Roy

Scalpers, Pyramid schemes..... take your pick.

My last partner started speaking Russian to me unexpectedly which needless to say made me work 2x harder. So if you know a second language that's your secret weapon

@Leo Gura I mean it should be such an obvious intuition that societies move more left and liberal overall over long periods of time, it's sort of an inevitability. Progress = expansion, not tradition or conservation. It's hilarious to see how resistant people are to how clear this is. They'll deny basic reality to "own the libs" as they say. What's even more funny is within my own country (Canada) the Conservatives have spent the last few years rebranding themselves as "Progressive Conservative" (oxymoron lol) and adding things like pro-gay marriage to their platform. They are basically becoming what the Liberal party was 30ish years ago so they can still stay competitive in the modern age. Literally wolves in sheep's clothing.

You are still misinterpreting it. Gaslighting is malicious and subtle, often with planned intent. There is nothing subtle or slight of hand about what this person was probably saying to you, they are probably well aware that racist jokes aren't even that funny but are being deliberately callous about it because it might be their sense of humor (shock/dark) they don't want to be put on the spot in front of everyone. It's not gaslighting if the feelings and trust you have are so socially widespread that > racism is bad and racist jokes are not ok. It would be like if someone was trying to gaslight you that the moon doesn't exist LOL. This is why we don't call Flat earthers or Moon Landing deniers "gaslighters". They are just plain assholes who don't want to be held accountable for their behavior. Gaslighting is not > Every time someone says something to me I don't like, as so many people think it is. Words start to lose their meaning if they are used too much and improperly.

Alcohol is legal because it's convenient to consume and has been ridiculously ingrained in most cultures since it was invented thousands of years ago. Obviously if any law should be changed to improve society it would be stricter alcohol laws but lest we live in backwards world. I had my fun with it when I was a teenager, I've been full blown drunk maybe 20ish times in my whole life? I can't remember (which is the point xD). I'm glad I grew out of it. It literally tastes like poison to me, I don't know how people enjoy it. Same thing with marijuana which I was way more into when I was younger. I've basically been substance free for like 10 years. I just love feeling clear minded and sober, it's so much more enjoyable to me. What's funny is going to parties or social things and people staring or making comments because I'm not participating in any substance use. I can tell they think I'm judging them on the inside and must think I'm better than me but that's not it, I just genuinely don't have any interest or excitement in getting drunk or high. It was fun 10 years ago, not anymore. I definitely have plans to do psychedelics in the future but not for fun they would be strictly for personal and universal exploration.

This isn't what gaslighting means. I wish people would stop throwing around this term so liberally. Anyways what they are doing is appealing to a toxic social norm > that you shouldn't be confrontational in a casual setting because it spoils the mood and puts people on the spot. There is an expectation that "calling someone out" should only happen when they are being brazenly and deliberately offensive and everyone can tell they have a malicious intent to offend or do harm. Of course regardless of intention some jokes have the potential to be funny to some but easily cross that line for others.

Now that is a Grade A dank meme. You gotta respect how all-in he is on this.

Yes that's technically true, but you're putting too much stock into it. Of course you must admit your existence isn't in a vacuum of biology. It includes everything else. You can say you agree, but do you actually embody it if you're honest? Or are you on your way to embodying it?

@StarStruck You need to challenge toxic conventional thinking and attitudes like this. It is only damaging and limiting you. There is no such defined thing as a "prime". Plenty of people can have a peak or renaissance at ANY point in their life. A heroine addict can recover and get to good health at 40 after 20 years of suffering and addiction. Stop worrying about comparing yourself to other people and what or where you "should" be at because of your age. What a silly notion. You are on your own unique journey. Appreciate that and indulge selfishly about only yourself relative to yourself. Do you see how the statement, "It won't get any better for me from this point." Isn't actually a true statement and believing it is actually hurting you not helping you?

Take emotional responsibility to be brutally honest with them so there is some kind of closure to the end of the relationship as it is. You're doing both parties a disservice by ghosting. Not only are you possibly hurting their feelings by childishly sitting around "waiting for them to spam you", you are hurting your own development by being avoidant of moving through your emotions with them. Explain how you really feel to them fairly and why it's not going to work out so they don't hold onto any expectations they have, then you can move on. A strong, emotionally adjusted person doesn't play games like a little kid.

The IQ debate is unfortunately usually a low handed way for closet or open racists to enter a discussion they have no business being in, or for smart asses to point to and use as ammo for some ridiculous agenda. I think people are heavily misguided on the evidence. I don't believe there is really any significant correlation between someone's skin color or ethnicity and their IQ. I think the gap can be explained way easier by societal development, access to quality education, and resources. If you take a baby from the womb of a Somalian mother who lives on some desolate farm with zero prospects, and raise that baby in some upper class Western place with private schooling it's probably no coincidence there will be a much higher IQ for that child. People who don't acknowledge such an obvious intuition and are deliberately inflammatory and neurotically insist that it's because of their skin color and they are being sCiEnTiFiC when they say so need to be cancelled. If cancelling ever had a place to be used, that's it. Not to mention people take IQ way too seriously. It's bogus academic garbage anyways. The arrogance to think we can quantify human intelligence without including social and emotional intelligence as apart of the metric is hilariously un-hollistic.

