As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I feel like some sort of alien asking this question but there is this negative connotation I keep seeing towards acknowledging “both sides” of an argument. Now, I know that things that have racism, sexism, and violence on one side and do not have such abhorrent views on the other clearly have a “good” side, but I also get the sneaking suspicion that calling something “both-sidesy” in a context where there are not such clear boundaries is a potential manipulation tactic to dismiss nuanced arguments. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is my dividing line correct or are there other things to consider?

One of my financial goals for 2024 is to donate more to charity. I have a couple of major charities that I donate to once or twice a year and love the personal touch of a GoFundMe whenever someone I'm in some way connected to needs help but otherwise I find it hard to get motivated to find charities to give to.

I used to donate regularly to Omaze, a Charitable organization that would count your donations as entries in raffles for the chance to win prizes. I never won and never really expected to but it made giving really fun and allowed me to reach a much wider breadth of charities than if I had done the legwork myself. Omaze is now shut down and while I'd rather not have to admit it, making donating fun or even just easier would get me to do it more often.

Does anyone have any recommendations to get my charitable motivation up other than finding worthwhile charities and manually donating myself?

My eldest is 17, the other two are 15 & 14. I forgot just how tiring it was doing the switcheroo from cot to bed. Now he can get up. We've had 27 wees, 2 poos and 5 books this evening. We started put down at 7:20pm, it's now 9:10pm and I won the war. It took going old school Super Nanny style, waiting for the door to open, scooping up and putting in bed repeatedly whilst staying silent, until he finally burnt out. He did that 19 times.

It took 3.5hrs 6 days ago, last night he was down in 15 minutes, we thought we had it. Oh, so wrong.

I'm not after any sleep advice, just ranting. It's a lot harder when you're mid forties doing this than when I was early to mid twenties, that's for sure.

Feel free to throw me your amusing stories and pains of sleep training a little dude/dudette that's found independence. I could do with a laugh.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Just wondering what the sense is from others. Is it even a thing that you notice if you are in a more detached, work from home setting? Were “things different in my day, harumph!”

This isn’t intended to be a ranting thread on millennials or such. But I’m rather genuinely curious what is considered “normal” in terms of work ethic and work attitudes.

It seems to me we teach kids math in a way that prioritizes mass teaching and resource management over the actual learning of mathematical concepts.

We rely on paper and pencil, and maybe some limited manipulatives like unit blocks, and there’s 1 teacher for every 15-30 kids or so.

What are some methods that might work better to establish a strong understanding of math if we were able to approach it differently?

Or what are some methods that have been proven to work in other settings and why are they able to be successful?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Please share why it's your favourite took, avoiding as many spoilers as you can.

Mine is Episode 45 of Darknet Diaries, Xbox Underground (and also Part 02).

It is about a group of hackers called the XBox Underground who infiltrated the networks of major video game companies. Their motives started out harmless, with members of the group enjoying playing early versions of games. However, things take a serious turn and there are many twists and turns as the story unfolds.

It's so good that I have listened to it every year since it first came out.

Watching the drama around kagi unfold and it has me wondering how much you take into consideration a creator's view on things like homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. when deciding to use a product. I think most of us have a bar somewhere (I would imagine very few on this website would ever consider registering on an altright platform), so where is that bar for you? What about art? Have you boycotted JKR or dropped your opinion about Picasso because they're transphobic and misogynistic respectively? Is it about the general vibe of a product or piece of media, or are you more discerning? What goes into this decision and why?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This started as a post on asking about how long you think you could survive a massive supply chain disruption and associated collapse of authorities ability to intervene.

But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to paint a picture of a postwar context. Post-Yugoslavian War, post-Korean War, etc. Also, I don’t know if we’ve had any recent memories of sudden, total plunges into anarchy.

I wonder if the modern economy has lengthened the farm-to-table too much that no one could reasonably expect to sustain themselves for any longer than they have food in storage.

What strategies would you use/did you use to survive? Did society break down into roving gangs? If such a thing happened now, do you feel like you could weather the storm?

