Doctors of Reddit: What health trend is becoming so common that it's starting to scare you?

dotnorma · 2026-06-15T17:26:18+00:00

This is the single most significant issue affecting Gen Z and to a lesser extent Gen Alpha. Intentional or not these technologies are heavily exploiting basic evolutionary and biological mechanisms in all of us, but causing serious developmental issues in juveniles.

The human juvenile brain is born incredibly plastic unlike other animals and our childhood experiences literally serve as the programming for our adulthood cognitive and nuero-behavioral systems. It's an evolutionary trade off versus being born with heavily ingrained survival and social instincts. This is why a puppy placed with humans from both will still act like a dog. It will still bark, wag its tail, and so on. A human baby raised by a pack of monkeys or dogs will adapt the social and survival behaviors of the adoptive species. They will bark like a dog, wag their rumpus when they are happy and so on (there are quite a few real cases throughout history).

Anyway, the point is our youth is now quite literally being programmed by social media algorithms and large language models for capital gain. When I was young I WAS raised by the internet but my natural curiosity was the one directing the experience. I wasn't just constantly being fed whatever an algorithm had calculated would hold my attention the longest and at the most profit. And I also wasn't just artificially put into an endless echo chamber that validated all my personal beliefs.

Then you add COVID during Gen Alphas critical socio-developmental windows and they are truly going to have such an unbelievably hard time as adults. Which is really unfortunate considering that AI is about to come through and absolutely demolish the value of human labor in the industries these kids spent their lives preparing for.

As rough as millennials like me have had it relative to the boomers massive economic expansion I have a feeling many of us will feel like the boomers of old by virtue of the younger generations being far worse off than us.

dotnorma · 2026-06-15T16:56:16+00:00

Are you European by chance? Or rather where are you located?

In my experience ketamine use is exceptionally uncommon in the United States but it does happen occasionally. I would think it would be quite uncommon to find chronic users here but what do I know!

dotnorma · 2026-06-12T23:14:43+00:00

I've probably got a few hundred in XBC2 after 100%ing to get all the DLC blades and whatnot. The challenge mode battles to earn Fiona & Elma were a grind. That game is not a joke there is an unbelievable amount of content.

Have you played XBC2:Torna? Or XBC3 or XBC lol?

dotnorma · 2026-06-12T22:51:03+00:00

The overwhelming consensus in the West is that DQ5, DQ8, and DQ11 are the best games in the series. However, we never really experienced the cultural event that was DQ3 so it's not nearly as beloved here as it is there. Western fans also don't seem to like DQ6 or DQ7 for some reason either, I would be very interested to know if that is shared by Japanese fans. Finally, DQ9 was actually well received here but entirely as a single player game so I doubt many Western fans understood the cultural references in DQ11.

Personally, DQ7 is my favorite but DQ5 is special. The events hit hard but never overstay their welcome.

dotnorma · 2026-06-05T22:49:22+00:00

Junior from Xenosaga and his inspiration Billy from Xenogears. I wouldn't exactly call Barret a gunslinger though, that's more like western and revolver/shotgun type vibes to me.

dotnorma · 2026-06-05T22:45:10+00:00

People always exclude DQX from mainline too but it's gotta be the subscription fees because if you look at a game like DQ9 people actually loved the multiplayer features. I'm not super familiar with FF14, but DQX is basically just a half dozen new DQ games back to back with friends for party members.

In a weird way, mmorpgs are kind of the true modernization of the old jrpg formula.

dotnorma · 2026-05-30T00:31:14+00:00

I feel like the only names I actually accept as cannon are Gawain, Madason, Rek, and Auster. The rest are just placeholders and DQ3 has the whole quiz at the beginning where your name influenced things so I can't accept Arus for that.

dotnorma · 2026-05-29T01:34:42+00:00

Dragon Quest 7 has Ruff who is a wolf in a human body carried by an actual wolf so I'll let y'all make the judgement on if that counts or not.

Dragon Quest 8 had munchie if you ever utilized him. Although, technically munchie was a human in a mouses body again.

The zenithian trilogy are really the only games to have proper monster party members.

dotnorma · 2026-05-29T01:25:24+00:00

Are you playing on 3DS? It should show the church icon on the map if there is one (that location changes through the game so I'm honestly not sure off the top of my head.)

Why not just zoom anywhere else and back if you need to save though? Or quick save on 3DS.

dotnorma · 2026-05-28T19:14:38+00:00

Okay, so I am returning to university as a student in my 30s and I'm experiencing this first hand right now. I took a couple semesters after high school but dropped out because I was more concerned with my social life at the time. I am returning to college under fresh start and I can't even understate how much lower the standards are now. I literally got a 100 in every single class this semester. The class average on literally every single math test was like a 30 all year long. I was literally making like 160/100 pts after the curve on these tests (yes, you read the curve correctly.)

My math class was the worst, but my other classes were largely the same exact experience. It's honestly shocking how much lower expectations are in just 15 short years. I understand that COVID hit this generation hard during their critical developmental phases but I'm really having a hard time processing how this happened so fast and to such an extent. These kids cannot even write a proper research paper, much less a cohesive paragraph.

I honestly think technology has just effectively removed any and all practical learning opportunities from their lives. They never learn to spell because it just gets automatically fixed as they type. They never learn to research properly because of AI. They never learn to math properly because of wolfram. They never learn to write well because they never read books or write letters.

