That was very nearly my exact same thought. Maybe not for curious children with carrot-sized fingers, but for adults, how convenient! Business competitor’s body won’t quite fit in your fancy frunk? Just while away on your phone for about 10 minutes, let the cat do its magic, and off go the legs! Travel-sized!

From the US: I’m over 30 and this is the first time I’ve heard surrogacy referred to as human trafficking. And now I need to sit and think.

It’s always felt a little bit creepy to me, but I’ve also never wanted kids and the idea of pregnancy for any reason would be traumatic. So I’m starting out heavily biased. I think if you take the money out, it no longer counts…?

But the idea would be so out of left field that it would mostly be dismissed out of hand, probably even by most women.

Middle-age would be in your 40s-50s. Not to diss my dead relatives too hard, but you’re thinking of old fucks that would have any solid opinion on that. In a handful of years, the music middle aged men will be up in arms about is *NSYNC.

On the one hand, I feel really proud that I got under your skin so much that mine is the only contribution you’ve ever replied to in the 7 months that whole account has even existed. Someone just clearly isn’t having a good day if that’s the one thing that set off a professional lurker.

But also, like…I thought about this all through my quesadilla and it’s just really sad? Is this like Incel Logic: Hobby Edition, where you’re either born perfect and flawless or you’re a permanent shit failure and therefore whichever way the coin falls, you never have to work at anything? Like Big Education is a trillion dollar industry now, and really society is divided up Airbender style and you just didn’t get the CalArts gene?

There’s only one kind of person I can see falling for this weak-ass angle, and it’s the kind of person who’s never taken up any recreation for more than 1-2 days in their whole life because they don’t start out amazing at it and you can’t fail at anything if you never do shit. And honestly, I’m kinda bummed out that you have to live like that. You know you can just look up tutorials for anything these days.

A lot of people you read about who grew to be leaders in their field by some ridiculous age like 25, spoke fluently in 5 different languages, etc. etc. did so because they had three things: dedicated one-on-one tutors, an appreciable collection of slaves and/or other general servants to free up their personal time, and enough family wealth to pay for both from the time they could walk.

Mozart was composing as a toddler, but he also came from a wealthy family of musicians that taught him basically nothing else. Ever. That was the one thing. He hyper-specialized in music and socially he was the guy that got bored and did cartwheels and meowed in public. If Mozart was in your position, with the kind of loving care and finances most students have today, he would have been the kid in class who beatboxes over the teacher.

I’m actually still coming to terms with this myself. with mixed success. I’ve always loved art, but I’ve never been where I want to be. I’ve been making strides again, but the further I take it, the more it becomes apparent that 90% of the problems I’ve ever had with it were not me, they were because no one ever bothered to teach me. And I’m pissed about the decades I lost simply because child me was never shown concepts that would have changed everything.

Do not judge your own accomplishments on the same scale as someone who had ample time to devote to their studies because their family had house slaves doing everything you have to do by yourself.

It probably takes me that long just to wash and rinse my hair.

Please be one of those people that washes their hands instead of this functioning as some broad, sweeping excuse because “it’s already everywhere.” I don’t know how else fecal matter would be expected to travel to a stove dial.

It’s really a mix of both. More heavily the way the site has been for years because people love drama more than anything else. If you want the sweet serotonin of karma, you’ve gotta be simultaneously the funniest, meanest, and most jaded person in the room, and everyone is jockeying for that position.

It just breeds assholes by design. I’ve noticed my own behavior has changed, too, since leaving that place, although partially that’s because I just didn’t want to be like that anymore.

But it really has been noticeably affected since the protests. I was originally trying to stay for one single sub I was in, because they were the kindest, calmest community I’d met since back when forums were a thing.

Just the best group, for reasons none of us really understood and some of us kept trying to find psychological commonalities to explain. Truly 98% of them were people I’d chill with irl and I still know a few on discord. And also here. If you’re reading this, hello!

But the migration away was enough to completely alter the atmosphere imo. A lot of the more conscientious users left for other pastures, leaving behind those that were more neutral or even openly hostile about the protests.

There began to be fights and insults thrown where before this, any aggression had been unusual. The posts took a turn that reflected that feeling and I really stopped bothering with the place after a few months. I’m still a bit sad about it and there are things that I miss, but there just wasn’t enough to hold me anymore. It seemed to increasingly echo every other part of the site.

For the moment, this place is quieter but better. We still get dumb shit every now and then, but it’s not to the same degree and hopefully never will be. As above, I blame the demographic. We’ve grouped all the people with stubborn morals into a little room and it turns out they have things in common. I do miss a couple people I used to see everywhere all the time when kbin first ramped up, but we run in different circles and they’ve gotten lost in the crowd.

And yes, btw, I am also going to name you one of my favorite users to see around. You seem as kind as you are prolific.

This. This was the moment that I found out that the eldest of gen Alpha, the babies after the babies who can only be so young as to be entirely theoretical like they were when we collectively decided on the name, are thirteen now.

It is santa. You think my own parents would just lie to me for over 30 years!? To hand the credit to someone imaginary? Doesn’t make a shred of sense.

