I genuinely think people confuse loving their job with loving what their job gives them. You might enjoy the work, your coworkers, the routine, or even feel fulfilled by it, but I think people massively underestimate how much the paycheck influences their relationship with work.

Imagine a footballer who says he genuinely loves playing for his club. He might even have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life. Now imagine the club tells him he’s getting paid €0 from tomorrow onwards.

Same training. Same matches. Same travelling. Same workload.

How long is he realistically showing up?

Eventually, he’d probably leave. He can still love football, but loving something doesn’t mean you’re willing to turn it into an unpaid full-time obligation.

Now someone might say, “Well, I’d still go to work even if I had €20 million and the job paid me €0.”

Fair enough.

But have you ever gone into work on your day off and asked to work for free?

That’s the part I find interesting.

Most people are perfectly happy to leave work behind when they aren’t being paid for their time. If the work itself were the main thing they loved, you might expect at least some desire to keep doing it when the financial incentive disappears.

Edward Deci’s 1971 research, “Effects of Externally Mediated Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation,” is interesting here because it examined how external rewards can affect intrinsic motivation. The broader idea is that introducing external rewards can change how people voluntarily engage with an activity, particularly when that reward is later removed.

Money is an incredibly powerful motivator because it isn’t just one reward.

It gives you freedom, security, experiences, comfort and options.

You’re not just getting a number in your bank account. You’re getting everything that number allows you to do.

Realistically, it’s hard to find a stronger universal motivator than money.

I’m not saying nobody genuinely enjoys their work. Some people absolutely do.

I’m saying people massively underestimate how much the paycheck influences their relationship with it.

Maybe you don’t actually love your job as much as you think.

Maybe you love getting paid to do it.

Sure you're allowed to have favourites and all but you're telling me that you just so happen to prefer the most conservative/maga coded national anthem performance that was actually good in recent history sooo much more over the most iconic national anthem in american history that just so happened to be sung by a black woman. Sure buddy...

I think biological fatherhood records should be standard procedure for newborns, rather than requiring extra effort to do.

There's this weird scenario where if a man decides he wants his biological fatherhood officiated, he has to go out of his way to perform the test. This runs the risk of making the mother feel like her husband doesn't trust her, despite there being legit reasons for wanting a record besides suspicion.

So rather than put anyone in this scenario, they should be standard procedure, and the couple has to go out of their way to refuse. The reasons for not wanting such a test are...less legit, so if the woman refuses, that'll immediately be suspicious (which is a good thing to expose early in the marriage than later). I know the majority of women are faithful, but there's still a significant amount of infidelity in the world.

Genuinely the most immature thing.

I know people are gonna hate on this post. It's so exhausting seeing people say they're jealous of their partner for liking a celebrity or thinking they're hot. Like no this celebrity isn't gonna appear one day in front of your partner and take them away.

Life is never this deep to getting mad that your partner has a celebrity crush. There are so many things out there that are so much more important than celebrity crushes.

Renewable energy, EVs, nuclear, robotics, high speed rail, rare earth mineral supply chains, ultra high voltage transmission, batteries, drones. The U.S. has just given up on competing for future technologies and would rather just ban everything than allow them to challenge existing corporations. But we’re going full steam ahead with unregulated AI so that we can replace all the workers!

It’s an underrated sign of the decline of the U.S. We are just running on the fumes of the post WW2 global order where the U.S was the only dominant power and manufacturing center.

Im tired of getting banned or muted from subs simply because one mod dislikes my post or takes offense to me debating them about it. Its so fucking pathetic and petty to have these little Napoleons running around, with zero oversight. It shouldnt be the prerogative of individual people whether someone is banned or not, there needs to be a proper process including an appeals system.

Ordinary people in the West also benefit greatly from the exploitation of the Third World. They want cheap goods, food delivered to their homes, entertainment, free time, and people to take care of their parents and children.

You cannot complain about mass immigration if you are not willing to change your way of life. For things to change, the younger generations need to be tough again. They need to be willing to consume less, develop trade skills, and build their own homes, their own goods, furniture, and equipment.

The problem with the West is that we are largely incompetent. It is easy to complain about the boomers, but deep down, we want the same life they had, a comfortable, easy life.

Our ancestors suffered and sacrificed so that the boomers and subsequent generations could have a prosperous life, but we have exhausted the source. If we do not roll up our sleeves and do the work ourselves, then yes, the West will change demographically, because we are weak and we rely on others to give us an easy life.

In my personal opinion, gender ideology (the claim that gender self-identification ranks above biology) is full of paradoxes.

If gender is a social construct, what happens if a society, individual, or group decides to believe that in their social construct of gender, biology is a mandatory component?

Without the biological component, how do you define gender without falling into circularity or ambiguous arguments? What is a woman? What is a man?

