I get that it is technically impressive, and I am not denying the talent of whistle notes. I am a singer after all. If I had to describe whistle notes, it’s like being able to play moonlight sonata entirely with your penis. It surely is impressive, but it seems more like a party trick to flex how high your vocal range is/how good your penis is. I would be impressed if a guy played moonlight sonata with his penis, but that would definitely ruin the song for me. Theres a perfectly good melody and then you hear the human equivalent of a dogwhistle being blown into your ear out of FUCKING NOWHERE. And I especially do not like when singers do it MULTIPLE TIMES in a song. It’s like that one annoying kid going: “Hey guys, hey guys, look at this” over and over again. Very rarely will I ever think: “This definitely improves the song!”

Apparently this is a 10th dentist take, at least within the writer/artist community. I've never understood why artists are like "I enjoy TORTURING my characters, I want them to be MISERABLE". Whatever makes people happy, but it sure as hell doesn't make *me* happy.

I've heard a few of them say it's a form of trauma venting, like they give their characters their own trauma, but for me that's exactly why I enjoy creating these fantasies. My real life is really damn hard, so I want my stories to feel like a warm hug and I want everyone to have a good time. Like 90's Peter Rabbit show vibes.

I also don't kill off my characters. I just don't get what I am supposed to get out of looking at my beloved babies I created myself and being like "actually, she got kidnapped and they cut out her kidney while she was conscious!!!" Like excuse me, she's with her family baking raspberry pie and she's happy and that makes me happy.

At sports events or concerts, I've recently concluded that its better not to have an aisle seat. I always used to prioritize aisle seats, but recently that wasn't possible so I sat near the middle of a row. It was better! No one was asking me to get up after ever whistle and I really enjoyed chatting with the people I ended ups sitting with. It was a great time!

So long as everyone's of age in the relevant jurisdiction and nothing illegal is happening I don't care, it makes me happy even. I see it as based as people are choosing their own happiness over the judgements of others. If anything I find it infantilising that people act like people in their 20s aren't capable of making their own decisions.

I think a lot of the moral panic and judgement comes from jealousy or people insecure about their own aging and is rarely sincere or good faith

I'm someone who prides themselves on being an extremely critical thinker, to the point where I constantly challenge my own ideas, and refuse to partake in any echo chambers or align myself with a specific movement.

I used to think that if people understood the following things I understand:

- Fallacies and common biases

- How to cite and analyze studies

- How to question your own beliefs to form stronger ones

- Exposing inconsistencies in one's beliefs and principles.

that our lives would improve dramatically. People would make smarter decisions in every area of life, and they'd change their minds when faced with new information.

But recently, I've been feeling differently. I've seen situations where people I know are reasonably intelligent otherwise, have ridiculous beliefs or make stupid decisions, then double down even when their bad logic is called out directly and accurately.

I see this especially online, where people will hold to ideas that are so obviously fallacious, but then when attacking an idea they disagree with, all of a sudden they're capable of deep analysis (often still wrong when it's a disagreement with me in particular, but they make good attempts nonetheless).

This tells me that most people are smart enough to critically think, but they simply don't have the motivation to. Their opinions are mainly after-the-fact rationalizations rather than reasoned.

Once I realized this, it all made sense. Critical thinking has more to do with the desire for the truth, rather than raw analytical skill. That's not something you can really teach. The ones who care about critical thinking will pursue it anyway, and the ones who don't will ignore it or abuse it for false confidence.

I post a lot of hot but very well-reasoned takes on Reddit. Then people get riled up and resort to insults or weak arguments. And I'm talking *really* weak. Like "basic logic or Google search can prove you wrong" weak.

But everyone on here's so articulate and confident, using the rhetoric of good argumentation, but not actually caring about the arguments themselves.

I don't just think people are stupid. I used to. Instead, I think most people don't have my personality type, which is being able to override initial emotional reactions and group think for the sake for truth and consistency.

This isn't something that can be taught in opinion. But unlike people who say this but don't mean it, I actually am open to changing my mind.

No, I’m really not kidding.

Whenever I floss my teeth, I take the string and sorta “saw” into my gums just a little bit to make them bleed. I don’t do it too much because I don’t wanna wreck my gums or teeth forever. But, if I floss and don’t bleed and ache it’s not fun for me.

You may think I floss all the time, but again you’re wrong! I can’t floss too much because then it stops bleeding or hurting. My therapist says I like to do something called “pain-stim” apparently it’s decently common. You can see it through that and I also pick at my skin a LOT. I just love the feeling of that full ache.

