Fuck off, Meta. My children tell me they want to try cigarettes, driving, using an excavator, and rifles and every time I fail to consider their voices. Actually, I consider it and the answer is an easy, “no.” Considering the evidence, social media like FB appears to be quite deleterious to people’s mental health, young people in particular.

Why? Is it the McAlpine? Pretty sure that one of the first kings of Scotland was Cinead (Kenneth) McAlpine.

I’m pretty suspicious about all the AITA posts these days. So many of them just smell like rage bait designed to pit men and women against each other.

Nosing (instead of reversing) into a parking spot. You always pick the conditions of your arrival, but not always your departure. Also, reversing into traffic is ridiculous and illegal in some places. Parking nose-first is dangerous and lazy.

EDIT: Love how you’re all justifying your bad driving habits. Camera? Still can’t scan for incoming traffic. Bad weather only on occasion? It’s more than bad weather that can make reversing out of a door dangerous.

… and I HATE angle parking.

Motivation.

Is it? There are plenty of Jews and plenty of Muslims who are not involved in this and see it as wrong. Plus, that’s such a broad statement as to be meaningless. We could equally say government is the problem, but there aren’t many advocating for anarchy. Or people are the problem. I’d be more inclined to say tribalism is the problem, the very foundation of an “us” vs. “them” mentality. Sometimes assholes pick a fight and call it religious. There’s a strong case to be made that war has become much more brutal and far reaching since the Napoleonic wars and the rise of the nation-state. I mean, we can blame religion … that certainly erases the need to look within ourselves and ask why humans do this to each other.

It’s a bit like pretending Nazism was a German problem and pretending like the same dark forces don’t exist now and in many people everywhere.

There are definitely some religious dickheads, but there are dickheads of all stripes.

If religion is so vile, how do we hold in tension the fact that religious people are often behind the most charity towards the marginalised and disempowered? Atheists talk a good game, but rarely leave their armchairs to do anything positive. Religion can become a tribal marker, but it also is one of the main forces working against tribalism.

That’s kind of the point: there isn’t an authority on English. The closest we come is a bunch of English elites making up informal rules on grammar, spelling, and pronunciation and judging everyone else for not using their version. … And a bunch of try-hards who enforce their arbitrary and often nonsensical 'rules '.

If it parses, it rolls.

A longer digestive system is necessary to properly break down plant cellulose. This is why some small herbivores are copraphagic (eat their own shit, like rabbits): it takes two times through to extract adequate nutrients.

I’ve been wondering a lot about absurdism in humour. There are people who laugh when they see something disastrous happen, like a man reflexively trying to stop a cement truck from tipping and getting squashed dead. Or a recent news story of the only fatality in a school bus crash: it was an observer who got hit by a vehicle as he ran across the highway to see if the kids were ok. A lot of the time this laughing response to a disaster is interpreted as schadenfreude, but a good portion of the time I believe it’s absurdism.

We try so hard to have agency, to do something, but the World doesn’t give a fuck. You have two choices when shit goes so wrong: you can wail about the unfairness of it all, or you can laugh at the absurdity of our efforts in the face of the colossal chaos of it all. The laughter is stronger.

It’s interesting to me that some cultures seem to have absurd humour baked in. The Aussies and Kiwis seem to have it. They just make jokes about and laugh at the most horrific situations.

I’ve been wondering a lot about absurdist humour. Dan Carlin relates a story of an old Air Force colonel who

Lots of good articles on Canadian brutality in WW1 if you do a search. As for war crimes in particular, here’s one of many articles mentioning how Canadians killed prisoners of war:

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-forgotten-ferocity-of-canadas-soldiers-in-the-great-war

Birds are reptiles.

I mean, we’re kind of known for war crimes too. Was anyone in WW1 worse than the Canadians?

I mean, Mademoiselle Cochonne would be her own special kind of lady.

Do you change the emphasis? da-ko-TANT?

Canada’s Brightest Ditch-Digger

They’re naked seeds. I get you.

I second this. This sounds like older men seeking validation. I’m willing to bet that they’ve been sold on a mythical contract: “If you do X, you will have a smooth life and get respect.” Problem is, many in the public don’t believe in X or think it’s a problem, their families/wife probably doesn’t think much of them, and they haven’t had the life they thought they were entitled to. Often this crew is looking for someone to blame for the unfulfilled contract nobody ever agreed to.

I suspect they’re looking for validation (“Tell me I’m right and good.”), and you’re agreement that the people they think cheated them indeed did that and are bad/cheaters.

Old White Guys really got sold on this, “get a job, work hard, and your wife will lust after you,” false contract. That’s why they can be so hateful. It’s either find someone who stole their reward from them, or acknowledge they believed a lie.

EDIT: I don’t think you should be validating them. I believe they’re wrong, and this mentality is a problem. Life is full of adversity. Success is not facing no adversity, it’s facing it well. Also, you’re not owed anything from other people. The only solution is to focus on being excellent, believe in yourself, and choose to move on from the people and things that don’t bring you life. You can only control yourself.

So it’s Francophones, not Anglophones misgendering you?

No. Decanting is pouring, bit specifically not mixing.