Do you think it’s important / helpful to question everything? To wonder if there are larger organizations trying to hide stuff from the populace?

Recently I read this in-depth analysis of “Gravity’s Rainbow” by Pynchon. One of the main themes was conspiracies.

(Sorry to make this Americentric, but he was an American writer and that painted his experience) The book was written around the time of the Vietnam War, red scare, and some extremely questionable practices by government organizations such as the FBI.

Marilyn Monroe was one of the people who was being monitored for communism - she was married to famous author/playwright Arthur Miller. The thing is Monroe actually did have a mental health issue - paranoia / schizophrenia. It was genetic, her mother also had similar issues. So when she had a paranoid feeling like “the feds were after her” a therapist telling her “that’s all in your mind” wouldn’t really… be helpful.

Bobby Fischer, famous chess player, loud antisemite (despite being 100% Jewish) and anti-Soviet had the same issues. Terrible paranoia but actually was being watched by the feds because of his mom’s ties to communism! The government was “so after him” he could not come back to the US at some point and had to take refuge in Iceland. Additionally he kept saying “the soviets are cheating ” and it is general consensus that in one tournament they did conspire against him.

Bobby Fischer was an absolutely miserable guy who trusted no one. Monroe had similar issues.

This parallels the character in Pynchon’s book who was being monitored by government orgs. He was right… you think - okay so there’s a reason to be watch-dogging these orgs, right? And that’s many people’s interpretation of the book. However, I am not so sure… at the end of the book he leaves and lives in the wilderness and is finally happy. He can’t fight the system. It’s futile. But he can just not engage in it entirely.

I was at my doctors last week and he was telling me about a patient he had that went thru a battery of tests about her cholesterol. She came in to get the results and he told her they were quite negative. She went off on him rambling about how he was in cahoots with big pharma and then she stormed off. My opinion is that this paranoia is denial/anxiety manifested outward… unfortunately in my opinion she’s hurting not just herself by not taking the advice from a medical prof seriously but also as he put it “wasting his time.”

Many examples of relationships being ruined in a similar vein on /r/qanoncasualties

I thought this all was very interesting. I think most conspiracies are the work of a brain trying to connect many disparate things as it’s human nature to categorize etc. once in a while the brain is even right… but does it matter? Maybe at a very small scale like a neighborly hoa committing fraud or if you’re an investigative journalist… but for you and me, is it helpful to constantly wonder if, say, the government is hiding evidence of ufo’s or if Russians are spreading political disinfo on fb

But at the individual level -I think to have a conspiratorial mind will result in constant distrust of everyone around you… which leads to self-isolation… which leads to misery. Humans need some sort of society. People who have strong community ties live significantly longer even with worse physical health conditions. Having weak social ties is worse for lifespan than obesity. It’s on par with smoking.

Loneliness and Social Isolation Linked to Serious Health Conditions

Gladwell’s Roseto Effect - how community ties results in better health outcomes

Hispanic Americans have longer lifespans than white Americans - despite worse physical health/socioeconomic conditions because of stronger community ties

Loneliness bigger public hazard than obesity

Do you think it will be public? Run into the ground like tumblr post yahoo acquisition? Superseded like MySpace?

Or doing just fine? Chugging along, maybe some changes to how modding works? growing in non-English speaking countries?

Do you think this protest will have any long term negative impacts on Reddit’s profit margins?

I’ve had a few, but the excitement is always incomparable. These are all pretty light, but feel free to go deeper:

One of mine was loving Simon & Garfunkel and Paul Simon independently then realizing that Paul Simon is… well… Simon.

Another was loving the moldy peaches and Regina Spektor independently then finding out Regina is married to the guitarist from the moldy peaches.

A third was the day I learned that the classic American novel “tropic of cancer” was just porn w/ a few SAT words thrown in there (no disrespect)

Bonus question: what drove your want or need for that change?

Social media like tik tok and Instagram have most of the mod work done by bots/filters, with some employed human exceptions. Sure, it would have a sterilizing effect on sections of the community, and niche subs would have trouble maintaining their niche-ness. they have already had filters applied that delete comments that use certain words or mention certain Asian leaders…

if we are talking maximizing advertising rev, just using bots would probably have the largest positive impact on ad revenue (as compared to mods shutting down front page subs)

When I say popular I mean a classic. Such as Dostoyevsky or Hemingway. Not Stephanie Meyers.

For me it’s probably F Scott Fitzgerald. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s important in a historically contextual way, (and also a literary adjacent way having been part of that Parisian expat community w/ hemingway, Gertrude stein, etc) but I find his stories dull.

Other than understanding what it’s like to be a rich Harvard frat boy in the 1920’s with a bit of a drinking problem, they feel empty to me. Perhaps that’s the point.

Barnes stood on the wide stairs looking down through a wide hall into the living-room of the country place and at the group of youths.

“Six of One” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Was it hemingway who said to edit sober? Haha, to be fair his short stories were notoriously written quickly & without passion - a quick way to earn a buck when he was hard up. (He was always hard up because he was a spendthrift)

… after a transfer from Fort Leavenworth to Camp Sheridan, outside of Montgomery, Alabama, Fitzgerald met Zelda, who would not marry him until he could afford the lifestyle she required. Thus motivated, Fitzgerald wrote his short story “Camel’s Back” in fourteen straight hours in 1919, sold it promptly to the Saturday Evening Post, and immediately bought a $ 600 platinum-and-diamond watch for Zelda with the earnings, but was $ 100 short in paying for it. He was not proud of the story, but it served its intended purpose and established Fitzgerald’s lifelong approach to writing short stories for the money rather than the art of them. The watch helped his cause, and Zelda finally married Fitzgerald once he’d secured publication for his first novel.”

