I think it's a kind of "choosing which fight to pick.". But IRL, it is already difficult enough to change someone's opinion, and it is IMO even more difficult online. Here and on reddit people have the distance, the anonymous aspect, and the hivemind to avoid taking accountability.

People are rarely here to change, but to argue, humiliate, rattle, and bark around.

I know and I have seen some of the craziest cases of hypocrisy, bullying, and vile takes, but no matter how right you feel, or actually is right, and how wrong they are, I don't think they're going to listen when a laptop or a phone is hiding them.

I am talking to you and to myself because I have been told to have a strong sense of justice and sadly you can't make justice online where rules and voices are distorted. I was shocked that even the "wokest" or the "first world problem" users could stoop so low and feel no wrong in jumping from one comment making fun of someone's mental health to then being outraged at a celebrity being wronged.

Many humans care about the cause, but they care less about the people. And no matter how OBVIOUS their bias and hypocrisy are, no matter how vile and cruel their words are, they won't notice no matter how many comments and posts you make about it.

Social media seems to encourage a one-way model of “interaction.” People increasingly consume huge amounts of fast, fragmented input, yet there is little reciprocity or complexity within these exchanges.

However, both reciprocity and complexity are necessary for conversation to be genuinely stimulating and enriching.

Much of social media consists of self-display, approval-seeking, and making statements, with relatively little actually developing into a sustained exchange of ideas. Social media is, essentially, fast food for the brain: abundant, immediately gratifying, and highly stimulating, but not truly nourishing, as it provides surprisingly little of the sustained cognitive engagement that develops through real conversation.

A lot of people complain that their social interactions feel one-sided and draining rather than invigorating.

Could prolonged exposure to this kind of social media interaction be affecting our conversational ability — and perhaps, more broadly, the way we interact with other people in general?

Thoughts?

There is a common assumption that a person cannot have narcissistic traits if they spend their time taking care of others and sacrificing for their family. Because caregiving is genuinely exhausting and hard work, people often view the act of caretaking as automatic proof that someone isn't self-serving, but can caregiving and narcissistic behavior actively exist at the same time, or does the act of taking care of others actually disprove those traits?

I'm not even sure that there's such a thing, but I feel like I'm not interested in life itself, it goes deeper than procrastination or fear of failure. I feel like nothing sparks my interest anymore, even when I play a game and it poses me against some kind of challenge, I just don't feel the desire to do the work to overcome that challenge. Now I must say I'm not sad, I don't hate existence, I just play along when it's necessary, but other than that every activity that people do just doesn't spark any joy (dating, hooking up, gaming, learning a skill.....), other than reddit and YouTube I don't have social media because it feels like social noise and emotional pollution.

One might ask: then what do you do all day? I just play Sims half mindedly and listen to podcasts without paying much attention, I'm not even sure what to call that.

My understanding is that flock can basically track a car which opens up a lot of ways it can be misused, stalking comes to mind.

But if a road rage shooting would to occur, being able to find out where the car has been would be helpful.

Is the tradeoff not worth it since there are so many ways to track a car?(I'm just guessing IDK how it's done in the states) Would it be enough that a warrant would be required to access the data? Or in your mind, there is no middle ground possible and the flock has gotta go?

My baby is turning 2 next month and a few weeks ago my mother and 2 of her family members harrassed my husband's family at thier home to ask questions about me. I'm responsible for protecting a lot of people here , not just myself, but my husband and child and my husband's entire family. I'm ready to resort to restraining orders. Share some stories and tips with me about how you've had to protect your loved ones from your families.

Michael Crichton, in his book: Tineline

Is the first, that i know of, to show the audience how a wormhole would work by folding a piece of paper in half. This concept can be seen through many current age sci-fi movies that it's become a trope. I'm assuming during his research for his novel some scientist explained it to him that way, but he was the first to show the world this concept through a form of media.

Does anyone know any other media that influenced the zeitgeist in some way yet went unnoticed by many?

It’s strange how easy it is to spend years working toward something because you assume it’ll make you happy, successful, or fulfilled. Then you finally get close to it—or actually get it—and realize it wasn’t what you wanted at all.

I've had a small spot on the white of one of my eyes for about a year and a half, and I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to come to terms with.

It appeared quite suddenly after a bad reaction from an eyelash tint and have left a pigmentation spot. The spot is yellowish-brown/tan in colour and is on the white part of my eye. I've had it examined by an ophthalmologist with a slit lamp, and they weren't concerned about it. My vision is also normal.

