Unfortunately Not a Real Pony

A lot of negative cRPG reviews make sense when you realize that most of those gamers aren't playing games because they're interested in those specific games, they're chasing the experience they got playing their favorite game for the first time.

Most vegetables fall into one of four categories:
1. Fancy carrots (fennel, celery, parsnips).
2. Fancy onions (garlic, shallot, leek).
3. Fancy cabbages (broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower).
4. Actually fruit (peppers, corn, tomatoes, beans, peas, squash, cucumbers).

"I use social media to rest/relax" is a (defensive and sometimes aggressive) assertion I see people make sometimes.

Now, it's true that the people who inspire them to say this are generally judgy busybodies who aren't saying this with good intentions.

And it's also true that a person's preexisting issues will not automatically improve by deleting apps on their phone.

I am, however, still annoyed by the statement. Rest is taking a nap or at least putting everything down for a bit and letting your brain and body just chill; browsing social media isn't rest any more than reading a book, since your mind is still engaged with something.

Social media can be relaxing, but... honestly, the people for whom social media is relaxing are the ones who look at nothing but photography or recipe blogs, and that's a demographic that social media algorithms are actively hostile too. (They're also a demographic that's unlikely to be writing defensive statements about their social media usage.) The fact of the matter is that social media (and much of the modern internet) is designed to keep you engaged as long as possible (because you are the product and the real consumers are the companies paying for ads to be placed in front of you), and, fundamentally, letting you scroll purely relaxing stuff does not keep you as engaged as putting things you will be enraged and disgusted by would.

And because the enraging and disgusting stuff is mixed in with things that makes you feel good (funny, educational, validating stuff), it's that much harder to recognize how much the whole experience is putting stress on you.

I suspect that the general disconnectedness people feel (from each other due to stranger danger and panopticon policies, from their jobs due to capitalist grind, from art and nature due to a lack of societal prioritization, even from their own minds and bodies due to a lack of time and energy) is fueling their willingness to buy into fast fashion, fast tech, fast entertainment, etc.

A major part of my philosophy is that you can change the future but not the past.

You can't undo whatever bad things you've done, but you can make amends and do better going forward.

You can't erase the bad things that happened to you, but you can work toward recovering and building a better life for yourself.

Yes, it's tragic that you lost or wasted those years in the past. But will you throw more of your future away by beating yourself up about it, or will you try to make tomorrow better?

My anecdotal observation is that it's the my-way-or-the-highway, argue people into submission type of leftist who are so prone to getting radicalized into right-wing ideology.

Ultimately, the only way to ensure people don't steal your art is to never make it. If it exists, physically or digitally, there's a risk that someone will get their hands on it and copy or claim it.

Now, there are various levels of risk. Keeping a document saved on your password protected personal computer means that someone would need to break into your account to do so, and people who do that are probably looking for your bank information rather than your magnum opus. Posting something to Wattpad, on the other hand, is like waving a flag in front of a raging bull.

Ultimately, it's up to each of us to decide which risks are worth taking with our own art.

(I'm not saying that the rampant stealing of art is morally correct, because it's not, it's awful. I'm saying it exists and it's something we all need to be aware of.)

Hypothesis: while the zoomies are typically associated with physical activity and restlessness, mental zoomies also exist.

What if moose could pronk?

The "scientists and engineers are bad at social skills and creative endeavors" thing isn't some natural law about the division of labor among hemispheres in the brain.

It's a socially created thing. See, a lot of us got shunted into the "good at math and science" box sometime in elementary school, and since science and engineering are prestigious careers, our parents and teachers pushed us to focus our energy there, often at the expense of all other subjects (and sometimes at the expense of our actual childhoods).

And then because we were in that category, we were allowed to lag behind in other skills - whereas other kids got corrected on bad behavior and encouraged to play sports, paint, sing, etc, we were told not to worry about that and focus on our books.

So then we grow up with the ability to solve complex equations in our heads and encyclopedic knowledge of the periodic table... and very few other skills. And what's more, most of us swallow the idea that our prestigious careers are inherently better wholesale, and refuse to consider the importance of anything other than STEM.