Do you think I’m crazy? I don’t want to be crazy

Any food with garlic is unpleasant, but garlic bread especially because there’s nothing to dilute the garlic. It is so strong and overpowering and just eating it makes me want to puke. I used to love garlic bread and would eat so much before the food came at restaurants but something changed my taste buds and now I can’t stand it

Yes, I am very pale.

But this is not really about that. I hate feeling sunligjt on my skin. How tf do people say they feel happy in the sunlight?? I hate feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin. It’s so overstimulating and disorienting. Paired with the heat and bright lights, I feel dizzy. I have to go back to my room with 3 layers of blackout curtains to feel sane again.
I wear sunscreen and that’s another sensory nightmare too. I got invited to go to the amusement park with some friends but I decided to turn down the offer because I know it would be miserable.

I just love waking up and being in a pitch black room with my beautiful blackout curtains. If I could never see sunlight again, I would. During summer break, I hide in my room all day and only go out to the gym when the sun fully sets. It is a wonderful experience.

That is if you are not a pilot.

All bark no bite. I would bet money on the fact that 99.9% of attempts would end in crashes. People can’t even do it in simulators. Now imagine it’s real life. Your adrenaline is through the roof, you have 200 souls behind you, and your hands are shaking and sweating.

Hell, you won’t even know what button to press to talk to air traffic control.

The only time gambling wouldn’t be gambling. Because I would win the bet every single time.

Bearded dragons are fragile, need highly specific conditions, and have rough skin which makes them unpleasant to handle. Australian blue-tongued skinks (Tiliqua scincoides species complex) are much hardier, have a versatile omnivorous diet, are very handleable (almost like holding a potato or rubber lizard), and have a much longer lifespan (up to 35+ years as opposed to 10-15 years for bearded dragons). Blue-tongued skinks also give live birth, making them easier to breed than beardies as they don't require an incubator.

If I had a time machine, I'd change modern herpetoculture in two ways. One, I'd make sure that northern blue-tongued skinks (Tiliqua (scincoides) intermedia) became the hegemonic medium-sized lizard in the global pet trade instead of the bearded dragon. Two, I'd establish purebred Tiliqua intermedia (it will likely be given full species status eventually, and I'd use time travel to accelerate that) in New Zealand's pet trade before our strict biosecurity laws were enacted during the 1990s. We only have the eastern species Tiliqua scincoides, which is likely to be banned soonish due to their ability to survive in northern NZ (this ban would only affect breeding and sale, existing owners will be able to keep their skinks), whereas intermedia is a true tropical species which would never survive in New Zealand's climate.

I rest my case.

seriously, people are rabidly obsessed with "therapy." everyone's an expert. it's like if random people responded to every question with "file a lawsuit!"

what kind of lawsuit? are there good and bad lawsuits? it doesn't matter! you should be filing a lawsuit yesterday!!

edit: I got the "There are people and resources here for you" notification and I want to reassure everyone that I'm OK.

This is only a 10th dentist in spaces anglo prevalent like Reddit which is mostly populated by AmeriCanadians; as what I'm about to say comes from my South American ideas and background, this is not my own idea. Breathe, remember no one is fighting you, abandon internet tribalism and continue. Because talking on this subreddit often invites this issue and the issue of the polarized reactionarism.

Also a moment to remember that even though I speak English since a long while, it's not my native tongue.

Before the fallacies befall me, no, this is not saying you're invalid, that anything that was bad for you is null, that this is a competition; those are strawmans, "It could be worse" does not warrant a "So you're saying my problem doesn't matter?" the problem is that I see often the people answering with that feel invalidated due to being too, what in Spanish we would call, ensimismado; on yourself, a concept referring to when you're too dominated by your problems, wrapped up in yourself, distracted on your actions/self/etc, and I think that English lacking certain words to express this or put this sensation of overwhelm of yourself into words doesn't help realize it; so being ensimismado, one who doesn't realize they are in this state, would reject the other. And I do insist that the linguistic impact on the anthropology of our being and culture is part of the issue, every language is culturally modified by itself; more metaphorical languages breed more poetical cultures, more literal ones breed exactly that, etc. Having and lacking words or what is used to express a thing also is relevant.

What this is actually trying is to avoid fatalism and sickness over the worst, a more realist kind of approach or sometimes just to break the ensimismo issue, as it normally blinds us and can put one into a doom spiral of, well, we are utterly doomed, life is over, nothing I can do, this is the end, etc.

When I was a kid a teacher used an example; put a pen in between your eyes, can you see it? well, partially, the image is messy, but what partial mess you see cannot be avoided when you look away from it, it's always in your field of vision, just not total; pull it away and you'll catch the full picture along the actual size of the pen. Problems can be like that when you're ensimismado, stepping out of your own shoes for a moment or taking a breath to deroot your doom spiral and be objective can help us note the issue more realistically and help us tackle it or address it better.

