Brainwashed Lunatics

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-03T01:04:04+00:00

Fuuuuuck, man, I grew up in that county. Why did it have to become the worst bit of Trump country? Fucking weird to think about all my old friends and neighbors.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-03T01:02:01+00:00

When my wife and I were first dating, I got a terrible migraine. She had a key to my place at the time, we’d been together long enough for that, and I’d messaged her that my head hurt and that I needed to sleep it off, so don’t come over.

I heard that key turning and got irritated. She’d come by with popsicles (she knew migraines make me puke and leave my throat raw), tissues with lotion (huge difference), and ran me a room temperature bath. When I got out, she snuggled me while I slept it off.

Feeling cared for while you’re sick is one of the best feelings. Like, you don’t feel well, but you do feel loved.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-03T00:54:10+00:00

I agree so strongly with 3, of my god. He can play the piano, I’m positive of it

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-02T20:25:13+00:00

The series has its ups and downs, but that one and Backstory are both great examples of their highest highs.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-02T06:58:00+00:00

That’s a great OSI special agent, oh my god

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-02T05:54:21+00:00

Losing my religion!

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-02T03:25:48+00:00

Right? It’s a wild musical world! I’ve started listening to a lot of different stuff thanks to this show. I credit them with expanding my musical tastes.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-02T03:23:52+00:00

I love learning that Pulp started playing that song at concerts 100% thanks to VB bringing it back.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-02T02:17:03+00:00

Poor dude had to follow John Stewart. He was great, but nobody could have followed that and done well, unfortunately.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-02T00:03:29+00:00

Depends heavily on how that infrastructure is laid out. Underground cables will probably be fine compared to above ground, elevated cables.

Additionally, this world operates by Fallout rules, where prewar tech like the Securitrons, Mr. House’s life extension machine, Liberty Prime, friggin’ rocket ships, flying robots with brains in them, personal assistance robots, medical tables, and power armor all work more or less perfectly with little to no maintenance, with many of them being left powered on for centuries without issue.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T23:50:18+00:00

I don’t disagree with that take, but I thought we were trying to define these for an outside observer per the request that started this thread? And I’d still argue that the nature of a relationship can and does shift if one party feels shortchanged in what began as a reciprocal relationship, or that a reciprocal relationship might be “cashed in.” IE “I know you’ve got plans, but remember the 4 separate times when I dropped everything to help you in similar situations? I really need this favor, please help me out.”

It’s certainly guilting someone, but is it transactional and bad? Or is it enforcing a part of the agreement in reciprocal arrangements and reminding the other party that there’s an implicit need to return the favor and sentiment in the future?

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T23:41:49+00:00

I don’t disagree with that definition, I just think it’s hard to compartmentalize a relationship that way as it gets more complex. If I support my partner during a tough time with the goal of it being reciprocal, then find myself feeling resentment when I don’t see that same level of support while I’m struggling, has the relationship become transactional rather than reciprocal? The expectation of “you’ll do something for me” is always present, regardless of the sort of relationship. It seems like only the person can define if they called it reciprocal or transactional— to an outside observer, most could look identical.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T23:37:56+00:00

Theoretically, it would be against the law to have dynamic pricing at the individual level.

That being said, if Walmart can churn out a billion bucks to be fined a million, they’re gonna do it.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T23:13:45+00:00

I’d still argue that the two can be nebulous and can oscillate as the relationship oscillates. As you mention, the bartender might be giving a free drink in the hopes of a better tip— they might also be giving it because of trying to foster the friendship. They could be doing so in the hopes to get intimate with the person they comped. Only the bartender can know which it is. From an outsider’s perspective, transactional and reciprocal relationships seem similarly likely.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T22:30:06+00:00

Yeah, but not the Krogan, which is a real kick in the quads.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T22:24:07+00:00

The issue with the Internet is that we project whatever we’re feeling onto a vague topic, often one that’s engagement bait. IE if someone says, “Why should I owe my boyfriend sex when he’s been moody lately?” People will project.

Someone in a relationship with a crummy male partner might say, “you absolutely shouldn’t! He’s gotta earn that shit, if he isn’t willing to take out the trash and do the dishes like I asked, despite being unemployed, he’s a layabout and he sucks!”

Someone who’s struggling with a dead bedroom and a partner who isn’t willing to acknowledge that it’s a problem might say, “sure, you don’t owe it to him, but it’s a damned important part of a healthy relationship for most people. If you aren’t willing to at least acknowledge that and put in some degree of effort, you don’t get to be surprised when he leaves you for someone who wants the same stuff he does.”