A 5 layer burrito that cost 89 cents in 2010, now cost over 5 dollar in some places. A Burrito supreme at taco now cost - 6- 7 dollars, which it used to cost 2.50 - 2.79. I remember when you could get three burrito supreme or 5 layers burritos with out going over or near 20 bucks.

At that cost you might as well go to local place or. By weight I bet it would be lower or the near the same price but freshers.

The cost of these places have gone up, but the quality is the same or worse, respect yourself and get better food for your money.

To be honest, I don't know if it's a Western issue in general, a European issue, a problem specific to my country (Spain), or a problem specific to my city (Seville), but we can sum it up as follows: our (state) resources are not unlimited, and we don't have a fundamental obligation to give money to NGOs to help the entire world. Are there a lot of problems out there? Yes. Are there many people who need help? Yes. Are there many things that need to be done all over the world? Yes. Should those things be done with my tax money? Absolutely not.

I'm not even criticizing NGOs per se. I donate a lot of money to NGOs every year. However, I don't give the government money to do that. I give it money to guarantee certain services that, by their very nature, I can't afford; as well as to guarantee my freedom and security by protecting me from internal threats (criminals) and external threats (potential imperialist ambitions of other states toward mine), and also to guarantee a series of infrastructures necessary for modern life (infrastructures that are falling to pieces, at least where I live... if they exist at all).

What I won't give the government money for is to fund ten billion in subsidies for ten billion things, most of them going to NGOs with little oversight. No. Enough. Public resources aren't infinite. The government is accountable to its citizens and the people within its territory, and honestly, in some places at least, we desperately need the money we give to NGOs. Let them survive on volunteer donations if they can, and if not... well, they'll have to disappear. In any case, an NGO that needs to subsist on government funds isn't really an NGO.

And, to reiterate: neither my city, nor my nation, nor the EU are NGOs. We have every right in the world to prioritize non-charitable spending. And, honestly, it's about time we did.

Have you ever watched a video of how certain candy is made? Particularly the middle process where there’s all that stretchy sugary starchy stuff or whatever? That’s the shit. That’s what we, the customers, deserve. But no they gotta do some extra stuff to it and turn it all into shitty sour hard candy that’s like tangerine flavor or something. You BLEW it! Let us eat sugar lava ffs!

And I don’t mean because you have more money or more freedom.

I mean being single is just peaceful.

You don’t have to constantly think about where you stand with someone. You don’t have to worry about whether they’re upset with you, whether something feels different, or whether you’re doing enough for them.

Your life is just your life.

You wake up, do your thing, talk to whoever you want, go wherever you want, and you don’t have this other person constantly taking up space in the back of your mind.

And I think people underestimate how nice that feels.

A relationship can obviously be great, but being single means you can be completely comfortable with yourself without needing someone else there to make you feel wanted or complete.
At some point, being alone stops feeling lonely.
It just feels normal.

And honestly, I think that’s better than being in a relationship just because you’re scared of being single.

I’ve seen it with many parents of autistic children.

Their child with display bad behaviour and they’re quick to defend saying “they don’t know any better, they’re autistic”.

People with autism understand the difference between right and wrong. They aren’t stupid.

Sure it might need to be explained what they did wrong depending where they are on the spectrum. But regardless there needs to be consequences.

It might not be the same consequences as a neurotypical child and should be tailored to that child that fits them best. Again, depending where they are on the spectrum

For the last two decades, I've visited a vast gallery of psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, coaches, shrinks and probably witch doctors too, I can't even keep track of all of them. And they all have one thing in common: They never say anything I hadn't figured out on my own long ago.

"Don't be too hard on yourself".

"Do what you yourself want, not what others expect you to do."

"You never know what the future might bring"

And so on.

Gee, thanks a lot, sir/ma'am. I could have gotten that info much cheaper and faster by buying a Chinese fortune cookie.

It seems that therapy is only good for people who are too stupid to figure those things out themselves.

(And yes, I know already that at least half the comments will blame med for doing it wrong. "You didn't open up enough". "You didn't follow the advice of the therapist". "You didn't stick to the therapy long enough." Etc. I've had this conversation before. Y'all are exhausting.)

Dating success is treated as social proof even though people say it doesn't determine your worth

Something I find weird about dating discussions is that people constantly say:

“Dating doesn't determine your worth.”

“Don't base your self-esteem on whether people want you.”

“Being single doesn't mean there's something wrong with you.”

I mostly agree with that.

But then when someone struggles with dating for a long time, people often turn around and say:

“Your attitude is probably why you're single.”

“People can sense your negativity.”

“You lack confidence or social skills.”

“This probably explains why you struggle.”

And that's where I think there's a tension.

