MerryJaneDoe

You forgot another variable, an important one.

“You” are not “You”. Most (all?) atoms inside you are different than they once were. You are cycling through them as your body breaks down and repairs itself. Brain, teeth and eyes are about the only stable organs. The rest cycles, even your bones. And, yes, your penis.

The skin cells covering your penis, just like the rest of your body, last about a month. If you masturbate regularly, maybe faster.

So that’s one penis per month worth of skin cells, just floating around your house. And then your friend comes over, asks for a glass of water. A small mote of dust sits in the glass, invisible to the naked eye. You fill it, he drinks it.

Yeah, that’s right. Your buddy just swallowed your cock. I mean, for purposes of this absurd discussion, anyway.

the main value proposition of crypto is permissionless peer-to-peer payments.

I think a lot of people, including myself, expected a more user-friendly experience. And what many of us realized is that a peer-to-peer payment system is a lot of work and risk for the user. Everything looks unpolished and sketchy. You don’t know if you’ve installed the right software. There’s no FDIC insuring the money, and the FBI is going to laugh if you say that you accidentally sent your life savings to the wrong crypto address.

I guess what I’m saying is that I started to realize all the labor involved in secure fiat monetary systems. For me, as someone without a lot of money or any real reason to transfer my money electronically beyond paying bills, the effort just didn’t seem worth it.

So, yeah, that’s the reason I just parked my cash in Coinbase and let it grow. The risk and the hassle of actually utilizing a peer-to-peer system didn’t seem to have much of a reward.

Support groups.

Seeing a therapist is a great idea, but most people can only afford to go a few times a month, if that.

Support groups are cheaper (or free) and they accomplish the same thing, albeit without the focus being solely on yourself.

A small nitpick - always take inflation into account. “$5 million inflation-adjusted for 2025”.

It seems like a small thing, but setting a non-inflation adjusted amount is how good systems are undermined. For example, Medicare/Medicaid.

Medicare had some inflation adjustments built in - but it was for things like premiums and deductibles. In other words, the cost adjustments that fall on the consumer. Every year, the premiums go up, based on inflation.

Meanwhile, doctor reimbursements are NOT inflation adjusted. Thus, Medicare gets more expensive over time but doesn’t deliver the same quality of service (because the doctor reimbursements have less buying power).

Politicians use this trick ALL THE TIME, to gain the support of older voters while fucking younger voters over. They introduce a service that’s fully funded, but designed to enshitify over the coming decades.