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Antimachides

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That's ridiculous. Some people absolutely stand out as not being materialistic and shallow. And some positively excel at it, to grotesque proportions. Don't pretend we are all in the same cesspool.

Am I wrong? Can I change what is there simply by thinking about it a different way? Is that some quantum spook trick you can teach me?

Give her a blood diamond to show my affection? No thanks. I'm not brainwashed to think love is suitably communicated through the purchase of goods and services. Excess money not being invested? By golly I better not use it for any form of good; it must obviously go to De Beers!

Just tell someone you love them and do nice things for them and be there for them. It's free.

On the one hand I see where they are coming from. On the other I sure do enjoy the genius of production of those old animations, particularly Fantasia. On the one hand I understand the criticism that Spielberg torpedoed indie cinema, on the other hand Empire of the Sun was a masterpiece. Two things can exist, in their own right, meriting praise, yet opposed and unresolved.

Switched parents to the one that wasn't doing drugs and had good work and no mental health issues. The kids I remember from that time probably didn't see an escape route in their own lives. A lot of their parents were shits. Some of them were straight chaotic evil. Some, if you put their minds into their children's bodies, they could fit right in and assume their children's roles. Children raising children is a sure way to harm brain development. Also, beating them. Saw a bit of that. Makes me sad to think where those kids might be now.

Half my childhood I grew up in poor conditions. The stress of everything just drenches you. People traumatizing each other, young and old, in their stress and grief. The poor dull each other. Dulled minds are handed down. Poverty is not just economic fact, it is a state of mind.

Life could be fair-er. Artificially made so. Hypothetically made so. Do we have to rest on social Darwinism as the organizing principle of society simply because it is natural? Human history is in part a gradual divorce from such naturalism, a gradual mitigation of the base suffering of animals.

I worked in a few kitchens for a few years. I regularly read reviews on yelp and I would say that near half of the negative "reviews" that showed up on there that pertained to what I myself witnessed or pertained to the kitchen were mostly to totally unfair. The one's that were fair I owned. One of my favorites: one star review for not being seated without a reservation on mother's day. Another favorite review: "I've been a regular here for quite a while and love this place but my porridge was too cold this one time: one star." Another gem: "Food is A+, waiter only refilled our water once: one star." (Pretty much any negative review that centers on waiters can be disregarded; they don't want to eat, they want to be served). I also witnessed outright lies by apparently angry and, I assume, tortured miserable people who were looking to be displeased in every realm of their life. You find those kinds of people in fine dining a lot, rich entitled pensioner types with no respect whatsoever. Unless there's a major sanitation or corruption issue on yelp reviews I take them about as seriously as youtube comments.

I agree students shouldn't be taking on the loans they do for worthless degrees but I'd like to add that 17/18 years old is just not old enough to (1) decide what you want to do for the rest of your life and (2) begin taking dozens of thousands of $ in bankruptcy-immune loans to pay for it. There's also the issue of the cost of college being an artificial grossly expensive racket. If the opportunity for moneyed interests to milk kids of every cent because of the kids' and parents' blind desire for collegiate status and opportunity then they will, because this is America.