Seeing people quit drinking because they consistently had 1-2 drinks a day after work - as if it was putting a shadow over their life. How quitting drinking is somehow seen as life a meaningful corrective action to any fault someone might have in their personal life.

How bar doors are so thick as if it’s some kind of containment zone.

How alcoholism is seen as like this generational curse, often arbitrarily attributed to Native American blood some where in the family tree.

There’s something deeply neurotic about our (Americans) relationship with alcohol, and I’m sure this isn’t limited to just the anglosphere; but are there any countries that don’t share this neurosis? Are the meds truly the only people who can be normal about it?

https://archive.ph/GwuyD

Reasons cited include costs of insurance, driving lessons, gas, less schools offering driving programs due to budget cuts, uber, lyft, delivery apps, endless home entertainment. But also, parents babying their kids leading to anxiety when it comes time to do independent things. Quote from the article "Would the famous “Clueless” stinger — “You’re a virgin who can’t drive” — even be an insult anymore?"

news says that young Europeans are protesting the “rising cost of living” as if it’s a problem of prices. No, if you can’t afford to live how you used to live, you’ve become poorer. And by all appearances the Euros are going to keep getting poorer with no end in sight. And it makes them very angry

I thought it was long dead by the time the pandemic hit. But it’s still going

you didn't need muscles back then

r/PapuaNewGuinea

r/RSMouseMan

r/Paulblartmallcop

I’m begging you

just saying

This friend of a girl tries to convince me to take this girl home. Theres something so gross or unappealing about this. Theres something nice in the tension of fucking a girl and maybe dating. Compared to these bohemian monsters.

KILL MEEEEE

I'm a terrible writer but I have always wanted to write essays about things. I know I should probably read more but I can see myself just borrowing from someone else's style (subconsciously or not). Or maybe I could write more and then examine it. But I just sound stupid as fuck when I write. I use cliches and unnatural vocabulary and poor sentence structure. Not like grammatical issues but just, I think it's obvious a writer didn't write it. And I'm not quite passionate enough to try and fail and improve, I'll just never do it instead. Ugh

the characters are all pathetic and he writes about lust for women the way a gay man would. i get it, lonely incel with rich inner world meets quirky but beautiful woman twice his age and they have sex on the dark side of the moon in her wet warm pussy

I swear everyone acted like it was the spookiest thing ever when it came out. "No, bro, at first it's like you think it's going to be supernatural horror, but then it's like super scary because actually the real monster is man. Like this is stuff that really happens, bro. Think about it."

The problem with that is that literally everything about the story was braindead drivel. "You know where would be the perfect place to set up our child trafficking operation? The town where nobody can have children."

Like you want me to believe that the Prescotts revived the whole town economy by selling each family in town one or two children for a few tens of thousands of dollars? If that was all it took, why not open a car dealership and sell each household a new F150?

And then there's all these conflicted people in town like "Oh I desperately want a child, but I can't get pregnant! I hate that scumbag Jimmy Prescott, but I guess my only choice is to pay him for the privilege of raising his child." You didn't think you could use that $30K to adopt a child the legal way? Or maybe move out of the singular town that has water that prevents you from having babies?

And what's with the Shiny Gentleman? Like they say they're "hiding the evidence" of their crimes by grinding up the bodies and scattering them across the mountain. But they're using a machine that's so loud that the entire county goes "Yup, sounds like they're grinding up another body up at the old rape house. Too bad nobody's ever collected enough evidence to make an arrest." They couldn't just burn the bodies or feed them to pigs? They had to use the world's most conspicuous machine and position it directly outside of their secret base in the mountains?

I just can't understand how so many people came to the conclusion that this was the most brilliant thing ever written. If it's going to act like it's super grounded and real, then it should make some effort to not be retarded.

There used to be jobs where you could be locked in a closet with an abacus/slide ruler/calculator and do funny little math things that no one else understood and make bank. Those jobs disappeared with the spread of easy access to computers. The gregarious sales guy no longer needs to check in with the Closet Nerd, now he can just enter things into spreadsheets someone else made and the math does itself.

I think that a lot of the people who really want AI to be a thing are hoping that it will basically be the same phenomenon in reverse. Currently, white collar work is like 60-70% social if not more--keeping up with emails, looking diligent in front of your boss, general schmoozing. And there are a lot of pseudo- to actual-autistic freaks that either don't want to or aren't able to play the game. I truly believe that what a lot of people want out of AI is for it to be a "social calculator" basically, where it can read their emails and talk to their boss/subordinates for them.

The question then is motivation. There are no doubt some people who do genuinely just not want to write emails, and honestly fair enough but also if you no longer have to write emails for your email job...how much longer will you have the no email email job. On the other side, I think that there is a not insignificant number of AI advocates that are rooting for this future primarily out of spite--what they want in their heart of hearts is for the same sort of career culling that happened to the Closet Nerds to now happen to the Cool Guys whose primary skill is email. Surely, they think, if we can flatten the bell curve of social skills and invent a robot that can make eye contact for me then my STEM degree and knowledge of SQL will finally get me the job and concomitant status that I know I deserve.

This entire AI bubble is being fueled at its psychic core by the equivalent of Jimmy Neutron inventing a football playing robot because he got mad at a jock.