Soon, I'll be on a cruise with my elderly father. It really is the best and perhaps only kind of travel for him: no flights, no anxieties about language or getting lost or meals, all costs up front, private bathroom etc. But I'm also aware that cruises are really quite terrible as a human invention. I've got some ideas on making it up on the environmental and financial front.

Is there anything I could do about the human side of things?

I just saw Triangle Of Sadness with my partner and while we loved the film, it's also making me think about in what ways could I try to relate to the crew that will be taking care of me, without just adding more stress and burden and hypocrisy into the situation?

Could I ask Tildes members to critique these suggestions and offering some of their own?

1. Money. Cash on the first day or when we leave? From basic research it seems the built in gratuities are shared as a pool whereas drink and cash tips are personal.

2. Little notes of thank you left in the room or handed to the assined cabin staff person?

3. Small gifts? What would be acceptable and not "oh wow this person gave me junk gee thanks"

4. I'm wasting my time and being a hypocrite. Just don't even go or because I'm set on going, save the theatrics and live with the guilt?

I haven't been able to get samfundssind out of my head since reading the article. It's the polar opposite of what you see in a lot of the US, and I wish that more people in this country weren't selfish assholes. It blows my mind that people are unwilling to make such small personal sacrifices, like wearing a mask, for the benefit of their neighbors.

On that note, what are some small, self-imposed inconveniences you put up with to improve the lives of others?

I'll start: if I'm pulling up to a red light in the right-most lane and there's a car behind me, I'll always move over to the left. There's a chance they want to make a right turn, and there's no need for them to wait behind me for the light to cycle.

For those that aren't familiar with it, Kind Words is a recently released "game" where players can write a message about a difficulty they're facing or something that's troubling them. Other real people in the game can then respond, letting that person know that they're not alone. Players can also write un-addressed messages of positivity in the game, which are spread to other users via paper airplanes.

I figured we could have a thread on Tildes with our own version of the game via comments.

Here's how I figure it will work. We'll have three post types:

Request: share your situation in order to get kind words in response
Response: offer kind words to other people who have posted here
Airplane: write general thoughts of goodwill for all the readers of the thread

Please begin your post by naming its type in bold font. For those posing Requests, please let people know if you would rather receive public responses or PMs.

Example post:

Request: Sometimes I find myself wondering if there's any point to anything. It feels like I'm working so hard at meaningless stuff, just to get by. Anyone else feel this way?

That isn't my request, just an example of what someone might type.

Remember that the point of the thread is to let people know that they are heard and that they are not alone!

Let's all be kind!

Link to the announcement -- Do read it, it's a short email.

I'm posting this here because I think it generated some good discussion over on HN, which unfortunately got .. flamewary. (Is that irony?)

I've myself created and moderated several large-ish communities over the years and my views on codes of conduct are mixed. I'm always trying to make an envi. They themselves can range quite a bit, with 'opponents' to CoCs often picking the worst offenders in terms of overreach as examples. To me, it's always felt like the software engineering world is rediscovering... forum guidelines?

This is a politically-charged topic now, where almost all discussion on CoCs being centered on black&white "if you oppose them then you're basically alt-right". This makes the topic of CoCs an interesting example, IMO, of how we ("we" as in "the internet") give loudspeakers to the most extremist voices, silencing nuance.

Reminds me of a post by @deadaluspark here discussing the effect that this increasing divide has on us.

Well anyway, I brought up the announcement in question because Stallman (someone who tends to usually be pretty radical and have clear cut opinions) positively surprised me. This seemed to resonate with people, especially the parts about replacing sticks with carrots. It felt pretty good to see someone ignore (probably by virtue of being shielded from it) the politically-charged side of the topic and simply focus on trying to improve communication. Sounds cliché, but I feel that this approach has gotten very rare the past 4-5 years, and its higher frequency on Tildes is part of why I've been enjoying reading the comments here so much.