Christians are the oppressive majority, yes. But where is the word or concept of “majority” in Rule 1? Your own words are “Remember that diversity and coexistence are Star Trek values.” - I love that!

Cracker is likewise a slur as well. Use it, or don’t, whatever, but it is a slur… right? I mean, wikipedia even says that it is: “Cracker, sometimes cracka or white cracker, is a racial slur directed at white people”. That’s not a deep cut, it’s literally the first sentence on that page.

Use of slurs isn’t about what you, the slinger, feels, it is about how the recipient feels upon receipt. I do not call black people n- uh… nope, not going to finish that thought there. I do not call women cunts or whatever, I do call men “dick” or “jerk” or whatever, but that’s irrespective of gender, color, etc… and quite frankly that’s even in theory though I cannot now recall the last time I actually used it, either irl or even online.

More to the point, if the slur recipient did not feel hurt by use of the slur, then what is even the point of using an actual “slur”? Why not call a black man by “sir”? Why not call someone “madam”, as opposed to “broad”, if not to denigrate them? It’s certainly not a term of fucking endearment! A man calling a woman a “broad” is saying that he, a (implication: superior) male is looking down on her, an (inferior) female.

Anyway, use of slurs makes the recipients feel less “welcomed”. If you walked into a restaurant and someone said “be rite wit ya cracka”, you might think twice about eating there? Slurs focus on the “diversity” part, but not to enhance “coexistence” as in togetherness and making people feel welcomed, and rather acts to divide.

And I wasn’t asking you to delete the post or anything, just sharing my thoughts that I do not care to see people denigrated. Even when they are the oppressive majority. It divides, but the problem with divisions is that eventually they wrap back around to something that you do, finally, actually do care about: “First they came for…”.

I will add that imho it’s okay to be mad at Christianity: they deserve it:-P. But despite your feelings, are you going to sling slurs at them - and not even the handful of people that improperly abused their religion to hurt you, but half the people on the planet? Stupid, mislead, whatever else they may be - they, no “we”, are all humans here, aren’t we?

TLDR: CRACKER IS VERY MUCH A SLUR - look it up

Excellent point. Though at some point a breaking away simply has to be done… or else give up and accept that this is simply how things will always be. In the meantime, we can work towards widening this narrow set of solutions?! :-D

I think kuato meant how Lemmy was created due to those devs being kicked off of Reddit for being too toxic.

And unlike Lemmy, Reddit really was trying to cancel them, at least on their platform.

Fwiw I didn’t want to cancel Lemmy.ml nor even want to defederate from it… at first. I only wished for it to label itself properly, as e.g. Beehaw has done. If it said like “we are a tankie instance and absolutely no criticism of Russia, China, or North Korea will be tolerated here, and we WILL ban you from communities that you’ve never even so much as heard of all across our entire instance if you ever do anything that we do not like”. Beehaw has a message along those lines, and it is getting along just fine. However, it seems like it would limit the influence of that instance if they were to be honest about application of that label so… they refuse. And because of how they are tied to the sourcecode, UNLIKE Hexbear and lemmygrad, there are extraordinary few instance admins that will go against that.

I wish that I could praise the Lemmy devs for the good they have done, even while also criticizing them for the bad. However, the more that I learn the less ah… “compatible” with democratic principles their authoritarian actions seem to me.

I would love to argue back - e.g. I never tried to “force” anything here, I did not submit a report/complaint, nor have I downvoted a single item across this entire thread, I merely shared my own thoughts etc. - but you are coming to this conversation too late: I already see that people are not able to offer rational discourse on this particular subject matter, which is far too emotionally charged.

I do not feel persecuted. I don’t like seeing “others” get ragged on, regardless. I should clarify: individuals who deserve it absolutely should get railed on; the distinction is when the ragging moves above the stage of the individual and to an entire class of individuals. The literal definition of a bigot is “One who is narrow-mindedly devoted to their own ideas and groups, and intolerant of (people of) differing ideas, races, genders, religions, politics, etc.” I did not make this definition up, nor it seems can I explain it to someone who does not want to know (as your hand-picking of some of my answers to directed questions, ignoring the larger context, would seem to to indicate: I know, reading is hard sometimes), so I will stop here. You may chalk it up to simply a misunderstanding or… whatever you like, I suppose.

