I tried sending somebody a message on facebook but not sure if they received it.

Do i have to send a friend request first and be accepted before they can receive my message?

no yes you can send messages, if they're not in your friends list, it will be in there others folder

One more thing,will i be able to see some form of recognition that they have viewed the message other than the person replying.

I think it will notify you that x 'has accepted your request'. Which just means they read it iirc

On facebook, i unfriended a few old 'friends' this week. They've been blathering on about brexit and trump doom. I tried engaging them, offered links to books that they never read, pointed out some big issues with what they say and offered alternative views. You know the drill. It reminded me of nazis on the dif! Except this was all self proclaimed left wingers with supposedly free and open minds....the last straw for me was when i copped one of them congratulating a stranger for the way they'd spoken to that "dumbo paul"...

Sorry to say it old 'friends' but um go away in jerking motions!

dubmeup wrote: It's tough, mate. But increasingly I see how tribal human beings are. There is no particular reason we should be more rational than other creatures, and although we have phenomenal intelligence, ultimately we often are not.

I have read comments sections on Brexit, and there are some embarrassing views out there. It's all emotion, it has nothing to do with a rational assessment of the issues. But I wouldn't say the 'left' or 'right' is better or worse, both anti and pro-Trump reactions can be equally disproportionate.

What else can you do other than continue to appeal to people's more reasonable instincts?

Absolutely agree. This isn't confined to the left or the right or the up or the down it's like football, you choose a team and support that team, even if that team is shite, plays shite, has shite players, a shite ground and shite pies!
Except (at the risk of upsetting paisley's ghost), this stuff is more important than football...

dubmeup wrote:
I've been amazed recently at how many people are SO entrenched in the official ways - whether political, educational, financial - you name it, they were TOLD what is going on, they now KNOW what is going on because they were told, and they will DIE defending what they know after they were told it. Young or old, you simply can't even try to give a slight pointer to any information that might be somehow relevant. They just don't want to know.

Willing blindness. Happy slaves. Devotees of struggle and The Dark Adventure. My heart used to bleed for these people. But, actually, my heart would bleed because of these people if I ever do anything to try to give them an alternative opinion or new idea.

I begin to think they deserve what they get. All that annoys me is that they take me and "mine" down with them.

My heart used to bleed a bit too. Now? I just find them frustrating. They're so blinkered and yet they claim to be open. If i were a benevolent dictator i'd ban them from voting. But then if i were a benevolent dictator, it'd be my way or the gulag