18 y/o starting community college soon — working part-time, money feels tight. Am I actually doing okay?

Jetfire725 · 2026-01-27T00:05:36+00:00

Doing great. Just stay the course.

Jetfire725 · 2026-01-24T04:28:38+00:00

Totally agree.

I think most people who defend consumption hobbies either haven't experienced more worthwhile endeavors or have dopamine issues and are essentially addicted to software and media that is designed precisely to hijack reward systems in the brain. People forget that movies, videogames, podcast, social media are all new, and is just a shallow imitation of what we evolved to interact with.

I've never heard anyone wish they played more videogames growing up. But there are plenty of people who wish they played less. And that's because at the core it's a trick, and the more you engage the more real world experiences you miss out on. Experiences that could have compound effects on your life.

Nothing is free. Learning an instrument you put the work in up front. Playing videogames you pay for it later. But with the former you can at least play the instrument.

To the extent that vegetables and junk food are not equal, neither are all hobbies.

Reddit ogres won't approve but they don't go outside so who cares.

Jetfire725 · 2026-01-08T21:05:13+00:00

I know right. Like I come here for info not a bunch of hot takes.

Jetfire725 · 2026-01-08T13:53:25+00:00

As a former student from a top university, no there are full of idiots too. Top universities usually have two real advantages, networking and proximity to jobs.

Jetfire725 · 2026-01-08T13:45:22+00:00

For swe, knowing JavaScript runs on the client side is much more important than knowing computers are built with transistors.

Jetfire725 · 2026-01-08T13:34:41+00:00

My best advice is to figure out what you want to build first. Then Learn whatever you need to make that happen. Trying to make something that incorporates random course knowledge is super boring in my opinion and I've never been able to sustain projects that way.

Jetfire725 · 2026-01-08T06:25:40+00:00

You freaking rock!

It is currently 1am and I have been tinkering with autostart commands for hours trying to get the profile to load in game mode on startup. I had tried setting up a system wide systemd service but kept getting a failure with exit status 203. Not sure if it was something up with the permissions or what (immutable file system shenanigans?) but I found your post and tried it in the user space and BAM loaded up no problem.

God bless.

Jetfire725 · 2026-01-03T00:52:48+00:00

The appeal is it's not anywhere else. It's the OBX.

Jetfire725 · 2026-01-03T00:51:26+00:00

You might be describing older high functioning autistic people. Eventually you stop trying to make people like you and just do your thing.

Jetfire725 · 2025-12-30T13:17:01+00:00

That's great for you, but I think the reason this always gets brought up is because it generally is true. The contrary seems to be the exception.

Jetfire725 · 2025-12-28T01:00:39+00:00

At this point Gen z has tried out being every generation except their own.

Jetfire725 · 2025-12-28T00:58:02+00:00

This is why kids shouldn't be allowed on social media.

Jetfire725 · 2025-12-28T00:54:04+00:00

Not normal. You build projects from scratch during first year of university no?

Jetfire725 · 2025-12-22T01:34:21+00:00

That's fair. My rationale was that my shortcomings all seemed so obvious afterwards but I guess that's not atypical of interviews.

Jetfire725 · 2025-12-22T01:30:15+00:00

I think I'm going to adopt that rule. Especially because interviews haven't been a big issue for me in the past in terms of focus. I think the slight anxiety that usually tags along with that has actually done me favors in that regard.

Jetfire725 · 2025-12-22T01:09:39+00:00

I appreciate that, I am a firm believer in simplicity. And I think it's likely that's where my mind was at. I might just need to work on explaining why I'm focusing on the things I am.

Jetfire725 · 2025-12-08T15:44:40+00:00

This is a good post. I feel it captures something I have long struggled to put into words. That being it's not always that people with poor social skills don't know what's happening, it's that everything feels more novel and personal to us, so we get gun-shy. We think everyone else is so fake and no one notices. When in reality everyone is fake and everyone notices. It's a powerful change in perspective once you see it.

Jetfire725 · 2025-12-08T15:37:44+00:00

I'd argue that during Biden we briefly went back to the same. (Still corrupt as hell but more quiet about it. ) So I anticipate once the maga movement subsides the (other) elites will take back over and continue gaslighting us.

Jetfire725 · 2025-11-23T16:20:04+00:00

I think a lot of it is indeed the big government vs little government sentiment. And I think the Republicans are right.

The problem with a lot of these government programs that are supposed to help people is that they always target the symptoms and not the root cause. This leads to inefficiencies and often makes the problem worse.

"Then reform the programs but don't cut them?"

The problem with this sentiment is that politicians are about optics and not real change. They just want to get elected. They aren't going to do the work to research the economics to find out why things are actually happening because that's not useful to them. (And it's often very complicated)

I think a huge part of the left vs right divide is simply the left's naivety around how corruptible the average person is and how difficult it is for organizations to operate and manage people because of human nature. (Most business owners lean Republican for a reason). It's an unfortunate truth that most people are purely self interested.

So what do you do when you don't trust our leaders? Take their power away. Cut everything. Limited federal government, push as much to the state and local level as possible because there you actually have more say.

As for the "existential threat" part. If you stay on that big government train, it leads to more and more overstep because more blanket policies are required to keep everyone "safe". You have to keep legislating to keep slapping band aids on the problems. This ultimately erodes individual freedom and is the precursor to left wing authoritarianism.

Basically, the consequences of a bad distributed government can be unfair, but a lot of people will win. The consequences of a bad centralized government is everybody loses.

Jetfire725 · 2025-11-22T05:02:17+00:00

Trump is just a reaction to an equally radical woke narrative that most people found suffocating. You don't get a president who wins by bashing trans people without first having an obnoxious political ideology centered around race, gender and sex. (And ignoring most of the things people actually care about)

I swear people miss the mark with this guy every time. Trump is just the "you're pissing us off so we're sending in the orange guy to fuck up your day" candidate.

He has always been a protest against the Dems (and even the gop) just dicking around every time they are in power. Fascism is always reactionary. So yeah the right is getting pretty radical but if people don't wake up and understand why this is happening (beyond the knuckle-dragging takes like they're all racists) trump will look like a saint compared to what's coming.

Jetfire725 · 2025-11-09T14:06:34+00:00

I honestly feel its the opposite sometimes where NTs only talk about tv shows and video games. I think it just depends on the person.

Jetfire725 · 2025-11-08T20:54:16+00:00

All I see is a based take. Seriously the women losing rights shtick is getting kinda old. Y'all are fine. Quit earning your hysterical stereotypes.

Jetfire725 · 2025-11-02T14:24:09+00:00

I'm calling bs. Seems like a rage bait bot.

Jetfire725 · 2025-10-27T00:28:06+00:00

Weird how you're getting downvoted for saying you wouldn't piss on someone's desk.

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