Thank you for your efforts on behalf of the Fediverse. I am not sure if they are the best way to go or not (neither am I saying that I have any better ideas:-P), but at the very least I want to applaud your enthusiasm.

A year and a half ago when Kbin.social went down, I bounced around from StarTrek.Website to Discuss.Online before finally settling on PieFed.social. In that migration I found that my chief abhorrence - and what nearly caused me to leave Lemmy entirely (and ultimately did, come to think of it, in the sense that I left “Lemmy” to come to PieFed, while remaining on the Threadiverse) was not lemmy.ml, but rather hexbear.net and lemmygrad.ml. Those two were WAAAAY worse.

But I get your point: lemmy.ml in some ways is worse not because it is as “in your face” as those other two, but since it appears more “normal”, at first glance, and therefore is more insidious. And it is not the only one: you know about midwest.social as well, surely.

That said, it was hexbear and lemmygrad that almost caused me to nope out and surely does similarly for others as well. So I petitioned for discuss.online to defederate from the former (it already had the latter), and I included lemmy.ml in that as well but that part was declined, and now Blaze can recommend discuss.online especially to an American audience, which is what makes up the bulk of those on Reddit, to try to make Lemmy more enticing to come over here to.

After that, I sorta just gave up on Lemmy. They control the sourcecode, they control everything, it is not merely just solely their personal instance but the entire framework: Lemmy is somehow more authoritarian than even Reddit was - at least Reddit would notify you when content was removed, and offer the ability to respond via modmail, plus keep the post up (merely removing it from the community “feed”, yet still the page remains accessible to someone who has the URL) so as not to delete all of the myriad other conversations that happened, having been spawned initially from the OP but taking on new life of their own. Lemmy will never catch up to this - in contrast it seems hell-bent on moving in the exact opposite direction, removing the names of mods (so now you cannot even DM them) and instead merely saying “mod”, plus when content is removed the message says “try again later”. Seriously, WTF!? How can “trying again at a later time” help someone find a post that they made, that got deleted and then virtually all traces that it ever even so much as existed at some point in the past are simply… gone, like it never was in the first place?!

When spez did such things, we left Reddit over it. However, when the lemmy.ml devs do them… we suck it up, and we take it. Because there are no better options, we tell ourselves, and we don’t want to make our own.

Fortunately, not everyone thinks like that: Mbin has been going strong even after Ernst had all his personal problems and abandoned Kbin, Mbin took up the charge. And Sublinks got a heavy start as well (though similarly to Ernst, the main dev had personal irl issues that got in the way of finishing it). And now PieFed is not merely a heavy start but has surpassed Lemmy, and even Reddit in a number of ways - it needs some polish, sure, but it’s no longer simply a “heavy start”, it’s a fully functioning viable Lemmy / Reddit alternative.

I give up hope on Lemmy ever doing anything to fix its major structural issues; and I now transfer those hopes to PieFed. Which solves the even more major problem of using the Lemmy sourcecode… but does not solve the problem of disinformation being spread on the Threadiverse.

Like I did in making a petition to defederate hexbear from Discuss.Online, perhaps you would like to petition PieFed.social to defederate Lemmy.ml? Lemmy.World never will, and likely discuss.online and all the others too, because of the software considerations - although PieFed.World might? (it has not yet: I still see lemmy.ml communities listed on it) You would be a good person to list out the references and make a cogent argument for the need to do so? !piefed_meta@piefed.social might be the best place to send it.

Anyway, things are improving, slowly, over time. :-)

Every time he mounts a chair… in full glory! It would be enough to bring the best of us down…

You are great at community building. You have built a FANTASTIC place here. In all of our conversation, I hope I haven’t come across TOO awfully adversarial here? I felt like I was sharing my own, differing perspective, and naively even thinking in my head that I was HELPING by pointing this out… but of course my own perspective is not the only one that matters - any communication involves both a sending and a receiving, and I can only imagine your side of it, inside of my head.

It sounds like you are saying that “they deserve it”. My point: so what? Talking that way does not demean them, it only conveys your own anger, directed at them. Some people were outright killed, so I understand that… although even so, painting an entire religion by the actions of a few is dicey.

