A lot of our behaviors and coping mechanisms come from our parents. So if they’re lonely and have no friends, you should examine why that is, and try to change it in yourself.
One of my friends realized after therapy they had a lot of behaviors from their dad. Stuff they hated when their dad did (lashing out when uncomfortable, mostly). Once they saw it, they were able to work on it. Before that, it had been a real source of friction with friendships.
Hah, a different ex that I’m still friends with responded with “you rank us??”
No, there’s not a full ranking. I’m still good friends with 2, there’s a lot of ones I have no hard feelings about, and then there’s this one stinker.
“go home and look at Instagram” is largely a stand-in for “I’m tired and can’t muster the energy to do anything that feels more effortful”.
In my limited experience, the trick to getting out of the hole is doing the hard thing anyway. That and professional advice and medication as appropriate. You can’t to my knowledge willpower your way out of clinical depression. But ultimately if you want out of the hole, you have to climb out, regardless if that means therapy, medication, or being mildly uncomfortable. It’s not going to fix itself.
I usually recommend Meetup or similar. There’s a bunch that are just get togethers for board games or whatnot.
But you have to keep going. I think people expect to like go once and make a new best friend and partner. You usually need a lot of interactions to level up from “stranger” to “person I see sometimes” to friend.
I also ran a small meetup for a while before the pandemic. Made a few friends that way, but it’s a lot of thankless work.
I feel like a lot of people who bemoan the lack of friends also don’t invest in friendship. Don’t show up when invited, don’t organize anything themselves.
I used to run a book club and a board game club, and it was always kind of a struggle to get people to show up. The pull of “just go home and look at Instagram” is strong, I guess.
I had an ex partner get upset because I used a period at the end of an innocuous text. This is among the reasons why they are my least favorite ex. Just a mess of anxiety and arrogance, where they’d worry about bullshit but be completely convinced that they were right and their way of thinking about things was the only sensible way.
Unfortunately they’re still distantly connected to the friend group, but luckily I haven’t run into them in years.
That’s how I read it as well. People who say there’s no ethical consumption, and then act like all wrongs are equally wrong so they might as well do the worst thing.
People get mad when things make them feel bad. They don’t want to fix anything they just don’t want to feel bad.
Yeah if AI was actually good you wouldn’t need to mandate it. No one was like “everyone here must use Google search”.
Companies fill up with idiots and parasites. People who are adept at thriving in the role without actually producing value. Google is no exception.
Assuming what you’re saying about the harms of consuming pornography, is it the state’s responsibility? Is it a top priority? Do we trust conservatives to implement a solution in good faith?
The answer to all of those I think is no.
There’s no analogous ID check for violent media, so far as I know.
There could be a raging wildfire and I would hesitate if a Republican said “let me deal with it”. They are fundamentally untrustworthy.
That’s on top of the deep irony of the same party that goes on about “small government” and “parents rights” is typically the same one pushing draconian anti-porn laws. It’s a joke. “A government small enough to fit in your bedroom”. Their motivations are so corrupt I am extremely skeptical of anything they propose.
Adding websearch to the start bar’s search was solving a problem that didn’t exist.
Maybe the average user is so ignorant and bad at computers they don’t understand this. They don’t know what a browser is. They don’t know what a website is. They don’t know what a program is. It’s all just stuff.
Personally, I’d rather spend billions on education than AI slop and other patches on “people are kind of dull”
Saint Luigi preserve us.
I also didn’t get it. Thank you folks for explaining it!
I’m sure there are companies that are at least more good than bad. Teachers pay teachers. Meetup. Bandcamp before they sold. That’s all I have off the top of my head. But even so capitalism invites cruelty, and the best intentions can easily wither under the pressure to make more money.
I work for a very large company involved in medicine. They make machines to do like blood work. That’s fine. People need that. But they treat many of their workers like trash. I don’t get paid for holidays and get the legal minimum sick leave per year. Their mission isn’t especially evil , but their behavior sucks.
I think a good step would be if people could admit the companies they work for are making the world worse. I’ve met some people who work for Google who do some backflips about how no the company is good and definitely they’re good people and it’s not the $300k salary talking.
Managers are often idiots in over their heads. AI is really aggravating that problem.
“I’m a Grok guy,” said Vance. “I think it’s the best. It’s also the least woke!”
What a fucking idiot. Really wants everyone to go back to sleep
Business Idiots. Ed Zitron wrote a whole thing about how many business leaders are out of touch with users and their own products. They live in their own little pocket dimension with each other, and only really care about shareholders.
Part of that falls under the “don’t show up when invited” umbrella, but mostly that sucks. I’m sorry you feel like your efforts and friendship efforts weren’t appreciated.
I’ve definitely had a couple friends (“friends”) that were lopsided. I remember posting about one way back in the 2000s on some web forum, and a guy with a otter(?) avatar told me “This guy, that flakes on your plans and only shows up when it works for him? He doesn’t respect you. Don’t put up with that”. Good advice from a small furry animal, I think.
Some people just aren’t worth it. Maybe they were in the past. Maybe they will be again. But I find it’s important to have boundaries for oneself. It can be hard to balance.