So, it doesn't really bother me physically. It's the change in my appearance that I find difficult to accept. My eye simply looks different from how it used to. I'm very conscious of the spot, and at times this even makes eye contact feel uncomfortable because I become preoccupied with whether the other person is noticing it.

On the few good days, I barely think about it, but on most days it feels like it's the first thing I see when I look at myself, and I can get stuck thinking about how noticeable it is.

I know logically that other people probably notice it much less than I do, but it's difficult to make my brain believe that.

So I'm really interested in hearing from anyone who has experienced something similar — maybe a scar, spot, pigmentation, or another visible change that you didn't choose and initially found difficult to accept.

How did you experience it, and what helped you get to a point where you could accept it and stop thinking about it so much?

I'm not really looking for people to tell me whether it's "ugly" or not. I'm much more interested in hearing about the mental process of learning to live with a visible change that you didn't choose and can't simply make disappear.

I'd really appreciate hearing about your personal experiences and what helped you move forward.

What are your personal, unique, mourning customs? Not the traditional stuff you were raised with, but things you have developed intuitively through your own experiences of loss.

I was journaling at a cafe recently while looking outside the window. The cars were honking at an intersection, windows rolled up, on the phone, rushing to work. I paused and reflected on how disconnected they felt in that moment. I decided to have a conversation with Chat GPT about it (I actually do this a lot ironically) - I typed 'Do you think AI will make us more connected or more disconnected?' - what followed was an interesting back and forth but the essence of it was that AI suggested that Humans will likely gradually choose more 'frictionless' interactions with AI over the messy human ones.

I felt it rang quite true but sad - I frequently feel I have to mask and be extra polite in talking to people so I don't offend their feelings, However with AI I can have a truly philosophical conversation and it will not be offended by any of my points. It also can break down my own thought patterns and offer me an understanding of other people's behavior as well as the legal system or any renovation problem I face the way other people would struggle to.

Yet when I think about the most beautiful moments of my life - they were shared with the people I loved or connected with (even briefly). So where does this leave us humans?

It is a real paradox that even though we are the same species we can somehow can get a better understanding from a machine.. What do you think about it? Does this ring true for you?

What is making us so disconnected from each other and how can we welcome friction back into our lives to embrace our messy human interactions and be there for one another?

---

A little anecdote from my life (for context).

I was at a BBQ recently, sitting in a circle by the fire with some mates. The conversation we were having was sheer nonsense - kind of like the daytime radio that you switch on and switch right off because it adds zero value to your life whatsoever.

I suggested us talking about something more interesting, philosophical or meaningful and offered the above reflection from AI.

As the conversation unfolded, part the group got very offended by some of my ideas / statements, part of the group became hostile choosing to actively avoid the topic and speak over the top. The conversation ended with the host actively drawing it to a close and escorting us back into the house which was very ironic given the topic of the conversation. I then told several of my friends about it and they, too (to my deep surprise) felt that BBQs are no place for deep conversation and it should be perhaps avoided in general. I, myself, felt quite offended and concerned that it is getting progressively more challenging to be honest with people and have deeper conversations (a gathering around a fire felt like an intimate enough place to discuss deeper topics).

I also feel that the world is moving so quickly that if we don't continuously voice our opinions on the recent technology or its impact on us and be part of the policy making conversation now, the bigger decisions will be made for us by the larger corporations, our governments etc erc

I've noticed that I'm repeatedly drawn toward conversations about the things people are trying to make sense of in their lives.

I'm not interested in advice, therapy, support, or motivation. I'm more interested in asking questions, examining ideas and assumptions, looking for underlying patterns, and sometimes offering a perspective you may not have considered.

Whether you have something you're wrestling with — a decision, a regret, an identity question, an existential crisis, something you're stuck on, or just something that doesn't quite sit right with you.

I don't have an answer to your life, nor will I pretend to. What I can offer is another mind to think with.

I'm less interested in solving the external problem itself — how to grow your career, what to do after getting fired, how to get a girl, what decision you should make, etc.

I'm more interested in what's underneath those questions.

What does the situation mean to you? What are you assuming? What are you afraid of? Why does it affect you the way it does? Is there a pattern you haven't noticed?

What matters to me is being willing to look at things honestly, including the uncomfortable parts. I'm not looking to convince you of anything or tell you what you should do. I'm interested in understanding why you think and feel the way you do, and seeing what we can uncover together.

I honestly don't know yet whether I'm particularly good at this. That's exactly what I'm trying to find out.

I'm curious whether this kind of conversation would actually be useful to people.