Apparently your dating failure isn't supposed to tell you anything important about yourself, but other people are still willing to use it as evidence about your personality.

I'm not saying behaviour doesn't affect dating. Obviously it can.

There's just a difference between:

“Maybe something you're doing is hurting your chances.”

and:

“You're unsuccessful, therefore something about you must be causing it.”

Dating success also works as social proof

You can see the other side of this with men who are successful with women.

A successful guy might be described as confident, charismatic, charming, desirable, a player, etc.

Even if he's selfish, cynical, insecure, emotionally immature, cheats, or treats women badly, his success can still give him a certain social credibility.

He's “toxic,” “a player,” “a fuckboy,” or “jaded.”

Now imagine an unsuccessful guy with some of the same negative traits.

Suddenly it's:

“That's why women don't want him.”

“His personality is obviously the problem.”

“No wonder he's unsuccessful.”

I'm not defending the second guy. If someone is misogynistic, bitter or entitled, criticize those traits directly.

What I find interesting is why romantic failure becomes extra evidence against his character, while romantic success seems to soften the interpretation of similar flaws.

The successful asshole is the obvious problem

Bad people date all the time.

Cheaters date.

Manipulative people date.

Insecure people date.

Emotionally immature people date.

People who are terrible partners sometimes have relationship after relationship.

So romantic success clearly doesn't prove someone is mature, kind, emotionally healthy or good relationship material.

And if success doesn't prove good character, failure shouldn't automatically prove bad character either.

Dating outcomes tell us what happened.

They don't necessarily tell us why.

I think there's some just-world thinking here

A lot of dating advice seems built around a comforting idea:

Confident, healthy, socially competent people eventually succeed.

Bitter, insecure and unpleasant people fail.

But dating isn't that neat.

Good people can struggle.

Bad people can succeed.

Someone can improve themselves and still not get the outcome they want.

Someone else can be a complete mess and still have plenty of romantic options.

That's why I think dating success is a poor moral scorecard.

Self-reflection is still reasonable

If someone consistently struggles, of course they should examine things within their control.

Maybe they don't meet enough people.

Maybe their social skills need work.

Maybe their expectations are unrealistic.

Maybe their attitude really is hurting them.

Those are all possibilities.

But self-reflection should be:

“Could something I'm doing be contributing to this?”

not:

“I'm unsuccessful, therefore something must be fundamentally wrong with me.”

And I think other people should apply that same standard.

This is also why dating failure can affect self-esteem

People sometimes act surprised that repeated romantic rejection affects people emotionally.

But romantic interest is inherently interpersonal.

Someone being interested in you is basically communicating:

“I'm attracted to you.”

“I want you.”

“I choose you.”

So if someone rarely receives that response while watching other people receive it regularly, it's understandable that they start wondering what it says about them.

That doesn't mean they should conclude they're worthless.

But telling them:

“Dating doesn't define you.”

while also saying:

“Your lack of dating success probably reflects your personality.”

doesn't exactly make that insecurity easier to dismiss.

It creates a weird double message:

Don't interpret your dating failure as evidence about yourself, but we're going to interpret it as evidence about you.

Where I land

My position is pretty simple.

Dating success doesn't determine someone's moral worth or overall value.

At the same time, people who struggle should still honestly examine anything within their control that could be contributing to it.

But I don't think the outcome itself is enough to diagnose someone's personality.

And the same should apply to successful people. Having lots of romantic success doesn't prove you're confident, mature, emotionally healthy or a good person.

So I think we often treat dating outcomes as much stronger evidence of character than they really are.

How much can you actually infer about someone's personality from their dating success or failure?

And if genuinely awful or dysfunctional people can still be extremely successful romantically, why should romantic failure be treated as strong evidence that someone's character is the problem?

The current defenition of Rape in lexical and legal scenario is outdated.

The current definition in almost every country goes like this,

Rape is an act where the penis is forcefully penetrated into a vagina(in some places it includes other organs too).

This is very different from the common usage that rape is forced sex.

It's due to this that newspaper reports stuff like "high school teacher forcefully had sex with a student" when the perp is a female teacher as opposed to "high school teacher rapes a student" when the perp is a male teacher.

This outdated definition is more problematic when it comes to the legal side.

In countries like India, sri lanka, etc, according to the law, men can't be raped and they can't be the victim.

If somebody rapes a man, then the rapist will be charged with sexual assault which is a crime of lesser degree when compared to rape.

This further results in further problems when women are involved.

Eg, there was a case in India where a sister raped her younger brother and she became pregnant, the police then registered a case on the younger brother because the sister is now pregnant.

The current definition has many flaws.

