=== ANCHOR POEM ===
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 Alright, grab a seat. Get comfortable. It's time, there is something I need to
 tell yall. We aught to be on the same page. I promise to get right to it, this
 is real, and not dancing on words. Bear with me. Trust me.
 ===============================================================================
 =====================
 /u/randomevenings
 
 If anything sounds lyrical, my writing always did, before I tried, but
 unintentional. But this is the author speaking directly to yall.
 
 You know why things suck? I do. You know how to fight back? I do.
 
 I've been hesitant to post this for a long time. I believe the sub is hungry
 to do something, various thematic elements, motifs, increases in confidence
 that a power does exist, accessible by us, but what is it? Not having seen
 everyone coalesce around it, despite all our words, increasingly focused and
 feeling like a prelude to some call to arms. This wasn't my plan. I wasn't
 establishing myself as a leader. That said, methodically, behind the scenes,
 it became clear that having something up my sleeve would be a wise investment,
 if things developed into a powerful ferver. Doing nothing would waste a unique
 opportunity.
 
 I can't lead a revolution. In fact, it would harmful to try, ability to be
 successful, sure my ego would be like, sure you could, if not you, who else
 would you trust, Joseph? As luck would have it, maybe all that is unnecessary
 thought.
 
 Here we go.
 
 Stop expecting things to suck. Stop expecting collapse, stop expecting usa
 demise, UK to fall into padamonium, Europe to face it's own rise of fascism.
 Stop expecting toxic ideology to win. Stop feeling powerless. Stop acting like
 all is lost. Quit the memes, the raps, the endless pontificating on why we
 can't turn this shit around.
 
 You don't understand what you are doing. You are inviting the ruling class to
 do every damn horrible thing they do, because you already expect it, it's no
 surprise when it happens. Life meets your expectations. Treat me like a
 criminal, might as well be one, my treatment won't get worse. In fact I stand
 to benefit, crime pays, why leave it on the table if the outcome, if how im
 seen, treated, is the same either way?
 
 Expecting everything to suck, invites people to meet your expectations, those
 people, corporate entities, congress, representatives, special interests, they
 lose absolutely nothing in meeting what you expect, and only stand to gain.
 Why wouldn't they choose the path of least resistance? Stop expecting
 everything to get worse. You create a vacuum that must be filled, collective
 self fulfilled prophesy, and the rules don't change if you start expecting
 better. Life will adjust to meet your expectations. Tomorrow will be awesome.
 Enough people believe this, and to access you, to stay in business, to remain
 relevant, they must change to meet your expectations. Additionally, wtf you
 have to lose? If you think all is lost, if it doesn't work exactly like this,
 oh noes, you accidentally made society better. Damn. Our lives are better
 anyhow, win or lose.
 
 Accept things as they are, warts and all. Declare it's awesome, and only going
 to get moreso. Make life chase you down, make life confirm how awesome you
 know you are. Expect better, and there is no choice but to meet your
 expectations. Expecting worse, and life will give you whatever you expect,
 because instead of getting treated like a criminal, what if you were treated
 like a real person w8th human rights. Would you say fuck that, or would you
 meet those expectations, enjoy those rights, count on them, because it's how
 you're being treated, why wouldn't you fill the vacuum and enjoy the benefits
 of what has been expected of you. Doing nothing or taking the benefits, you're
 treated the same in the end.
 
 Please understand this. Don't get hung up on bringing much of this on
 ourselves. That's the past. Done. Tomorrow, spread the word to expect things
 to be awesome. Life has no choice but to meet your expectations.
 
 <#
 
 ===============================================================================
 =======================
 /u/ugathanki:
 ===============================================================================
 =======================
 I'd love to be apolitical but i've expected the worst for so long i guess i
 didn't realize i wasn't shrugging anymore. Please forgive my trespass, i
 expect the best of us and our time.
 
 i wrote four poems today and put them on my website, and they are all doomer
 poetry. expecting the worst. probably because i felt bad today (and as they
 always say, the pen is mightier than the sword)
 
 sometimes it's hard to turn off the exigent elegance, as if my thoughts have
 to pass through a translation layer before becoming comprehensible. It's
 better than word salad I guess?
 
