Yep, same in the UK. We’ve abandoned our elderly and seemingly can’t wait for our kids to leave so that we enjoy maybe 10 years of watching TV and not working before we die.

In other, less ‘developed’ countries the family is a unit. The elderly help with the infants (which has been proven to be mutually beneficial), while the rest of the family works or helps maintain the household. There’s way less likelyhood of abandonment or lonliness in old age, which in my country is endemic.

Dogs can’t look up

I was popular in primary school. Then, in High School I hung out with friends who were into Dr Who and nerdy stuff, because I knew and liked them and could never play the social status game by just cutting them off to be cool.

Four years in, when i was about 15, one of the jocks decided that we were gay (which was social death in the early 90s in rural Scotland), so my status plummeted even further.

That summer, at 16, I got drunk and had sex with a girl, which was something we both regretted. The rumour got out and that seemd to elevate me, socially. By this point me and my friends were big into Nirvana and had formed our own little clique of stoners so the jocks left us alone.

I look back on it all with some regret. I wish I’d been more confident. I would have liked to have been involved in team sports and activities that I was drawn to, but my friends derided.

My understanding is that these days kids are less socially segregated and you’ll find nerds doing physical stuff and jocks trying to be academic. Dunno if that’s true, but it sounds like progress.

It was really university that changed me. I left the small town and found people outside that tiny place to be friendlier, and I grew in confidence.

Looking back, I think the socially harder times in school made me who I am. I’m fairly resilient and find it easier than my colleagues to communicate with others and find common ground. It was a baptism of fire and I was miserable through my teens, but now life is pretty manageable.

Sorry. I was out of my element.

That’s just like… your opinion, man

Great list. The Princess Bride somehow passed me by. Is it one of those movies you could watch now and enjoy, or more something that you enjoyed at the time and therfore still holds up?

Yeah, I get what he’s saying, but I agree. I think we’ve lost a lot in this post-nuance world. It’s kind of like saying you wouldn’t watch American History X because it’s got nazis in it.

Now that you mention it…

I think there are many thousands of folk in fields beyond IT that use it all the time. It’s by no means perfect, but for many of us managing teams or doing boring AF admin, working with procurement, writing user documentation or trying to navigate basic system configs then it’s immensely useful.

Turns out I only have one kidney. Went in for a scan of my bladder (which was fine), and the nurse doing the scan just casually mentioned it. I had no idea. I was 43 at the time.

There was something about it I found obnoxious. It was just kind of lazy and, although the cast did a decent job, the writing was meh.

I hear you. But then does the existence of some sort of higher purpose/unknown science necessarily imply everlasting life?

I wouldn’t say I heap them in together. At times in my life I have rejected a belief in anything ‘higher’, which fits your definition of atheism, although perhaps my mindset was closer to an agnostic atheist stance, which to me is more along the lines of ‘I don’t believe, but I can’t be certain as there’s a limit to my knowledge’, as opposed to being a strong proponent of the belief that there is nothing beyond death.

I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say it’s all baseless. It could just as easily be the passing down of allegorical tales — stories seeded by some guiding or controlling force countless generations ago in our collective development. There are even arguments for things like a collective consciousness or sub-atomic networks, suggesting that our linear experience of time might just be a way of processing information.

Honestly, who really knows? But speaking as someone who has oscillated between Christianity, Buddhism, and atheism in my youth, I’ve come to see atheism as just as much of a limiting dogma as any other belief system.

As a UK citizen at the ripe old age of 47, who has always been fairly left wing but has definitely become jaded with all politics and less engaged than ever, I can honestly say I’d never heard of the guy until this week.

However, from widespread media exposure this week, it’s hard not to conclude that he was basically one of the many grifters that seem to be riding high in the US. There seems to be club of them who disingenuously tap into the unfocused frustrations of many Americans, charismatically providing easy answers and appointing blame, seemingly motivated by nothing more than their own self-interest.

That said, I can’t take pleasure in seeing someone die. I haven’t and will not watch the video. I don’t think it’s a healthy to be entertained watching another humans life brutally end.

I get the need to be left alone. That said, when moving to a new city, I found work was actually a good place to meet people and some (but far, far from all) of my former co-workers remain life-long friends.

It may sound twee, but I feel that so many people not being neuro-typical is the spice in the mix of humanity. The best artists, creators, inventors, musicians, comedians, writers, poets, engineers, philosophers… are mostly neuro-divergent to some extent (on a spectrum, if you will).

I’m in my late 40s and I’ve only recently learned about ‘masking’. I assumed everyone had multiple personalities they wore for different people. Apparently not. I assumed everyone could clearly visualise things in their mind. I assumed everyone had a song playing in their head most of the time, as well as an internal monologue. Apparently not.

I get by pretty well. I’m undiagnosed with some sort of ‘ism’ I guess, but who knows. If there’s no treatment as such then there’s no rush for diagnosis in my case.

Some of these things are not like the others :-)

I fully agree. At this point I’d take my TARDIS back to Berlin in the summer of 1940 if I could get a free, all expenses trip.

I’ll see your Brighton and raise you Blackpool.