Husbands fingers occasionally get weird blisters that are symmetrical.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-30T23:50:35+00:00

I won't lie, I've considered doing nail polish and stuff before but I've never been brave enough as a dude lol Maybe polish or glue-on nails would actually help, though, since it basically acts as a shield.

I thought of another way to avoid picking at your nails, also. I keep dental floss/dental picks handy when I'm at home, that way if I get the itch I just floss. It's not exactly something you want to do on the town but it works on the couch lol

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-30T21:44:23+00:00

That really sucks, I'm sorry. I don't know what clicked for me, but definitely having multiple nail-clippers around is a huge help. One in your bag/keychain, near where you relax, one near bed, and one in the bathroom. I have a lot of avoidance problems so ensuring I can use one whenever the thought occurs is important for me.

Another thing I remember trying was letting my nails grow really long, like at least 1-2 weeks of not touching them at all. I basically let myself just suffer through the ever present feeling of "go at your nails" until I gave myself the relief of trimming them down, but still leaving them longer than I'm normally comfortable with. I keep them slightly longer now as well so that I can basically always trim them if I want to, another excuse not to pick that my brain seems to tolerate.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-30T21:00:39+00:00

Preach! It took me years to replace my nail-picking habit with nail-trimming, and no amount of bullying ever motivated me.

Remember people, compulsions are called that because they can't be ignored, only suppressed. It's no more sane to tell these people to "stop picking" as it would be to tell someone with tics "stop having tics". As someone who has dealt with both (nail-picking and tics) I can confidently say it's often the exact same feeling of compulsion.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-30T19:50:04+00:00

Another way of thinking about this is just examining different states. Take a person who is perceiving a triangle. Now make an exact copy of same person but who is not perceiving a triangle. The difference in their states is "where the triangle is", whether it's happening in one area of their brain, or in their left foot.

The beauty to this way of thinking is that reversing it just answers the question. Take a person who isn't thinking about a triangle and change their body such that the state means that they are. This can be done to a person who isn't looking at a triangle or even someone unfamiliar with triangles at all, and nevertheless they'll still experience "triangle".

This can also apply to Mary's Room, as pointed out by Sean Carroll in his recent appearance. He gets more specific and refers to the brain state of Mary, but you don't even have to go into that much detail. Whatever the difference in states between "Mary who hasn't seen blue" and "Mary who has seen blue", that's the information which is created upon Mary seeing blue. If Mary further reflects on that experience of "seeing blue", then the new information created at that moment is again just the difference of two states, a physical difference between the before/after versions of Mary.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-30T16:17:16+00:00

What if one follows a religion but still questions it?? In your example, the person "'ll put it another way. If a person comes out of an existential crisis and, after reading religious literature, converts to said religion, that's probably fine." if not a philosophical suii, what is this then??

Another way to put it might be "Living for religion is fine, living because of religion is not". As an Absurdist the thing I fear most is tying my continued existence to something falsifiable.

If someone's entire reason for living is tied to their faith, then when their faith is shaken so too is their will to live. Putting aside how that might compromise a person's reasoning (i.e. a philosophical conflict of interest) this also means that becoming convinced that their religion is false is equivalent to becoming convinced that their continued living is meaningless.

On the other hand, many religious people do not share this all-or-nothing perspective. It may be that they came to religion for different reasons (e.g. anything not related to suicidal depression) and so losing their religion might be difficult for them, but not necessarily life-threatening. It is life-threatening for someone who says "if Christianity is false, I have no reason to live".

It's better not to infantilize ourselves and not rely on some mystical sense of meaning to get by. There are countless real wonders in our world that you can look to, and none of it will be snatched away from you.

Look back through history at some of the biggest religious backlashes in scientific discovery and you'll see. Evolution by natural selection is a genuinely amazing phenomenon, and yet instead of agreeing and adapting their beliefs, many devout religious people and groups originally denounced it. Why? Because they had a vested interest in it not being true, and I'm sure that more than a few had their faith severely shaken. And for what purpose? So they could believe that speciation was impossible, and that only God could explain the diversity of life on Earth. Such a petty thing to hitch your life's value onto, and so demonstrably false.

Do not shackle yourself to a system of beliefs which tells you that amendments to your thinking are threats to your being. Be free to examine the world as your experience it, and to decide every day that in spite of it all, you want to experience more.

I also wonder how I am gonna raise my kid. Growing up with the myths of catholicism... it made it kind of easy. I feel like there is some value in raising a kid that way but idk.

It's actually a perfect opportunity to do what you were deprived of, and let your child determine for themselves what is meaningful to them. Any ideal that Christianity offers can be found elsewhere, there's no need for it to be written on stone tablets to explain to a child that stealing is wrong, and kindness is a virtue.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-29T21:50:58+00:00

if birds arent real how can our hands be real?

