I think it bears mentioning that the “deranged maniac” title isn’t the whole story. I don’t know about this guy in particular, but a lot of these guys are all part of far-right online cliques that share propaganda amongst each other while valorizing the guys who do this shit.

I love driving and I do it professionally now despite being a very anxious person. I felt exactly the same when I was younger and had lots of friends who felt the same. Drive as safely and slowly as you’re comfortable. Don’t let jerks on the road pressure you, they can wait a bit if need be. Over time, you’ll become more comfortable and capable.

My friends play games together every night and I join them pretty often. I could game more if I wanted, but I’ve been losing interest. All of us are broke as hell, but no kids, no marriages.

I think pc spec creep will eventually leave us in a situation where we need to upgrade but can’t afford to and I’m not sure what we’ll do then.

Growing up, I lived a lower middle class life. Now, I can only eat once or twice a day and still pay my bills. My parents are in the process of a divorce and selling the house and when that’s done I’ll be homeless.

My life has never been like the image of poverty, but money has been very tight my whole life. We live in a rundown and neglected suburb, but it’s certainly not a ghetto or slum. I did get some toys growing up and played in sport leagues and very rarely went on trips to places. After I turned 10, money got way tighter for my family and most of my comfort and luxury has come from working and buying my own stuff. Luckily my parents are too prideful to shake me down for money which is normal for other poor parents to do to their kids around here.

I don’t think there’s too much a middle class person has experienced that I haven’t, but I’ve spent my adult life so far by spending as little on my day to day as possible so I can afford to go out and enjoy life. Last week, I went to a fancy indoor gokart place and ate at a restaurant after with some friends and another day I went to street festival. This week, I’ve eaten 7 times total and haven’t gone anywhere. Eventually I’ll leave this overpriced shit hole, but I’m trying to hunker down and not shake anything up while The Orange Emperor reigns.

Kingdom Hearts 2. I think my parents randomly got it with the ps2 slim they got me for christmas or a birthday when I was a kid. I knew nothing about final fantasy or anime, but I absolutely loved disney movies. I don’t really know too well why it got me hooked so much. I had a head injury when I was 15, and have heavy amnesia of my life before it. The fact I remember so much about that time is really a testament to the impact it had on me.

I remember the aesthetic was completely new to me and I thought it was really cool. In hindsight final fantasy characters hanging out in disney movies is pretty weird, but they just looked like really cool guys fighting evil in the background of the movies.

Roxas’ story was also super compelling for kid me, the entire prologue felt dreamlike, emotional, and thought provoking. It was like I was playing a novel. For context, the games I had played up until that point were essentially just pokémon, spyro, smash bros, and mario kart. So the idea that a game could be emotional and have an interesting story was completely new to me.

Now I can see the flaws and oddities in the series, but I still love it and it’s had a ridiculous impact on my life. I sometimes worry a little that if the people in my life played the series they might see the inspiration for so many habits I have now and pretty much my entire sense of style is heavily influenced by the idea of Tetsuya Nomura design blended with disney vibes.

You mentioned drinking. Did you drink a lot in the past? I’m no expert, but my understanding is that heavy drinking creates fat around your abdominal organs which is harder to work off. It’s also possible you put on a bit of water weight from creatine if you used that while working out. I don’t know the best way to quickly work either case off, but it should fade over time if you exercise regularly and avoid or limit those substances.

Regardless of those thoughts, the best advice would come from asking your doctor.

I was eating dinner with my dad a year ago when he told me about how he believes jews secretly run the world and that there’s something fishy about the Rothschilds. I burst out laughing thinking my dad had suddenly developed a very modern online sense of humor, but unfortunately no.

I’ve never known my dad to be antisemitic, and he even explained that regular jews are a different group from the ones in control.

I straight up told him it’s ridiculous and that he needs to get off the internet, but he never agreed with me. I still don’t know how to handle the situation really.

Oh and my mom went borderline sovereign citizen a few years ago, but I don’t remember what insane thing she said first.

Where I’m from, the tourists are usually nicer and more respectful than the locals.

Therapy isn’t brain medicine. It’s different for lots of people, however to me it was an opportunity to practice skills I otherwise wouldn’t in a safe environment. The main skills I was able to practice were self reflection and emotional expression.

If I hadn’t gone to therapy, I would still be practically unable to open up to the people closest to me and I would still have my self image corrupted by delusions of self hatred from depression.

It’s sounds like fru-fru bullshit, but it does slowly make a difference. Eventually I realized that all my relationships became more healthy and my self confidence was significantly improved.

Lots of people -especially men in my experience- have no experience opening up and have a lot of deep fears about it and they end up self-isolating way more than is healthy. Therapy is the only real way where you can express yourself and get a sanity check without any kind of blowback.

USPS is unionized. No cameras, Way less micro-management, and you can pee when you want to.

A lot of people here are looking for a philosophical answer, but I personally think it’s really just a class issue. Most people in the US don’t like to hear it, but our class structure is practically a caste system.

People generally despise the people of other classes (or castes), above or below. This is reinforced by segregation and media. Ultra Rich > Rich > Upper Class > Middle Class > Lower Class > Welfare Class > Homeless. All these groups live in separate communities with specific media environments that vilify the “others”. These groups only ever interact in ways with clear hierarchy. This is only exacerbated with the death of third spaces.

Having been middle class and sliding down the ladder to the point of imminent homelessness, I’ve been struck by the fact that the distribution of assholes for each group is pretty much the same. Over and over again, I’ve seen nearly no contact between classes to dispel the images projected by each class’s respective media ecosystem.

This country is so fundamentally segregated and divided that I really don’t know how it can be changed. There is really no clean and fair way to actually inform people about the similarities between people.

I’ve been using DDG exclusively for something like 8 years. It works great for regular text search and I use bing for image searches. I really don’t understand the reluctance of people to switch to it. To me, Google has been borderline unusable garbage for a long time.