Also, you really disliked “the old place” (I mean the one on StarTrek.website, not Reddit), because of the unwritten rules that were selectively enforced (and out of that pain was birthed this new one, which is much more welcoming, I agree and I love it!!!). This is why I am such a fan of transparency - and if it is okay to make fun of Christians, then put that in the sidebar, but if not then… why is that okay, not the making fun of them part but the part about doing it but not being transparent about that?

To clarify: I am not trying to tell you what to do in any way, shape or form? I am merely sharing with you my perspective, in case it helps illuminate your own thinking. If that causes stress in your brain, then there may be a reason for that, and you may be happier to spend time untangling the reason why, to lead a more Zen lifestyle where such cares no longer intrude upon your thoughts and weigh you down? But if not, then those defenses are likely in place for a reason, and moreover perhaps on some other day you could have but maybe you cannot handle that right now, especially with… (waves hands) all of this going on in the USA right now? I get that, I don’t know how to convey just how MUCH I DO get that!

But fwiw, you are not correct imho. It doesn’t matter if they deserve it. It doesn’t matter if they are the minority or majority. Nobody is asking for “special treatment”, I was pointing out the differential treatment that selectively they seem to be getting - this is a safe space for people of all walks of life, except for some reason that one, that “other” one that you do not care for, because they hurt you. FUCK THEM for that btw, I am angry on your behalf! Though it does - should - not matter.

Do as you please, of course! I just thought I would open my big mouth and insert my thoughts where I was not invited:-P. I did think it could help… but how you choose to receive all of this is up to you. And I DO GET IT - they messed with you, and it is now hard to forgive. But since you asked…? No, you “can’t” say that extremely common phrase, and also have this remain a safe and open and welcoming space to the people that you are denigrating by doing so. That is not me, not my “perspective”, that is just how words work. Hurting them in return… will not bring you peace, nor engender a welcoming environment (I mean here retaining the one that already exists). That’s just my two cents, unasked-for as it was. I am sorry for your pain, I truly am, and I hope that one day you heal from it and move on past the bigots. (If it helps, many Christians think that nobody is a real person - they are super judgemental of EVERYONE, think “my child intensifies” vibes, but that is just how they choose to live, it has nothing whatsoever to do with you. I hope you can be free of that one day.)

As for what stores are open when, what things are taught in school, that is rather “democracy”, not “Christianity”. Democracy has real problems, especially when people choose to remain uneducated. Christianity has a real problem too, in encouraging people to trust authority structures rather than think through issues on their own. Thus, the issue is not caused by Christianity, but the latter does exaggerate the issue and make the existing way worse. Even so, again, that is on them, while what we do is on us.

Christians are killed all the time, but anyway this seems neither the time nor the place to get too deep into all of that - but if it helps, yes Christians are killed, not so much in the USA obviously. Hatred and bigotry exists everywhere in the world, it is part of our human nature, it just takes different forms in different local areas, each according to whatever excuses the people currently in power there try to use to weild their authority over others. Highly ironically, Jesus himself is a perfect example: for daring to say that the religious zealots of the day should actually bother to help people instead of merely claiming to do so while actually doing the opposite. But not recently, not in the USA, not locally here and now… although also not never, anywhere either. I have been consistently trying to argue that abuse of power is wrong, regardless of the target, or the reason.

I hope that helps explain what I was trying to convey. If you have more questions then I am happy to continue, but if this is merely causing you pain then perhaps I am not the right person to help you heal and see this point here, and we can stop? I want to be sensitive to your needs so I will simply trust your judgement here: just do not reply, or if you want the last word then as part of it tell me plainly that you want to stop, and I will drop it. Thank you for engaging with me so far - yes I agree that your pain is much greater than what I was saying you were feeding forward out to the world, so in that narrow aspect you are correct, I just hoped to help you see beyond that to what it might be like to leave all that behind us; though I must fully acknowledge my own limitations in that regard - I am most often not understood, and I take ownership of my lack of ability to communicate my thoughts. Conversely, I felt like it was not so “friendly” of me to remain silent either though, if I saw something that bothered me? So I offered, in friendliness, these thoughts. I apologize that it caused you pain. Yeah, fuck those that caused that originally… and I hope that you find a way to heal. I also hope that you stop feeding forward those divisive modes of thought, that were so forcibly pushed onto you, again at a much higher degree of severity that you now push out to “others”, but fwiw I do see that you need to heal first before you can do so. I hope you get there, I really do!:-D

You lost me there. I have no idea where you think that “rape” came from in my statement? Perhaps from mentioning MeToo? That was about way more than just rape - lower wages, in general a culture of not being believed, e.g. when saying what men did, which yes included rape but a whole host of lesser things as well.

