I first saw it as ‘coop’ and immediately thought, ‘hell yes, I’d support a community-owned coop, but only if there were lots of fluffy chickens and a 24/7 camera on them’.

Then I realized what you really meant. Which I’m also not opposed to, if it was set up well.

I feel you, man. Genshin just dropped a new country and I keep thinking, oh, I’ll just explore for a little bit…

My grandmother was beaten in school for using her left hand. Then they tied her hand behind her to force her to write with her right hand. Being left-handed was the sign of the Devil in those days.

As a lefty myself, I’m glad they don’t do that anymore! Now they just leave us alone with our terrible smeared handwriting.

Generally for really lifelike models it was glass. Sad that those techniques have largely been lost, but it is cool that now anyone with a printer can make a flower!

You’d be surprised how much effort people will put into proving you wrong.

My uncle is a pastor. So when his kid came out as trans, he and his wife did the ‘good moral Christian’ thing and shamed her and harassed her until she committed suicide.

Then deadnamed her at the funeral, and wrote and published a book about how ‘his betrayal’ and ‘his unfortunate death’ were just tests from God to test their faith.

This is not a rare or unique story; many people all over the world have stories like this. Is it any wonder those who pay attention find religion distasteful? It may be a part of humanity, but many unpleasant things are, and there is nothing ‘edgy’ about rejecting them.

Yes, there are ‘good’ churches in my town that feed and clothe the poor; a far cry from my uncle’s church. But they are part of the same religion, and the fact that religion accepts both, morals be damned, means I have no interest in it.

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion. -Steven Weinberg

I mean, it’s supposed to be.

Probably still won’t stop future humans from opening the vault, sadly.

When I was maybe 6 years old, I stepped on a ground wasp nest. For most of the rest of my childhood I had an intense phobia of flying bugs as a result. All flying bugs were out to get me, and any stinging insects were going to sting me for sure, never mind if they were halfway across the yard. The slightest sound of insect wings nearby was enough to send me into a panic.

Then, one day, I was outside and nearly bumped into a wasp I didn’t see. I yelped and jumped back—and the wasp jumped back too, like it was just as surprised and scared as I was, then flew away from me as fast as it could.

And I suddenly realized that maybe they were just as afraid of me as I was of them.

I won’t say my phobia disappeared overnight, but from that day forward it faded pretty quickly. Now I can be right next to bees and wasps and be fine with it.

What’s weird is I’d been told the whole ‘they’re more afraid of you than you are of them’ business before, but somehow seeing it like that made that statement real.

Hey now, people pay these preachers good money so they don’t have to think, much less think logically.

No. Gender is largely a social construct based on psychological, cultural, and behavioral mores, although given that there are differences in the brain between Trans and Cis people of the same biological sex, there does appear to be something of a biological component.

Biological sex is tied entirely to the genome, and may or may not match a person’s gender.

Well, the assholes that use ‘female’ like op described think we’re shoes, locks, purses, sandwiches, androids…

Animal would be a step up, really. At least that’s something that’s alive.

Actually, they sued themselves once too

Probably a corgi-husky mix or something. Corgi mixes tend to look like a corgi disguised as another dog.

No, Musk is an annoying slime ball with a ton of money thanks to mommy and daddy. But thanks to good PR in the past there are a lot of people that worship the ground he walks on, so we need to keep his stupidity visible in the media so that number doesn’t grow.

My trick for gnocchi? Ziplock with the corner cut off.

I’ve heard the lady who fucked up HP has been hired to the board of Brother, though. So who knows how long this sort of thing will last.

Well, you shouldn’t close yourself off just because you’re afraid. But don’t force yourself into trying to love either, just because you think you ‘need’ to be in a relationship. That sort of thing rarely goes well.

If you’re having trouble ‘getting back out there’, it’s probably easiest to develop hobbies, and meet people that way. Then you have a better chance of finding someone walking a similar path to you, which at the very least means you get a good friend out of the deal.

For me, ‘attraction’ is simply being physically attracted to them; a fluttering in the chest, so to speak, enjoying the eye candy…

When it changes to ‘love’ though, I found my thoughts to be more on wanting to take care of them, seeing them smile, being happy when they are happy. It goes beyond the superficial and the physical. I suppose the best way I can describe it is it makes my soul sing.

I think the Ancient Greeks, with their words for different kinds of love, were more on point with these sorts of things.

Chemistry is something different again. Lust and Love are all well and good, but you need more than that to make a relationship work. You need mental maturity on the part of both parties, the willingness to move beyond and work through problems, and something of a similar life trajectory in order to make love last.

Or just eat more good healthy food. I know UPS drivers that eat a bit of breakfast, don’t eat lunch, and then do a decent dinner. And of course they get a good workout every day. But they’re still overweight because a lot of the food they do eat is, well, fast food and junk food.