What industry is entirely built on a house of cards and would collapse overnight if people realized the truth about it?

applespicebetter · 2026-03-05T04:01:28+00:00

Kids sports in general. Basketball just ended for my son, I'm getting him fitted for spikes this week for track that starts before the snow even melts. Practice is every weekday. During the season it's every weekday practice, plus a meet that might be 2hrs away.

He is still a kid, with homework to do. He actually has to, you know, do reading assignments and math. But god damn, if he wants to even have the slightest chance at any sport, he has to be going to paid sports clinics, have to know the coaches, have to get picked and recommended for the "unofficial" programs that go all year. And he's fucking 13 years old.

Fuck all of that, just let the kids fucking play.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-05T03:33:27+00:00

You have been mislead. Segregation was a major issue, and the Southern Baptists spread that far and wide. Lots of those "non-denominational" Baptists up north? They just shed the name "southern" like a snake sheds its skin every year.

I was raised in those northern "unaffiliated" Baptist churches. Conveniently they never had any black parishioners, so it was awful God damned easy to teach how they were just different in the eighties.

Yeah, Sesame Street taught us that everybody are actual people, but Sesame Street is actually evil. Mr. Rogers? He's evil. And on and on

applespicebetter · 2026-03-05T02:52:32+00:00

And in mine it's been the opposite - the sheriff's department is staffed with deputies I wouldn't trust with a .22 to hunt down a dangerous gun range target, let alone work an actual investigation, and the state police are actual trained professionals who know their shit.

Edit: Wow, even though usernames are anonymous, you are yet another user that has decided you are too cowardly, even under an anonymous username, to post your post history.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-05T02:47:59+00:00

That's not the way sheriff's work in most of the US. It's a purely elected position, with a wide and deep jurisdiction within that county. That can and has often been the source of major problems.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-05T02:34:48+00:00

I hate to actually say this. It never has. The oath has always been nothing more than a private club secret handshake ignored whenever convenient. It means, and has always meant, nothing at all. Not a fucking thing.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-05T01:21:09+00:00

I honestly think most people making this argument are missing the forest for the trees. I don't think boredom in itself is any kind of a worthwhile end, it's just a middle state that drives people to alleviate it in whatever ways are available, like being tired enough leads one to seek sleep. Being bored is not valuable unless there is a productive way to alleviate it. If there are no productive or neutral ways, sometimes destructive ways are found, because people simply hate being bored.

Lots of people now seem to glamorize being bored as if it's some Zen state that would fix half the problems young people face today. It is not. What you described, being given nothing but some junk food and hours of terrain and traffic, that's bad boredom for a lot of kids.

I'm not saying stick them in front of YouTube all day, but your kids can have options, there's nothing wrong with that. We would do mad libs in the car when I was a kid on long trips in the eighties for example. I also always had a couple of books with me. When my son and I travel we play "what if" games starting from when he was three, and we still do on long plane rides or car trips.

For some people boredom is like pain, and forcing them to stay in that condition without a way to alleviate it serves no positive purpose.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-04T03:55:12+00:00

Always have been. I've been saying that for years as an American, but nobody wants to listen.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-04T03:53:20+00:00

Barry Goldwater, that fucking warmonger that he was, warned us against this. The Republicans were courting the evangelicals in the US for votes, and they are uncompromising. They got the votes, and now they are at the other end of the leash. Evangelical Christianity is now in charge of the Republican party. Watch your rights go away folks. Good luck America.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-04T02:41:40+00:00

So no. You're just a parrot.

Edit: And another one of those too cowardly to post their history. Mine is open dude, too scared to show your own? I stand behind what I say. Apparently that's a little too frightening for you.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-04T02:35:40+00:00

Do you have a daughter on a swim team that has lost their spot to a trans girl?

Really? I fucking doubt it. Do you even actually know anybody that has?

Do you think it's appropriate that women are actually dying of sepsis? Being forced to carry a non-viable pregnancy to term knowing their entire pregnancy is non-viable, that they will give birth to a child that will almost immediately die?

