I don’t think the problem is that the government “wasn’t the best ever,” I think it’s that it hasn’t changed. And the US hasn’t done a lot to enforce some of the groundwork beliefs of the framers.

I still think the idea and balance of power of the US government is one of the best—but it was created to change with the times and address practical flaws (amendments) and hasn’t.

Yeah. But then you remember that space is big—so it’s pretty damn easy to miss.

Numbers like this are always bonkers to me. Like, how have we allowed this to happen?

It’s a fucking social media site. I know surgeons who work 80-100 hour weeks and make 1.5M a year—and even that seems obscene to me. But they’re academic subspecialty surgeons who are quite literally saving lives daily by personally performing heart transplants. How the fuck do we think as a society that a smug ass CEO’s “effort” is worth 200x that?

Society is so backwards and fucked.

When my dog died almost a year ago to the day, it was one of the worst things my wife and I have ever gone through. I know that’s proof of my privilege—but I think it’s also proof of how much animals mean to us. They’re pure good. I work a lot of weird shifts; when I come home my wife may not be awake or present, but my dog was always there. It initiated intense, physical grief in both of us.

Lean on any friends or family you have. Post here. Don’t deny how bad you’re hurting, but look for another animal to help after you grieve. I feel like our pets represent different chapters in our life, and when one leaves us a new chapter opens. That chapter may come with a different pet for a different time of your life. We chose to use the closing of our chapter as a transition point—we had a few horrible months at first but ultimately kicked some bad habits we had been building for a while. But where you are right now is horrible, and as another human being I understand to an extent how badly you’re hurting.

So yes and no. Some of this depends on what sort of “loop” you’re stuck in, which I can’t answer unless I have more details. The rest doesn’t depend as much on that.

On one hand, 21 is extremely young—which means you have an absurd amount of wiggle room and time to course correct, even if you’ve done some really dumb stuff.

On the other hand, time only starts to move faster and if you don’t commit to course correct at some point you’ll end up a lot older in a way tougher spot.

I think the answer here is some sort of average of extremes (like it is for most things in life). You shouldn’t worry about the future too much because you’re so young, but you should start taking action to course correct now so that the next 5-10 years are easier.

This is a really good example of me feeling really one-sided about something and then having my mind changed by the comment section. Somehow I didn’t think about the fact that being on the Titanic sinking would be a pretty pivotal memory in someone’s life lol.

The vibe has gotten much more negative, to the point that I don’t really want to post anymore. I came here in early June with the Reddit API stuff, and was shocked at how communal it was. It actually got me to start posting again (I hadn’t posted on Reddit since the early to mid 20-teens because it had gotten so toxic).

My last three posts (nothing inflammatory) have gotten flamed. Someone actually hunted me down based on my post history and I had to take the time deleting most of my old posts.

So from my perspective it’s not just you. I’m back to being a lurker.