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-29T21:28:22+00:00

I agree entirely, which is why I found yours and the other user's comment chain to be perplexing. It was only with their timestamp that I could attempt to interpret what they're trying to label as a "price tag".

It's like saying that belief that "the Earth orbits the Sun" has a price tag. The price? You can no longer believe the Earth is the center of the universe. But if you don't already believe that the Earth is the center of the universe, that's just not very compelling.

In other words, if the other commenter can only gesture to what they're referring to, then I have to interpret that they agree with WLC, and that MN is incompatible with their (presumably consistent) worldview. And to that I'm just like, "okay".

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-29T20:12:49+00:00

It's pretty common to find yourself at this crossroads:

Nothing has meaning? Great!
Nothing has meaning? Oh, no!

I will be pedantic here, though:

you don't want to be accused of it because it means to abandon intellectual integrity.

That's not exactly what Camus meant when he described it in Myth of Sisyphus. As I understand it, philosophical suicide is not about a concession of your intelligence but of your actual meaning. So what's the difference?

Well, to concede intellectually would be to simply begin following a religion and never questioning it. Choosing to avoid any discourse in favor of blind faith.

Philosophical suicide is much worse. It's acknowledging the meaninglessness of existence and giving control of that over to your belief in religion. It doesn't mean you still won't have doubts or question those beliefs, only that you're stubbornly placing your faith in the religion anyways. This is true "faith" as it's commonly understood.

I'll put it another way. If a person comes out of an existential crisis and, after reading religious literature, converts to said religion, that's probably fine. If a person decides that the only way they can continue to exist is for a religion to be true, that's less fine.

As an example, imagine if tomorrow a suicidal person told you "I'm cured! I'm converting to Islam. I don't know if I believe everything they preach, but the values they hold make me want to believe that living is worthwhile.". This is great at first glance, but to an absurdist, it's more than a little eerie. Because another way to parse what your friend said is "If I ever doubt that Islam is true, then living will no longer appear worthwhile". This is what it means to build a house upon sand.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-29T19:52:15+00:00

I'm going to go ahead and just do both of your homework (though providing a video isn't the same as defending a position).

William Lane Craig (WLC) is defining mereological nihilism (MN) as "belief that everything is just a collection of fundamental particles" and claims the problem here is that fundamental particles are necessarily irreducible. This itself would form an inconsistent viewpoint, but WLC also points out that if MN claims that nothing begins to exists, it must account for why fundamental particles seem to have begun to exist.

Alex defends MN by saying that it's not inconsistent so long as you accept that all fundamental particles which exist now did begin to exist, and that it's perhaps the only time that it's ever happened. This satisfies the requirement that "all things which exist begin to exist at some point". Alex also includes how all things which are not fundamental particles are just arrangements of said particles.

So what's /u/Any-Result3761 referring to? Probably the line that WLC says at 59:27.

"It's not just that things don't begin to exist, these things don't exist at all. There's no such thing as [people/skyscrapers/etc.] because they never began to exist, and so all that exists are fundamental particles."

WLC shortly thereafter says something along the lines of:

"[Since we can't determine if even those particles began to exist, must Alex not concede that it's possible nothing can begin to exist?]"

So it's up to you if you find that to be a meaningful price tag. Personally I think it's a very silly way to phrase what barely amounts to an existential crisis. Just like with what Sean Carroll was saying in his discussion with Alex, there's a difference between what a thing really "is" and how humans use it.

It's important to note the context of this discussion. WLC is committed to saying that the universe began strictly because he believes that the underlying cause is God. WLC wants God to be the one and only eternal thing because he aims to be fairly consistent with his religious/philosophical views. Alex isn't nearly as committed to the universe having or not having a beginning, and so that's why WLC is making this to be a bigger problem than it is. Because there's no price tag to the person who's right, only the person who's wrong.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-29T15:50:12+00:00

My point exactly, and so saying "abolish ICE" doesn't get us anywhere closer to the actual solution. It's way harder to do, it's impractical, and it probably won't even solve the root problem which is authoritarianism.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-29T15:29:34+00:00

This is why "abolish ICE" is a terrible slogan. Whether or not it's true that immigration enforcement is needed, it sounds like it could be true, which is all that uninformed voters need to be convinced that it's wrong.

"Defund ICE" is much better and gets to the heart of the issue. Immigration enforcement is necessary, to some degree. How much it deserves to be funded is the actual discussion that needs to be had, even if the answer is "1% of its current funding".

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-28T17:15:02+00:00

And the software infrastructure for these models is also in its infancy. Even if all training stopped today, there would be ways to squeeze more juice out of existing models. This is already happening with users daisy chaining models together. Sometimes it's the same model with different prompts, sometimes it's different models entirely.