You can thank my being snowed in the last few days and watching World War Z, The Last of Us, Book of Elijah, Elysium, the Alone TV series and the Band of Brothers for inspiring this post.

Personally, I like to check the South Park Controversies Page every now and then.

The page on Quantum Entanglement is fascinating and has so many rabbit hole links that lead to other rabbit holes themselves. I still go back and re-read them here and there to improve my understanding and check for laymen's updates without all pop-science nonsense you encounter elsewhere.

I'll come back and post a few more when I can think of them!

There was a brief mention of the Amish and their self-sufficiency in the Capitalism topic that got me thinking, so I thought that I'd share my thoughts and start another discussion.

My understanding of the Amish way of life - as someone who is probably thousands of miles away from them - is that they are not really self-sufficient insomuch as they are insular. They don't like to rely on the government, but they heavily rely on their community.

A lot of us here are leftists - some might even go so far as to call themselves socialists or communists. But for the most part we are advocating for government to provide support, and often it's the federal government rather than their local governments. For those of you who do, my question for you is this: why aren't you trying to help out the locals. And I don't just mean your city, I mean your neighborhood or even just your block.

I'm not talking about things like homeless shelters or nonprofits, I'm talking about mutual aid societies. People are complex; they don't just need things, they need people. They need assurance, motivation, and love. These are things that the government does not provide. The US Surgeon General state we are having a lonliness epidemic right now, and that it's majorly affecting people's health. We've had conversations about the lack of a third place but an even bigger problem is the death of our community hubs. It might be a good thing that people are getting less religious, but losing the church was a much bigger hit than people give credit.

We've had many comments in the past deriding "slacktivism". When you throw your voice into the void, you have no real power. But if you put your voice into your town hall, you have tremendous power. Giving money to the government is like having one billionth of a difference to a great many people, but helping out a person in your community is a huge impact in their life which might be the one thing they need to stop them from falling off a cliff. I don't think you'll find anything more socially gratifying.

I titled this "why don't you", but I'm also very much interested in hearing from people who do community work why they do and how they manage to fit it into their lives.

This can be something you want to tell a specific person in your life, or something that you want to tell anyone but are unable to (for any reason).

Share it here instead.

Also, for everyone reading the things posted here, please be empathetic and understanding. Remember that the person posting knows their situation far better than we do.

I don't have aphantasia - I can generally imagine things pretty vividly. I also don't have face blindness - I am perfectly able to recognize faces when I see them.

I just can't remember any faces. And I don't just mean someone I barely know or someone I haven't seen in a while. I can literally be looking at a person who I know really well, but as soon as I turn away, I immediately have zero clue about what they look like. I don't know what my parents look like, or my friends, or even myself. Everything else - the body, the hair - that I can picture just fine.

What's also interesting though is that I can imagine photos of people. So, for example, I have no idea what my face looks like and I can't imagine it, but if there is a photo of myself that I remember, then I can imagine that specific photo in great detail, including my face. But as soon as I change the photo in any way in my imagination, I stop seeing my face again. This also works with other people, not just me.

Does anyone else here experience that?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I’ve noticed that when I’m not at work, I’m at the house and even when I think of going out, I can’t think of anything to do.

I enjoy going to the movies, but that’s pretty much the only getting out I do. When I hang out with friends, it’s typically to bars, but I’m feeling unfulfilled drinking to drink.

What is there to do?

Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria.

Whenever western media outlets speak of these groups they seem to prefix the term Iranian-Backed.

I'm starting to raise my eyebrows a bit at how universally the term is being used. It feels almost mandated. My understanding is these are indeed supported financially and materially by Iran, but they also very much operate independently. So the extent of the relationship is unknown or at least debated.

Does this strike anyone else as odd or suspicious? Is this use fair and justified?

My mind can't help but wander to the laying of a propaganda foundation for direct conflict with Iran.

Don't really know the best way to describe this. But I bet people do know the feeling.

