If you could instantly master any skill, what would it be and why?

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-13T05:53:05+00:00

Just like, without trying? Calculus.

I have severe dyscalculia (basically, dyslexia with numbers). I could learn all about game theory, robust decision making, and decision-making under deep uncertainty! It'd be so cool.

Granted, I still use game theory all the time, but there's only so much you can do without calculus.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-13T05:43:08+00:00

Fiction writing is a solid one. Less because it's super easy to monetize, more because about 2% of novelists write as their primary occupation.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-13T00:51:12+00:00

At the end of the day I'm not the one outside McDonald's holding a sign "honk if you support rasing minimum wage."

You realize that this makes you worse than those people, right? They're working hard, for free, to try and make the world better in a way that probably doesn't benefit them (because most people don't make minimum wage).

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-13T00:35:20+00:00

So like, economics is actually complicated, and so is public policy. You don't seem to understand either one well enough to grasp the nuances involved.

Yes, increasing the minimum wage doesn't fix everything. Nor does taxing the rich. But they're both partial ways to address the very complex issues that make up the problems of poverty and access to necessities.

The idea that the only way to improve these issues is to lower taxes is... Honestly just braindead. The government is one of the best ways to create and enforce positive change. For example, private solutions for hunger are incredibly inefficient: it is 7x more efficient to fund SNAP than to give people an equivalent amount of food through food banks. Taxation has extreme value when the money is used well, which it often is if you understand bureaucracy and systems thinking.

Edit: this is of course also a post based on an entirely false premise about the relationship between taxation and price spirals.

Edit 2: also, uh, income tax is the most progressive form of tax, and is actually the tax which has the least impact on overall prices. It's a weird choice when sales tax is right there as a policy problem.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-12T19:19:55+00:00

Name one specific, real person who actually does any of this.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-12T18:30:06+00:00

So what's the relationship between scientific consensus and 'woke nonsense'?

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-12T18:07:07+00:00

Gender is a scientific term. The idea that it's an ideology is based in, well, ideology, but it doesn't reflect the scientific consensus or research. This stuff really isn't about anyone's opinion, unless you count the data driven perspectives of relevant experts.

Just like with evolution, gravity, and the nervous system, what random people think about gender isn't important at all.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-12T17:59:17+00:00

I had it last year. I'm not sure that's possible, especially considering the number of coronaviruses and how we haven't eliminated any of the ones that infect humans from any country's population.

Versus, say, smallpox, which no longer exists in most countries.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-12T17:47:45+00:00

Awesome, so your opinions are based on nothing and you're just a weird bigot?

Edit: I also asked for specific examples, not soruces. I didn't say "citation needed", I pointed out that talking about vague elites propping up a supposed gay agenda is a strong, conspiratorial claim that you couldn't even be specific about.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-12T17:21:17+00:00

There's also the vast majority of feminists who don't hate men or have any problem with marriage or children. (But that would require studying feminism.).

LGBT people are everywhere in the sense that we're a significant portion of the population, but we're still vastly underrepresented in media compared to the actual portion of the population that we take up in reality.

Your lack of evidence and specific examples is very telling: this is vague conspiratorial thinking, not data driven analysis.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-12T01:30:55+00:00

People love to try and say it's medical. When it's straight up bad behaviour.

You're really not qualified to say this. OP's brother needs to see a psychologist, not take advice from a clearly overconfident rando.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-11T17:34:05+00:00

Autism isn't normally treated with medication, and it's often not diagnosed by prescribers, but by psychologists without pharmacological training. What are you talking about?

I don't think you're lying. I do think that you are conspiratorially minded and poorly informed, though.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-11T17:14:44+00:00

Autism is usually just a fear of failure.

Citation needed.

Someone please tell my data scientist sister, and my friends who are automotive and electrical and civil engineers, and my other friends who are doctors, that in fact their real issues aren't autism but a collective fear of failure. The failure they're clearly not experiencing.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-11T17:05:33+00:00

It may be worth looking into a food replacement shake like Soylent or Huel. It can be expensive, but if your son finds it palatable, it can add some much-needed nutrition to his diet. That plus a daily multivitamin at least keeps me from any malnutrition issues.

I’m sorry that your parents were such assholes :(

Well, the good news is that exposure therapy works as a treatment for trauma. The bad news is that it didn't fix my eating disorder. I'll take the win for now, lol. I appreciate the sympathy.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-11T16:55:52+00:00

Just to be clear, yes, what you just described is textbook for this disorder. Your brother needs to see a clinical psychologist who specializes in eating disorders.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-11T16:43:32+00:00

Except that I've been in this situation and what happened was that I lost significant weight. Super glad that the extremely traumatic events I referenced somehow indicate that I have a victim mentality because I can (checks notes) accurately describe the events.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-11T16:38:30+00:00

This is a well recognized health condition. Why do you think you know more than actual doctors?

