For me, a shutdown is when I stop cataloging the complex bits of what I'm perceiving and just go 'listening to this is now unpleasant and I don't want to subject myself to any more of this'. I might smile mechanically or emit encouraging 'hmm' noises, but I am on autopilot, you're not going to be getting my higher brain functions applied to whatever you're talking about, if I remember what you said it's going to be as factual 'this person said such and such' memories that I have to actively recall instead of actual opinions on what you said that will already be integrated into our next conversation, and I will dither on the far end of human interaction range trying to figure out if I can flee 'right now' without being impolite.

A meltdown... I get those, but I am experienced at calming myself down, so they're basically 'flashes'. Every so often, I will have a flash of... absolute, raging frustration at something. Like (as an example that actually happened to me recently) failing to pick up my water bottle twice after dropping it by accident. The first fumbling was an accident, they happen, they're natural, I'm totally fine with that, I don't even give it thought, I just go to pick it back up on reflex. The second fumble/first failure, I'm like, oops, better actually give this attention, I'll be more careful the third time. Third fumble/second failure, my reaction is "REEEE I CAN'T PICK THIS THING UP! WHAT I JUST DID SHOULD HAVE PICKED IT UP! THIS SHOULD NOT BE!!!" (In internal monologue, not audible screaming. If it's audible, they're closer to the severe end of the spectrum.) And then I have to take in a deep breath through my nose and let it out slowly (and yes, I have surprised myself by actually making the 'reeee' sound effect while doing this) so that I can be PRECISE and DELIBERATE about picking the water bottle back up. This will then be followed by a temporary shutdown because I have just blown a fuse on my emotional centers.

The common point is, I feel, that they're both reactions to something anathema, sort of. A shutdown is passive avoidance, a meltdown is active rejection.

Eh, not quite. I'd say a better analogy involves the posts being "I have a (insert car model here) and the brakes are making worrying squealing noises", and "Hi, here's a (link) to a trade-in offer for a model of car that's much less likely to have the brakes fail on you. It won't even cost you anything to swap except 30 minutes of your time."

The problem is, there's no immediately visible option to stop this crap; stopping said crap therefore takes time, which is an individual person's single most valuable resource. People have to go searching through settings or go googling 'how do I do this' in order to disable this, and even that slight inconvenience means there's going to be a lot of people that want to disable it, but end up not bothering, and that's not a good thing. Rule of thumb, if it's not absolutely trivial to do on a whim, it may as well be impossible.

Unfortunately true. Paradox of tolerance: Civilization can tolerate a lot of things, but it can't tolerate the intolerant. If it tries to tolerate the intolerant, it dies.

There's just something about 'you can throw the second punch but not the first' that Republicans can't seem to get through their tiny little peanut brains.

Heh. Heh heh. You think that you can... file a complaint, and get a fine dismissed just like that. Heh heh heh. God, you're naive. Or stupid. Or a paid propagandist. Or just plain rich enough for your reaction to a fine to be 'meh'.

Criminality is predicated on convenience. If it's easy for an authority to throw out fines and hard for the populace to dismiss those fines, guess what's going to happen? There's going to be fines applied that shouldn't have been, but that the people who are getting fined literally can't put in the effort to get dismissed. And that's not justice in the slightest. 'Innocent until proven guilty', you troll. Heard that phrase before??

Allow me to rephrase that. If an authority figure wants to prosecute you for whatever reason, even if you've been perfectly "legal", they will make up a crime you committed based on something they didn't like about you. This driving-camera crap just gives them more opportunities.

I got ticketed not too long ago because a police officer thought I was texting when I wasn't doing anything other than looking at Google Maps. You don't have to have committed a crime. You just have to have yourself recorded in a way that looks like you might have committed a crime. There is a VERY BIG DIFFERENCE between those qualifiers, and it is ripe for abuse. Innocence doesn't prove innocence, and proving innocence is what matters.

How does one find those few people? And how can they be worked against? I honestly don't know and I don't know how to find out. Do I ask ChatGPT???

Shit, maybe I should ask ChatGPT...

Don't tell me what to do.

My only quibble with your post is your portrayal of Republicans' general philosophy, in the last paragraph. Political conservatism, in my opinion which has recently been heavily influenced by the above link, is instead 'conserving political power for yourself'. Because that's what Republicans are doing. They want the power, and they don't care what they do to get it. If they make a pandemic worse to get more power? That's fine. Spur global warming past feedback thresholds in the process of getting more power? Who cares, they got more power. In the pursuit of the 'right' people telling the 'wrong' people what to do, and in the pursuit of keeping the 'wrong' people from telling the 'right' people what to do, anything goes. Hypocrisy, lies, crime, election fraud, subverting courts, coups, false patriotism, false piety, terrorism, even outright murder... anything goes.

Know the enemy, spread the word to your friends and family (and maybe further).

Don't tell me what to do.

They don't care if you're a leftist or not, they care that you're telling them what to do, precisely because they don't want to be told what to do, even if it's good for them, because if they're being told what to do, it means they aren't in power, and they want power at any cost. In the pursuit of the 'right' people telling the 'wrong' people what to do, and in the pursuit of keeping the 'wrong' people from telling the 'right' people what to do, anything goes. Hypocrisy, lies, crime, election fraud, subverting courts, coups, false patriotism, false piety, terrorism, even outright murder... anything goes.

Know the enemy, spread the word to your friends and family (and maybe further).

Don't tell me what to do.

