Yes. I have had a ground unit radar operator call out a “small aircraft” in a restricted zone repeatedly that we passed over (without seeing it) repeatedly, only for it to disappear and reappear again in the same general area. It was on the third or fourth pass I noticed two large birds flying wingtip to wingtip exactly where they were saying, and disappeared when the split apart.

So the size of a bird? Maybe not. The size of TWO birds? Yes. Annoyingly so.

Gonna has to go piece by piece through this:

obviously everyman has had a dick in his hand for obvious reasons.

This line is trans-exclusive, which would probably be given a pass by all but the most ardent trans-inclusive commenters, but still not great.

And all females

Dude. There are some times when an argument is made that saying “females” is not inherently objectifying, especially in a scientific, military, or other setting where people are categorized that way, with the significant difference being consistency (e.g. man/woman, male/female, etc). Using one then the other strips all that away and makes it seem like referring to women as “females” is just your normal tendency, which strongly suggests the objectifying behavior.

And all females old enough for sexual interactions have had one in their hand.

This is just obviously wrong, as plenty of lesbians, asexual people, or those with lack of access to sexual connections with others have not had a dick in their hands, and that is not an insignificant percentage of women, I’d imagine.

The next time I shake the hand of a woman I am going to wonder how many dicks she has had in that hand.

As if to underline the “females” comment, it’s pretty telling that you feel it worth mentioning that you’re going to wonder how many dicks were in the hands of women, but not men (especially funny since any man you meet has most likely had a dick in his hand more recently than a woman).

Sometimes it is difficult to notice your own biases, so I hope this makes you think about what leads you toward thinking like this, and just general self-reflection.

Kind of irrelevant, because there’s lots of lesbians who have never touched a dick.

The Battlefield 1 trailer.

I had never played a Battlefield game, and that trailer got me pumped enough to buy it at launch. Also, WWI was such an interesting (and horrifying) war.

The reality is because of the lived experiences of people based on the color of their skin, people are different based on skin color. You’re right that it’s a stupid reason to think differently of people, but if people had been mistreated for many generations based on the color of their hair, and there was still a good chunk of people that something so arbitrary was somehow important, then you would want to approach a person with that hair color with understanding of that history and current struggle.

So why does it matter? Because 100 years ago, their great-great-grandparents had any wealth they managed to build up taken from them, 70 years ago their great-grandparents were kept boxed into separate, substandard areas, and 50 years ago their grandparents were kept from being able to buy homes outside low-income, substandard housing areas, and 30 years ago their parents were told it was their fault for growing up in crime-filled, poor areas with under-funded schools. And the whole time police have continuously treated them as that same substandard, poor, likely-criminal, so they have disproportionately been put in jail or grown up with one parent in jail. This obviously doesn’t apply to everyone, but it’s enough to lead people to treat them differently, either because they presume (until otherwise established) that they are poor, poorly educated, and likely criminal (by basically racist assholes) or with a certain amount of respect for their presumed struggles.

Taking it to an extreme, if a person comes across a very old person with a number tattooed in block letters on their forearm, they will respond one of two ways: with respect and concern for their presumed struggles and trauma, or with irrational hatred (by neo-nazis). Judging or “separating” a person for a barely noticeable tattoo that they didn’t even put on themselves may seem arbitrary, but only if you ignore the entire history that makes them different.

Gotta launch the arrows at the climax, too, for maximum effect.

My question was less about how doable it is, and more… if you can’t afford to buy a house, how can you afford to pay rent (and thus someone else’s mortgage plus a little extra)?

The last place I lived, I could afford my mortgage but I wouldn’t have been able to afford to rent an equivalent house. Hence my confusion.

I know this wasn’t your point, but I’ve been confused on a particular point for awhile:

buying a house is simply out of reach unless you have dual income and it better be nearly six figure dual income…

Just the general idea of it being impossible to afford to buy a house. And don’t get me wrong, the prices on houses have gotten ridiculous! At the same time, we talk about landlords buying houses and charging exorbitant rent (suggesting at the very least more than what they pay).

So if rent is more than the mortgage, insurance, etc, then how is it impossible to buy a house if it is possible to rent (an equivalent home)? Is it the down payment (if any)? Costs involved in purchasing? Because it seems like month to month it would be cheaper.

I say this as someone who has rented and owned, and owning felt significantly cheaper.

(Full disclosure, I’m in the military, so I had access to a VA loan… though not really sure what that did for me except maybe allow 0% down… if other people are absolutely required to put up a percentage then I can definitely understand it).

Isn’t this a large part of the premise of the newer Disney Princess and the Frog movie?

That one person is a gem and we should appreciate them. They noticed you got talked over, and made sure to circle back, noticeably so the others don’t do it again, to make sure you weren’t silenced. It shows they not only noticed, but were bothered by it.

Treasure those people, and be those people.

A president who wants what is best for his people, seeks out the smartest man on the planet, and puts him in charge of the most challenging problem facing the country?

Yes. I want president Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho as president.