There is a large Pro-Jewish Nationalist sentiment all over the West, from both Left AND Right leaning people. It's to support their right to exist as a people (and a nation as Israel) given their generally bleak and dark history of oppression (Holocaust). So it's probably more of a good thing than a bad thing at this point in history. Of course they aren't the only ones who suffer. We don't hear anything about the near 30 million Soviets and Chinese that were slaughtered in WW2 by the Axis in our education systems, but that's because those in power have an interest in controlling the narrative to be biased and don't give the full picture. Those countries have been viewed as adversarial for quite some time.

I'm not sure the connection between material happenstance and free will? Those unlucky people also don't have free will. Yes I'm sad for all living things pretty much all the time, it's draining actually. I'm tired and want to know when I get to go home...

From my biased personal perspective wired in my ego brain I'm special, even though day to day I don't think I am. From the unbiased perspective of the universe I'm a tiny part of it that's no more special than the rest.

I discovered there was no free will some years ago. Has it really changed anything about the way I've lived my life after that revelation? Not really. It's kind of just an interesting thought experiment I wouldn't worry about it too much. Or worry if you want, it's not like you have a choice anyways LOL

I'm going to assume you're being a little sarcastic here but that's one of the biggest social myths that pisses me off Just because you're old it doesn't automatically count for anything. - First off. EVERYONE ages, unless you die early. So it's not a special quality whatsoever. - Second. You could have gone through your entire life being a complete moron, never having learned from your mistakes. - Third. There are countless old people who aren't wise about anything. They don't develop themselves at all. They exclusively focus on fulfilling 100% selfish values like getting a ton of money, a house, and a family. They spend zero resources outside of their very limited expansion of concern. Anyways I'm ranting a little bit for fun at this point, it's just a pet peeve of mine.

Boomers are Buddhas?

I mean I posted that for some comedic affect, but in my life it's been overwhemingly anecdotally clear that it's only really older people that are racist. I've hardily ever run into anyone below 45 in my country that I could discern was a genuine racist. It simply won't be socially sustainable to have that kind of hatred with the way demographics projections are going. On my recent travels going out West across my country I've noticed even smaller rural towns are getting filled with Asian/Indian immigrants. Which is great. The faster it happens the better. I'm willing to bet in 25 years there won't even be a need for movements like BLM anymore because most of the heavy lifting will already have been done. Of course with the internet the way it is there will always be small pockets of hidden cancer, as long as they stay there and don't gain traction again that's good enough.

This problem will solve itself, just be patient and wait for all the boomers to die.

Any time spent in front of a computer screen reading articles, discussing on forums, or watching videos........... is zero time spent outside, interacting with the other sex, helping you build relationships and get laid. As much as there are definite factors with technology and society, the brutal truth is this is a 100% personal issue that is solving by simply taking action. Of course the young men suffering won't want to admit this, they'll have a list of limiting beliefs and a victim identity they want to maintain without even knowing it.

Imagine if public education actually taught young people how to form healthy relationships (sexual or otherwise), instead of learning what will be ultimately useless math formulas for 98% of people, or taught how to become good memorizers for tests that will teach you no skills for working a job in the real world. Instead they leave this domain to a completely vapid and broken culture, where parents are literally too busy working to teach their kids anything, so young boys end up absorbing an utterly toxic mindset towards women from hip-hop culture, and young girls end up buying into the delusional and fantastical expectations that modern feminism instills in them. I remember the only thing I learned that was even slightly relevant to this was from my Gym classes in high school where the only thing they said to us was, "Wear a condom if you're going to have sex." and "Don't catch any STDs because they're bad mmkay???" Combine this with hilariously unregulated technology and social media and it's exactly no surprise when some incel goes to shoot up some school because he couldn't get his dick wet.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with killing anything, for any reason. Where exactly in the universe does it say we shouldn't, or it cares if we do or don't? It's completely relative. If you are the one killing and it benefits your survival, from your POV it's good and great! From the others that suffer, it's evil and bad! Put yourself in the perspective of the Nazis by pretending to be them, I mean REALLY imagine it. How do you think they were able to do what they did? Precisely because they thought what they were doing was good, because it benefits them and their ability to survive. What we call traditional "morality" is nothing more than a collective social consensus that we all imagine and choose to agree on and participate in. If your survival agenda operates outside of this then it literally doesn't exist for you, you simply have your own consensus. In an absurd hypothetical if we all collectively agreed 100% as a society tomorrow that it would be ethical and better for humanity to euthanize all mentally or physically handicapped people, it would literally become good. There is no exterior higher authority or arbiter that says we shouldn't or can't (unless you imagine one of course). From the universes POV it makes no difference what happens.

He is just the most cunning and ruthless power hungry ego that rushed in to turn Russia into a kleptocratic oil mafia after the USSR collapsed. If he actually had any shred of empathy he would use his extreme competence and political capabilities to help the Russian people, not let the country devolve into the 3rd world ****hole that it is now. His face should be plastered beside the word Corruption in the dictionary.

The idea of self improvement kind of emerges at Orange so it makes sense there is a lot of that here, which is fine. Gotta start somewhere.

I completely sympathize with the question, but isn't it kind of obvious in a way that it's utterly arbitrary? Like no matter what "way" it is, or could have been, you'd still be standing there (or not ), wondering if there is some underlying meaning or reason for it. So if the question always persists no matter the contents of it, does it really matter to have an answer? Maybe consider the experience of the wondering itself is the answer?