savvywolf

Hey all, I'm British so I don't really know the ins and outs of the US healthcare system. Apologies for asking what is probably a rather simple question.

So like most of you, I see many posts and gofundmes about people having astronomically high medical bills. Most recently, someone having a $27k bill even after his death.

However, I have an American friend who is quick to point out that apparently nobody actually pays those bills. They're just some elaborate dance between insurance companies and hospitals. If you don't have insurance, the cost is lower or removed entirely. Supposedly.

So I'm just asking... How accurate is that? Consider someone without insurance, a minor physical ailment, a neurodivergent mind and no interest in fighting off harassing people for the rest of their life.

How much would such a person expect to pay, out of their own pocket, for things like check ups, x rays, meds, counselling and so on?

I recently played through a demo for a game called Pinball Spire on steam, and it put me in the mood for playing pinball games. Unfortunately, and I don't know if this is just due to me having bad google-foo, there don't seem to be that many on Steam that catch my interest.

So figured I may as well make a thread asking about what the "state of the art" of pinball video games is. Some of the ones I've played:

• Sonic Spinball: Very janky, but very unique and I don't think I've seen anyone try to do anything similar to it.
• Pokémon Pinball and Sonic Pinball Party: Fairly standard pinball games, tbh. They're both on handhelds so they can't do that much.
• Demon's Tilt and Xenotilt: Just really fun feeling arcade pinball games with a really fun tilt mechanic.

So yeah, know any good PC or console pinball games?

Oh, and can someone help me: I vaguely remember seeing a stream of a pinball game for the Mega Drive/SNES where the ball goes through multiple tables. Does anyone know what that game was called, if it even exists?

Hydration is important.

So another thread ( https://lemmy.world/post/17746018 ) got me wondering... How many people would want to move to another country?

Just to provide a concrete scenario, let's assume that in your current country you (magically) have a decent-ish job. They open up offices in another country of your choosing, and you have the option of moving there and work for an equivalent living wage.

They're able to get visas set up (however improbable that may be) for you and any family, but you have to go through the process of finding housing, physically moving your belongings and anything else you need to set up.

What countries would you take the offer to move to, if any?

So this is something I've been thinking about a bit recently, and I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts on the matter.

Lets suppose you meet someone, and chat socially with them. Maybe a work colleague, maybe a friend met through a friend. You aren't that close with them, but you get the vibe that they aren't a bigot or judgemental at the very least. If the conversation turned to furry stuff, would you tell them that you like furry art?

Do you keep a different set of non-furry socials for your irl friends and family? What about having a furry profile pic on your work slack? Or your Github? Do you try hard to make sure that nobody will be able to find your secret furry double life if they know you IRL?

I guess, in essence, I'm wondering if you draw a hard line between your "sfw furry life" and your "IRL life".

Stumbled upon this artist on bluesky ( https://bsky.app/profile/accelldraws.bsky.social ), and their art is adorable.

Not sure how well known they are, but look at how soft everything is!

Just a simple question to those of you suffering from depression, anxiety or are just going through a tough time. Now or sometime in the past.

Have you tried exercising, and did it help? What kind, and how did it make you feel?

Content Warning: This is a post detailing arguing with a friend about ND rights. It's probably going to cover topics of discrimination, eugenics, conversion therapy/ABA and other serious topics.

Hey. So I have this friend, let's call him Woof, who I'm close to. Like, close in an almost-dating-but-its-complicated way. I find it difficult to find new friends, so basically he was the only real person I could lean on and confide in as a friend.

Due to various things, I've kinda gotten emotionally invested in the whole neurodivergence movement thing recently. The idea that things like autism should be treated as diversity rather than disability.

Woof... Doesn't see the same way. He works as an ambulance driver and as such has seen a lot of people who have all sorts of difficulties... My understanding is that he thinks the whole ND movement thing is a bit naive and ignores some people who really need help and support.

It's something we've butted heads about before, but it's gotten really bad the past two weeks. I just... Think there's something we're miscommunicating and misunderstanding. What he's saying sounds logically sound, but feels uncomfortable to me...

I know I probably shouldn't rant about this stuff to the internet, but I could really use some comments by a neutral party. Especially since it feels like I'm strawmanning him super hard and projecting some of my own uncertainties onto him. Or maybe I'm avoiding uncomfortable truths? Or maybe I'm overlooking something and will make a fool of myself (which happens every time I talk about politics...). Again, just looking for extra views and thoughts.

The crux of his thoughts are that some people really suffer. There are autistic people that have severe problems, like intense hypersensitivity, weak cognitive ability, inability to communicate. Those kinds of things.

Outwardly at least, I personally don't have much issues. I have a job (for the time being - my quality of work has been slipping due to mental health), I can travel around unaided and I can communicate to people decently well. I have a lot of mental fuckery and problems, but that doesn't stop me getting the coveted title of "high functioning".

So I can't really say that I have experienced the hardships faced by everyone. There are a number of people that will never be able to adapt and fit into society. Or those that are constantly overwhelmed by the world and have severe trouble coping. They have my sympathies, but I'm not them.