11yr old me would have disagreed

the plant was death because he put it in a closet because he bought in a woman and she could think he was gay so he hid it 👍

Well, what if she mistakenly saw him as a dependable person who could provide care for the most basic of life forms?

Oh no, it’s much funnier with about 10 years and 200 miles between me and that moment, I assure you. In a faintly bitter way, but I’m willing to entertain.

The manager of that store was the same one who, to name just a few occasions:

• Disregarded safety and climbed up the boxes herself when doing truck, resulting in a large container being dislodged from the top and landing directly on an employee’s face, breaking his nose. She begged him not to tell, and he really should have. While I can’t say that she 100% wouldn’t have paid him off, he was also just really nice.

• Made fun of another employee’s weekly pay in front of all their coworkers. It was only in the double digits because they’d had the flu for weeks.

• When a customer bought a candy bar, stood there in line and ate the entire thing, then immediately demanded a full refund because they “didn’t like it,” forced me to complete that refund because the customer is always right.

• Calmed a different customer over the holiday rush by publicly and very loudly threatening to fire me. The complaint had been quite simply that I (quote) “wasn’t smiling enough” and this must have ruined this person’s entire holiday spirit. Unbeknownst to the customer but fully known to my boss, I had just cremated my brother two weeks ago. The PTSD from that year’s rush is just barely starting to fade twelve years later.

In short, the manager of this particular store would do whatever action was the cruelest to others with the least amount of effort on her part, but then fall all over herself to brown nose A Customer.

No, I’m not aware she was made to pay for the door. She very likely would have been allowed to shop if she physically could have.

Not even solely relegated to old people, either, unless the fediverse thinks 30-40 is old. We had one woman come by our shit little dollar store about 20 minutes after we’d closed. So, long enough for us to start counting out, cleaning, etc., but not long enough to go home yet.

Noticed the door was locked. Noticed those of us not still busy were hanging out and chatting while we waited, surreptitiously watching this person. Visibly read the store hours. Tried the lock again.

Started prying open the door while we all stared in horror, ended up breaking it, then threw a whole fit to boot because we couldn’t sell her anything with all the tills in the back room and we kept trying to kick her out for some reason.

She wasn’t even high. She was just that entitled, because very often for suburban moms, the rules don’t apply if you don’t let them.

Otherwise known as: “what if everyone’s abusive ex ran the government?”

Fable does this too. At least the third one. I’d married a beggar with the honest intention of lifting up one of my kingdom’s most socially aware instead of settling for some brainless, peacocking noble, and all he did with his time on the throne was become a national embarrassment on the same old street corner.

So. Remembering the existence of this “Henry VIII” achievement that I’d thought I was never gonna bother getting. I took my beloved beggar-king down to the treasury, positioned him at the very top of the overflowing pile of gold he always seemed to forget we had, and shot him in the head. And then I started thinking about that achievement.

There were a lot of NPCs that really did bug me.

I was just thinking the same thing. More than the usual amount of love went into that one, and most people probably wouldn’t even stop to notice. The subtle fade-out at the top. That is some pleasing vomit.

Average citizens are less culpable than government officials are, but we are all culpable for it to a degree.

There is a degree at which idealistic humanitarianism is pushed to such an extreme that it swings all the way back around into the concept of original sin. I know, because it’s where I’ve sat for years and I had to sit down about it when someone pointed out I’m basically so atheist I’ve gone catholic.

Guilt is indeed a matter of calibration. This is correct. But at a certain point of granularity, it becomes a pointless statement.

Anyone insisting on wearing clothing or utilizing objects they didn’t make by their own hand is a capitalistic slaver. You and I both own slaves right now.

I could disappear into the hills and become a vegan goatherd, and it’s probably the closest I could get to neutral. But by the mere act of minimizing my own harm, I’m also shutting my ears to the plight of all others, which is an implicit endorsement through inaction.

If I choose action and swing the tides over to Gaza, they still have their own weaponry. If bringing my corrupt genocidal government to its knees, I’ve created a power vacuum that harms countless and will most certainly kill. Doing nothing or something both make me a murderer.

Even in donating to a charity, you’re deliberately choosing to ignore three others just as worthy. When everyone answers to everything simply by chancing to be born, this kind of thinking becomes at best a semi-interesting joke and at worst actually psychologically destructive.

What am I meant to do, to stop personally committing at least 4 types of concurrent genocide across the globe? Stop paying taxes towards the military? At least my below-the-poverty-line ass is already there.

Calling my representatives won’t do much with the US so heavily invested in the area, but I suppose if I’m culpable for mass murder either way, I might as well go to prison for it.

Satan doesn’t punish. Satan’s whole job is temptation. Anyone tempted would technically be punished by god.

I assume the mixup has to be resultant of the constant game of religious Telephone. Not really surprising. It’s pretty awkward to frame your spotless savior who is the living embodiment of Love as also doing deliberate premeditated torture, even when it’s written right there. And comparatively simple to expect it from someone who’s supposed to embody unpleasantness.