collegeburner

i don't think a society that allows old people to vote themselves young people's money just because there's more of them is a good one.

we have the same kind of situation in America just a little behind, so here are my thoughts "as a young person": none of my peers want to pay for that. we're not going to sit around letting old people leech from us instead of working. and at the end of the day younger people hold more physical power and more working ability so we will have the final say regardless of how many old people there are to vote themselves our $. i expect that if they try this a couple things might happen:

1. young people leave for better states

2. young people outvote old people (not likely)

3. young people refuse to pay and force the government to raise the social security age to 83.

i hope it's 3. in 1935 the average life expectancy was 60 to a social security age of 65, so 1.08 times the life expectancy. the life expectancy now is 77, so keep the same 1.08 times and we have a minimum age of about 83.

it really baffles me how the same generation that talks about how "millennials and gen z wont work hard" literally wants to force us to pay for their retirement. they had 65 years to save up money, they can pay for it themselves.

from what i've seen only children tend to grow up more spoiled and with worse social and coping skills.

a bunch of girls i know had their depression massively improve after getting off it as well and their sex drives really improved. women are really complicated hormonally and messing with their hormomes is dangerous. tbh i think a consequence of mostly men designing the pill is that people didn't really realize that.

its going to keep getting worse everywhere when it takes this long to accumulate assets for a house, car and financial cusion.

colleges have decided they want balanced students who have some of everything (except free time, because lmao they dont need that). so its karate or swimming oe soccer or football or baseball for athleticism, usually 2 during childhood. its piano or violin. its starting extra language study early. boy scouts or national honor society for leadership. speech and debate, model un or working for a campaign to show political consciousness. 100+ nonprofit work (actually documented) or starting your own of you want to stand out.

all these can be fun but as a kid you are not doing them to have fun, there is constant pressure to win awards and be the best at these. and the list is picked more from appearance on a college application than enjoyment for a child.

this is most american kids now with any ambition of getting into a prestigious school. it will not get you scholarships though.

it is also not mentioning that "academic excellence" in high school has moved from straight As to 6-8 AP exams in a single year, i shit you not.

OR we could say "you had 65 years to save up, no way in hell are we going to keep crippling the economic prospects of our youth to fund your retirement"

sorry man i shouldntve said some of that, i got kinda hot under the collar cause the constant "you're a puritan" pisses me off after seing so many friends struggle with it. i'll proofread before posting.

as a gen z, there's a considerable fraction of mostly girls who identify as bi or nb just bc it's "trendy". tbh it's a problem and lowkey trivializes people who actually are those. i think this is what happens when you emphasize a "lgbt community", young people seeking community will join for no other reason.

i agree that those studies show normal masturbation doesn't. i'm saying maybe unhealthy addictive behavior (like 3 times a day) does and that hasn't been studied. i was also totally clear it might be broscience but that it's an interesting study area that bears considering.

i agree that's part of it and massive problem, and its kinda scary most 20 year olds would have to go on aggressive TRT to get close to people 80 years ago. however getting clean from porn for even a month seems to really help most of them. sometimes longer but def makes a difference and usually with time it gets fixed.

i will say there's a theory that frequent masturbation lowers testosterone, telling your brain "yea i got a harem of chicks im good" so it doesn't need the aggression or drive. could just be broscience but an interesting area to explore.

but yeah both problems deserve attention. tbh i wouldn't be surprised if politicians, media, etc. ignore it on purpose because it's correlated with lower violence or whatever.

addiction refers to a pattern of behavior not just its scale. like, you can be addicted to eating even though it has a much smaller effect than smack and people still are and end up 600 pounds. i also think addiction around porn is not just addiction it's a fucky form of erotic plasticity that gets people hooked on weird stuff that messes with their ability to have normal, healthy relationships.

like, i watch a shitton of peers have problems with this and then y'all tell me "oh at least it's not opioids". bruh. yes it's not opioids it's a different kind of problem. then there's the people who are out here like "oh you're just a puritan" refusing to admit that there's literally anything potentially dangerous about porn at all.

