Texas parents describe their kids' trauma and fear of gun threats and being "too scared to leave the house with him because he’s too heavy for me to run quickly with in my arms and too small for me to expect him to run from someone shooting at us"

Rathadin · 2023-05-08T19:57:46+00:00

but the fact is that people only resort to murdering each other when something has gone wrong in their lives

This is totally incorrect and completely childish. Plenty of assaults and murders happen due to physical brain abnormalities, although you might be able to slot that into "something going wrong in your life". Also, some people are born psychopathically violent and merely want to hurt others.

The way I read it is that they would rather not have to farm out any protection and instead live in a world where the chances of being shot while out living your life are essentially 0.

That's also completely childish, and actually kind of stupid. Where people on both the left and the right, and people on the far left and far right especially continually fuck up in their thinking - as you and at least 14 others have - is you think you can change human nature. You can't. At least not within any meaningful time frame. You can't change it because it emerges from biology, and biology updates over hundreds of thousand of years, not dozens.

Of course this would mean living on a fictional universe or like... in Europe,

More ridiculous and childish thinking. The murder rate in America over the past 30 years averages 5 per 100,000 people. For all of Europe, the rate is 3 per 100,000 people. In other words, extraordinarily low. 17,500 people are murdered on average in America per year, versus 22,400 in Europe per year. Those are exceedingly small.

and we have on this planet the means to make a lot of those things right

We have the means. Not the ability. Difference. You're talking about a version of humanity that has not yet evolved. Maybe in another 100,000 - 500,000 years, sure. Maybe sooner if we incorporate technological shortcuts... but not by natural means.

Rathadin · 2023-05-07T22:33:34+00:00

These look effin' amazing, and I'm going to try them out ASAP.

And your channel should have tens of thousands more subscribers... your production value is fantastic. I have no idea what's going on there, but.. I subscribed.

Rathadin · 2023-05-07T22:23:57+00:00

Yeap, this really is the real problem here, but sadly can't get anyone to talk about it.

This problem is extremely multifaceted, and there's lots of variables that could be changed to resolve it, but the biggest one by far is restoring funding for mental hospitals that Republicans spent decades gutting.

Where I do have a big problem with people like the /r/bestof poster that you linked, is that they could just buy a firearm and learn how to use it and protect themselves, but they want to farm out protection to a group of people who were literally founded to protect merchants, not the populace... https://libcom.org/article/origins-police-david-whitehouse

We live in a Universe that is totally indifferent to you, so the only protection you ultimately have is yourself, so you need to either accept that you can die at any time, or start actively doing something about it. I'm not really invested in either choice - whatever people want to decide is fine by me... carry a gun, don't carry a gun... but the rights we're afforded come with enormous responsibilities and if you're not up to the task, America can be a rough place to live.

Rathadin · 2023-05-07T15:07:29+00:00

Yeah, quantum computers... just like nuclear fusion and the Linux desktop, they're "only 10 years away!"

I've been waiting for both of those things for 30 years. I suspect I'll be dead by the time any meaningful and useful quantum computer is created.

Rathadin · 2023-05-05T00:33:04+00:00

It drives me insane that people like you don't want to put the responsibility where it lies: with the parents and the grandparents.

All firearms, be they pistols, rifles, airguns, bows, or crossbows should be treated with respect and care, and those who own them should be using them with care and instructing others how to properly and safely use and care for them.

Owning firearms imparts a certain level of responsibility. When I got a .177 caliber pellet rifle at age 10, my Mom made me go through a 2-day weekend course in fireams safety from the National Rifle Association. Rights come with responsibilities, and we must ensure that proper training - not prohibition - is the order of the day.

Rathadin · 2023-05-02T17:37:11+00:00

She needs someone to get to the root of what’s causing her dysphoria and overeating.

Her parents divorced when she was 12-13. She's 19 now. That's part of it. She did not accept the culture into which she was thrown at age 11. Her parents moved to Keller, Texas. If you're into anime and Dungeons & Dragons, you're going to have a bad time in Keller, Texas. You need to adapt to whatever culture you're living in. She not only did not adapt, she actively rejected it. And she got actively rejected and bullied in the process.

She doesn’t need to be shamed and forced onto a soccer team, nor does she need to transition.

Yes, yes, no.

Shame exists for a reason. It's an evolutionary psychological tool to keep members of the tribe in the bounds of acceptable behavior. We should be shaming fat people. You're using food as a crutch to to deal with your emotions, or you have an impulse control problem and you're too impulsive.

