that it's easy to fall for, but 99% of these kinds of posts and videos are so blatantly fake that I worry about the level of critical thinking skills the average person has. I thought the explosion of AI shit would make people be a bit more skeptical with the things they read and watch, but it feels like it's going the other direction.

[–] Perspectivist@feddit.uk 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Two things to keep in mind here.

Firstly, the toupee fallacy: all toupees look fake. You may be able to spot all bad toupees but the good ones fly under your radar and thus you can't ever know how good you're actually at spotting them.

Also the assumption-as-fact bias. You think a story is false but did you ever get confirmation that you were right or are you treating your assumption as a fact?

Yeah, this is just confirmation bias at work. Nobody is immune to propaganda, because our brains are biologically hardwired to initially reject data that contradicts our worldview.

[–] ieGod@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

There are levels of utility to identifying such things though. Like the amI subreddits, in fact who gives a shit if that's made up? Its entertaining. But for news, yes, critical thought is useful.

[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

The thing is, on places like AITA, those made up posts may seem benign and just entertaining, but I encourage you to look with a more critical eye. Well over half the time, there is usually someone in the story specifically acting unreasonable or idiotic or "bad" in some way or form, and they tend to belong to some group or another that the poster is relying on biases of to try and make more convincing. It's not usually minorities exactly, but things like bosses, or in-laws, or tourists, or women in general. Just some group that people often have preconceived biases against. And then people read the made up story and go "Yea, those people really ARE like that!" and even though it's completely fake, there is now mental support for those biases; and the world gets just a tiny bit more unfriendly and a tiny bit more isolating.

Another common defense I see is "the same thing happens in all forms of fiction, but I don't see you complaining about movies or books!" which completely ignores that other forms of fiction aren't trying to pass themselves off as something that actually, really happened, for real; with real people, that actually exist and act like that. And that's the difference between telling a story for entertainment, and just fucking lying.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

I'm very aware of my own body and how it's positioned, so I have good balance, makes me a great dancer, and ambidextrous to some degree.

[–] frenchfryenjoyer@lemmings.world 1 points 6 hours ago

Being assertive

[–] Tedesche@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

Empathy. Some people just have a brain for math and understand numbers in ways other people just never will. Others, like myself, have brains that are really good at understanding others, and we perceive and understand others with a facility some other people just can’t. It sounds pompous to say, because all human beings are at least somewhat skilled in this area, due to our species being highly social, but it’s still a cognitive speciality and some of us are innately better at it than others.

It can be frustrating too, because when other people don’t understand what you see in someone else, they question your decisions about them, and it can be hard to see why other people don’t see what you find obvious sometimes. It’s a bit of an extreme example, but I know people who can’t see that Donald Trump is a highly transparent narcissist. Even ones who didn’t vote for him and hate him for all the obvious reasons can’t see the personality disorder in him, and I find it so glaringly obvious that I sometimes just can’t fathom how anyone could miss it. But, if I really think about it, and I imagine what it might be like for a person who doesn’t have a natural talent for empathy, I can see how they just might not connect the dots and just see a bombastic, arrogant asshole, rather than the much more complex pattern of malignant narcissism that underlies that comparatively superficial persona.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 7 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Spatial awareness/reasoning. How far things are, where are we relative to this landmark, which direction are we headed, how to account for the moving shadows when choosing a place to settle down at the beach, and so on and so forth. It seems like people around me are utterly lost in space

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 9 points 22 hours ago

Doing basic research on the people I vote for.

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 5 points 21 hours ago

Situational awareness.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 3 points 19 hours ago

Math is the big one, and logic by extension. Everyone around me seems to have difficulty breaking problems or logical arguments down into relevant incremental steps. They either get distracted by irrelevant things, or can't figure out how the output of one step provides the input for the next.

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Cold turkeying stuff. It's not a superpower level but I can quit most stuff then and there without thinking about it again.

[–] horse@feddit.org 2 points 23 minutes ago

Same. It's the only way to actually quit stuff for me. I'm all or nothing and don't do moderation.

[–] RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works 4 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Reading an article before offering an option.

Building stuff out of a pile of scrap.

Assembling flat pack furniture, bbqs, bicycles, snow blowers, cement mixers. Pretty easy to do but customers will pay a fee to the store to have the assembly done.

[–] Smeagol666@crazypeople.online 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not being on my phone at work.

[–] Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

I yelled at a coworker once for this. He was kind of a slacker, and known as such. One day I was to be teaching him my line (plastic extrusion and slitting). It was a tough product and the blade box was shit and wrapped. It's a tense moment, we have to fix it quickly and do a restart, there is so much to do, and it's a giant pain in the ass.