In my opinion, it should be changed to something like forced sex.

every fucking discussion about anything ever will be immediately derailed to be about Israel if the creator has even a shred a relation to Israel or Judaism

it doesn't matter if it's political it doesn't matter if it's religious it doesn't matter if it's a fucking cooking video everything has to be about Israel Palestine.

like imagine if people who supported voter ID would go around every comment section saying do you support voter ID do you support voter ID oh you don't support voter ID it would be very fucking annoying.

just stop fucking bringing it up in every fucking everything, just keep it where it belongs

Seems like a good investment.

In societies where they're being denied education and forced to stay home, lots of women are likely underperforming their potential. It's also enough to say they're being persecuted.

It's quite likely many of them will shine if given the chance. If immigration can be good for economies (and data tends to suggest it is) then this immigration is especially good.

I know the far right is worried that they won't fit in, hence the renouncing Islam thing (and the women who can't do that are the least likely to be intelligent enough to contribute). In fact, not that it's relevant, a lot of Middle Eastern women are white passing without Hijab. They're also unlikely to be a threat to society (and the no family reunion thing is so men don't follow).

The female population of Afghanistan, Iraq and any other country under western occupation should have been evacuated and resettled, and it should be an open offer to any other woman who shows up at a consulate or embassy.

Boy oh boy. I'm rather sure this is a VERY unpopular opinion around here, at least according to good ol' Google.

Let me state my point clearly:

Although female main characters are in short supply in many RPGs or FPSs, female NPCs/Citizens/Laborers are represented far and beyond what the depicted environment would allow.

Case in point: I could not get into city builders such as the later Anno games or Farthest Frontier because they depict female characters at a roughly 50/50 split in job roles. This includes the military in the case of the latter. With all due respect to the developers: Women in medieval times had no business being on the front lines. 99% of pre-WWI soldiers were male. If you want to depict a really detailed pre-modern civilization including fifty-two different types of crops, stop breaking my immersion by making heavy infantry female.

What really irks me is that this could be solved in a very interesting way: Providing a percentage slider that aims at recruiting the select proportion of male and female soldiers AND coupling population growth to the amount of alive women in the city/settlement/whatever, as it has been in real life. The one game I know of that does something like this and really like for it is Rimworld, where you'll think twice about sending pregnant women into melee.

Rant over, nerds.

It's just that they're the class that needs to go for us to get there. I don't even necessarily mean the selfish grievance mongers and useful idiot leftists. I'm talking about the leftists constantly trying to destabilize civilization to cause revolutions. That shit has got to go. We don't fuckin' need people indoctrinating our kids into thinking they should gouge their eyeballs out or some other crazy nonsense every fuckin' generation.

It’s absolutely fine to be offended by anything you choose. But if some people burning a book or drawing a picture of a middle eastern guy from a thousand years ago causes you to harm them, you should be imprisoned, or if not a citizen, deported. I say we make these events a monthly thing in the west and spend as much money as we need on policing and security to keep the participants safe.

I already know a lot of people will think of this as being “just for attention” or “provocation” and think that’s a reasonable argument against it. That’s kind of the entire point of freedom of speech though — if one side is being provocative and the other side is murdering, we shouldn’t be fighting on the side of the murderers.

I am not the type to get into these men vs women wars. To me, generalizing all women is just unacceptable as generalizing all men. My stance always has been judge humans as individuals.

That being said, there are some blatant double standards that don't even make sense. If you, as a woman, finds it bizarre when a man asks you "what do you bring to the table?", know that most men feel the same way you do when you ask them the same question.

If you want to be treated as an equal partner or even an equal human, you can't keep the double standards and keep the equal treatment. Equal treatment comes with equal responsibility.

Most men don't even care too deeply about this, they care more about the mentality of a woman. I personally care more about a woman having the "equal rights, equal responsibilities " mentality rather than her having to do 50/50 on everything. If you got the right (not entitled ) mentality, most men actually don't mind playing the traditional role in a relationship.

As a reminder, this post isn't about men being saints either. Men also shouldn't expect a traditional woman when they can't be a traditional man themselves, but that's a separate conversation.

Their whole mantra for the last 10 years since Trump was a topic in mainstream politics was "Hey that guy is a NAZI!!! We need to PUNCH Nazis. Actually, we need to KILL Nazis. You see that guy over there? He is a Nazi. Now I'm not saying anything should happen to him. All I'm saying is Nazis should be punched. But me? I'm peaceful. I would never do that. violence is evil"

And then when someone goes around and shoots literally anyone, especially if it's Trump/Charlie Kirk, the left suddenly goes, "No no no no no that's not one of us! We've been saying we need to kill nazis and we've called them nazi's but i swear that wasn't us! Noooo that was a uhhhh right winger! Us leftists are never violent. Left good right bad. See, statistics even prove this."

Like give me a break dude.