Does that make it more acceptable?

The thing I take issue with is the obligation we’ve been trained to feel when certain days come to buy something for everyone close to you.

If you’re buying someone a gift because you see something you know they’ll enjoy, then hoard it until some gathering like Christmas because that’s an opportune time to give it, nothing about that rubs me wrong. If you buy someone a gift because it’s Christmas then it’s just a material ritual that lacks that personal connection that makes gifting meaningful.

And like, even I will send some bullshit to my nieces and nephews for birthdays and such, cuz they’re like 6 and fucking love that shit - there’s no deep personal connection or anything, but lil Timmy doesn’t give a fuck: he had nothing from me a minute ago, and now he’s losing his shit over some $5 squirt gun. It’s fun for fun sake.

But like, when my mom calls me (and I’m pushing 40) asking what I want for Christmas… Mom, love ya, but stop worrying about that kind of shit. Let’s go out for some dinner or something so we can reminisce about how much of an asshole I was when I was lil Timmy’s age.

Plenty of times at work, I see people give an apology for something they had no control over, or did have control over but were acting in good faith, so they’re quick to start dropping apologies to management especially, hoping that it will diffuse the situation. I’m quick to step in with “naw fuck that, this isn’t on you, let’s figure out what happened and why so we can stop it from happening again”

Most healthcare settings embrace that kind of no-fault model unless someone was actually behaving maliciously or recklessly, but… that’s only on paper. Management can still be quick to throw someone under the bus if they think it’ll take some heat off the department, so when someone starts offering themselves to the bus cuz that’s the path of least drama, I’ll redirect to systems flaws before management has a chance to act on that.

My answer is basically to stop letting a calendar date guilt trip you into wasting money on me because you’ve been marketed into some obligation so send me shit I don’t need. If you happen to find something you think I’d actually appreciate, go for it, but even then it doesn’t have to be for some stupid holiday.

I’ve kinda just stopped giving a shit about things like christmas or birthdays, both for me and for the people I’d consider giving a gift to, but I give them the same treatment: if I find something they’d like, I’ll just buy and gift it as soon as it’s convenient. And honestly the reactions are much better anyway, since it shows you’re actually thinking of that person and not just fulfilling some annual ritual to send them shit cuz the commercials say it’s time.

Another issue I don’t see discussed like, ever, is which option actually is more humane? We tend to assume death is the absolute worst thing we can do to someone, so anything other than death is at least second in line… but personally, I disagree. “Life in prison” has no rehabilitative goal, we’re just keeping them pinned in horrible living conditions with no objective other than to keep them living in horrible conditions. …which is torture. 24/7, until they eventually die anyway, which is still a death sentence, just one that dragged out over decades of torture.

So, we’re choosing between:

• Die.

• Torture, torture, torture, torture, torture, torture, torture, die.

…between the two, if I was the one whose fate was being decided here, I’d rather just skip the torture and die. But that’s ofc the arm-chair perspective of not being stuck in that situation: on any given day those self-preservation instincts kick in and we drag our own suffering out just for the sake of staying alive, cuz that’s just how we’re wired; but thinking of it here and now more objectively, yea fuck that, just kill me.

So the other factor to consider is whether inmates are even in a state of mind sound enough for them to make that decision for themselves, so even letting them choose on an individual basis is a bit fucked. Maybe we need to have them make that decision prior to sentencing, and place it in a sealed envelope or something; and if they checked the ‘just kill me’ box, but are now panicking after a guilty verdict: sorry duder, you’re panicking, we’re sticking with what you chose before sentencing.

Anywho, there’s no humane option in that dichotomy, but thinking of it as prolonged torture vs what is essentially a mercy killing paints a very different angle to the usual death vs imprisonment talking points.

dragon’s face begins to droop on one side

He has enough evil fucks who fully support his attacks on the US that he doesn’t need a traveling circus.

We very much have a Nazi problem.

Economist here. The solvent is hydrofluoric acid. The solute is the rich.

Source: Breaking Bad

I’m going to hell for that, aren’t I.

You good if we make a quick pitstop in Valhalla on the way there? I wanna try their mead.

Seeing as legal justice is dead, all our eggs are in the vigilantism basket. Until that shit kicks in, I wouldn’t hold your breath for meaningful consequences.

…um… would you mind pointing me to the other internet that wasn’t soiled by AI that genZ is using to dodge all the AI slop that would otherwise be forced on them? I’d very much like to use it.

AI slop was absolutely forced on them. Even if they’re not personally balls-deep into ChatGPT or some shit, they’re still stuck navigating an enshittified internet that’s gone from bad to shitstorm in just a few years almost entirely due to AI.

It’d be frustrating as all hell to try to write a research paper or piece together a presentation using today’s internet.

Millennial here. The only thing surprising about a downward trend is that it didn’t start with Gen X and get progressively worse, to include us, with each generation.

As time goes, our planet gets closer to cooking us alive, Nazis are fucking surging in popularity, and the economy spirals further out of control… Yeah, that’s gonna have a not-so-great impact on our brain.

Looking at gen Z specifically, between COVID and AI slop, we kinda just destroyed like half of their education, so if they’re performing poorly on some academic metric: YEAH NO SHIT.

Alpha is even more fucked… But not as fucked as then gen after them!

…well if we’re going to legislate something out of gaming ‘fOr tHe kIDs’ let’s start with the slot machine bullshit and other gambling mechanics seem in things like loot boxes.

At the very least, the presence of that stuff should be an automatic Adult rating. With less predatory (but still predatory) things like subscriptions being rated as Mature.

Guessing that’s not what the dickhead in the article is talking about, but I’m not gonna bother reading another rant from some pearl-clutching cunt imagining a bunch of fake problems caused by video games.

With practice, you can do both steps in one fluid motion!

Iirc the world’s largest provider of gender affirming care is the Department of Veterans Affairs. Via the insane amount of Viagra they prescribe to crusty old veterans who can’t get it up.

Hmm.

Kermit_sips_tea.jpg

For the longest time, I avoided vegetarian dishes and ingredients like tofu. Was introduced to Indian food - the meat options were delicious, but then I tried the paneer version, and holy fuck. The revelation that meat is infact entirely unnecessary to make a dish taste absolutely amazing was a game changer. Like owning a manual car and just assuming 1st and reverse were the only two gears - then suddenly discovering 2nd+, despite them having literally just been right infront of me in plain sight the whole time.

Morale of the story is that I (finally) learned to appreciate vegetarian cooking on its own culinary merit… there are a lot of idealogical and ecological reasons to go vegetarian or vegan or w/e, but those usually take the spotlight (I mean… because they’re actually important), but another less-touted angle is that it’s just fucking delicious.

So, vegetarian cooking tips are nothing to scoff at!

Anyway, chickpea pasta… I didn’t know that was a thing - I’ll keep an out for it. I’m wondering if I might have actually had it though and not actually known what it was. A coworker brought some pasta in for a potluck, and it had an unusually gummy texture, and just a little bit of grit they same way hummus has. I never did ask what it was, but it was good stuff. It was more dense and chewy than regular pasta, which I’ve always found to be a satisfying combo in food.

Donald Trump is an enemy of the US and its constitution. He isn’t ‘failing’ in his role as president because you can’t fail at something you never tried to achieve in the first place - being a good president isn’t and was never his goal. He is succeeding at destroying our country. The damage he’s done isn’t a chain of hundreds of unfortunate, unintentional blunders: he’s doing this shit on purpose.

Best I can do is ‘scoped’.

Hmm… Do you think adding tiddies to a Charlie Kirk statue might be taking things a bit too far?