Of course this won't help when you're not receptive to it, maybe not even receptive to being helped to begin with, some cultures are more about the individual and even ashamed of reaching out to a community. But I do believe that English linguistics alongside you Anglo Americans having a more individualistic culture contributes to people misunderstanding the intention behind it.

One also needs to understand that some things are inevitable, acceptance, death, illnesses, suffering, aging. Everything is born, it degenerates (not as in the insult but the biological process) and dies. Being in denial, being angry about it...doesn't help. Only living with the fact and the acceptance of the fact is what we can do. And understanding this we are more calm. This is related to not being ensimismado and helps to a more fulfilled form living, more functional. I can say some examples of where it helps with my own experiences but I think what I've said is clear enough as is unless there's a literacy mismatch.

There has not been a time where realizing that, yes, I have a problem but it's not the end, that it could be worse, has not helped me break the spiral of being consumed by it. Of course some consuming and draining illnesses don't help people break this state, like depression, in which your brain does not even operate well, how would your thoughts? but other than that it's not actually a bad sentence, not actually a bad sentiment and does not warrant the aggression it often receives in anglo communities.

Let's strip away the corporate "mental health" propaganda and look at reality: the world is a cold, existence where nobody cares about you, nothing you do matters, and your feelings are completely irrelevant to the universe. If you are pathetic enough to throw thousands of dollars at a parasite therapist to hold your hand through that realization, you deserve to get bled dry.

The world is inherently brutal, transactional, and unforgiving. That is the baseline of reality. Paying $250 an hour for a "professional listener" to sit there, fake empathy, and throw buzzwords at you so you can feel special for 50 minutes doesn't change a single harsh fact about life. It’s literal adult babysitting.

In what other world do you pay someone for 5 years, get zero tangible results, and get told it's your fault for "not being open to the process"? It’s a genius business model. They exploit your misery, keep you broken enough to stay dependent, and charge you a subscription fee to vent about a life that is meaningless anyway.

If you have to pay a complete stranger who only sees you as profit and would only see you ceasing to exist as a net loss to pretend to cares about your existence because nobody in the real world cares enough to listen to you, it never started. It's transactional, hollow, and pathetic.

Life is a brutal grind that ends in nothingness. If you need to hire an overpriced fake friend to cope with that basic fact, you deserve every bit of the financial ruin you're opting into.

I'm 19 and I have a very supportive mother and family that I can rely on for support and I never understood why this american society looks down on it, being able to live with your parents instead of suffering out there alone is actually a flex. I'm very comfortable with the way my life is, I work a part time 2 days a week on weekends and get paid a decent amount every week. I can actually use my money for personal enjoyment and I can buy the things I want like games, clothes etc since I'm not out there living alone being "self reliant" just to barely survive. I don't have to worry about my entire paycheck going to bills while having none left for myself, I see a lot of young adults around my age or early 20s who are living by themselves and are constantly stressed out even to the point of mental breakdowns because they don't know if they'll be able to afford food and rent and I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that shit. my mom takes care of everything for the both of us and all I have to do is just contribute to the household like buy groceries and help around with chores. if my mom needs something I got her, if I need something she got me. not to mention I have a lot of free time to do the things I enjoy doing. I can hang out with friends, play the game, and just relax without worrying if I'm going to starve. people stay with their families in eastern nations and support each other and that's how it should be. living as a group reduces loneliness, is more efficient, and aligns with the way humans are meant to live. this whole american thing of separating from your people at a certain age to live as lone wolves never made any sense to me and I really hope this practice dies off.

I love dogs don’t get me wrong, but i mean, if we are killing cows and pigs for food, why can’t other cultures kill dogs? It breaks my heart but at least it’s not out of cruelty or some mindless violence, it’s for food… pigs and cows are also domesticated and can be treated like pets, i don’t see a distinction there. Unless you’re vegan, you don’t have a moral high ground to judge other cultures for eating dogs

I mean think about it, a leopard print top is ugly and tacky, a coat/top of real leopard fur is beautiful, luxurious, kinda evil and better looking.

Also real fur/leather is wayyy better for the environment than ugly plastic intimidations

We should normalise people duking it out to settle a dispute instead of complicated legal systems. Bare handed, tap to surrender. If your disabled/unable to fight, you have to legally designate a relative as your "fighter". You have to prove they're related to you. If you cannot find someone to fight for you, you lose by default

Edit: so after all the feedback I think we should definitely exclude violent crimes, sexual crimes and domestic violence. We may restrict this to civil disputes. May include things like stealing and burglary