As far as touching grass, yes I will do that! In case that is a signal that you want to end this friendly conversation, I will do so. I just wanted to say my piece that hatred and intolerance is never okay, regardless of someone’s personal feelings about the target. I am not sure why that is so controversial… especially in this community of all places, but okay.

Hrm I did not know that but then all the more reason not to do it?

“Jesus Fucking Christ!” - just think about it for a moment, how is that “okay”? Perhaps when they do it one could arguably… no I can’t see it even then. But I will think about it some more.

Technically accurate, t-t-the best kind of accurate? :-P

Realistically, you are being grateful to the entire community - making posts, commenting and (UP-!)voting on them, having respectful discussions, keeping things civil, and most importantly keeping this a place that people WANT to come to.

And damn yes that’s worth celebrating! 🎉😀

Although ofc counterpoint: meme.🤪

(You are btw, again by making this a place that people not only do not dread to click on but actually WANT to visit… again and again 😁)

Have you ever thought about why you include his name though? Merely bc that’s how it’s been done before? Why not just say “fuck”? (I am partial to “oh fuck me” personally) Surely the inclusion of the name signifies something, whether you personally thought it through or not?

And then more importantly is how it makes others around you feel. If I were to say “damn those gays” every time I was angry… without ever questioning why, then would that similarly be allowable? Even if I had never so much as met a gay person in my life, and none of the people overhearing me was gay, and let’s further stipulate the highly unlikely scenario that I was not even aware of what the term meant. The word “gay” actually does have meaning to people, generally speaking, as too does “Jesus”, it’s not simply an expletive - it has a whole history and backstory that just about everyone in the world is aware of.

I am only middle-aged, but this comment makes me feel “old” for the first time in my entire lifetime. Or rather, the thoughts that it evokes does. I remember when the MeToo movement came out, and people said the same thing then. Likewise the racist comments before them. Likewise the anti-LGTBTQI+ comments that I have heard over the course of my entire life. “Get over it, it’s not that bad”, “people are just having a bit of fun, it has nothing to do with you, f**got”, and so on.

Elsewhere I have heard on this thread “it’s not happening”, “okay fine it’s happening but it’s okay”, “okay it’s not okay but so what”… and I remember ALL of this, e.g. from Trump’s first (and second) impeachment trials. This event quantitatively is not even in the same ballpark as that… but that’s not the point. Are we welcoming here or not?

In return I offer that famous quote: “First they came for…” - i.e., if something is true, and moves in a trajectory that will lead to a bad end, even if only slowly, then isn’t that bad, regardless of the speed? I am glad that you do not feel called out, although I wonder why not? If something is directed at someone - anyone - then why are we okay with that, even if we are not the target? Whether anyone in particular takes offense at it or not, wouldn’t the mere fact that people might be offended sufficient reason to stop using it? When I was a kid people would say “ohhhh… gross, man that is so gay” - but you know what, after GREAT efforts, we (as a culture) stopped saying that, it is possible to change language! We did it, out of respect for the LGBTQIA+ community. When I was young we also would hear things like “man, don’t be such a pussy”, or even outright “don’t be such a girl” - this too seems to have stopped? Is being gay wrong? No, but is saying that something is “so gay”, meaning it in a bad way wrong? YES! Is being a girl wrong? No, but is saying that a boy is “being a girl” wrong? YES! Is being a Christian wrong… ? Suddenly shit gets more real with this one, yo. Let’s even say for the sake of argument that it is… so what? Are we going to divide into camps on this issue, like with every other issue (the Left always eats its own), or are we going to be “welcoming” and stop “othering” people so that everyone feels okay to visit here? I feel like I know what Captains Kirk and Picard would do - even at great cost to themselves in the process. But on that, I acknowledge that I could be wrong. (Janeway of course would have already killed me for having spoken up, and then turned my blood into coffee:-P)

(A valid counter-argument might have included b/c the group in question is in power, and it is okay to punch up - now that I could have gotten behind, although ironically this is the one argument that I have not heard yet. It at least displays an acknowledgement that the “punching” is in fact taking place.)