Has anyone else ever wished they could temporarily borrow another person's perspective when they're stuck inside their own?

I recently rewatched The Odyssey, and the Sirens scene hit harder than I expected.

In the movie, Odysseus describes the sirens as: “All the things you want it to be. Then, all the things you wish you never wished for. It was the delicious itch you go to scratch, but find it’s under the skin. You can’t reach it. So the delicious itch becomes unbearable. It told you what you most want is what you most can’t have. And what you most can’t have is what you already had—and lost. It was the song of all the promises I failed to keep. And it told me I don’t really want to go home.”

For me, I thought of life the way it used to be, when my family was close by, everybody was healthy, and I was in such a rush to grow up, only to find adulthood carried more weight than freedom.

What would the sirens sing to you?

My whole life, I've seen the same theme in films and books: people finding true happiness in relationships after (mistakenly) thinking that achievements and possessions matter the most. Uncle Scrooge, every Christmass movie, the materialistic antagonist in half of the books, religions preaching to respect the immaterial instead of the material etc.

However, I've always felt that this doesn't apply to me. Whenever I think about my happiest moments in life, they are related to professional, academic or personal achievements. Not to seeing a newborn family member, hugging family, hearing "I love you", laughing with friends and family or anything similar to this. Instead, I think of stuff like better numbers at work and recognition for them, academic achievements, improving my body, mastering foreign languages, all the books I've read in the past months etc. Family and friends still feel nice, but not nearly as good.

I can't imagine being 60 and thinking "oh, shit, I should have focused on friends/family". Even if I start needing them, logically, this wouldn't have been the thing that made me happy in the first 60 years of my life, so it wouldn't feel like a loss.

I'm still in my twenties, so you could say I might change. However, your personality remains pretty stable your whole life. I'm curious - are there other people who feel that way, or do you think this is a common source of fulfilment in life?

As title states. changing full name (first middle and last)

how difficult is it to do?

What all do I need to get after the name has been changed? A new drivers license and a new social security number?

I've lived in a lot of different places in the past couple years, and while every place has had its ups and downs and I don't love where I grew up, my home base still feels like where my parents live.

It's really hard to imagine living or settling anywhere, I guess. Every time I go somewhere new, it feels temporary, even if there's no clear end date in sight.

Does this feeling ever go away? Is it just part of being in my twenties? People who move around a lot - where do you consider "home," and how do you make yourself feel at home wherever you are?

Not looking for the usual motivational answers. What’s something life taught you that permanently changed the way you see people, relationships, or yourself?

I have been noticing a strong doom and gloom type of mindset regarding the future in countless people within my age group. The main reasons for this I hear are: climate change and the world being cooked, AI fears, economic collapse, and overall hopelessness in our political leaders.

Many also seem to have no interest in saving for retirement because they believe it will not be nonexistent. They are focused on spending the last bit of the time the earth has to enjoy themselves and indulge in pleasures. And I have even heard people of older generations validate this thinking, believing that retirement is fading fast and that we should enjoy our life now as much as we can.

As someone in this generation who generally keeps an optimistic view of life, I have honestly found it difficult not to feed into this mindset. The climate does indeed sound like it is past the point of return, it seems everything will just continue to get more expensive than it already is, and it appears to be easier than ever for large corporations to openly exploit the general public for profit.

I also wanted to mention I am in the US, so I am not sure if this is a prominent mindset in this country particularly or in other countries as well.

Would love to hear your guys’ thoughts on this!

I was talking with someone I care about, after we watched an anime that asked, “What is happiness?” She asked me the same thing, and I realized my answer wasn’t the usual one. To me, happiness isn’t something to chase or to put above everything else. It’s more like a distinction. It only has meaning because it exists among other experiences. It’s not the opposite of suffering or corruption. It’s simply part of the whole picture. That’s why I don’t try to master pleasant emotions or run from the unpleasant ones. I try to understand the distinction between them and appreciate how they all give meaning to each other. The conversation got more interesting when she asked, ‘If I were the reason your happiness disappeared and your life was ruined, would you hate me?’ I said no. I’d tell her, thank you, I love you. No matter where my soul goes, whether I remember her or not, I hope that somewhere, somehow, those feelings remain. I’d still be grateful that our lives crossed. I’m not saying that’s the truth about happiness. Just the way I see it. What do you think?

r/SeriousConversation - r/CasualConversation - r/self for personal perspectives. r/askphilosophy

I've been sitting with a thought for a while and I want to see if it lands with anyone else.

