Maybe if you do a colon and a parenthese. I know it automatically changes a semicolon and parenthese to a winking one now I will try

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And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they had all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that the trees had been a bad move and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

well it works in the main part anyway.

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And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they had all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that the trees had been a bad move and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

This is off topic, try it somewhere else, eg the banter+brawl board.