It's Sunday, all my chores are out of the way, and I have time to do anything, but instead I find myself not being able to decide what I want to do. I am turning on various games, looking at the title screen for a bit than turning them off again. I pick up my guitar, mess around for a few minutes then put it down again. I think about a creative project I could start, but then decide to not when I imagine how much effort it would take. Then I go back to scrolling various websites, not really interested in anything, cause it's all the same all the time. The weather is way too cold and ugly for me to go outside, so I just don't know what to do. The only nice thing is that I am listening to music in the mean time...

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

The definition of a lot of money and what would qualify as indulgent is an exercise left to the reader, but assume you're otherwise in good financial shape and you got whatever investments, donations, and balances out of the way.

This is a post to express opinions about comedy and comedians. I am curious about everyone's taste in comedy. This is not a post to covertly express bigoted views about comedians of a specific race or gender. Other than that, everything is allowed!

Apple recently released a journal app in their latest iOS update. I used to journal when I was younger and thought it would be a good opportunity to get back into it. I usually use it as a reflection of my day, but some days nothing happens and I feel like there's probably a plethora of things I could be writing about.

So for those of you who journal what do you like to write in it?

One of my favorite rabbit holes is lost media. There are two definitions for how it usually comes up: first is media which is considered lost or otherwise inaccessible. The second isn't necessarily lost for sure, but simply relatively obscure media people can't identify. A lot of searches start with people recounting some vaguely traumatizing memory of some TV show, movie or book from their childhood, which can then turn into a vicious hunt that takes years to solve. The most famous example is probably the "Clock Man" which played a big role in drawing general attention to the concept of lost media.

Famous examples include the early seasons of Doctor Who, London After Midnight (and many, many, many other silent films), the first Superbowl, an extended version of the ending of Freaks, the original 9-hour cut of Greed... You can find countless ongoing searches today for all sorts of media ranging from songs to video games to commercials and even commercial bumpers.

It's a fun rabbit hole, particularly when you look into the searches themselves and how media gets found. Does anyone have any particular pieces of lost media you're looking for or invested in, or a search or piece you just find interesting? Feel free to talk about cases that have been found, too!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This hit me while watching the latest Gamers Nexus video discussion with Wendell, and Steve recited the quote.

It's often brought up as the inevitability of modern product ownership as company executives push profit-first practices like subscriptions, licenses and anti-right-to-repair designs. However this neglects the fact that these systems don't come from nowhere - they have to be built by programmers, engineers and designers.

I don't know if those same people support right-to-repair and freedom to manipulate what you buy in their private lives (or if they have even thought about it), but it seems like every techie I speak to does support it, yet somehow these things keep getting made.

I want to try and escape my bubble about this. I don't believe the engineers are powerless against the executives - if the engineering community works together and don't backstab, I think these systems can be prevented at the technical level and never see the light of day.

What happens at these notorious companies (John Deere, Apple etc.) that I'm missing? Is the lure of money too great? Is the threat of being back stabbed too large?

The Holidays by the end of the year are a time for meeting a lot of family members that we may not have seen for a long time. For a lot of people, this a joyful moment of relaxation where they can enjoy the company of those they love. For others, this can also be a stressful period, when tensions, trauma, and insecurities related to family relationships emerge, often in unexpected ways. Different people experience those events in vastly different ways.

Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?

What does Christmas (as well as other events with a component of "forced" social gathering) mean to you?

How did you manage it this year?

Is this usually a happy time for you? Why?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I very much would not be. My son had a rough birth, but it probably wouldn't have killed him or my wife.

Both my brothers had children in the last six months. Neither of the kids would have survived, and one of the mothers would definitely have died.

The better question might be: how many of you can say for sure you'd be alive without modern medicine?

I have been pretty consistently pro-Palestine and critical of injustices perpetrated by Israel, but the anti-Zionist stance has always seemed to me to be counterproductive.