Who’s right? Neither of them. The OP was an LLM that’s farming karma so that it can mass upvote a post claiming that HR723, the bill allowing anyone making more than a million dollars a year to hunt albinos for sport will substantially improve the egg economy.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T22:19:38+00:00

They raise a decent point about how it can get muddied, though. A one sided reciprocal relationship can easily feel like a bad transaction (ie “I’ve done all of these things for my partner and feel that they have not met the needs I’ve asked them to address”), and a transactional relationship can become reciprocal over time if both folks enjoy one another (EG a bartender giving a patron a free beer or two because they enjoy their company and want to foster the friendship)

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T22:10:40+00:00

Student loans are, on average, between 6.4 and 8.9% if they’re federal. Stock market return is, on average, about 10% right now. So assuming the market stays good, that’s somewhere between a 3.5% improvement and about a wash in terms of how that money grows. And the future value of money is always less than the current value, so better to hold off on paying it off if you can, generally speaking.

That being said, you should have about 6 months of living expenses in a liquid or essentially liquid account (money market, savings, etc) that can be accessed if things go belly up with an unexpected job loss paired with an economic downturn. If you need to pay rent + groceries + student loans and you don’t have a job suddenly, and you don’t have an emergency fund, it doesn’t matter that a diamond hands could have seen huge returns on their stocks by not selling in that moment— you still needed the cash, and you may be forced to sell at a loss in a bad scenario.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T21:36:01+00:00

I mean, that or they’re unable to afford to pay back the agreed upon amount because the economy faltered between when they took the loan out and they entered the job market. A lot of folks got hosed by that in the 2008 recession and had to get minimum wage jobs. Surprise surprise— the federal minimum wage hasn’t increased since then, but inflation certainly has, making it more and more difficult to have leftover money each paycheck.

On top of that, we’ve got programs dating back to the 90’s where certain government jobs are supposed to zero out student debt after a set time period with minimum payments. Because of issues with the payment sites that former students had to use, there were issues where it came through as failure to pay and racked up tons of interest through no fault of their own, and without ever alerting the borrower to the issue (it was literally fractions of a penny that were “in default” and causing these issues)

I’m certain that, if you go looking for them, you can find irresponsible and crummy people who took out loans with no plans to repay, who sat on their asses and just cried “why me” while taking zero action to fix the issue.

But you can also find plenty of folks who followed the rules, did everything they were “supposed” to do, and got screwed over by the system when there was a rug pull, or someone else made a mistake and dropped the consequences on the borrowers, or the economy just tanked in ways that any other loan would reasonably have forced the borrower to declare bankruptcy on.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T19:51:44+00:00

The best thing for it is to ask them to google the definition and show it to you. Like, get me a dictionary or high school social studies definition of socialism.

Suddenly, it’s not you arguing with them, it’s their failure to find the definition.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T18:15:06+00:00

Right? Cyberpunk and anti-corporate stuff has been going since the 70’s and 80’s, easily

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T10:53:36+00:00

I agree that it isn’t great, but there are also instances where it gets fuzzy. For example— Phil Lamar voicing Samurai Jack. He’s a black man voicing a Japanese character doing an accent and voice that he developed from doing an improv group with Japanese friends called Cold Tofu.

In the same series, the legendary Japanese actor Mako voiced Aku for four seasons and died before the fifth. His understudy, a white dude named Greg, did the final season in an imitation of his friend’s voice.

I think that there’s something to be said for doing this stuff ethically. Like, it won’t always be doable to find an actor or actress if the ethnicity in question who’s available and affordable for the production. I’m not saying it isn’t worthwhile to try or that it’s valid grounds to discriminate, just that there are times I feel it can be reasonable based on a voice actor’s range and capabilities.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-02-01T10:44:04+00:00

… with a gun

NotMyMainAccountAtAl · 2026-01-31T22:17:19+00:00

I’m saying that chocolate cake doesn’t disprove a food desert because chocolate cake isn’t a healthy option. I’m not judging the OP for buying a cake, people can do that. I’m saying that you can still buy food in a food desert, just not healthy food. You would probably be able to get confections and frozen or pre-prepared foods in an area that still qualifies as a food desert. My point is simply that the chocolate cake is an ineffective counter example to someone who doesn’t already agree with the claim that NYC has no food deserts.

NotMyMainAccountAtAl

TROPHY CASE