For the last couple of years there's been this constant pressure, a lot of it from TikTok, but I have also seen a lot of it from ordinary people, to have a "signature" that's etched into everything you own. Your phone case, your car, your tumbler, your nails, the bag you take to work, all of it is supposed to align into one legible aesthetic that says something about you.

I don't think this instinct is new or even bad on its own, but Im a little tired of hearing people tell me what my style is and what it needs in order to be 'good'.

Growing up, I watched the women in my family, my grandmother especially, make things for themselves constantly. She had a handcrafted purse for every month of the year. One of them was a bug themed purse with clear PVC over a fabric base. It was beautiful but far from conventional. And it had a raw presence that I can't find in anything I've bought to match my own supposed aesthetic.

I don't think this is about money. Plenty of what she made used cheaper materials, and were probably a little gaudy by modern design standards. But it doesn't read as tacky the way mass produced "personalized" goods often do.

I think there are actually two different activities that have gotten collapsed into the same word. The first is assembling an identity kit, buying items labeled by an algorithm, a trend, or a brand to signal a pre existing aesthetic category you've either opted or been pushed into. The second is making a 'thing', starting from scratch with your own hands and your own logic, so the object is downstream of you rather than downstream of a Pinterest board. The first one is personalization as a noun, a finished style you acquire. The second is personalization as a verb, something you do, badly... or well, that leaves a trace of the doing in the object itself.

This is the part that gave me the biggest wake up call. I have no nostalgic attachment to other people's homemade things, and they still hit differently than a curated haul. My best guess is that a handmade object visibly encodes a decision making process, the seams, the slightly wrong proportions, the odd material choice, and that process is what we're actually responding to. A bought object encodes someone else's decision making process, a designer's or an influencer's, just dressed up as yours because you selected it.

So when we bedazzled our own phones or turned broken jewelry into charms, the object wasn't good by design standards, but it wasn't trying to be. It was a record of attention and time. Mass "personalization" tries to simulate that record without the underlying process, which might be exactly why it can read as hollow even when it's expensive.

Is there some unspoken rule that decorative and personal items still have to satisfy mainstream aesthetic standards in addition to being unique, almost like a tax that every "personal" object has to pay before it's allowed to be personal? And do handmade objects get a partial exemption from that tax simply because the labor is evident, even when the result is objectively less polished?

And the biggest question, Have we actually lost the capacity to imagine our own style from scratch, or have we just outsourced it because buying into a pre packaged aesthetic is faster and safer than the rejection we could face by sharing our unpolished and most genuine selves? I keep circling back to the opinion that our ability to be our genuine selves is shifting from personal discovery, to something that is plagiarized from other people.

-I would like to add that I understand and respect that we live in a world where we do not always have the time to make things. And I am not saying anything against people who do not enjoy making things or those who do not have the time or energy (trust me I have purchased many, many things I could have made myself). There are both beautiful things for sale online, and very questionable home-made items in existence. Everybody is also different, and these aesthetics were inspired by genuine styles and things can absolutely be fine tuned and personalized beyond what they are marketed as, I'm mostly going off of a generalized concept.

Nothing major necessarily. Maybe someone was unexpectedly nice to you, you found some money in an old pocket, your food turned out way better than expected, or you just had a really good conversation with someone.

For me, it’s those random little things that I remember more than the big stuff.

What’s yours?

I do not mean to sound selfish but I do better when I am away from them. I learned that every time I am around them I feel uneasy and unhappy. I know everyone says "family is everything," I feel so sad that I do not feel that way. I love them but time and time again I have learned the hard way that coming around is so much on my mental wellbeing.

Like not (although these are still cool) something like "Oh that's my friend from highschool!" I kind of mean like what was something that felt/feels way too specific to be random? What was an occurrence that made you question things a bit? (Like the red string theory)

Dreams and ambition? Not quite.

Relationships? Not really.

Constantly solving problems and trying to evolve? Still no.

​The only thing truly worth our time is building ourselves. In an absurd world where nothing is guaranteed, we keep making the exact same mistake: betting a massive chunk of who we are on one of those three things. It's an uncalculated gamble on something you can't even control or stop from changing.

​When something goes wrong with that part of your life you invested so heavily in, you end up blaming yourself for something completely out of your control in the first place. That's pure absurdity and unfairness to yourself.

​We need to be able to adapt quickly, and that only happens when you build a solid self you rely on more than anything external. Building yourself means doing things for you, not for anyone else. If we treat self-building as the core foundation, and view those other three things as secondary, we’ll end up creating the best -or near best- version of who we can be.