But if you wanted to do something about it: these weapons come from this country and they have to get there in trucks traveling on roads to ports that load them on ships.

We are discussing voting, though. That’s a bit tangential, because you can vote or not vote and still commit acts of… resistance…

And it’s not like there’s not a value to making genocide come with electoral consequences…

If you otherwise would have voted Dem against the Republicans, who are as bad or worse when it comes to the specific issue you’re punishing the Dems for, you are hurting one group committing genocide by helping one who commits and wants to commit even more genocide.

All under the mistaken belief that by refusing to vote for the group you would otherwise vote for, you will get them to move Left. But if the Dems lose to the VERY right wing party, if the voting shows that Americans favor more right-leaning policies, they would move to gain the votes of the people who actually voted.

The reality is, refusing to vote is still a choice. As long as you are an adult who can legally vote in the US election, you are partly responsible for the results of the election. You don’t get to wash your hands of it. Choosing to abstain because you don’t want to partipate out of moral self-righteousness is saying your soapbox is more important than the lives affected by your choices, from the Palestinians to the Ukrainians, immigrants to LGBTQ. Nobody is more important than your ability to say “I didn’t vote for a party that commit genocide.”

So what are the other choices?

Do you need to be an -ian? Like, if you like the teachings of Ghandi, or Socrates, or Marcus Aurelius, you don’t have to call yourself a Ghandian, or a Socratian, or an Aurelian. You just agree with their teachings.

I feel like you’re just making a dig on Christians, and it’s not like a lot of them don’t deserve it, but what you’re talking about isn’t a religion. You don’t need an -ian to like a philosophy.

I’m going to let you in on some insight from a 40-something millenial:

I feel like being a adult is just lying about how much you have your shit together to people who also lie about having their shit together.

It starts off that way a bit, and you’re expected to at least put forward the impression you have your shit together before you do. But then the pretending gets easier and easier until you realize you’re just paying your bills, getting your laundry done, and doing what you need to do while feeling like you’re failing at the new, added responsibility in your life (like big career changes, kids, projects taken on, kids, taking care of family or friends, more kids). But that’s with anything new you take on. If you aren’t struggling at least a little, you’re not growing.

After we got out of college, we are just going to sit in front of a computer like the generations before us for the rest of our life, with the only difference of be paided less then them.

If you choose that. I can’t speak to the pay, because y’all are getting fucked… so far. I’ll speak more on that in a second, but I was the store manager of a restaurant for a few years before moving to New York from Seattle on a whim, worked customer service at a phone center for a cable company, and then joined the Coast Guard in my mid-to-late 20s, and drove boats until going into aviation and flying in helicopters, living in various places throughout the country, saving a few lives, flying in really cool places, and when I retire I can go do something else. People who stay in a job behind a desk their whole work life either love that job or are complacent in it. You are absolutely not chained to it.

And as for the shitty pay and everything, what I have seen of the Gen Z folks that have come through the Coast Guard is that they advocate for themselves and get things that we millenials are embarrassed to hear requested, much less think to ask for ourselves. And look to all the labor movements going on to push back at those pay drops. Keep the momentum, keep up the fight, don’t get complacent like my generation or Gen X.

not one of us could have imagined the entire generation having a mid-life crisis at the age of 18.

That’s not a mid-life crisis, that’s just the normal fear of entering the world for real, and it’s been that way for a long, long time. The crises come when you start feeling how little time you have (quarter-life realization you just don’t have enough lifespan to do everything you hope to do, mid-life realization of how little time you really have). Your thing is simply the fear of embarking into the unknown, and your doomscrolling has made your future look bleak. Put the phone down. Take opportunities when you can. Enjoy what you can out of life.

The whole thing is daunting, I totally get it. But going in with the approach you have is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I disagree. If we sent 100 personnel with an air defense group to Ukraine, shit would get pretty real pretty fast. Sending people is a whole different commitment to sending weapons.

I had an old instructor who liked to say “when it comes to breakfast, what’s the difference between the chicken and the pig? The chicken made a contribution, the pig made a commitment.”

Sending our own troops stops being a contribution and starts being a commitment.

Does anybody know what this said?! I’m having the same problem!

Edit: nevermind, I figured it out.

“It has a smooth finish, virtually indestructible, and it writes upside-down.” [None of these will be true] “Also, with our Ink Anytime subscription service, you’ll never run out of ink! It’s free…” [for the first six months] “for our lowest tier…” [three lines of text per day] “with an option to upgrade to a higher tier anytime.” [Puts pen in pocket] “We’re offering pre-orders with a $5 non-refundable deposit, with delivery expected sometime in the next six months depending on how soon you get on the waitlist.” [Two years until you give up and just let us keep your deposit] “So sign up now!”

The amount of people with no kids that have strong opinions about how children should be raised is like the people with no uteruses that have strong feelings about abortion and pregnancy, or white college kids who have strong opinions about what words and phrases should be offensive to minorities. There’s nothing wrong with having an opinion, but the arrogance to think they have something to contribute to that conversation is exhausting.

Like… tables?