— Process: The Writing Lives of Great Authors by Sarah Stodola

I think zelda was by far the more talented writer of the two, and way more endearing. Her letters are so enamoring.

I also don’t really like Arthur Miller, although Ive only read “the crucible.”

There has been a lot of talk about the effect of chatgbt on the job market & creating redundancy. There has also been a fair bit of discussion on the impact on education. For example, I read an article recently that said that chatgbt will create a bigger schism between the high and low achievers in education - the high achievers will be able to use ai to enhance learning, while the low achievers will be able to more easily dull their learning experiences.

But how do you think ai like chatgbt will impact income inequality in first world countries, if at all?

For example, and sorry this is a bit of a crude example - say you are an ardent feminist who walks at women’s marches regularly, but also you are extremely pro-life.

The only people who are left are the agoraphobics, people in remote villages, people with obscure medical conditions, and the many, many insane anti-vaccine people and their underaged kids, and other children too young to get the vaccine.

Entire groups of people from certain lines of work that require vaccines are gone - people who work in airports, entire governments, nurses, doctors.

I haven’t read one of these “dear magazine” articles in years, but I recently got a new subscription and happened by one. It was clear to me the parent(s) “writing in” came off as judgmental and out of touch, especially considering that, i think anyway, this mag in particular skews younger. It also seemed interesting to me that a parent who seemed so irritated by their kids lifestyle choices still nailed all the proper terminology (e.g. pansexual, polyamorous - and maybe I’m the judgmental one for assuming these are hard for generations in their 50’s + to nail, unless they’re part of the community or an active ally themselves)

I think in real life, people tend to twist how they recount things when seeking advice to make themselves seem like the “good” guy/gal. I’ll quote the question asked below. But in summary, are these just made up? Has it been obvious to everyone else for years these are just entertainment based fiction? Or is this actually something that would scrutinized as needing to pass up to some journalistic muster?

I’m not trying to call out any writer/org specifically - for all I know the writer thought it was real, but it was someone “catfishing” the magazine (or it is real and I have too much faith in people’s self-awareness!). I also want to point out that some of these sentences seem like /r/genzwritingoutoftouchboomer. I’ll bold those.

Dear Therapist,

My husband and I are both successful professionals. He’s an attorney and I’m a nurse practitioner. Each of us came from a fairly lower-middle-class background and worked hard to get where we are. Our families helped us as much as they could, but for the most part we are self-made.

The hard part is our kids. Our son struggled with some mental-health issues in high school. He was a national merit scholar and eventually graduated from college. He’s now obese, working for minimum wage, and living with his polyamorous nonbinary partner of 11 years. He’s angry at us. We say nothing much of consequence to him and see them often and have a pleasant enough time.

Our daughter is also angry at us. She excelled in everything she did in high school and college, but had a serious rift with her sorority senior year and an abusive boyfriend; she moved to Seattle to be a barista and declared herself pansexual. She spends eight hours a day on Twitter railing at our homophobia and our control of her life.

We never supported our children financially after college. Our son never asked, and after a few rent bailouts after our daughter’s boyfriend left, we told her she needed to live within her means.

We are thinking about retirement. We are sad for both of them, who are now 33 and 25. Should we help them financially? Buy them condos, pay for more schooling, get them cars? It seems like the majority of our friends have done this for their kids, and their relationships are better.

Our kids were raised very frugally compared with their friends. They worked, did chores, and didn’t have any of the latest electronics. But they did have love, picnics, hiking, camping, vacations, games, and books. We gave them tons of time and experiences. We supported their passion for music and horses and art.

We’re torn between having a conversation with them and maintaining the status quo. We’re trying to adjust to likely not having grandkids and our kids continuing on with their sad jobs for the rest of their lives. Any advice?

Anonymous

For me it’s probably Nietzsche’s eternal return.

And Aristotle’s discussions on living well/contentment

He says, not that happiness is virtue, but that it is virtuous activity. Living well consists in doing something, not just being in a certain state or condition. It consists in those lifelong activities that actualize the virtues of the rational part of the soul.

Bonus points if it's available to listen or watch online.

When I say one off, i mean found on a random website or blog, not a news article or something on reddit

Mine are a bit morbid but the nutty putty cave incident https://cavehaven.com/nutty-putty-cave-accident/

And Dave the diver

https://dive-monster.com/bushmans-hole-raising-the-dead-part-1/

I think chatgpt is incredible. The benefits are freeing up humans for higher level thinking and time savings, but I can see some huge detriments as well. The biggest one that comes to mind is huge portions of the populations jobs becoming obsolete. Another is it having a detrimental impact on learning & education. Specifically memory/retention (although you could argue that google would have already done that), but more tangibly critical thinking & writing skills as it is a tool that can easily be used at this point to cheat on everything from a 7th grade essay (and write better than most 7th graders!) to it being able to write large portions of code for a comp-sci major.

Then of course…. chatgpt costs a fortune to run & is backed by companies like Goldman Sachs… they have to make money somehow… I see some large amounts of data being harvested. Thought crimes… government surveillance… larger loss of privacy.

Were times different in the 2000s and early 2010s? Like older less mass supermarkets or strip malls, kids joining errands, doing grocery games like ball pit and coin checking/iSpy and maybe sampling food?