are we just amusing ourselves until death?

Yes. That’s arguably neither a good nor bad thing; a life with a prescribed meaning or prescribed expectations would be scary in a different way.

There’s been philosophers that got famous arguing it’s actually great and we should be excited, even, but “your mileage may vary”.

he idea of this came to me because I was pondering why people fight so hard to beat diseases and live a few more years. What are they planning to do? Why exert effort just to be here longer when you don’t have a reason?

There is a thing called quality-adjusted life years. To make decisions about certain things like transplants, and to measure the effectiveness of health policy, they absolutely will factor in how much time you’ll get from treatment and how much it’s worth living.

Nations like mine will also help you peace out gracefully.

The kid won’t remember. That poor dad will never forget. Damn.

I’d take this over most of the stuff the guy with kidney problems mentioned, absolutely no question.

Man, you must really hate deep water for it to make this list.

Which was weird, because honestly that flattered the police in no way.

Yes, that’s a pretty famous moment for your parent’s lines to start coming out of your mouth. TBF the reaction to that seems to be immediate guilt and self-loathing more often than “they were right”.

This. This so hard.

Like, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, you’re working with only a little bit of data on a world filled with lies, which tends to beget bad ideas. And that’s not even getting into the non-rational drivers kids can have.

I’m guessing the average Lemming was a weird little nerd. I was.

If anything, my own parents had trouble recognising I actually still was a kid.

I’m not sure about infuriating. Maybe more like pathetic. Can that even make economic sense if you’re an ad-driven business yourself?

Switching to old Reddit is a still-working loophole for that.

It truly is just a handful of unscrupulous, malignant narcissists that have ruined everything (including the planet) for everyone else.

No, that was a much larger group effort. You and me can’t wash our hands of it. Like, even if you ignore the majority of stuff they don’t own, we let them do that.

From the article:

The plane’s fuel was tested and found to be of satisfactory quality,

Bitcoin specifically? No. It’s a janky prototype that should have been superseded a long time ago.

Crypto in general? Probably something. It’s good for buying and selling illegal things.

-5. I had one parent that was not great, and one that was a doormat. It wasn’t any of the usual suspects, and I would say that that parent is eccentric and oblivious more than a bad person, but in the end I think I came out with some trauma.

School was really hard early on (because I’m also weird), while the parental issues grew more severe later on.

For the Republicans, it’s either this guy or a recently promoted conspiracy influencer with random frat bros as staff. The Democrats will still manage to lose.

(This is my impression as a Canadian)

I’d come and talk to you about it, but I’d need A Free Ride.

Well, I don’t really love that as a security philosophy. If it’s somehow not going on now it will be soon.

Like I said in OP, that’s how modern dictatorships work, too. They have coups and intrigues and corruption absolutely everywhere you look. The dictator spends most of their time just staying on top and keeping the factions in balance.

I’d say you’re right that the degree of control was lower on average before the conveniences of fast travel and communication, but then again it varied quite a bit. Rome’s level of centralisation is still etched across the European landscape.

English orthography is pretty dumb, TBF.

I don’t think anyone would call their religion a hobby, though.