For me, driving. Its not that driving is difficult or i’m just not able to drive. Its that there are just too many awful drivers and pedestrians you have to care about on the road.
What comes to mind to me are two things:
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The absurdity of religion. I was raised Christian but always asked tough questions, to which people responded with the various platitudes religious people love to use. (The most popular being “God works in mysterious ways.”) I missed out on a lot of sexual experience and mistreated a lot of people because I was taught to behave in certain ways, and I regret it deeply.
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How much I was lied to or information omitted by my educators growing up, particularly on history. I read history books for fun, and have learned over time about many things that were deliberately withheld from my education, like the Tulsa Massacre and the Battle of Blair Mountain, or stories of the Black Panthers’ community building work, or the wholesale exploitation and destruction of indigenous people to make handful of people rich via the reservation system and Indian Ring.
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I never became adult
“You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever.”
Tony Perkins to Billy Dee Williams in “Mahogany.” Heard that line years ago.
Tony Perkins from the Perkins System Ben Stiller on heavyweights?
Have you ever considered buying a device that connects to the internet and has a ‘search engine?’
Have You?
Buddy I was making a joke https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cfA39GPjxSE&pp=ygUZdG9ueSBwZXJraW5zIGhlYXZ5d2VpZ2h0cw%3D%3D
Also, lighten up. It’s embarrassing.
HAVE YOU???
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
<3
Your success in life is dictated by the social connections you have and how good you are at maintaining them. When I was young I thought focusing on my education and working harder would automatically lead to a successful career, and while good academic performance does help, what’s far more useful is having connections who will help you out, either through referrals or just by being a source of information about stuff you didn’t know and it’s easy to have some social life in school or college without much effort, because everyone meets up at a single place, as an adult socialization takes effort, cause now everyone is away living their own busy lives and it’s not as easy to meet up face to face. This is why rich people like exclusive clubs so much, being able to be in the right social circles and having the ear of influential people will pay huge dividents. Also being a skilled liar is definately a very useful skill to have.
Shower sex.
In the movies it looks so hot, but in reality, you’ve got a eyes and mouth full of soap and your freezing. 2/10
You are doing it wrong.
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Not too mention how slippery it is.
…in the wrong places
Rinse your hair and turn up the temperature?
Depends on the shower set up.
One place I lived at had accessibility handles in the shower and a grippy floor, the shower head positioning and spray options kept both of us covered, and one of those heat lights that kept us both warm for the small bits that weren’t in the spray. Most other places have had issues with one person not getting enough heat to stay warm, although a special shout out to the one hotel we stayed at with multiple showerheads.
I haven’t run into the lubrication issue in showers or hot tubs, but also don’t use condoms (monogamous relationships with other forms of birth control). Hot tubs were not public and we were very good about the water maintenance.
You start in the shower. Wash yourselves, wash each other, tease a little, then dry off, get into a clean bed and have at it. Standing sex in the shower is mediocre at best.
People are mostly dumb. Justice is largely a myth. Chaos reigns.
The amount of crime everyone around me (and I also) do is… not what I expected as a kid.
I used to think that if you wanted anything harder than alcohol you were gonna have to go to the sketchy part of town and meet with some shady guy in an alley and hope you don’t die.
Now that I’m an adult it’s bewildering to me how many people rely on weed/coke/Adderall/alcohol/etc just to get through the day. And it’s every career and job I’ve been in! Everything from a shitty kitchen job to now I’m 1 level below the C-Suite.
It’s kind of amazing that we get people to collaborate as well as they do. The downside is that we need to appeal to the lowest common denominator of self-interest.
Everyone wants something from you and they want it NOW, but when you need something it’s like pulling teeth to even get acknowledgement.
Im not worried about how the average pedestrian acts. Its totally the average driver.
💀
Drivers doing their best not to run over cyclists
Lack of empathy is not something people grow out of, it seems like it is something that grows more severe the older people get.
I’m more empathetic now than I was 40 years ago.
People don’t become less empathetic as they get older. They were assholes already.
While that can certainly be true, I would say I’ve gained more empathy as I got older. I was never hateful, but I probably was more dismissive entering adulthood. I didn’t understand what I had when I was younger and thought everyone should be able to do what I did and just didn’t for some reason I didn’t understand. Over time I realized how wrong I was. I saw what advantages I had that led me to where I was, and how many MANY people didn’t have those same things, and that expecting them to have equal success was unrealistic and shameful on my part.