Of course they mock you for washing your hands! Telling them to wash their hands and wear masks so they don't get COVID and fucking die, is still 'telling them to do something', and (/s) that's terrible (/s). In the pursuit of the 'right' people telling the 'wrong' people what to do, and in the pursuit of keeping the 'wrong' people from telling the 'right' people what to do, anything goes. Hypocrisy, lies, crime, election fraud, subverting courts, coups, false patriotism, false piety, terrorism, even outright murder... anything goes.

Know the enemy, spread the word to your friends and family (and maybe further).

Don't tell me what to do.

This is the actual Republican platform. They don't care a whit about what we consider to be 'problems'. The only thing they think is problematic is that they might not have power, and that we might have power. In the pursuit of the 'right' people telling the 'wrong' people what to do, and in the pursuit of keeping the 'wrong' people from telling the 'right' people what to do, anything goes. Hypocrisy, lies, crime, election fraud, subverting courts, coups, false patriotism, false piety, terrorism, even outright murder... anything goes.

Know the enemy, spread the word to your friends and family (and maybe further).

Don't tell me what to do.

You are absolutely correct. For Republicans, in the pursuit of the 'right' people telling the 'wrong' people what to do, and in the pursuit of keeping the 'wrong' people from telling the 'right' people what to do, anything goes. Hypocrisy, lies, crime, election fraud, subverting courts, coups, false patriotism, false piety, terrorism, even outright murder... anything goes.

Know the enemy, spread the word to your friends and family (and maybe further).

All human lives start out as piles of cells... but not all piles of cells can become human lives.

This is my one concession to contributing to this argument. There are pregnancies that aren't viable. For some fetuses, there is literally no way to make it so that those fetuses can live to become infants. Therefore, these fetuses literally objectively don't have inherent value.

Everybody who's downvoting you, is downvoting you because you are advocating to kill mothers over fetuses that already cannot be kept alive. You're not saying it outright, but by god, you're implying it, because that is what is going to happen if those policies are implemented.

Don't tell me what to do.

This is the actual Republican platform. The guy you're arguing with doesn't actually believe that protofetuses are worth trying to keep them alive. He just wants to be able to tell you what to do, and guess what? If he can force you to die over a nonviable protofetus, that means he has power over you, which is the entire point. He doesn't care about you, save that he doesn't want you to be able to keep him from killing you over a nonviable protofetus. In the pursuit of the 'right' people telling the 'wrong' people what to do, and in the pursuit of keeping the 'wrong' people from telling the 'right' people what to do, anything goes. Hypocrisy, lies, crime, election fraud, subverting courts, coups, false patriotism, false piety, terrorism, even outright murder... anything goes.

Know the enemy, spread the word to your friends and family (and maybe further).

Don't tell me what to do.

They're not evil per se, it's just that they're after power, and they don't care if they do evil things to get power... which, to a lot of people, means they're evil. And yes, this is the actual Republican platform - straight white Christian men getting power over people who aren't straight and white and Christian and male. In the pursuit of the 'right' people telling the 'wrong' people what to do, and in the pursuit of keeping the 'wrong' people from telling the 'right' people what to do, anything goes. Hypocrisy, lies, crime, election fraud, subverting courts, coups, false patriotism, false piety, terrorism, even outright murder... anything goes.

Know the enemy, spread the word to your friends and family (and maybe further).

Don't tell me what to do.

This is the actual Republican platform. They don't care about if they're right about biology. They care about getting power, full stop. In the pursuit of the 'right' people telling the 'wrong' people what to do, and in the pursuit of keeping the 'wrong' people from telling the 'right' people what to do, anything goes. Hypocrisy, lies, crime, election fraud, subverting courts, coups, false patriotism, false piety, terrorism, even outright murder... anything goes.

Know the enemy, spread the word to your friends and family (and maybe further).

Don't tell me what to do.

Specifically, laws written by straight, white, Republican men, for the sole purpose of gaining power over everyone who's not straight, and everyone who's not white, and everyone who's not Republican, and everyone who's not male... no matter how cruel the effects of the laws are. This is the actual Republican platform. In the pursuit of the 'right' people telling the 'wrong' people what to do, and in the pursuit of keeping the 'wrong' people from telling the 'right' people what to do, anything goes. Hypocrisy, lies, crime, election fraud, subverting courts, coups, false patriotism, false piety, terrorism, even outright murder... anything goes.

Know the enemy, spread the word to your friends and family (and maybe further).

Don't tell me what to do.

This is the actual Republican platform. It's absolutely about getting control, not about any particular ideology. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's why Republicans try their culture war junk, because WE care about ideologies, and it divides us. In the pursuit of the 'right' people telling the 'wrong' people what to do, and in the pursuit of keeping the 'wrong' people from telling the 'right' people what to do, anything goes. Hypocrisy, lies, crime, election fraud, subverting courts, coups, false patriotism, false piety, terrorism, even outright murder... anything goes.

Know the enemy, spread the word to your friends and family (and maybe further).

Don't tell me what to do.

Did you read this? You comment makes me think you have. No one seems to be mentioning this despite how eminently reasonable it seems to be. Have you been sharing this link? I have been. I wish more people could read this.

Don't tell me what to do.

This is the actual Republican platform. The only thing they want, is to have authority over everyone, and for no one to have authority over them. We are the ones who fear being wrong. Republicans, on the other hand, won't lose a wink of sleep if lying gets them in power. In the pursuit of the 'right' people telling the 'wrong' people what to do, and in the pursuit of keeping the 'wrong' people from telling the 'right' people what to do, anything goes. Hypocrisy, lies, crime, election fraud, subverting courts, coups, false patriotism, false piety, terrorism, even outright murder... anything goes.

Know the enemy, spread the word to your friends and family (and maybe further).