TLDR:

J/k I really am grateful for all you do (I just had to poke fun of this post coming from a mod?! :-P)

This feels different though. I may be inadequate at explaining but I will try. Both of those involve a juxtaposition of things that are normal but are odd when conjoined: fucking + … sideways? Christ but… as peanut butter?

Calling out a proper name as in “JFC man!” is more like “oh no, somebody pulled a joey!” (or conversely, “watch out - she’s a Karen!”, MY CHILD vibes intensify…:-P). It specifically pulls up the name, in an intentionally derogatory manner. Thereby it is “cheap”, as it ties in to the aforementioned “othering” effect - which is POWERFUL in its allure and an ever-present bias making up human thought patterns, and therefore needs to be watched out for or it will suck us in.

Ironically I would be okay if this community added an exemption to its rules, like “no othering of a group - unless the group in question is Christianity, because fuck those people, amirite?!:-P” What I cannot stand though is when something like this “sneaks through”. Beehaw does a fantastic job at explaining who they are - with not only mere sidebar text but multiple pages of a help document detailing what the rules are, and how they will be enforced. Likewise, Blåhaj does a fantastic job of not only talking the talk but then walking out that walk, i.e. “please bear in mind that this is a server that is very protective of our minority members and bigotry of any variety will be squashed with great prejudice.” In contrast, this community says “generally “othering” of a group will result in removal/ban.” - except, again, unless the target in question is one of those that the people in power happen to disagree with, I guess?

This is not very Star Trek of us, imho. It does not matter if Christianity is deserving of respect or not - there are a lot of historical reasons pointing to… well… both sides yay and nay there - but what matters is how we treat people - ideally with a spirit of outright welcomingness to all, but failing that, at least with equity and fairness? (or at the very minimum, I would hope, transparency)

Yes, after I tagged their name I started blending the two and then later as you said went more over to that side of things - I am glad that it sounds like it did not totally detract from the totality of what was said even though it would have been better if I had switched over to a desktop computer to type it in rather than remain on mobile (and even on desktop the little window to type replies into is tiny - I would rather see more of what I am writing in one glance, but meh, it is what it is, and social media does not lend itself to such long-form replies, though at least the software allows for it:-).

And thank you for your insight. I hadn’t considered the difficulty of moderating but… yeah, for a larger community it can indeed be like herding cats, or wrangling toddlers, with 100 different things going on all at once and you are expected to mediate differences between all of them. So perhaps I should tone down my language, with that in mind. Although starting a community is a lot easier - especially one with like one post per month, or week, or even day - in one sense, even if a bit harder in others because instead of merely keeping an existing ball rolling (inertia, with established posters contributing content so you do have to mediate between them but not necessarily generate it yourself), you have to start it. Each type has its own challenges. Though the converse is true: if nobody does it then it simply will not get done.

As far as the USA… yeah, sigh. WWIII may impact literally everyone though - and Russia will most definitely feel emboldened, possibly with the USA sending weapons towards defending it as opposed to the other way around. It was really a brilliant tactical maneuver, fully on par with Brexit and likely to far greater ultimate effect. There is no greater power than to convert a former foe into an ally, thereby not only denying the other side but enhancing your own as well. I hope that other nations learn from this: it can happen to anybody - those who refuse to learn from history will end up having to repeat it (https://youtu.be/uqsBx58GxYY ). I will add though that it is not happening nearly as quickly as it may seem: the structural cracks have been in place for many decades now (just merely a few), e.g. what was allowed to be called “news” was broadened to become so wide that it lead us to today, whereupon it wraps back around to form a circle where now the dissenting sources are silenced (but on the OTHER side of the divide!). Without a check in place for truth - how then are people supposed to know what even is “true” anymore? And by people I mean voters. Democracy requires EFFORT, which it seems that most Western nations are unwilling to put forth. (And kingdoms are vulnerable to different avenues of… let’s just call it “persuasion”, on behalf of those who may want to see the fall of their contemporaries, and who have access to tools to make it happen.)

Yeah, or “microsoft”, despite the top post having that word in its very title.

Search functionality in general is not ideal on PieFed, but specifically for piefed.blahaj.zone it seems broken.

It certainly has done all that you said are more… religious fascists even killed Jesus himself, then others turned around to use him as a martyr for their own cause. Jesus the idea can be a bit like Santa Claus - it can mean whatever the fuck you want it to, especially if you can gain something (profits, power, gratification, etc.) as a result?