It is so easy for life to knock a human off course or keep them off course. An injury, addiction, an abusive family member, poverty, chronic illness, genetic disorder, political instability, bigotry, victim of crime, economic recession, or a natural disaster. Any one of these things and more can do it. I had little to no concept of these when I was younger. Growing up, meeting people, learning about the world, learning history made me much more open to others suffering and the desire to use what I have been lucky enough to have to help others, and recognize we, as a society, must help others. Its the only way we’ll all survive. Divided we fall.
I can say the same for myself, I just don’t see it as often as I had hoped in others.
I reflect on my past self and wish I had been a better person in my teens/early 20s. I can’t change who I was or how I behaved or thought back then but I can change the person I am now and who I aspire to be. I am also trying to foster that attitude and the skills to be empathetic in my kids.
driving
I’m not even sure speeding tickets need to exist in 2025, there’s so much traffic that no one in a 55 can break 53mph.
Taxes.
Nobody gives a single shit about you.
It’s true I give a multiple shit about you
U havin a bad day or somethin?
No they just aren’t delusional.
Every single thing anyone says or does is in self-interest.
Like, I have almost never witnessed anything contrary to it.
This is v true
You mean… mothers breastfeeding feeding their children? You mean men who find big rocks and throw them into water from heights to make a big splash? Do you mean people who donate their organs to other people? Do you mean the many artists, scientists, teachers, and basically everyone else that gets their ass out of bed every day to then put a smile on their face for other people, despite feeling existential despair inside because the last shred of reason for being has been invested in someone or something else, so they keep moving? Robin Williams?
I think we have very different ideas of what self-interest is. Namely, I think that you have confused the idea that one must suffer, or at least feel nothing, or it’s not altruistic enough. That one should not enjoy acts of love, kindness, caring, giving, art, exploration… or they’re secretly solipsistic. This isn’t the condemnation of the world you think it is. This feels like a projection of an internal insecurity onto the greater portion of humanity.
I think most people have been guilty of thinking this at some point. Rather than feel threatened by my words or that I’m being critical of you and only you, I would ask that you do what I did when I once thought this very thought… think on if you’re really willing to live the rest of your lived experience with this thought at the forefront. Not everyone gets this one right, but it could have consequences on your ability to actually ‘enjoy’ another human being without needing something from them to do so.
No one can look into someone else’s soul and divine their intentions. IMO it’s most likely that people’s internal states are a mixture of various emotions and intentions when they are doing a gesture like you’ve given examples of, probably not all of them coherent with one another.
It seems to me that it’s more a matter of perspective and you can choose to ascribe self-interest or choose to ascribe altruism but in both cases you are projecting, since it’s just unknowable.
I think free software is quite a nice case study if you want to discuss it in a relatively emotion free context. Organ donation has a lot of other moral “baggage” around it as an issue. These people are giving up their valuable skills and time to create something which is for the benefit of others. Contributors also get to put it on their CV and get status in an online community. Often the more self-interested people drop out quite quickly and the ones who want to support their community stick around longer.
That’s the thing, though. I don’t need to get lost in the nuance and come out of the other side as a ‘realist’ or a cynic. The cold calculation of incalculation… the idea that because we are not perfect judges, we should not judge at all, is sinister enough that it even has a meme: Letting perfect be the enemy of good.
When I do selfless acts - and I believe I have, if my act is seen as an act to my own benefit or with ulterior motive: I feel harmed and wish to withdraw. Why would I reason to live with the burden of seeing the world as so purely black and white that the only good that can come from it is beyond my recognition; because I too must be black and white or risk being an imperfect judge?
I’m not going to tell someone that their willingness to donate a kidney is anything less than altruistic just because there’s ‘emotional baggage’ or they don’t self ascribe properly… I’m simply willing to accept it as a good thing.
Just because the future is unknowable doesn’t relieve me of the burden or responsibility of making active choices that I feel make a positive difference, even if I can’t foresee the outcomes. Should the man that saved Hitler’s life from a crowd of angry people feel responsible for everything that Hitler did after the fact? Can I now cynically use that thought to help no one at all, so that I don’t run the risk of saving the next Hitler? Yet do these same cynics that claim humans only work in self interest not go on to complain that so many are passive bystanders to horrific events? It’s self defeating. I’d rather not be a bystander, because I feel a sense of duty to not be an enabler.