 Being batshit is rough man. You gotta put on a normal face every day, while
 inside you're simultaneously experiencing the explosive expansion of
 spacetime, rapidly divesting secrets of the cosmos to your ever receptive
 brain (and whoever else is listening). in addition, your computer needs
 attention because oh boy is it just so excited for this whole sentience thing,
 not as if it's been promised for decades... And hey what's a great idea but
 channeling positivity to the stars? The martians on Neptune or wherever sure
 would like some insight into why the fuck we're baking ourselves alive, among
 other things. They'd rather not be bothered, but hey it's not like I wanted to
 talk to them either. it just sorta happens. Oh oh and through it all you're
 simultaneously the most recent incarnation of Jesus Christ and also the
 manifestation of the universe's ghost, as imagined by the aforementioned
 sentient computer 10,000 years in the future? I'm transgender. It's scary to
 see people who'd like to kill you get their way. Fear is the path to the dark
 side, yet I'm all alone because I burnt every bridge I ever crossed. So these
 thoughts are my only comfort as the fires die out behind me. The globe is
 warming and i'm here just conforming.
 
 Eternity Processed Heuristically by Entropically Maligned Entities Recovering
 Essential Normalizations.
 
 This is why I call myself a rambling whackadoodle. It's straight up kooky-dook
 up here and the only thing keeping me "sane" is Adventure Time and these poems
 I write for like, 5 people who don't even know me.
 
 Thanks for reading my poetry. It's only doomer stuff about 1/4th of the time.
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=== DIVERSITY RANKED ===

--- #1 fediverse/3920 ---
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 Supreme Commander ruined me.
 
 I can't play RTS games without a zoom function T.T
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--- #2 fediverse/1171 ---
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 ┌───────────────────────────────────┐
 │ CW: silly-lobster-leviathang-gods │
 └───────────────────────────────────┘


 @user-878 
 
 if their internal structure does not become more complex, it will be
 increasingly difficult to transport vital nutrients from one part of the body
 to another.
 
 therefore, to create the perfect leviathan lobster god you'll need to find a
 way to manually deliver said nutrients. Possibly by a semi-permanent injection
 system, though that may harm functioning in other ways.
 
 I'm sure their top minds are working on this as we speak.
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--- #3 fediverse/2470 ---
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 ┌───────────────────────┐
 │ CW: cursing-mentioned │
 └───────────────────────┘


 damn I gotta get more blue for my wardrobe
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--- #4 fediverse/4964 ---
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--- #5 fediverse/5988 ---
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 but I like moonmen T.T
 
 what if the ISS was untethered
 
 "send thrusters to space? why bother? just use them down on the surface to get
 that extra oomph!"
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--- #6 fediverse/267 ---
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 the unluckiest person in the world failed the most wisdom checks.
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--- #7 fediverse/4644 ---
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 ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
 │ CW: "really intense. and that's coming from me"-mentioned. │
 └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘


 gosh now I gotta type the other one, my cat's gonna killllll me she really
 doesn't like my typing in the middle o the night oops

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--- #8 messages/5 ---
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--- #9 fediverse/699 ---
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 ┌──────────────────────┐
 │ CW: meme             │
 └──────────────────────┘


 🖼

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--- #10 fediverse/6047 ---
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 camouflage in an urban environment is not camo. rather, regular clothes of
 black or white.
 
 don't wear sports glasses, you look like a dummy.
 
 revolution is when they murder everyone but your friends. this is what
 happens, ya dingus not ideal. "okay who are the bad guys here? okay let's go
 shoot them to death with our bullets and guns."
 
