Well, fair enough. I’m certainly not looking for an argument either.

Might be time to re-evaluate now that some time has passed? Sure seems like someone with a grudge against UM created accounts to stir the pot and make them look (very) bad.

Your evidence here doesn’t seem that compelling. The egregious stuff - posting from Breitbart et al, antagonistic trolling comment chains - doesn’t match UM’s conduct anywhere else (suggesting the troll-created-accounts theory for those instances of bad behavior).

And the non-egregious stuff (e.g. having multiple accounts for different instances (I do that) and posting to a community from one, not realizing another account had been bot-banned there) - those seem like the kind of missteps any average person would make under a crazy scenario like this.

I mean, what’s the alternative theory? It was all UM, and they have since COMPLETELY cleaned up their act…so they can do what? More stuff like that someday in the future? That’s a lotta pretty sincere effort for a long time, why bother? Anyone trying to attack and disrupt the Lemmyverse from an ideology/propaganda standpoint would just create new accounts. This sure seems to me like a normal-ass person who just wants to keep their account name and isn’t willing to be bullied off of it.

To be honest, you come across as the vindictive unreasonable one at this point. Not tryna be a jerk, I was curious about all this so I looked at everything you posted, and I came away feeling like you really ought to just move on. Feels like an unhealthy and inaccurate hangup you’re holding onto. But hey I’m just some stranger on the Internet lol, feel free to tell me to go fuck myself, all good!

Are you familiar with iFixit? They provide a ton of technical manuals from what I’ve heard, but I haven’t personally used them. Also be aware of library.kiwix.org - they’re a Swiss charity that provides archival downloads of knowledge bases, including iFixit. They might have more resources that you’d be interested in too.

Well spill the beans ya old goat, which two games?!

Reads to me like “a thing arriving via evolution does not assign any kind of moral value, good or bad, to the thing”. Maybe going so far as “we should use language more carefully”, but now I’m really reaching.

Haven’t broken enough expensive-looking stuff yet, clearly!

You’re right that it’s hard, and that it’s kind of a “put on your own mask before helping others” scenario. If you’re just barely holding on, you’re right, you may not be well-positioned to provide help. And in that case, the critical priority for you should be to get out of that situation first. Easier said than done, I know.

But, take heart! There are skills and habits and such you can build along the way that play to your own strengths and which will be useful if things get truly gnarly. Starting on them several years ago would have been better than starting on them today, but starting today is better than starting tomorrow.

I had this big exhaustive list (in a Lemmy comment thread) of things to pick and choose from to try to slowly get better at - it’s since been deleted! I’m working on tracking that down so I can provide it here, it was seriously useful (and heartening, in the way it shows how we can all contribute due to the wide range of things needed).