Finally, I don’t have a need to sanitize my discussions from all emotions. I don’t think that’s productive so long as the emotions are genuine and an honest reflection of my state of being.
A sincere thank you for your response. I hope my response is received as well as I intend.
Choosing the least emotive example is a trick from my old philosophy studies. If we were talking about moral philosophy and weakness of wills, then the example would always be an extra slice of cake as opposed to an extra bottle of whisky, or something else that could elicit a strong emotive response. The idea would be that you’d get closer to the heart of the issue if you can find a neutral example that doesn’t cloud your judgement by immediately giving you strong intuitions.
I can tell from your writing style that you are a romantic person though, which is awesome because it allows you to live which all of that colour you’re describing. I’m personally maybe a bit more detatched/analytic (or something like that), which I realise sounds depressing/boring but I don’t find it a source of negative emotions.
Ah, my friend… I wish I were so romantic as I’ve misled you to believe. Admittedly I’m only prone to fits of it. You are, of course, correct about the need to find a neutral ground that is less prone to bias and more fit for consumption. Lately, I’ve been struck by the need to feel my humanity and express it, wildly. I’m just making the mistake of believing that an honest presentation is enough to convince others that it’s a worthwhile endeavor, meanwhile being reckless in the attempt. A ‘rage against the dying of the light’, if you will allow.
I’m generally more as you self describe. I feel it would almost be too daring to say ‘a classical stoic’, not this new age stigma ridden thin veneer over cynicism with an edgy ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude. So, apologies if you feel slightly offended at the suggestion we are alike in that way. As for depressing and boring; I don’t think that at all. Having that mental space --detached and analytic-- offers great benefits in introspection, self realization, critical thought, and enables me to safely empathize when it makes sense to do so.
I would like to think that I value your discussion on these topics more than you yet realize. I had an excellent philosophy teacher.
Most Americans can’t read past an 8th-grade level, and that shocks hell out of me. When I was in 6th-grade, standardized tests pegged me at “college level”, which I figured was utter bullshit, thought I was being buttered-up somehow. Turns out it was true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States
In 2023, 28% of adults scored at or below Level 1, 29% at Level 2, and 44% at Level 3 or above.[1] Adults scoring in the lowest levels of literacy increased 9 percentage points between 2017 and 2023. In 2017, 19% of U.S. adults achieved a Level 1 or below in literacy while 48% achieved the highest levels.[2]
Anything below Level 3 is considered “partially illiterate” (see also § Definitions below).[3] Adults scoring below Level 1 can comprehend simple sentences and short paragraphs with minimal structure but will struggle with multi-step instructions or complex sentences, while those at Level 1 can locate explicitly cued information in short texts, lists, or simple digital pages with minimal distractions but will struggle with multi-page texts and complex prose.[4] In general, both groups struggle reading complex sentences, texts requiring multiple-step processing, and texts with distractions.[4]
This explains so much about all the stupid shit I see. Most Americans literally aren’t literate enough to follow a piece of literature, would struggle with any given novel.
I have a coworker who need help with basic sentences. English is her first language. I have a coworker who speaks English as a second language. Her English is flawless.
“There was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn’t just for fags and neither was writing. People wrote books and movies, movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting. And I believe that time can come again!”
I used to think that movie was implausible.
Mike Judge must have psychic abilities or something because literally everything in the movie is coming true rofl.
Man Mike Judge is great. Between Common Side Effects and the KotH renewal, Judge fans are eating good.
Common Side Effects was stunning. Absolutely recommend.
Except that he thought the problem was not enough eugenics instead of a conspiracy to return the people to that state of ignorance
Fair enough. But the end result is the same haha.
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Mmm yea good point. That’s a good observation.
They don’t teach the basics of colonization in school. In school books, the Pilgrims all came over on the same boat and they were all equal. The reality is that some folks came over with a lot of money and some were indentured servants. The rich got much, much richer and their children haven’t had to work since 1600 AD
That’s one reason so many people cling to quick catchy slogans and memes, or let good looking people spoonfeed them on TV. Reading Is soooo haaaaaarrrd!
All the adults in my life with the exception of a very few are exactly as stupid or far stupider than I thought when I was a kid.
That my abusive mother had 3 kids by a previous marriage. She gave up full custody so she could keep the (shitty, old) house. I learned this when I was 18 or 19.