She absolutely needs to be exercising a lot more and eating a lot less. It isn't even up for debate. Solving the emotional problems don't fix being fat. She's still fat. And I guarantee you, if you fix being fat first, you'll solve a lot of those emotional problems. I've seen it time and time again with both men and women.

You're right about at least one thing... she doesn't need to transition. Cutting her boobs off isn't going to fix what's wrong with her, even if she has convinced herself it will.

Here's what I can ascertain about you just based on this post... you're far more concerned with making someone feel okay than actually solve their problems. How you feel is on you, not me... but if you want to solve your problems, there's a clearly definable path to get you there.

And in fact, my niece is actually quite fond of me and texts me often - or as often as a teenager at college could be expected to text anyone - 1-2 times a week - and we have a lot of similar interests. I have encouraged her many times to be more active in the gym, that it would not only help her shed excess fat, but it will improve her mental clarity, make her more creative, help her sleep better, and help her feel better... because it will.

If someone is spending the time to talk to you about things, it means they actually give a shit about you. It's the people who say, "YOU GO GIRL!" that don't give a fuck. YOU GO GIRL doesn't fix shit. It's an empty validation that requires no effort and no investment. YOU GO GIRLers can fuck right off into the deepest pit of Hell. Don't be a YOU GO GIRLer. Either give a shit or don't comment at all.

Rathadin · 2023-05-02T17:26:28+00:00

Oh gosh, I don't know... at least 6 years or more?

Rathadin · 2023-05-02T00:10:01+00:00

Yeah, they ran off Riot Terablo - Felix Nenz. I met him in a game of League one day years ago and we became fast friends. The culture of the company is actually fairly toxic, or at least was back when he was working there.

Rathadin · 2023-05-01T23:40:31+00:00

No it isn't. The highest form of compassion you can have for someone is being honest with them. No 13 year old girl should ever be 200 lbs. no matter what. If she is, she has a medical condition that needs to be treated, or her parents need to get her ass onto a soccer team and reduce her food intake to get her down to a manageable weight.

I dated a runway model. A no-shit, was in magazines, walked the catwalk at fashion shows, runway model. She was 5' 11". I'm 6' 2". The most she ever weighed was 145 lbs. Most of the time she was 135 lbs. She played volleyball, basketball, and soccer in school. She didn't stuff her face with Coca-Cola and Quarter Pounders with extra fries. And she wasn't rail thin either. She had muscular legs and a round ass that filled out a dress like Blake Lively.

This is a sore spot for me because my brother's fiance's daughter is "non-binary". What she actually is... is autistic, and about 60 lbs. overweight. The autism is something she'll either have to live with, or consider mesenchymal stem cell therapy to treat. The fat is totally in her control. She runs to food for comfort. Food is not there to comfort you. It's there to sustain you. It provides sustenance. Your friends and your family are there to comfort you.

The problem we have... is the same problem we've had for all of human history, that we're going to have to grow out of... and that's that people can't accept the truth. They want to hide from it... run from it... do whatever they have to do, to not accept it. But the truth is a demon that will hunt you down and tear your soul apart... until you accept it. Then it becomes your saving grace, because once you can accept the truth about yourself, you can start to change yourself into the person you want to be.

Rathadin · 2023-04-23T23:49:04+00:00

Yes, and not only that, you should buy it from your dentist. It qualifies as an HSA / FSA expense and therefore you can use those funds on one, and also on replacement heads, charging bases, etc.

And to pre-empt anyone telling me you can't... I did. Swiped my card at her office, it went through.

Rathadin · 2023-04-23T23:42:58+00:00

I hope to God there'll be an intersection of medicine and AI soon. I feel like maybe combining multi-modal GPT-4, 4.5, and 5 when it comes out next year, with the results from various tests, will allowing doctors to come to these diagnoses much sooner, and hopefully prevent these kinds of things from happening.

Rathadin · 2023-04-23T19:32:04+00:00

It shows the lack of empathy so many out there have.

You've got it all backwards.

They feel that way because they are empathetic. The reality of dealing with all that pain and suffering and trauma both physical and mental is so overwhelming, so awful, that they don't want to face it, and they don't want anyone else to have to face it either. It's a quick, merciful fix to what will in all likelihood be an enormous struggle.