On the issue of just the legitimacy of the state of Israel, here's my basic stance: All land controlled by all governments was taken at some point through conquest (this is not a whataboutist stance, it's a tautology), but in the post-colonial era we all decided that might isn't right and that a mixture of international law, norms, and democratic principles should dictate the legitimacy of territorial claims. So, the Ottoman empire fell. The British seized control of the land of Palestine and retained a moderately weak mandate over the land (moderately weak in the sense that they were the essentially undisputed administrators of the land and had a military presence, but the territory would likely try to break away if the British tried to exercise significant control over it). With this moderately weak mandate, they pushed for the creation of the state of Israel that, by extension, I would consider a moderately-weakly legitimate state under the pre-WWII paradigm. Israel fights a defensive war against the Arab states and succeeds, converting the state of Israel as defined by the original 1948 partition plan from a weakly legitimate state into a properly legitimate state. At this point, the post-WWII frameworks kick in, and all the developments in the conflict past this point should be a function of that lens (ie. Palestine wrongfully denied sovereignty, illegality of settlements, etc.).

Zionism, in the most basic sense, is the belief in the creation of a Jewish state of Israel. There are more extreme and moderate versions of it, but that's all that it is at its core. Anti-Zionism is opposition to the creation of a Jewish state of Israel (I would not consider opposition to settlements or, strictly speaking, even to the accession of new territory into Israel proper past the 1948 borders after the two wars to be anti-Zionist itself). The anti-Zionist stance before the establishment of Israel was reasonable, but past that point is primarily a claim of one nation over the land of another nation. It's perfectly understandable at the end of the day for the Arabs and, particularly the Palestinians, to be upset about the whole situation and even to feel that a great injustice was done unto them. But that should all be relegated to the world of international affairs between established states. Ultimately, in my eyes anti-Zionism is not anti-semitic, but it's definitely anti-peace.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Hey everyone! I thought since the community has grown quite substantially since I last asked this question^[1] it would be nice to bring it back up again. Without getting into whether or not the specific idea that "strong opinions, weakly held" may or may not have merit, I think having flexibility in your thinking and not holding on to opinions out of loyalty or inertia is a valuable skill to have. So, small or big, what is something that you changed your mind about this year?

[1] https://tildes.net/~talk/11mw/what_is_something_you_have_changed_your_mind_about_in_the_last_year

2023 has been one of our busiest years in a decade for me and my partner. We moved house, experienced big career changes, and tackled responsibilities that kept rolling in. The pent up energy from COVID years helped us get through it, and I'm proud of how much we've gotten done this year.

Now suddenly I feel like we're so tired, especially this week, after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was super low key, we had a video chat with family because some nieces and nephews were sick with flu, so we're not tired from celebrating, it must be something else. It could be the shorter days, like two or three hours less sunlight than a month ago.

We've even gotten emotional and bickered over random petty things, which we usually don't, and I think that boils down to the tiredness too.

Speaking of the flu, there are people getting sick around us at work and the neighborhood, so I'll bet our immune systems are working hard and making us tired too.

What about you all? What's making you tired? What have you had to give up on because you don't have the energy to deal with it?

A friend and I were bantering about how we should organize a RPS tournament, where the LOSER advanced and was ultimately kicked in the bum by the "winner" of the final round, and also given $10 as a pity for being the "greatest loser".

This quickly morphed into daydreams of a global event, culminating in the grand finals at the Mandalay Bay, with coverage by ESPN 12, sponsorship deals, trading cards ("Joe is known for his southpaw stance and shooting from his off-hand which greatly throws off his opponent." and per-year statistics of Win % by rock, paper, and scissors); the whole nine yards.

But it got us thinking... in today's age, would it be difficult to organize a simple RPS tournament GLOBALLY? What technologies would you use? Could you approach it 100% digitally? How would you verify the loser for advancement?

Let's even say someone was willing to put up $20k or even $100k to actually fly winners from each continent or major population region and put them up at the Mandalay Bay (btw - that hotel just came to mind because it was the first to come to mind in Las Vegas) for a 1-day event. Would that change anything?

RPS because the absurdity of it and the zero cost to entry.

We await your thoughts...

Telling “scary ghost stories” at the holidays isn’t just a seemingly out-of-place line in the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” or the plot of A Christmas Carol - it’s actually a very old tradition stretching back to pagan Yule festivals and Winter Solstice celebrations. So please share yours with us: true or false, but preferably true.

Time to try something new!