Regardless, I like how welcoming this community is. We can do yet still more though, to avoid “othering” half the people on planet earth? (Muslims also consider Jesus as one of the Holy Prophets, and similarly to Christianity makes up 1/4th-1/3rd of all people; Hindi is much more of a stretch but they too incorporate Jesus Christ into the pantheon of various “gods” and “avatars” and the like…; and too there are Mormons, who consider themselves Christians even while mainstream Christians do not in return, and on and on it goes - there really are a lot of people who at least claim to follow what Jesus says!)

Btw - you will enjoy this one, I think, even though it is not all that relevant to this discussion imho - that isn’t what taking the lord’s name in vain means. Mostly, as far as I’ve heard, that is “claiming his name” (calling yourself by a form of it?) yet denying all the great responsibility that comes with it. i.e., it is the very self-professed Christians who in the act of demeaning you (“treat others as you would wish to be treated in return”?), were the ones performing the very act of “taking HIS name”, but “in vain”. It’s just a fucking swear man, not a commandment-breaker, don’t sweat it:-).

That said, when I was growing up, the F-bomb (YOU KNOW WHICH ONE) was a generalized swear. It was also a short-form word for a cigarette? And on top of that, partially reclaimed by some within the target community, much as the N-word. Do you see how none of that matters? I had to expend SO MUCH effort to throw away my false religious roots (Will & Grace on TV helped so much with that:-P ngl I could not stand to watch it especially when 2 men kissed - I FORCED myself to watch, over and over again, to get past the idea that it was “not normal” or “unacceptable” or “morally wrong”). So please believe me when I say: that it made up a general swear for so long is nowhere near an excuse. Whatever THEY do is on them, while what WE do is on US. Yes, fuck religious Christo-fascists who instead of lifting a finger to help someone go extremely out of their way to heap heavy burdens upon other people (btw those are Jesus’ very own words - in Matthew 23:4)… but regardless of the past, who have we decided to be, here, in this place, at this time?

If it’s a direct quote from a movie… that actually might be a good counter-argument. Except wait a minute, if I used that argument in order to say the F-bomb word, or the N-word, would you (or the current mods I guess) allow me to get away with that then? Whether you/they did or did not, you should not, is what I am saying. Because it “others” people. See also my reply to the other comment below my prior reply.

I find it the height of irony how the class of people that Jesus hated most were hypocritics - calling them “den of vipers” and even more descriptive “like whitewashed tombs, looking good only on the outside but on the inside full of rot and decay”.

Jesus hung out with prostitutes and “tax collectors” - today that would be LGBTQIA+ and homeless or renters rather than landlords - and argued for women’s rights.

In America the people who showed up to overthrow the government on January 6th called themselves “patriots”, and similarly people say how they “follow the teachings of Christ”. But… how trustworthy are the people saying this?

Anyway, I’ve been a bit of everything in my life from Christian to Atheist and several forms of in-between, but regardless of my personal thoughts about the actual subject mainly what I was saying above was about the meta-subject of the wording causing “othering” and making people feel welcomed. Not people who “follow Christ” by like diddling kids (aka who do NOT do that, whatever they claim), and rather people who regardless of whether they do the former, find the latter repugnant, yet can come from a wide variety of backgrounds (including other varieties of non-mainstream Christianity such as Mormon, or Muslims also consider Jesus as one of the Holy Prophets).

I would not like to see people making fun of gay people. Or women (or men). So why is it okay to make fun of Christians? And not merely the hypocritical Christo-fascists, but all Christians (and again, also Mormons, Muslims, etc.)? Even the ones feeding & helping to house the homeless, or the ones who fought to end slavery in the UK? It’s easier to build a community by “othering” the outsiders, by making everything about “us versus them”. I’m watching the Republicans in the USA do that right this very weekend, ending much of the spending programs for things such as healthcare and science, and when asked they can’t even say why really, except that they need to “pwn the libs”.

Which makes me think that it’s not enough to be against something - we need to be for something. One thing this very community is for is inclusivity, creating a safe and not merely tolerant but outright welcoming space for people to come and chat. Unless, that is, you are part of that “other” group, over “there”.

That does not make me feel good. How does it make you feel?