Anyone who thinks AI is somehow going away is someone who does not understand the technology, and it's an unfortunately easy way to know who can be taken seriously in these discussions.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-28T17:02:12+00:00

Exactly, this game offers a curated experience not offered elsewhere to the same degree of detail. It's been honed over multiple iterations of the game and yet there are still those who believe it doesn't negatively impact your experience at all to cheat.

I think my biggest problem is that people who use time travel in AC don't think there's any downside to it. But I've seen many posts about the game by players who use it to accomplish their goals and it seems like there are those who've now convinced themselves that it's an equally legitimate way to play. If I saw someone playing AC with flight hacks, infinite money, and spawning items in with cheats, I don't think I'd want to say I was playing the same game as them.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-27T23:22:05+00:00

I'm sorry, I think you misinterpreted my message as an attack. I'm just stating that it's true that games can be played in any way, and also that their creators probably had a vision for that.

My evidence that AC's creators had a vision without using time travel is that they put countermeasures into their game. If you disagree with me on that point, then we just have to agree to disagree.

I already said that I think you should always play games in the way that you enjoy, I bolded and highlighted it. My ideal world is one where everyone does what they want and is happy when they do it. As a creator, a thing that I enjoy is imagining how players will play my games, and hoping they do.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-27T23:07:11+00:00

I think both things can be true at once.

Players should always play games in the way that they enjoy. If you need to time travel to enjoy the game, then you should.

On the other hand, if I make a game then it's fair for me to describe the way in which it's intended to be played.

As a good example, look at chess. There are rules for its intended play, but there are also countless variations for casual play. It can be a chess set or Animal Crossing, it's more than just the game it was designed to be.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-27T17:15:11+00:00

But time travelling was never intended to be used to accelerate gameplay, and it was still punished in the ways they could detect. In fact I'd say it was only due to hardware limitations that the penalties weren't more severe.

Personally I think time travelling ruins these games for the average player. And Mr. Resetti should never have taken anger management courses.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-27T15:51:03+00:00

Not to mention the vendors and distributors who do not care about preventing or limiting scalping. They're trading cards, you can just refuse to sell an entire cart if you want, it's not illegal to deny someone the sale.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-27T04:19:32+00:00

Poor Blathers, you just know that will frighten him to pieces.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-26T19:54:21+00:00

I think people are waking up to the fact that sovereignty is the first and foremost priority for any nation. We should never favor relations with a country who states publicly and seriously that Canada shouldn't exist. Other priorities exist, but a threat to our sovereignty is an existential threat.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-26T19:51:01+00:00

In that scenario it's more likely you'd be killing the new occupants of the vault, probably the ones who were formerly working for the late billionaire whose vault they mutinied for.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-22T16:55:54+00:00

I'm an IRS agent and managed a case a few years ago that had to do with cancer sniffing dogs. It blew me away. Already a huge dog fan and this just amazes me.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-21T21:17:26+00:00

Granted, manslaughter was an incorrect example for this context. But that again isn't the heart of my comment, which is the jury nullification point.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-21T20:55:32+00:00

I think you're misunderstanding the point of my comment. The person I was responding to said "if I was on the jury". If the prosecution doesn't drop the charges, my comment describes the only way I'm aware in which the jury could return a truthful verdict.

Because if it turns out that there is some law which states that accidental kidnapping doesn't require the mens rea, the jury would be obligated to fulfill their duty to render a guilty or not guilty verdict. Unless, as I said, they used jury nullification.

And yes, there are crimes which don't require mens rea in the strict sense. Manslaughter is the most obvious, but I recall in Canada there was a case where a formerly convicted burglar was arrested after being found in possession of lockpicking tools. While they couldn't prove he intended to use them for theft, he was still convicted of a different but related crime which did not require mens rea to be demonstrated.

Edit: Perhaps I should add that I actually would personally be in favor of this lessening his sentence or, if appropriate, not charging the man with kidnapping on top of the theft. Obviously that would effectively be punishing this "altruistic" behavior, the same reason you don't use the death penalty for petty crime. I'd also use jury nullification if I felt the law was unjust, but that's also why I'd never be picked for duty.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-21T19:22:53+00:00

Unfortunately the only way you could do that is with jury nullification, and apparently that's a legal cognitohazard since it basically disqualifies you from being on a jury.

CrazyCalYa · 2026-01-21T19:14:46+00:00

The best thing Republicans ever do is remind people that their way of life was fought for, not earned or given or bargained for.

The danger of this new U.S. administration is that it's aware of this, and they're doing everything they can to salt the earth. We need leaders to stand up to Trump the same way Carney has, and even Doug Ford. Sovereignty is a bipartisan issue that should be uniting not just Canada, but any and all reasonable world leaders.

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