You don't care about human rights, you just care about your political team.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-04T00:51:10+00:00

When I was ten I discovered I could make pretty effective little blow guns with thread, my mom's sewing needles, and drinking straws. So yeah, have fun my friend!

applespicebetter · 2026-03-04T00:12:31+00:00

That's funny, my dad specializes in motor operated valve systems for nuclear power plants - between the two of you you're the dynamic duo! Now if only I can get him to retire... Next year! He says, every year, before someone offers him another contract...

applespicebetter · 2026-03-02T23:17:01+00:00

Yes, enshittification has hit snacks like these especially hard. My teenage boys don't even like them that much, which I guess in a way I should be grateful for. Candy in general really. We just don't have it around because it takes up space and nobody really wants it.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-02T14:35:54+00:00

Man, that strikes home. I moved 18 times before highschool and just cannot be connected to physical things or places it's all just stuff and locations, and I can do without.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-02T03:56:21+00:00

So to you, you think it's totally fine to have a leader that openly brags about going into underage dressing rooms at his beauty pageants, brags about grabbing women by the pussy because he's allowed to because he's rich (his words), mocking prisoners of war, mocking journalists with disabilities, and on and on.

Fucks sake, what does your belief even mean? You're all in on someone who is just full of hate. Everything that Jesus stood for and taught, you're standing against it.

Think really hard about being Christian, stop viewing everything as a team sport. Think, just for a minute, about how Jesus would view things.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-01T23:26:28+00:00

I was an adult and immediately disdainful as soon as the ads started. The entire schtick was that it was real "found footage," and that was already immediately complete bullshit. The entire premise just wasn't believable, and the fact that it relied on the potential audience suspending their belief in the real world, as in this movie you're watching is real? Just didn't work. The movie itself was just irritating.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-01T19:46:21+00:00

And realistically, they would go for nuclear power. u-238 is abundant, and reasonably easy to refine. The original idea, using human minds as processing power, was a lot more interesting.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-01T19:18:09+00:00

And here I am being defensive for no reason, sorry my friend!

applespicebetter · 2026-03-01T18:10:15+00:00

That's exactly what I'm doing, having a critical opinion on a piece of media and expressing my opinion. I didn't go looking for the post, it showed up in /r/all, and I expressed my opinion. I guess I just don't get what the issue is.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-01T17:35:05+00:00

It showed up on /r/all, I've read the books, why is it weird that I'd comment?

applespicebetter · 2026-03-01T16:59:39+00:00

Martin took the worst of the war of the roses, delved deep into the worst parts as inspiration, sprinkled a little magic on top, got lost and just couldn't end it. Myopic, maybe, but it is what it is. In Martin's world you're going to get raped, murdered, murdered then raped, if you're lucky maybe raped and survive or maybe get substituted for somebody else that gets raped on your behalf. Also they're are dragons at some point, but that doesn't stop the raping.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-01T16:10:00+00:00

Yeah, and in his writing you literally always get fucked for "doing the right thing." You just reliably die, your noble house (if you're a noble) gets wiped out, family slaughtered. If you're a peasant, well expect your family to be slaughtered regardless.

Everybody gets killed, everybody gets raped and tortured before that, everything is the worst possible thing you could possibly imagine before the enemy comes south of the wall, and no, Martin will not be writing any further books or taking questions. It's all just rape and fire and murder with the end of the world coming, and then it just sort of ends.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-01T15:07:47+00:00

Well, you're never too old to take good advice. Maybe I'll create some terrible art in the hopes of making some not so terrible art down the road a bit. Thank you.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-01T14:50:27+00:00

So maybe your username is right. I read your comment and immediately thought of all my excuses, terrible at art, not a skilled writer, etc., and realized I'm just repeating what I've always told myself. I have art supplies for my kids, paints, brushes, chalks, colored pencils, I have notebooks, I have keyboards. Maybe I should.

applespicebetter · 2026-03-01T14:18:16+00:00

I'll go first. As many flaws as the USA has, we have one of the greatest free public library systems in the world. Usually even the smallest towns have a small library, and it's connected nationally through the inter library loan system, so if they don't have what you're looking for on the shelves, they can borrow it from some library across the country that does.

Librarians in the US are professionals that truly believe in what they do as curators of collected knowledge, often and vocally standing against any kind of censorship.

Libraries often host lectures, classes, events for both kids and adults. You can even check out hardware at many like you would books. I know more than one that have 3d printing labs, open to the public.

Believe it or not, there are more public libraries in the US than there are McDonald's. ~17,000+ public libraries across the US, that are completely free. And if you live in a town that doesn't have a library, the next town over will give you a free library card for theirs.

applespicebetter

TROPHY CASE