I spent two years in Saudi Arabia in the early 2000s and was hearing stories like this even back then as a kid. I remember some kids even put on a skit involving maid abuse for some kind of social justice style project (I don’t remember the specifics) so it was a well known enough issue even then. Terrifying stuff and disgusting that they still hey away with it.

Genuinely curious, does that mean that, for you, getting downvoted gives you dopamine/a sense of accomplishment?

Your above comment is in the negative when I’m making this comment. Does that feel good? Again, genuinely curious, hard to put a non-judgemental tone in writing.

I can’t relate to that feeling, upvotes and downvotes to me show how much a community agrees or disagrees with what I’ve said. Either what I said isn’t right for the community I posted it in or maybe just a generally unpopular opinion if I’m getting downvotes. Might make me reflect but usually no big deal, I’m mostly here for the discussions, memes and current events. Outside of trolling I don’t really see how getting downvoted might be seen as a good thing by a poster.

I was never much of a Twitter user, but fediverse conversations have gotten me interested in Mastodon. I was actually thinking of making an utter.online account way back, once decisions are made here I’ll probably make an account on whichever URL you go with, since discuss.online has been great so far!

That said, I also like toot.discuss.online since it makes the connection to discuss.online clearer

Citing what I saw on Philip DeFranco earlier, apparently in a shutdown the executive branch has a lot of power in terms of what specifics get shutdown and how.

Was news to me considering the shitshow that happens every time the budget needs to be voted on but with all the DOGEness going on makes sense that there’s extra caution around this. Still sucks that Dems rolled over so easily.