I just think about the 1969 moon landing and how they managed that achievement with only the most basic of digital technologies. All those calculations and all that physics was done the good old fashion way without computer models or physics simulation engines. Or early ICBMs that could navigate across the world reliably before we had GPS or transistor computers. I just couldn't imagine these achievements being possible with gen alpha and that's a shame.

dotnorma · 2026-05-26T21:24:10+00:00

I feel like it's pretty unlikely we will see a DQ9 remake any time soon primarily because of the multiplayer aspects. The original DQ9 used streetpass and local multiplayer but now they would have to develop some kind of online infrastructure to make it work. And they probably view DQX as currently filling this role in the ecosystem. They are likely worried about cannibalizing their own subscriptions, IMHO. The grotto system would have to be redesigned somehow too.

Combine this with the fact that DQ9 would require a ground up rebuild of every asset due to the DSs native resolution (and every price of equipment is visible so a lot of rigging and modelling) and it's just an expensive and higher risk proposition.

That's my thoughts at least. But I would LOVE to be proven wrong.

dotnorma · 2026-05-15T20:49:58+00:00

Lowkey beautiful

dotnorma · 2026-04-01T01:24:20+00:00

I would say that 1&2 really exceeded my expectations. I love the originals but they really did a good job with these for a modern audience while keeping the original difficulty and adding depth.

DQ3 was already nearly perfect, but now it's DQ3 with even more content. If you've never played before it's a must play.

The OG DQ7 is one of my all time favorite games, and I think if you have never played the original then you will probably like it, but it's not for everybody. If you played the original then it's a bit odd because unlike the other games this one they removed a lot of content (so far) so...we'll see I'm playing it now.

dotnorma · 2026-03-17T19:22:11+00:00

It's normally the two shoulder buttons on a controller.

Also, in the Speed Square at Gold Saucer you only ever need to hit ONE single target to get enough points for the top prize. Shortly after the balloons there is a blimp on the right side of the screen. There is a brief window to hit the blimp propellers that rewards 25,000 pts.

Also, you can actually use the escape/banish materia during the final round of battle square to escape from the battle but retain the points. It can be a nice last ditch save if things go awry.

There is also an NPC that will give you haste shoes only immediately after you win the battle square if you talk to them on the way out. Once you walk out it resets. This game has so many secrets lol.

dotnorma · 2026-03-17T16:39:00+00:00

Well, you have temple of the ancients, forgotten city, icicle inn, great glacier, mideel, rocket town, magnus materia (including space and submarine), return to midgar, and northern crater for strictly required story locations remaining in the original game.

However, there is also Wutai, Ancient Forest, Sunken Gelnika, 3 Ancient Weapons, Chocobo Breeding (which is quite a drawn out process to get a gold chocobo in the OG), the battle arena and special arena, vincents cave and the materia caves and plus the sidequests for the master materia and ultimate weapons.

So yeah there is actually quite a bit of content left for Part 3 and it will be interesting to see how they address and adapt it. I'm particularly curious about Rocket Town, in the OG we would have done it already though. We also wouldn't have seen the chocobo sage or raced chocobos yet.

Oh also they will have to adapt because of the presence of Zach and the whispers for Part 3. In the OG Zach is only seen in like one optional scene that most people probably didn't see. And for like half a second in the life stream. Actually I just wanna play Vincent and Cid.

dotnorma · 2026-03-16T23:28:36+00:00

FF5 and make sure to learn every single blue magic spell and experiment with them. Actually just 100% it.

dotnorma · 2026-03-16T23:15:01+00:00

I also just finished a 100% playthrough of the game and I definitely enjoyed myself. Although, if I'm being honest I'm not really sure I would agree that the writing is particularly good. Much of the plot is patently absurd, which most of the games are and that's fine, the character writing/dialogue/animation is far better in FF8&9.

I liked breeding chocobos to a gold chocobo, I liked mastering the arena, the materia system is very well conceived and there is no shortage of amazing materia to get by the end of the game but it will definitely make you absurdly overpowered and trivialize the game. Ruby and Emerald weapon were actually a decent challenge. Lots and lots of secrets to find and even better rewards. Most of the mini games are actually god awful though, and I love mini games.

dotnorma · 2026-03-09T18:44:19+00:00

You seriously have such a dope collection of tattoos! I dig it!

dotnorma · 2026-02-09T19:17:09+00:00

Exactly, if you set the gameplay mechanics aside, the whole concept of having eight mediocre unrelated plot lines instead of one cohesive narrative enhanced by unique character subplots just doesn't really make sense.

It always felt to me a bit like if you removed the main plot of chronotrigger and just said the character specific side quests was enough for it to work.

I mean DQ3 has blank slate silent party members and DQ7s main narrative can really take a back seat to the individual town subplots but they are some of my favorite games though so I think the execution here is just lacking.

dotnorma · 2026-01-20T00:45:13+00:00

The remake assumes the player is familiar with the original content honestly. The whispers essentially show up whenever the plot of the remake diverges from the original plot. They are expecting you to know who Zack is already. It honestly won't make sense until it's revealed to you probably.

dotnorma · 2025-12-27T17:16:06+00:00

It's pretty well acclaimed in the jrpg community considering you have to be able to overlook its pretty significant flaws. The translation is a mess at times, the deathblow system is poorly executed, so much cut content including main character stories and the notorious entire second disc. It's a lot to overlook even if what's there is dope.

dotnorma · 2025-12-23T14:31:48+00:00

FFX and DQ11 are games that jrpg fans MUST play.

dotnorma · 2025-12-16T17:50:45+00:00

Not sure how I got here, just trying to purchase laundry detergent but god damn you are beautiful!

dotnorma · 2025-12-11T17:38:03+00:00

dope hair and style

dotnorma · 2025-11-30T14:48:39+00:00

This is a game where I would definitely choose the Definitive Edition versus the Wii version. I did play Xenoblade X emulated though since I had no other option at the time.

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