I think it’s a human problem. It’s in our genes. Some of us are supremely selfish and some of those people have no regard for the health and wellbeing of anyone who gets in their way. Just look at our history.

Pretty much. I don’t see how we can fix what’s wrong with this country from within the system. The US is fundamentally broken because we have lost any semblance of a shared reality. There are four distinct and incompatible realities fighting for dominance: MAGA, republicans, democrats, and leftists. All four groups believe in a different set of facts about the world we live in and let their fear and cruelty drive their actions. It’s not sustainable.

I wish there was something we could do to reunite our understanding of the world we share, but it’s too far gone now.

As an outsider, I promise the grass is not greener over here. Being part of a community, be that family, friends, or local groups gives you much more ability to affect change. Alone you have no chance of changing even the most local and basic issues.

The best thing you could do is have this conversation offline with the people in your life. You’d be surprised how willing people are to work together towards a larger goal if given some direction and concrete goals.

In my 20’s I had three dreams. The first I was at my parents house preparing for a zombie invasion. I knew we would be fine if I found “it” (no idea what it was) but was unable to in the dream. The second dream I was at the office trying to find “it” again and knew I only had three chances. The third dream I was in the desert at the mouth of a skull shaped cave. I had a shovel and knew it was my last chance to find “it”. I failed and awoke knowing I had lost something important but undefinable. The dreams were all about a month apart and so vivid they felt real.

Another interesting note on my dreams is almost all of the really intensely real dreams I’ve been able to recall take place in different parts of the same “world”. Sometimes in the dream I can recall other dreams and where they are in relation to the current dream, most often I make the connection after waking.

I can’t find a link, but I saw an article the other day that said /r/assholedesign was going to be one of the first in protest of the move.

Don’t feed the trolls. If you find a bigot willing to have a good faith debate, maybe, but there is no reasoning with cult members. They have to want to change.

This was years ago, but I was driving around listening to music with my windows down and a couple guys in a van pulled up next to me and asked if I wanted a deal on stereo equipment. Being the naive idiot I was I followed them into a parking lot.

They claimed to be home stereo installers and had accidentally received two premium stereos for a customer order instead of one. They wanted to get rid of the second one for beer money and asked for like $200. They had a magazine that showed the stereo was worth several thousand and I thought I might make a quick buck by reselling it to a pawn shop or online.

I didn’t have $200 but I had overdraft protection so I thought I would pull that money out anyway and pay it back once I had sold the stereo. The guy at the pawnshop was the one who told me I got scammed and I have never felt more embarrassed.

Oh for sure, especially with the ghost and alien abduction stories, but I always got the sense a lot of the callers were either, bored, lonely, crazy, or some combination of those three.

For me it was a call on Coast To Coast AM. I used to be suuuuuuper into all that shit. I was a regular listener to C2C and believed 70% of the crap they shoveled. The 30% I didn’t believe (ghosts and the supernatural) were because I had personally tried astral projecting, recording evps, ghost hunting, etc. and none of it worked for me.

Anyway the call was in the early 2000’s and Art Bell was hosting. The caller claimed to be a scientist working for a secret government lab working on portal tech and had accidentally opened a doorway to another where filled with hostile beings who took control of the facility. When the caller identified themselves as Dr. Gordon Freeman I realized anyone could just say any bullshit and these idiots would believe it.

It took like 10 years to fully flush conspiracy thinking out of my brain and I overcorrected hard by becoming one of those obnoxious skeptics for a while.

Though given the times we live in today I’ve seen a few theories online that have an uncomfortable amount of truth to them and have to admit I have been tempted.

“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk said in a statement provided by his lawyer Marc Toberoff to The Wall Street Journal. “We will make sure that happens.”

I’ll believe that when I see it.

Realistically, no. You need luck more than anything.

Besides, what value does telling him that have?

Earlier that summer my father had made me clean a deer that had been shot in the gut and he did some hollywood style child abuse when I barfed about it, so I was pretty numb to the gore. What really bothered me was some of the dialog. I shudder 30 years later when I think about the line, “where we’re going we don’t need eyes to see.”

My stepdad was horrified he’d taken his stepdaughter to see something so graphic and made me and my friends promise not to tell anyone what we saw and to downplay the gore.

I saw Event Horizon on my 13th birthday in theaters with some of my friends.

That was my comment, I said everyone poops, lol

There are too many loop holes to the traffic lights. The jesus freaks would quote the bible about it and say, “The rain falls on the just and unjust alike.” Personally I’m a fan of “everybody poops.”

The world has changed significantly since you were your kiddo’s age, but it sounds like you might be stuck thinking you can regain the things you’ve lost. Time only goes one way and you have to find new ways to live and express yourself.

Look for parts of your life where you are just killing time. Browsing social media, watching a streaming service, playing video games, etc, and see if you can do less of that. Look at what things you buy and see if you can buy less, used, or local to free up some budget for pursuing other interests. And if you feel tired all the time, get some exercise, it really does help with fatigue over time.

Both your partner and kiddo can also help, they would prefer a happy, authentic husband/dad and probably would support you if you asked them for specific assistance.

Ultimately you have to make it a priority or nothing will change.

Why not? Maybe our robot overlords would be more fun

Collecting stuff is basically the ultimate hoarder hobby.

I agree, but what else would you call being forced into a facility you can’t leave? Especially if the pigs brought you there. The way people in crisis are handled in this country is appalling.

I have been in several mental health crises that I should have been in involuntarily hospitalized for, but was too afraid to ask for help because I would rather die than lose what little freedom I have. So I might be biased (and very bitter).

I mean to be fair if you were involuntarily hospitalized, you actually were a prisoner.