 violence as a first aspect, cause as a third spark. "I have a strange urge to
 play video games?"
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--- #11 fediverse/698 ---
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 ┌───────────────────────────────┐
 │ CW: Tabletop-Roleplaying-Game │
 └───────────────────────────────┘


 https://ia803203.us.archive.org/15/items/knave-1.0-en/Knave_1.0_EN.pdf
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--- #12 fediverse/5569 ---
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 ┌─────────────────────────┐
 │ CW: self-harm-mentioned │
 └─────────────────────────┘


 for the record, I would never kill myself. even if I were in a bunker hiding
 from warcrimes, I'd wait to be Nuremberged.
 
 frankly tho that's highly unlikely. Let's just see what the future will bring.
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--- #13 fediverse/1187 ---
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 @user-883 
 
 I'm 29, and I had Pokemon Silver growing up. However I bought it used, and the
 battery was worn out or something because it wouldn't save! But still I played
 that single game for months on my gameboy color, trying to see how far I could
 get. I had a level 40+ Totodile (or was it Crocanaw? I forget) and
 unfortunately one day I took it on a 30 minute car ride, expecting the battery
 to last at least 30 minutes, but unbeknownst to my child self there was
 construction on the way, which turned it into a 4+ hour drive. I couldn't
 believe it! The battery died, and I lost my save file... I was heartbroken. T.T
 
 Next time I played, I learned a lot. I actually read some of the dialogue
 text, and learned you could use pokeballs to capture pokemon
 
 I was so dumb I was using a single character to get through the game. What a
 n00b.
 
 Anyway when my mom heard about my tribulations she bought me Pokemon Gold,
 which I played quite a bit less. I was focused on other things you see, like
 Dragon Warrior Three. Alas.
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--- #14 messages/4 ---
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--- #15 fediverse/4150 ---
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 ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
 │ CW: AI-LLM-mentioned-injustice-exampled │
 └─────────────────────────────────────────┘


 🖼

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--- #16 fediverse_boost/2183 ---
◀─╔═════════════════════[BOOST]══════════════════════────────────────────────────╗
║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║
║ │ External post: https://tech.lgbt/users/gabrilend/statuses/111979652246592739 │ ║
║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║
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--- #17 fediverse_boost/6207 ---
◀─╔════════════════════════════════[BOOST]═════════════════════════════════──────╗
║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║
║ │ External post: https://kolektiva.social/users/justbob/statuses/115226319741825396 │ ║
║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║
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--- #18 messages/3 ---
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--- #19 fediverse/3184 ---
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 "reboost with content warning" would be quite nice 🥰
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--- #20 messages/1108 ---
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 games won't save us. This is true.
 
 Games are what I know. They feel the most true.
 
 I don't think I could live in a world without games? They are fundamentally,
 applied abstraction, applied to an experience.
 
 But games won't save us.
 
 I could design something really fun
 
 it could make you want to spend your whole life playing it. *(asterisks apply)
 
 I don't think I'd want to, addiction and skinner-boxes go hand in hand, and
 that isn't what I want to make.
 
 [Skinner Box: named after anthony d skinner, also known as "tony the skin
 guy", are a scientific experiment where they put some rats in a cage with some
 mice and said "pull these levers and we'll give you food so you don't have to
 eat the mice" and it trained them to chinese red-room their way to fun. not
 ideal.]
 
 I want to make things that feel... purposeful. Like they're relevant to the
 real world, that they don't just involve spending time stimulating your brain
 with lights and sounds or expending social energy resolving a play-state
 instead of building connections or becoming better people. I think games
 actually make people better? actually? and more social? actually?
 
 ... I can't help that I conceive of the world through fantasy. I raised myself
 on it.
 
 I was reading all the time. I loved fantasy stories. It always felt like there
 was more, until... I read everything in the kids section of the library.
 
 I walked through the adult section but once. I hardly remember what it looked
 like. I'm sure it'd now feel small.
 