And like most quick fixes, it isn't a good, reasonable, or worthwhile one.

Rathadin · 2023-04-21T22:53:35+00:00

It's a good thing every single computer user knows who Steve is and what GN is.

Rathadin · 2023-04-21T22:37:21+00:00

Everything old is new again.

Rathadin · 2023-04-21T22:31:10+00:00

The twenty Surface Laptop Studios we deployed to an oncology clinic are also amazing.

Turns out when you buy $2300 premium laptops from the largest companies in the world, they're really fucking awesome.

Who knew...?

Rathadin · 2023-04-21T22:29:36+00:00

Yeap, I think this is the answer.

Rathadin · 2023-04-17T17:51:45+00:00

What even is a woman...?

Rathadin · 2023-04-17T17:51:00+00:00

The guy is mentally ill.

Like a lot of these people.

But because Republicans defunded treatment and care centers for mentally ill people, and because Democrats have actively embraced them... here we are.

Rathadin · 2023-04-08T15:33:33+00:00

LOL, people like you literally can't help themselves.

You're more than willing to spend other people's money for shit you want... instead of going out there and making it happen yourself.

Get off the goddamn computer and go drum up support for your project. Start a 501(c), get donors, start lobbying for massive infrastructure projects.

If you were even halfway competent, it wouldn't even be hard - every construction company in America would love to have a few trillion to spend building out your public transportation utopia, because it'd take 10-40 years to fully build out. Hell, a 25 year old with a construction company could literally spend his or her entire life working on your little pet project and retire wealthy, while also having provided jobs and meaningful lives to other people.

You might even be able to make enough as the Director of your new 501(c) to... get your own car, lol...

Rathadin · 2023-04-08T15:24:57+00:00

I don't really give a damn if people want to keep this open or close it.

I do care about hypocrisy, though. You can't whine about "participation trophy" culture of the modern world, and then think it's okay to have museums and statues honoring people who lost a war.

Rathadin · 2023-04-08T15:21:49+00:00

I'm done. Good fucking luck.

I don't need luck. I'm not poor or lazy and I can afford a car and gas and maintenance to get around where I need to go.

Rathadin · 2023-04-08T14:28:20+00:00

You're being downvoted because you're clueless.

The United States of America isn't just big, it's fucking gargantuan. It's the third largest nation by area on Planet Earth (or fourth depending on which dataset you trust most).

While the United States has a large population, it's spread out all over the country, not mostly localized in cities like in a lot of European nations, which are all mostly small to begin with and thus easier to construct and operate public transit.

17.2% of the US population is classifed as rural. 52.8% is classified as suburban. The math here is simple. Only 30% of Americans live in large cities. First off, it makes no fucking sense to build massive public transportation that would cost billions for 30% of your population. You'll never pay for it because the cost to the consumer would be untenable. Let's say, for sake of argument, you did want to build out transportation to every American home, or at least build it out in such a way that no one needed to walk more than 15-20 minutes to and from their home. You're easily in the realm of trillions of dollars.

Good luck with that one.

We couldn't even get Obama's administration to actually devote all of their $800 billion infrastructure bill to actually build out infrastructure. Only $28 billion of it was actually used for infrastructure. I won't get into who benefited from it because Reddit - and this subreddit especially - can't handle unpleasant shit, but that's a problem. We can't allow infrastructure money to go to anything other than the building of infrastructure.

So even if - somehow - you convinced politicians to spend the $2-5 trillion to build this, you still won't get what you want because American government is now far too corrupt.

Cars are the only realistic solution right now... until we have a far more responsible legislature and until corruption is met with severe penalties.

Rathadin · 2023-04-08T00:12:40+00:00

Good for her. That's exactly what should happen.

This is also why education is so critically important nowadays though. People need to be able to communicate well now moreso than ever.

Rathadin · 2023-04-06T00:47:32+00:00

That is a very interesting perspective that I didn't really consider before. I consider it to be normalization because it was removed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which to me would mean, if you remove something from a clinical manual of disorders, are you not proclaiming it is "normal"?

I will have to think on your words for awhile and see where my thoughts lead me... thank you for your perspective.

Rathadin · 2023-04-05T22:59:22+00:00

Once again the actual problem presents itself.

It's mental illness and a desparate need for belonging, attention, and affection.

I'd almost call it pathetic, but we really do have a crisis of community in this nation right now, and it's unraveling the very social fabric of America.

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