Given that, am I forcing my views on people where I shouldn't? Am I assuming people are generally like me, and so I ignore the voices of those who have greater difficulties?

Are we all like that here? Most people here are adults who can articulate their thoughts and desires clearly enough and can function "okay" enough in society.

Can we truly advocate for people with more severe versions of the same symptoms? I think so; it's similar to how bi people can advocate for gay rights despite being able to have "normal" relationships. Woof doesn't think the same way for ND though. Different severities of conditions might require different allowances and support, which can get overlooked by people fighting just for themselves.

I was going to go into specific cases about specific events, but that's probably not going to be useful. We've argued about a lot of the main controversial autism things, so I'll try to give a summary.

My stance is usually on the "pro-ND" side. I think regardless of neurotype, everyone should get the support and not feel the need to change who they are. That even those with severe difficulties deserve to live their lives as best they can and be who they are.

Woof's stance seems to be usually on the "pro-change" side. That if there was a way to remove people's neurodivergence without causing harm, it should be offered to them. And that for those that are truly suffering, it should be the choice that is encouraged.

... I guess his stance also reacts with my anxiety beast in a bad way... I would consider myself as someone who has suffered my entire life. Would it be better if I were someone else? Would Woof prefer me if I were someone else? Do I have a moral obligation to prevent people like me from existing? Do I deserve to live? Blegh.

But yeah, sorry for rambling. It's all been stuck in my head and I'd appreciate some different viewpoints. Even if it's just to tell me that I'm wrong. If you've made it this far, I appreciate you reading it.

Fair warning, this is something that's been in my head for a while now, and I just want to get it off my chest. This is going to be a very emotionally charged post, so... I guess take everything with a grain of salt and with the understanding that I suck at word choice.

So this is partially in response to l_b_i's thread asking about Lemmy/Yiffit here: https://yiffit.net/post/3318470 . Would have responded there, but that seems to be focused on Lemmy (and particularly Yiffit) side of thing, and I want to rant about the fediverse as a whole.

So, firstly the software. I think Mastodon is a really good piece of kit. As a Twitter competitor, it's really good and has more than enough features. It also makes a fairly solid ActivityPub reader, although it doesn't really work with Lemmy that well.

Lemmy is rough around the edges, but that can be fixed with work. The leanings of the developers might be concerning, but it's AGPL so whatever.

ActivityPub as a whole is a cool concept, many social media networks connecting together regardless of platform. Anyone heard of pixelfed? No? It just kinda happened and if you have Mastodon you might have been following a Pixelfed user without realizing it.

I just... Have been increasingly frustrated at the aristocracy running everything recently. There's just so much drama between admins that result in them completely severing connections between instances. And this isn't petty squabbles between two small instances either, these are large instances with up to several thousand users each. Constantly falling out and causing their users to fall out of touch.

Personally, I've been using the Fediverse seriously since like April (or whenever the Reddit drama started), and currently have 5 fediverse accounts (excluding my super secret AD ones). I'd consider them all to have been on instances involved in fediverse politics that had resulted in some amount of connections being lost.

Since April, to my knowledge, there's been three major fediverse-wide "dramas" that have resulted in major instances either defederating or threatening to defederate. One was started by someone who had perhaps too much influence and inability to listen to feedback, one was started by a literal troll and one was started by Facebook. How does a platform that prides itself on being censorship resistant let itself fall apart this easily!?

I don't want to have to feel like I have to keep on track of the latest fediverse politics. I don't want to have to feel like I have to keep a backup of my followers list just in case something happens. I don't want to feel like I have to frequently change instance due to the influence of some other instance. I don't want to have to feel like I have to "pick a side" in conflicts that are mostly hidden in an unsearchable space.

Hell, the Mastodon devs literally had to add a screen to the defederation flow that basically says "this is how many people you are going to fuck up".

I just want a place to look at people in funny animal costumes and fancy coloured pixels. Maybe it's because of autism, maybe this is a neurotypical thing as well, but personally I am very uncomfortable with the idea of losing contact with people I follow without realizing it and not being able to regain that contact. I'm also heavily vulnerable to obsessing over drama and politics (and try to curate my feed to avoid it as much as possible), which I can't really do against this stuff.

For the Fediverse to work, we NEED to fix this. We need to get better. Maybe something simple like this: https://furry.engineer/@savvywolf/111292057237519826 . Maybe a public record of accountability for instances that explains why things happened.

Honestly, with these issues being a frequent enough occurrence I can't really wholeheartedly shill Mastodon as a Twitter/Bluesky alternative anymore...

For reference, if you were a furry content creator looking for an instance to maximise reach, I'd personally recommend you avoid the following instances (from personal experience):

• beehaw.org
• furry.engineer
• lemmy.world
• mastodon.art
• mastodon.scot
• mastodon.social
• meow.social
• tech.lgbt
• Any instance with a hidden blocklist
• Very small instances, since they have limited reach and may vanish.

Not saying these instances are bad, it's just that, through their fault or otherwise, they've been involved in drama that has effectively cut them off from parts of the fediverse.

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant. Apologies for having to do this and ruining your day, but I just needed to get it off my chest.