Remember the human. It's the golden rule, and knowing your neighbour helps a lot.

This post is an opportunity to meet your fellow humans behind the screen/username, in a format somewhere between the "introduction" posts and the "casual AMA" one.

Format: One top-level post per participant. Talk a bit about yourself (what you want Tildes to know about you), and pick one particular thing (hobby, passion, subject you studied) you really want to talk about.

My engagement: I won't leave any top-level post unanswered for too long. But the goal is for others to interact so hopefully everyone's involved, not just me :)

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Hey Tildes,

I work at an international company which, over the course of COVID, probably had a turnover rate of 80% over two-three years. This was less due to the company, and more due to the incredibly restrictive COVID policies that the country we are located in tried to enforce. I was brought on in 2020, and due to the hemorrhaging of long term employees, a large gap in institutional knowledge was created.

We aren't a tech company, and use Google Workspace/Drive for a lot of our storage and documentation. Within my department I recently put in a lot of effort to create a file organization structure and proper documentation so that we would no longer lose resources and knowledge when people left - and a main purpose was to make it as easy for people to use, cut down on work, find information faster, and provide an easy way to leave with a bunch of resources if they wanted to move to a different company (we aren't in a field where we really compete with others or would lose an intellectual property). It was received with a ton of positive feedback from my peers and direct superiors.

This effort was recently noticed by management and I have been tasked with providing a rollout plan to get the entire organization on a similar structure with documentation processes for every department. My issue is, how does one enforce usage and standardization of documentation and following a certain file organizational structure? While I can think of a ton of ways to structure my process, communicate, and demonstrate the benefits to people, I know that there will be resistance (and in some cases, non-compliance) from staff. I am more than willing to work with them, provide training, and do a lot of the leg work myself, but I am wondering if anyone here has gone through something similar and has good strategies on what I can only describe as leading without authority.

My initial plan was to use the results from my department to get the more enthusiastic departments on board first, and then hopefully good word will spread to help reduce friction with other departments that may be more resistance and not as technologically inclined. However, I know that no matter what I do, I will hit resistance at some point.

The only two times I have had a similar task at a previous employer I had absolute full reign over everything, and it was a completely solo endeavour, or was working with such a small tight-knit group that I didn't have to worry about non-compliance. This is my first time working on such a project in a larger organization and could really use tips from others experience.

I'm trying to not dox myself here - but hope I provided enough information to get some overall tips and comments.

Throughout our lives we make tons of pivotal decisions. Some of these are significant enough that we give them lots of thought and it’s not a surprise when they greatly affect our life path - things like beginning or ending a relationship, or moving to a new area, or changing our lifestyle.

Lately though I’ve been contemplating which thoughtless, inane decisions I made have had the largest butterfly effects in my life.

One example: when I was entering middle school I was, for the first time, allowed to choose which elective courses I wanted to take by filling out a paper slip. I thought playing a brass or percussion instrument seemed pretty badass so I signed up for band. Before I turned it in, though, my older sister saw it, said “band is dumb, do chorus instead,” erased my selection and marked choir instead. Being 11 years old at the time I had no strong feelings about it so I said whatever and went on with my life.

And now, several decades later, I have sang in choirs since then, the vast majority of my friends are those I met in choirs (or theater, which is choir adjacent), and I have spent most of my adult life making money working either in or around choirs in some capacity. It’s my life.

I often wonder how my life would be different if she hadn’t changed my registration sheet. (She didn’t even enjoy choir that much and quit two years later). Would I be living a parallel path of loving and working in music, but with bands instead of choirs? Would I have switched sometime during middle school and then reverted to the same life path I’m on now? Or would I have simply been less hooked to music and instead lived and worked in the field of one of my other interests that are mere hobbies right now?

I’ll never know, of course. But it sure is interesting to think about. Probably the vast majority of the tiny inane decisions we make don’t end up having much of an effect on our lives. But every now and then there’s one that randomly changes a lot.