I go to grab a tool, and like, be on your phone when things are good, I don't care, but it takes two to run this shit. I come back and he's still just staring at his phone, Facebook of all places, instead of fucking helping clear the wrap and prep the line. I yelled at him to go sit down if he wants to be on his phone as now he's in my way. I told him to get tf off my line if he wanted to play gossip on Facebook.

The only lady in my department, I don't think anyone spoke to him like that before. He put his phone away the rest of the shift and I avoided working with him again. This dude worked there longer than I did, knew less than I did, and got paid more. Fuck outta here.

[–] SippyCup@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Manufacturing is an attractive environment for that type of person. The guys who skate by doing the absolute bare minimum and keep the job because finding new people is hard. They never excel, never rise above "machine operator 2" or whatever grade allows them to work the coil line with the least physical interaction possible. Every year or so they'll be caught on their phone by the wrong person or at the wrong time and the company will issue it's cell phone usage policy again, reminding everyone to keep the phones away until break time. And then for a few weeks bathroom stalls will be in short supply because 5 versions of that guy just can't be bothered to actually do their job.

Then the crunch will come, overtime will be posted and that dipshit will volunteer every fucking weekend.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Executive function.

I don't know but it seems like a lot of people around me are just in a haze. Probably some of it is ADHD.

[–] SippyCup@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago

I thrive in my chaos thank you.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Actually getting annoyed by ads to the point I do what I can to block them. I work with IT and yet a good number of my coworkers don't use any adblock at fucking all

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

Being open to learning new things which may contradict previously held beliefs. I enjoy becoming more informed and having my ignorance diminished, but I find for the bulk of humanity most people do not want to know things - they want to be continually assured the things they hold true are true, regardless of the validity.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 day ago

A lot of math things. It hasn't been nearly as lucrative as people assume.

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Being isolated. It's always confused me how much people complain about loneliness. I genuinely don't think I have ever felt that emotion before.

[–] slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There is a tv show called 60 days in. It's about sending people into these US shithole prisions without anyone knowing that they don't belong. The idea is to figure out what goes wrong and where drugs come from and so on. Anyway, they always talk about solidarity confinement and how bad it is. Like the biggest and baddest dude is worried about getting into "the hole" Then there was this one guy who was on the show who got into solitary confinement and enjoyed the shit out of it. He would get in trouble again and not do anything to get out of the hole.

I always felt like this guy.

[–] DistrictSIX@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 hours ago

Solitary confinement is torture. That guy just felt it to be less torturous than being with the general population. Which is quite a commentary on the horrors of the prison environment when you think about it.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I can stop hiccups the moment I notice I have them, usually after the second hiccup. It started as a conscious effort to change the breathing rhythm through diaphragmatic breathing, now is almost like a reflex action.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 2 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

whew, nice. I can't do this. I can stop the sneezing reflex though

[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

It's pretty easy actually. When you want to get rid of the hiccups, make a conscious effort to have a hiccup, and then suddenly you can't.

It's why all those wives tale techniques work. Scaring people? Drinking water weird? Having your head upside down? It's the part after that works, where after someone has you do their flavor of weird hiccup ritual, they then look at you all expectedly and wait for you to try and hiccup. Then suddenly you can't. You're trying, but now it's a conscious effort, and it's really hard to hiccup when you're actually focusing on it.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 1 points 3 hours ago

I'll see of I can apply this technique next time. Cheers !

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

That one is hard! For me it's the same level as a yawn.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 1 points 19 hours ago

It's so frequent that I guess it was inevitable for me to learn how to quell it

[–] RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works 2 points 22 hours ago

I do the same thing.

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

My wife and I joke that we found my mundane superpower. When she gets hiccups, if I go embrace her, they stop almost immediately. Otherwise, they'll persist for fifteen minutes.

[–] DudenessBoy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago

Using any sort of digital device. I've really never had a problem figuring out how they work and what needs to be done to fix them.

[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 67 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Driving without touching my phone.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] bstix@feddit.dk 7 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Plumbing. I'm not a plumber and I'm not particularly good at it, but it's one of those things that most people won't even consider looking at.

Also, 3D visualization. I had a carpenter do the gutters on my house and I explicitly told him that the reason I didn't do them myself was that the eaves are slanted inwards so that the slope on the gutters would cause the gutters to go inwards when it goes downwards, and I was unsure what best practise was for that case, where to get the proper hangers for this or if we'd need to put a vertical board up first in order to make it work. He assured me that it'd be fine, having done many gutters before. When I got home, he had put ordinary hangers right on the slanted eaves, and the gutters were halfway under the roof at one end. He stood there scratching his head and tried to argue that the wall of the house was not straight, because he could simply not see any other reason for it to do that.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›