no, its gonna have people combining dark pattern skinner box shit from insta and tiktok with the addictive nature of porn. and its gonna be way worse. yall wouldn't believe me if i told you how common straight up porn addiction is in young kids, it's fucking bad already.

edit: @stickfigure i'm can y'all please quit trying to tar me with this brush, it's bullshit. i'm not arguing about masturbation i'm saying excessive consumption of porn when people have limitless access to weird ass shit that doesn't reflect the real world is causing problems. don't try to make me some puritan or whatever because literally nothing i said suggests that.

being able to train a model to produce that shit implies a lot of input

that doesn't make sense in early iterations given how demand for this stuff skews

hmm yes that will definitely not totally fuck up the dopamine systems of young men and make an already badly addicted generation hopelessly dependent on this shit

its a way of legitimizing their position. they're trying to turn normal people into "ists" to make it seem like it's not the default position.

even worse is how they assume everybody watches on a great HDR display in a dark room and make scenes really dark accordingly, so I can't see a damn thing.

absolutely based lmao

but seriously, you start talking about irs forms and surprised when a small business whon cant afford a fancy ass tax lawyer gets scared? most of them would get in trouble if the irs looked at them so it's not that they need it explained what it is, it's that they still don't like it for good reason.

how is this any different than e.g. fs level compression with zstd on btrfs? seems enough people find that useful.

also some of us are frugal and make our own coffee. probably costs me less than 7c a cup.

tbh i've never gone wrong with lodge and it's a much better budget option if u don't have the cash for that. used it for years and works great.

depends if its fixed rate or not

actually no you don't have to go change your project's philosophy bc different ppl start using it and demand different stuff. this is the kind of attitude that makes ppl hate maintaining FOSS anything.

i am in favor of gatekeeping out ppl who are completely unwilling to go read the extremely helpful and well maintained wiki. it helps maintain a better atmosphere and keeps the forums clean(er) of the same 10 noob questions that everyone asks without looking for prior responses.

yeah but notice it's not people traveling to OECD free healthcare countries. it's mostly going to cheaper developing countries with clinics a lot like the oklahoma one i linked that specialize in procedures and offer them at reasonable prices.

private care over there just isn't the same. and yeah i dealt with insurance and specialists before and it sucks but at least money makes a difference and more money makes more difference and it's not just "lol get on the list and stfu"

no. but i would rather good healthcare tied to employment then mediocre healthcare that's not. it doesn't seem like other countries have been able to achieve good healthcare not tied to employment so i think it's better to focus on liberalizing the market.

btw it was the ridiculous wage and price controls that led to employers adding healthcare as a benefit... so doesnt seem like more government gonna fix it.

which is literally the same situation as if you had a device local firewall? sensible defaults and you learn to configure for stuff you want to change.

and we hear a lot of stories of ppl from other "free healthcare" OECD countries having to come here for decent care. i'd rather a system where i can get better by paying more than a system where i'm at the mercy of some bureaucrat or waiting list.

if you want to reduce costs:

1. stop giving the AMA a monopoly. ban state and local regulations on how much healthcare can be built and where.

2. require posting prices and give it teeth.

3. make it easier to import cheap generics from other countries.

4. enable nurse practitioners to do more stuff.

5. enable more clinics with clear prices for stuff like this one where i can go their site and see it's $6215 for a bilteral knee arthroscopy: https://surgerycenterok.com/?procedure_category=knee#jump because very few of the healthcare $ are spent on emergency procedures where ppl don't have time to choose and information is how you make markets efficient.

then you can understand why those of us with better healthcare and money don't want to take a downgrade to a "universal" system that is better for ppl with no money but worse for others. most middle class ppl in America have decent healthcare as a job benefit so most of us don't want to change. this is why "if you like your doctor you can keep them" was an essential talking point for passing obamacare.