You ever been there, Tildes?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I would've gotten the Proton Black Friday offer, but it's only valid for upgrades, not for renewing my current account type. Aside from that I'm looking at:

• Affinity 2 (graphic design software)
• Asesprite (graphic design software)
• Curiosity Stream (streaming service for documentaries)
• Kindle Scribe (I'm particularly intrigued by the pen/notebook functionality on this e-reader)

How about you?

Edit 2023-11-27 - I ended up getting the Affinity deal because it was an additional discount on top of the V1 upgrade discount! So I was able to get the entire V2 package for about 67 USD. The Black Friday discount is 40% and then the upgrade discount is 25% on top of that.

I also would've wanted to get the hydroxyapatite toothpaste from my fave floss brand, Cocofloss (25% off the entire site for Black Friday) but it was out of stock.

This is actually two questions in one:

1. How do you counter pessimism in yourself?

How do you keep yourself from sliding into cynicism? Seeing the worst in things? Finding fault everywhere? Losing hope?

2. How do you counter pessimism in others?

When someone’s sharing their pessimism with you, it can feel dismissive or even hostile to go against it. It can feel unempathetic to do anything but corroborate or validate their feelings, even if you feel they’re inaccurate or misguided. How do you respond without sliding into pessimism yourself?

I have something I need to vent about, that I've tried to vent to friends about as well, but where nobody has been on the same page as me before.

In short, I despise gambling (casinos, sports betting, loot boxes in games, etc.), I think it destroys lives, often slowly and discreetly, and I think advertisements for it should be as taboo as tobacco advertisements and should even be illegal.

In long:

I've seen a trend in the last few years of sports betting becoming advertised to an unbearable degree. I can't watch any sport without a commercial for draft kings or fan duel. I can't even watch youtube without content creators being sponsored by draft kings. Advertisements for sports betting, specifically, are literally everywhere. I'm even in a basketball chat and there are several people there that DON'T EVEN WATCH BASKETBALL, they're specifically there to talk about the bets they make for a sport they don't watch.

I've seen at least a dozen friends sign up due to the ridiculous amount of advertising and with almost every single one, they claim they're getting "free money" since DK does give you free bets on a first deposit or something, but then every single one, after running out of the "free money" doesn't cash out and delete their account, they put five more dollars in, then put ten in, etc. until it starts to control their life and their finances. There shouldn't be a person alive that doesn't know how gambling can destroy you, but people still sign up for this bullshit. Nobody seems to understand that the only reason draft kings can give you free money on signup is because, on average, they make MORE than that per person.

On the subject of casinos, I went to Las Vegas for the first time last year. I already knew how elaborate and rich the casinos on the strip are, that part did not surprise me. What did surprise me is that if you go just a few blocks off the strip, it's almost entirely run down low income housing. You have possibly one of the richest areas in the United States in the form of the strip and seemingly none of that wealth is being shared to neighboring communities. It just goes back into the strip, getting sports teams to move to Vegas, getting F1 races, etc.

It just baffles me that so many people gamble and, even when warned about it, even after losing money, they insist that it's fun or that it's not so bad, but I truly think that gambling culture and companies running gambling schemes are some of the biggest evils out there. My parents divorced partly because of gambling. My dad permanently fucked his life up because of it. He has zero money, is now at an age and health where he can barely work, and my sister and I will likely be stuck footing the bill for his care later in life when just 15 years ago he was in a position to be set up pretty well for the rest of his life.

And yet, people still go to Vegas and lose hundreds or thousands on slots or cards, people still sign up on draft kings and lose hundreds or thousands on bets, and seemingly everyone I talk to is entirely blind on how bad of a situation this is and thinks me radical when I say that gambling advertisements should be illegal.

I value personal freedom, I don't think gambling should be banned, but I do think it can pose just as much of a danger to ruining someone's life as cigarettes can, but as a society, nobody seems to have any issue with ads for sports betting and casinos.

In addition to all of the above, we still have loot boxes in video games and collectible card games as a whole, but that would be another 2 pages of writing and I don't want to get in that deep.

If you stuck with me this whole time, thank you. I don't expect many people to agree, but I at least really needed to vent this out, even if it's into the void.

Do any of you have positive or negative experiences regarding gambling to add?