What do you mean?

Imagine sending someone hatemail because they like rocky road while your favorite is salted caramel. Who cares whats in their bowl? Why care? Eat your own fucking ice cream, losers.

Very late to answering this it seems, but basically him and I just discuss things about my life while he chimes in with different perspectives and advice (when appropriate). Each session is a bit different tho and sometimes he’ll give me “homework” if he thinks I’m struggling to see certain ideas from certain angles. This sometimes means a worksheet and it sometimes means asking myself a certain question or questions when I notice myself or others behaving in certain ways.

Hated that shit at first, but it’s actually kind of fun to peel back the layers and learn something new through it these days. Usually. Sometimes I forget and he will occassionally get a bit more direct about what he was trying to insinuate me toward, because a good therapist puts in the effort to meet you where you need to be met, while still pushing you to raise yourself up a little higher each day.

The first time I tried therapy was a different story (they were very presumptuous and certain of their correctness on these presumptions, basically. The exact kind of person that I tend to find incredibly annoying and unhelpful) so it was only a couple sessions with them before I decided it was just a really bad match and got tf out of there. Like others have said, the option to disconnect and try again with a different professional is always there, too. Sometimes, it is very necessary to take advantage of that.

That last line in your comment could potentially be a great jumping off point were you to try therapy. Making it clear what you fear about it right along with what you hope it could help with; that’s a great place to kick things off with a level-headed and helpfully-inclined talk therapist. And many of them (tho def not all) are offering exactly that.

Best of luck with whatever comes next for you, stranger!

Your parents sound nuts. Sorry you had love with that, dude. I had some different but not all that different stuff as a kid, and therapy has been a really useful tool for unpacking those experiences and turning them into something a bit more useful. Would highly recommend it if you haven’t tried yet. Shit so cash

Reporters should be expected to be more diligent in their research than the general public, though.

Either they didn’t look into this substance beyond what they were told (which is at best lazy, and at worst willfully deceptive when your job is the sharing of accurate and clear information), or they knew and intentionally chose to use a name that the average person wasn’t going to recognize. For reasons, I’m sure.

It is literally their job to know what desukinks is and explain to us that desuskank is meth. For some reason they chose not to.

Not sure if you’re serious but jic; r/amitheasshole is a very popular subreddit where people bring stories with the hopes of figuring out who the asshole was, if anyone. It’s thick with bots sharing interaction-bait these days and I’m pretty sure it’s these bogus posts they were referring to.

Hell ya. Thanks!

They unfortunately do not make bleach for your mind’s eye. This is a weight we will all have to carry, kin.

You got this without the text? I like silly cats

I have played it recently and you may be misremembering. There was one on 3ds too iirc. Might be the one you’re thinking of

Genuinely kawaii tho

Speaking of…anyone else ever notice this continuity error in Superman? More than once, Clark walks into a phone booth and then, and I really dont know how they’ve let it slip so often, but Superman is the one that comes out! Totally nuts that they missed that right? DC can definitely afford editors and continuity consultants so wtf is the problem here??

A lot of the propaganda they’re fed does certainly dehumanize people, but they are still not all receiving the same information. That is what some are receptive to. Others would never have it if they knew that was the truth, which is why they have so many other avenues for selling this shit in every color and shade you can imagine. Gaia tv, prager u, countless woo-woo “woahhh dude” influencers, tradwife influences, ‘moderates’ who jsut like playing devils advocate but will hear nothing of this racism, good sir! And just on and on and on. Everybody is not tapped into the same internet.

There are people that simply never hear the racist stuff because that is the whole point of the operation; to obscure reality in order to be sure that as few people are acting on good information as is possible. They are plugged into the kinds of propagandic feeds that best suit their values, and pushed further and further down that tract. They get pavlov’d into knee-jerk reactions to the people pointing out the racism (among other things) that they are so artfully removed from, which turns into this self-feeding loop, pulling them further and further from reality.

And thats not even getting into what they did with the spanish speaking community; literally giving them incorrect translations of speeches and policies that make it all sound safe, standard, and sane. Not everyone has access to the same information as you, and not everyone is information-competent enough to even recognize what makes that difference, especially not after being taught to learn fear of the idea of challenging their beliefs.

I think you are severely underestimating the breadth and long-con of this project, as well as what kinds of people have been brought in and how. Though I do agree with you on how to solve the problem. Fine details may vary, but it’s clearly time to try something different.

This assumes that we’re all receiving the same information about what all’s going on, which is very definitely not the case. Literally watch 5 minutes of fox news and compare what you hear to the actual events they’re contorting. The difference is basically immediate and painfully obvious. That is only one of a countless many arms in what is one of the most wide-spread and thoroughly controlled propaganda campaigns in history.

We all lived through the first term, but some devious steps were taken to ensure that different groups were receiving very different coverage. This is getting harder for them to do now that the consequences of their lies are starting to outwiegh the lies themselves, but many of these people were and are still being fed bold-faced lies right along with the same kind of propaganda that literal cults deploy. The sort of mind ganes that are used in order to prevent their victims from ever individually coming to the conclusion that something is very fucking wrong. They are running near-every inch of an information ecosystem that traps their victims by making them completely repellent to the sane, effectively isolating most of them from the people that could otherwise help them see reason.

Many of them understand whats actually happening and are going along because of the hate within them. But many others are being manipulated through well tested and well documented means, which are being deployed in a novel way (via these high control/high volume digital ecosystems) and on a scale that we have not yet had enough time to learn how to properly combat.

They are basically breaking people down, isolating them, and driving them into a useful simulacrum of insanity, if not outright madness. It is a mistake to forget the shades of grey and the humanity that underlines every decision made, both among the perpetrators and the victims alike. If the goal is to do what’s right rather than punish anyone and everyone who wasn’t perfect to your standard, then these distinctions really and truly matter. Some of them need rehabilitation, and others need the full brunt of what these rotten choices should earn them. They’re just not a monolith.

You put it much more politely than I was about to.

*Some of these people. Many have been outright deceived, and many others (people living in trailers, I mean) are and have long been fully opposed to all of this lunacy.

I mean, it’s kind of always/only as deep as we choose to make it, right?

That could be the meaning of life to me, but in truth I just don’t see the world in a way that allows such a definite and easy framing. Meaning changes depending on context. What means to me today may mean nothing much tomorrow and, whether every individual realizes it or not, this is universally true. The question is a mess of a philosophical endeavor, and the more you take it apart and break its pieces down, the more ineffable and illusory the concept becomes. An often useful and positive illusion tbc, but not necessarily so as it can easily swing the other way, too.

So my point in not answering your question was to sort of nudge others to challenge their own relationship with the idea of meaning because…well because I think that is simply a meaningful endeavor.

In the spirit of being slightly less difficult than my mind often would like; I will say that I find a lot of meaningful purpose in getting others to see things from different perspectives. Reminding the world that, while boxes and labels do exist and do broadly serve their purpose, they also do not necessarily always do the job we often hope of them. I can’t honestly say I believe there is a definite and true meaning to my life or any other, but there is still much we can do that is meaningful and worth doing. So, there. Seems to be as close as I can manage to giving you a straight answer today lol

Why does everyone insist life has to have meaning? We can just be here because here is where we happen to be. It’s allowed.

based take

The assholes among us do seem to take every opportunity, don’t they?