It’s always been pretty bad for large chunks of the population. This seems like a low point, but there have been many lows in living memory. Civil rights movement in the 60s. Vietnam war. War on drugs. Countless cruelties done to non-whites and queer folks.

Even the idealized stuff of “buy a house on one income” was more for white people than anything else. Redlining, mortgage discrimination, “and then the white people burned down our house” were all realities.

This country has always been deeply racist. The wealthy ownership class has largely been soulless ghouls. Maybe they build libraries and museums for a while, but they still oversaw tremendous suffering and poverty.

I broke a player’s brain in college playing DND where an NPC just lied to her.

She’d asked where so-and-so was. NPC didn’t like her or her faction, so he just lied and said he’d taken up boxing. This isn’t an especially credible lie because so-and-so was a lightweight nerd. But she says okay and goes tearing up the local boxing clubs, and can’t find the guy.

She’s like “where is he?”

Me: “you don’t see him, and no one’s even heard of him.”

Her: “but the guy said he was here”

Me: “he did”

Her: “so where is he”

Me: “doesn’t look like he’s here”

Her: “but he said he was”

Me: “he did say that”

Her: “so why isn’t he here?”

This went on for a while until one of the other players got impatient and said “the guy who doesn’t like you maybe lied to you! Or was wrong! Can we move on please??”

My parents tried this many years ago.

Since then my dad has gotten better- he runs Ubuntu and so far as I know keeps it up to date. My mother on the other hand gets upset if anything at all changes on her computer, and so never updates or anything

One time I saw NK Jemisen , author of the broken earth trilogy give a talk. Someone asked about climate change and she said something like “there’s only a small number of people responsible for most of this problem, and we know where they live”

The audience cheered and clapped. The guy moderating the talk got real flustered.

Not the building super, nor my friend when she came by with a drain snake that one time.

Or, to use an example that’s not trying so hard to be a pun: you go down to the local rec center to find a pickup game of basketball or whatever. No one’s paying anyone. You go, find a game, have a good time, and leave. Maybe see each other again. Maybe not. Is that sociopathy?

There’s a wide range of options between utterly repulsive and loved. That’s a huge excluded middle. Do you think people don’t fuck on the first date?

Typically the only way to change someone’s mind is in-group pressure. I’m not this guy’s in group. Nothing I say to him is going to make a difference. I’m not in a position to spend weeks or months working my way into his friend group so I can convince him to be a better, smarter, person.

You deleted your other reply I already replied to, so I’m pasting what I wrote here:

You’re shifting the topic. You said,

No, I’m pretty sure that people who use each other for solely selfish purposes is a primary symptom of sociopathy

Note this claim isn’t about sex. It’s a broad claim that any circumstances where one party uses another for selfish purpose is sociopathy.

Since getting someone to fix a clogged toilet is using someone for selfish purposes, your claim would make that sociopathy. I think that’s absurd, and thus your claim is false.

I hate to break it to you but people who like to have sex with each other on a regular basis without exchanging money or other favors, they probably love each other but they’re so scared of the word love because for some reason in recent decades the word love has been become taboo.

Citations needed. You just made this up and I see no reason to take your word for it that people are scared of the word love, nor that love has become taboo. Furthermore, many people have regular sex without feeling love.

You’re taking your world view and beliefs and claiming they’re far more universal than they are.

You’re shifting the topic. You said,

No, I’m pretty sure that people who use each other for solely selfish purposes is a primary symptom of sociopathy

Note this claim isn’t about sex. It’s a broad claim that any circumstances where one party uses another for selfish purpose is sociopathy.

Since getting someone to fix a clogged toilet is using someone for selfish purposes, your claim would make that sociopathy. I think that’s absurd, and thus your claim is false.

Edit: person I replied to deleted their message, so I reposted this where they reposted.

Thus hiring someone to fix your plumbing or do your yard work is sociopathy?

Also two people can have mutually enjoyable sex without “love”.

You’ve got a weird take.

Some CS rep said to me the other day when I was asking about a bogus charge on my account, “thank you for being part of our family”

I said “family doesn’t usually charge money, but go on”

I got a partial refund.

I imagine if all you do is watch films, you get tired of common stuff. You’ve seen it before. But if you only watch films sometimes, some of that is still interesting to you.

Kind of like how some video game nerds will be only “only double soj 2x blan Blah is viable” but like other builds do fine for everything except some optional mega bosses

I was at a major concert the other day waiting in line for the bathroom. So many men just strolled out of there without even looking at the sink.

Oh. Well. I don’t think anger is an appropriate response, unless you’re some sort of evil light mode gremlin that switches people’s settings on them.

I did give some of my old coworkers shit whenever they shared screen with full light mode, because it was like a mini flashbang.

It’s uncomfortably bright, especially if the room isn’t already very bright. My apartment is lit by a single lamp and a little sunlight from the windows. Full screen light mode is like a flashlight in my face, and too big a change in brightness every time I look around my apartment and then back to the screen.

Do you have trouble seeing dark mode? That’s hard for me to imagine.

I wouldn’t mind ads on streaming media if they were limited to a few seconds at the start and end, and had some constraints (eg: no volume tricks to sound louder). Just a calm voice saying “This episode brought to you by WidgetCo. The best in Widgets. [logo] [url]” over a neutral color. That’d be fine. But the hunger for profit can never be sated, so it’s longer, more obvious ads more frequently forever. So they can all get fucked. I won’t watch at all.

This seems like an obvious improvement and I kind of want everyone who thought otherwise to be banned from working in decision making roles.

Maybe there’s regional pricing but usually albums are like $5 - $10, which is less than Spotify’s $12/mo. But then there are discounts and family plans and whatnot. Plus if you want a lot of albums in a month, that’ll be more up front.

I tend to only buy a new album every month or so, so I feel like I’m spending about the same. But more importantly I get to keep the music, so some months I buy nothing and still have music.

I (cis man) always fully close the toilet when it’s not in use. Never would occur to me to do otherwise.

Some of my women friends leave the seat down lid open, but then their cats drink out of the toilet.

People look at me like I’m crazy when I say I just buy music (usually from Bandcamp). It’s not always more expensive, I get to keep the files drm free, and the people making music get paid