When I was in high school one lunchtime I was sitting there reading sci fi by myself like a total nerd and some other kids were sitting nearby and they started smoking cigarettes, which was against the rules. Anyway a teacher saw them just as the lunch period ended and the teacher said: “all right You, You, You, and You stay behind!” And the teacher pointed at me, because I was nearby. I was like: wow, I haven’t been in trouble before! I was writing a lot of short fiction and poetry at the time so I thought it’d be a good experience. So I sat there and listened for a while as the teacher berated the kids. But eventually I realized I’d gotten all I was gonna get from this teacher’s unimaginative lecture, so I stood up and was like: I gotta go to class. The teacher glared at me and was gonna go off, but the other kids were cool, they were like nah he wasn’t a part of this. The teacher looked at me, looked at my sci fi book, looked at me again, then realized yeah these kids would never have anything to do with this dork. So they let me run off to class.

“word shitting”. Lots and lots of words that say fuck all.

This is a great way to describe LLM-based AIs. I’ma use it.

Check out youth hostels / Hostelling International. Basically they’re inexpensive dorm-like hotels mostly targetted at younger backpackers. The ones in LA and Boston are in great locations. About 12% of Americans are of German descent (cite) so ask around, you or a family friend probably have a distant relative who immigrated here at some point.

So: get a cheap plane ticket. Fly into a city with a youth hostel. Wander around for a while. Catch a Greyhound Bus to visit your distant relative in Iowa. Hang out with them for a while. Catch another Greyhound to another city with a youth hostel. Fly back. You will meet a lot of people in the hostels. You’ll meet a lot of people on the Greyhound. Look up stuff ahead of time, not just tourist stuff but concerts or clubs or sports events wherever you go to. Sure it costs money but it’s a hell of a lot more fun than a resort or a cruise or whatever. Wait, isn’t “wanderjahr” a German word? Anyway after you spend a month or two here you’ll know whether you still like us or not.

• https://www.hiusa.org/
• https://hihostels.com/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostelling_International
• https://www.greyhound.com/

Wait til ya hear about Juggalos. (slightly nsfw)

A lot of people are saying ADHD, but I think in some cases it could also be anxiety or depression.

Hey fellow slrpnk.net refugees… if you’re looking to recreate your list of subscribed communities, here’s a good place to start:

(luckily I was posting this to newcomers whenever I had the chance…)

Sorry to hear that! My main account is on slrpnk.net. But don’t let it stress you out, “solarpunk” says “punk” which implies “DIY” which means this sort of thing happens. Much better to have an instance run by an admin who truly cares, rather than some soulless corporation.