I don’t think you understand what “snake oil” means.

The Matrix did. Imho.

So is it … the “whole thing”? I.e., Lemmy was invented / created / etc. by a bunch of authoritarian weirdos?

I’m guessing that the question itself reveals that I don’t even understand what Lemmy is, but hey. Any help appreciated.

Well this is news to me. The whole thing; created by Marxists, etc, etc.

Wtf?

Some great advice here already! So I’m going to suggest something novel:

Consider “settling,” just a tiny bit. What I mean is, don’t be so quick to assess someone new as A Partner…potential or otherwise. Try letting gals in who are attractive enough and carry themselves well, seem sane, easy going, smart, etc. Shared values, that sort of thing. A female friend with potential, if you will. See where it goes; be open to being surprised, pleasantly or otherwise.

I’ve seen so many younger men “auditioning” mates with unrealistic expectations about “clicking” or “just knowing” — and winding up as older bachelors who have never even had a chance to practice being in a relationship.

Yes, like literally anything else worth doing/having, it takes practice!

Perhaps it’s the reductive/naive, “US builds yet another carrier instead of housing the homeless” idea on parade (yet again).

The world, and everyone’s place in it, is a bit more complicated.

Hard to maintain if someone is pushing all the right buttons, but I have found it most useful to treat every argument as if it is being made in good faith.

Sincerity is impossible to “prove,” so any attempt at calling someone out is doomed; best (imho) to engage the point and not the person making it.

Christmas Rapping by the Waitresses

That’s because it is Children of Men.

Focus on building muscle.

If you haven’t already, get a guitar and give it a go.

I’d it sticks (and lights you up), you’ll have a lifetime journey and millions of fellow musicians to share it with.

rhetorical “question”

I use Affinity sometimes, but PS, AI, & AE rule the roost because they are just better at most tasks.

PSSm: Apple Motion flies way below the radar and can do a LOT of things better/more elegantly than AE.

I delivered two seasons worth of graphics for a network show, and 85-90% was done completely in Motion.

YOU’RE

Any thought or idea that begins with “people are…” is doomed.

There is no such thing as “people;" there is I only you, this person here, that person there, and so on.

Stayed honest and followed my nose into whatever actually lit me up and really did things fully.

I think you’ve made some assumptions about my position on this…my sense is that we are essentially in agreement, I’m just a bit more willing to stand in the “we simply don’t know…yet” column?

Yes it deserves study, yes I believe it’s a matter of us not understanding what’s what (and how), not “and then god” or something silly.

Fake news.

People say they want the truth but they can’t handle the truth!

9/11.

I didn’t think much about the dangers of religion and “faith” in general until then.

I can see how magic appears to be creeping in!

When I think of “magic” in this context, it’s the kind of magic that a citizen of the Roman Empire might see at work in viewing a Facetime call on an iPhone. I think the wall we hit in trying to unpack and nail down consciousness is a similar impediment; we simply lack the knowledge, understanding, context, and even language (at least so far) to begin to address it directly.

We are smart enough to get these questions, but not yet able to answer them. I don’t think that means we must somehow use our current understanding of a thing to arrive at comforting explanations; instead, I think that this question in particular is forcing us to admit We Don’t Know…and can’t even fathom what it might take to actually nail it down. The black and white/color thought experiment is a beautiful allusion to what this unknowing is like, and I think that’s where we must be comfortable sitting, at least for now!

(PS agreed! Love me a good thoughtful disagreement)