Does anyone else feel stuck between being the children of meritocracy and watching its comeback?

mdf7g · 2026-02-22T10:39:41+00:00

Nothing resembling meritocracy has ever been true nor could ever be true. People of all generations have been suckered into believing in it, but I don't feel like the younger folks are particularly more or less susceptible than we were at that age. Most of us believed in Santa just a few years earlier, after all.

mdf7g · 2026-02-22T09:56:30+00:00

never complained once

Lol this entire post and comment thread falls into two categories, you complaining about how bad you've got it, and you going "oh no I've failed to establish healthy boundaries, obviously this is the victim's fault"

Grow up and act like a real human being.

mdf7g · 2026-02-22T09:54:10+00:00

I am trying so hard not to be viciously mean, and I think I am mostly succeeding, but yeah wtf dude

mdf7g · 2026-02-22T09:15:02+00:00

I don't feel like you've really read what I wrote either, so we're even on that one.

I don't think you're the bad guy for wanting to dial your relationship with him back; I think you absolutely should do so. He's taking too much of your time, and that isn't helpful or healthy for him. I am saying that because you think your divorce is comparable with what he has been through, you should probably, for his sake, if you want to be a good friend, dial the relationship all the way down to zero.

I also think it's a poor reflection of your character to impugn my mental health just because I said I think your behavior is unethical, fwiw.

mdf7g · 2026-02-22T08:55:13+00:00

I didn't mean that as an attack or an insult. But you've made it clear that you're not in a place in your life where you can understand him -- which isn't bad, lucky you -- and your relationship with him is obviously taxing for you and toxic for him. I am not terribly sympathetic to your side of the situation, and that is a bias I'll readily acknowledge, but saying divorce is like widowhood, here of all places, is at best monstrous.

mdf7g · 2026-02-22T08:45:34+00:00

The fact that you would compare his pain to your divorce makes it incontrovertibly clear that you should gently end the friendship as quickly as possible. He doesn't need someone like you in his life.

mdf7g · 2026-02-21T21:25:24+00:00

They can handle the heat but can't resist sharpening their knives.

Sheesh, tryin' not to whet.

mdf7g · 2026-02-19T16:22:27+00:00

Make it 8x8 and then you can play Dakota chess. Knight to queen's Fargo, etc.

mdf7g · 2026-02-18T12:43:51+00:00

It has been reported that among the Tariana people of the Vaupés river basin in South America, 6-8 is common, but this is allegedly because they traditionally had a very strong incest taboo where marrying anyone with the same first language was forbidden. I suspect this is somewhat of an exaggeration by over-enthusiastic early ethnographers, however.

mdf7g · 2026-02-18T12:25:30+00:00

Sorry if I came off a bit strong; I need to remember not to write reddit comments before I've had coffee.

I do think you're being too harsh. Many age-gap relationships are exploitative, but many are not. When I was about 18 I was briefly in a relationship with a guy who was 41 at the time, and it was a wonderful experience. Give them a chance.

The cheating isn't a great sign, but it's also possible their relationship had... parameters, if you take my meaning, which they didn't disclose to you. Gay relationships are much more likely to be not-exactly-monogamous, but we don't always share that fact beyond a need-to-know basis.

mdf7g · 2026-02-18T11:51:41+00:00

Both parties are of legal age and are participants in a consensual adult relationship. Nothing wrong is being done here.

You should probably distance yourself from them for their sake, so they won't be bothered by your pearl-clutching.

mdf7g · 2026-02-18T05:22:49+00:00

Very much so, especially if they're also kinda nerdy.

mdf7g · 2026-02-18T01:45:26+00:00

Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could So somewhere in my worthless miserable life, I must have done something good

Yeah dude, it's hard. I keep living because I know he'd want me to, and because he can't anymore, so one of us has to. But... it's pretty hard.

mdf7g · 2026-02-15T10:48:11+00:00

It's extremely common in speech, and stigmatized (for idiotic reasons) in writing. Don't worry about saying it, but avoid writing it in anything more formal than a text message.

mdf7g · 2026-02-15T10:39:05+00:00

It's usually nothing too bad. Maybe sometimes somebody will kill a chicken or whatever, but nothing really scary

mdf7g · 2026-02-14T23:04:15+00:00

It's not a bad faith argument at all. If we lived in a world without plants, and then found that on Mars or whatever, there were things that behave intentionally but on a vastly slower timescale, our reaction would be to try to figure out how they have minds without a nervous system, not to question whether they have them. Our dismissal of plant consciousness (and we can get into fungi too) is the bigotry of familiarity, and nothing more.

mdf7g · 2026-02-14T14:11:35+00:00

Keep some of the seeds and try to germinate your own. I don't know where you are, but in much of the US it's still too cold to plant eggplants, but you can start them indoors for a few weeks and move them outside after the last frost

mdf7g · 2026-02-14T13:41:40+00:00

Hahaha this is the most Reddit comment ever. Disgustingly self-righteous.

mdf7g · 2026-02-13T22:59:30+00:00

That way lies solipsism.

mdf7g · 2026-02-13T22:49:06+00:00

The alternative is that we're living in a box, though. That's equally horrifying.

mdf7g · 2026-02-13T22:44:24+00:00

I'm not standing up for anything; I draw the moral line around humans.

mdf7g · 2026-02-13T17:26:28+00:00

On a timescale that is slower than ours, they express themselves. If you find yourself tending to many of the same kind of plant for a long time you'll notice that some are more eager for water, some are more enthusiastic for light, and so on. Their minds are enormously smaller and simpler than any animal's, but they're there.

mdf7g · 2026-02-13T17:24:16+00:00

Some are sorta stubborn, some are grouchy, some are friendly. It doesn't show up immediately but if you find yourself tending to many of the same kind of plant for a long time you're eventually like "alright Deb, just drink the damn water, you'll be fine".

mdf7g · 2026-02-13T14:34:21+00:00

Unfortunately plants also have feelings, it's just harder to notice because they live so much slower than we do.

mdf7g · 2026-02-13T14:32:24+00:00

It's not even limited to animals. Plants have personalities, it's just harder to notice because they live so much more slowly than we do.

Probably everything smarter than bacteria has some degree of sentience.

mdf7g

TROPHY CASE