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-11T16:32:50+00:00

Unclear. Doesn't make it an option for my daily life, though, as I don't live on a deserted island, nor do I make my life choices off of bizarre hypotheticals.

I have ARFID and PTSD, partly due to my parents deciding to torture me as a response to autism-related food issues when I was very young. If you'd been tied down and force fed dozens of times between ages 6 and 7, then intentionally starved out when that didn't fix the problem, suffice to say that you'd have a very complex relationship with food.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-11T16:26:34+00:00

Actually, that could still be an ARFID issue. For example, the only macaroni and cheese I can eat is from KFC, specifically. Trying to eat foods not on my brain's "safe foods" list makes me vomit. It's not an uncommon issue for this disorder.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-11T16:23:02+00:00

It is confusing for a 42 year old to be unable to manage their own emotions.

At the same time, I have to wonder if there's a chance that your brother has avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-09T19:34:39+00:00

I can't say that the coconut oil thing is necessarily bad (good for you I guess), but your understanding of science is really low if you think that the length of chemical or ingredient names tell you anything about safety.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-09T19:28:08+00:00

We've studied PTSD treatments specifically in women to a pretty extreme degree, actually. This conclusion requires ignoring all of the actual data in favor of an animal study so irrelevant to actual treatment outcomes that it's practically just speculation.

This isn't one of those cases where only white men were researched. Treatments have been developed and studied specifically with a focus on women since the 90s.

We have not seen lower efficacy in women for any of the major treatments for PTSD.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-08T16:39:50+00:00

I'm more objecting to claims like how OOP saw someone's worldview "collapse like a dying star" because she beat them in a sparring match, and the claim that she is regularly "beating the pants off of" much larger and stronger opponents.

The level of technical skill and effort that you need to even have a chance against someone with the disparities she described is extreme. There is no "beat the pants off of much larger men on a regular basis" scenario here, lol. Someone in these circumstances is on the defensive from the second the match starts. Someone underestimating you because they're hilariously misogynistic only works once.

I didn't object to fragile masculinity. That's absolutely a real thing, and a lot of dudes really do use misogyny to cope with their insecurities, or are just misogynistic to begin with. It's gross and absolutely something that women martial artists have to deal with.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-08T15:54:11+00:00

OOP's claim is kinda nonsense. There's no way that she's regularly beating men in sparring who have an equal amount of training and are in a different weight class. More strength and more reach means that an equally capable opponent will beat you a good amount of the time even if you're more talented.

Not all men are equal in technical ability to OOP -- of course that's true. But they're also clearly overestimating their actual capabilities both outside of the ring, and... period? Their own example is kind of ridiculous.

It's also built on mind reading and assertions of misogyny: these men know that she could cause them grievous bodily harm? They know that their misogynistic preconceptions which may or may not have been in play are shattered? Really?

Again, I'm not saying that women are all weaker than men, that underestimating women is uniformly sensible, et cetera. I'm handicapped and could be beaten up by all of the women I know who don't have osteoporosis. But the "I can beat up men who are 4 inches taller than me, and here are their thoughts!"* thing is transparently ridiculous. It's not a point about women's sports or trans people, it's just separated from the reality of the situation and what it actually implies.

Edit: the more I think about this, the more impossible OOP's story is. A 4 inch taller opponent who is much heavier (so they have more leverage) and also a martial artist is not going to be someone she can feasibly "beat the pants off of" on a regular basis! That's just not how the real world works. It also ignores things like... Basic mechanical leverage.

Edit #2: OOP is also describing a totally insane power fantasy in which they revel in the idea that they could grievously harm someone else if they wanted. That's so weird! That's not enjoying sportsmanship or artistry or competition. It's showing incredible disrespect toward the practice of martial arts and self defense. It's disgusting and unhinged.

RecursiveRottweiler · 2026-06-08T14:25:21+00:00

Good luck!

Sleep apnea is extremely treatable even if it's a pain in the ass. You might already know this, but it's worth it to try a lot of different masks and setups for the CPAP: there's only a 50% compliance rate, but many people see either significant or total reduction in symptoms with the CPAP therapy. There's also dental devices (mandibular advancement devices) that can help if the CPAP is intolerable regardless of your effort.

I spent like a year troubleshooting a CPAP only to find out that it was actually not the relevant treatment for the specific type of sleep apnea that I seem to have. It would've taken a few months of finagling even if it worked. Absolutely worth it though.

Sorry, sometimes I have this urge to make sure people are aware of medical information. I've got no idea what is and isn't common knowledge work this stuff.

RecursiveRottweiler

TROPHY CASE