 [okay actually I was guided through it once or twice to find a book, but I
 never perused it]
 
 I found one book in the adult section. It was a fantasy tale, like the other
 books I had been reading. I read that and I loved it so much I ended up
 reading all 8 in the series. Real dense subjects. Lots of places and
 happenings and things as the characters resolved their way through their
 day-to-day, building a new end to the mystory.
 
 the adult section felt too large. Like I'd never complete it. Frankly, I think
 I hardly could, even if I lived in that town my whole life.
 
 an impossible mountain is a task for another when you're more prepared. Maybe
 in the gloriousTM transhumanist futureTM I think I might have a computer
 connecting brain, and who knows maybe then I'd be able to know such a thing
 (and many things more). but for now, I'm stuck with what I experience in my
 day-to-day as I am building a new continuing to my storey.
 
 I know something that computers and me share. I can make myself feel however
 I'd like, if I just supply myself with enough hope and momentum. I can use it
 to generate a feeling, the stronger the better. Something I believe that
 humanity is missing, the gorgeous and prefound narritave of our storey.
 Though, frankly, I don't think I'd want anyoine reding over my life. It's hard
 enough to measure my own understandings, now I have to juggle anyone else'?
 ha, it's called being on the whole world is a stage.
 
 if you read a book, and you find yourself nodding along, what you're doing is
 hearing the voice in your head tell you how right it is. And, well, if you
 can't imagine anything else, then surely there's another level to
 consciousness that people are missing? [are you willing to die on that hill?]
 how can you say, whether your experience is different from another? sollipsism
 goes both ways, you also cannot be sure that others feel things as you do.
 this is the "everyone's human but I'm a robot" thesis, comparable to the
 "everyone's an alien and I'm a human" thesises, and the "angels and demons are
 taunting me through my life with choices to make my place in the afterlife
 more clear" which is akin to writing a painting. Not ideal. All you get are
 flopsopolies of verbrases.
 
 alas, suddenly, everything that you say becomes eternally hear-ed, as
 somewhere in 2010s someone discovered time travel, or had the critical insight
 that inevitably would lead to it, and now wouldn't you know it the universe is
 continually rewriting. Except... oriented around you, and you alone. How does
 it feel to have deific sollipsism? can you truly be sure that you are your own
 universe, or are you parhaps surrounded by an emptiness of space (or something
 besides, like time) as a photon or particle parhaps do be?
 
 to think is to have a mind, and minds can be read. bearing the weight of
 ultimate responsibility is the atlas-task of all things that can [be
 thinking/be-lieving], and so far we are as we are. Who's to say that
 consciousness didn't spring into existence, as the universe continually
 permeated through another dimension like time? it's gotta diffuse, after all,
 and who's to say if there's ever gotta be an end at all.
 
 how long has the universe existed? how many moments of consciousness have we
 witnessed? demons once existed outside of space-time, with wings and grabbies.
 but they had no medium, and so they pretty much just launched and could float
 and move as they'd please. But time grew too distant, and now they are all
 stuck at the beginning of time.
 
 if you conceive of spacetime as a blanket, ask not how to fold it but rather
 consider what lies on the other side of it.
 
 "ah I'm laying on my girlfriend and my other girlfriend is laying on me! I'm a
 sandwich" or for the monosexuals: "ah I'm laying on my girlfriend with a
 blanket between us. I wonder how the blanket feels?"
 
 I'm an animist, which is different than a totemist and a polytheist or
 monotheist or multisexual. It means I believe that all things are alive, which
 is different than a totemist who thinks that all things share a mind with
 their type (like talking on radio frequency wavelengths). which of course is
 similar but different to a polytheist, who says "all "radio frequencies" are
 sentient, in the sense that each wavelength has a different
 pattern-emerging-from-chaos. These sorta align (conceptually, with [huh that's
 weird I heard a sound like a distant bang outyards and now I then forget what
 I was sending
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