My partner’s family from Philippines grew up in a home without appliances like refrigerators, like many, many people in developing countries.

So while now they have every modern convenience, old habits die hard and stomachs seem to adapt to even the most adverse conditions of foodstuffs.

Not mine. I love their cooking but can only eat food that I’ve seen opened or cooked in front of me. They will legitimately leave meat dishes out on the table for two days or more and then simply “reheat” and consider it good to serve. The cabinets are full of things like mayo, cheese dips, opened gravies and open bottles of fruit juice.

I have had some of the very worst food poisoning in my life from inadvertently eating something there like chicken salad that I thought was fresh, but made with hard-boiled eggs that had been sitting on a counter in summer heat for several days that a “friend” brought over so they “wouldn’t waste.”

Of course I’m the only one that gets sick, so I’m the “special one” that everyone now thinks has some terminal illness and treats me like a hospice patient.

It seems so obviously counterproductive that the only thing I can think is that they’re enjoying it, like it’s a kink to get into other people’s sex lives and tell them what they should and should not do.

No, seriously. If you spend time in the conservative, christian communities like where I grew up, you hear these people just spend night and fucking day thinking about “sin” and the ways that nasty, dirty, eeeeevil sinners like to sin and all the details about what manner of sin they partake in… and so on.

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Next thing you’re going to tell us is that we SHOULDN’T become absolutely obsessed with the personal habits and sex lives of other people whom I will never meet nor be involved with in any way! Preposterous!

The best story I ever heard about this was a single dad who had to take his teenage daughter to the doctor because she got an infection from inserting a toothbrush handle or something else that wasn’t sanitary, and instead of giving her ANY kind of scolding or negative judgement, he was very loving and helped her laugh it off, and then he just left on her pillow a $100 gift card to Adam & Eve or some other large, commercial, adult site that lets you buy gift cards.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to even suggest an age here, but I think as a parent you will know when it’s time to have the talk/leave the card.

Do you think people become more conservative with age or is it society becoming more progressive and leaving them behind?

I am getting up there in years and seeing this play out over and over.

I think every generation wants to be more progressive than the last, but we tend to carry baggage of fear and insecurity through the generations. Or more specifically, older people tend to gain the political and monetary capital needed to affect policy and shape our societal outlook and attitude. They will always be more conservative than the younger generation who will want more freedoms and personal rights, inherently, and as the ruling class will clash with newer sensibilities, over and over.

What we’re asking here, is the conservatism reflected in our elders and leadership now broadly more harmful or helpful? Are we out of the touch or is it the kids who are wrong?

I think it’s a mix but mostly it’s not our real problem. Our real problem is that no matter what our age, we have greatly misunderstood how our own existence works. Most people have been taught that they have brains designed to exercise logic and reason and that brains are the best thing ever if you use them and make them smart.

No, our brains are not logical tools. We are not a rational species. There was no “age of enlightenment.” It’s all a hoax. Our brains are tools designed to write a story to explain how you feel. And that’s it. It doesn’t even have to make sense. When we all learn how our brains actually work we will collectively make better decisions, have more compassion for each other, and likely sink into even deeper despair as we all start to realize we have no free will.

We should all be learning that we’re all children. Some of us, over time, gain a lot more baggage and issues, but that shit just layers right on top of the “child” parts so we’re all just basically children with complex problems.

The brain doesn’t “prune” itself. The brain you had when you were 12, you have that same damn brain. It doesn’t change. Stuff just gets added to it.

Almost anyone with an irrational political stance betrays their youth.

Political ideology has always captivated the passions of youth, but isn’t successfully implemented or even internalized except by people with age and experience and emotional regulation.

Bears can be trained to drive cars and communicate through various means, it’s thought they may be as smart as great apes like gorillas. This is why they were a choice circus animal for a long time.

Yes, this should be terrifying information.

Yep! Or even how you usually breath without thinking about it but can take over manual control. Your brain does a LOT of things with your senses all the time that you don’t notice, it has layers and layers of intelligence that makes decisions on what it will “report” upwards, so you depend on basically a vast system of managers or sub-officers that are conscious but have no language, to fully captain and control your meat-ship.

The idea is that if you can make your surroundings as dark as possible, then shine a very small point of light into your eye and wiggle it so there’s a shadow changing angles rapidly across your retina, this will make the blood vessels you can’t normally see shift slightly in your field of vision so your brain forgets how to edit them out and they pop into view.

This site gives instructions how to use black construction paper with a pinhole in a dark room, but I’ve learned how to do it with a nearly closed fist and any bright light source.

This concept can be scaled up to a lot of things, like why most of our systems break down. Nature only maintains what is needed to continue the species, everything that happens to you afterwards, with the exception of child-rearing, will be abandoned by nature unless someone gains some trait from living longer that helps the species propagate.

But nature is kind of silly, it doesn’t make “choices” so some of the adaptations can be weird. Like how our retina’s blood supply formed on the front of the retina so your brain has to always edit out your blood vessels from your vision and you can only see it using special tricks of light and then BAM all the spaghetti appears that’s been there all along.

Imagine what else our brain tells us and shows or doesn’t show us to make sense of what evolution has turned us into.

I get involved in my local elections and city/county boards to endorse and support every policy or candidate that either leans distantly socialist, or puts any measure of power or control back in the hands of the people and workers. That alone will do far, far more realistic good for each of us than “developing revolutionary movements.” That’s still roleplaying and I don’t think the USSR’s “successes” were as meaningful as the tankies propaganda makes it out to be. But that’s not an invite for a biased history lesson.

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The fairy dream here is thinking that America is ever going to suffer a violent uprising from a socialist/left direction.

I know if you consume all the propaganda it will feel like this is really the viable solution to so many of our problems, but every meme that proudly shows people in jumpsuits marching under a red flag, they tend to ignore the reality which is if every tankie and socialist were to topple the US government tomorrow, we would still have to live with the hundreds of millions of people who do NOT want a socialist utopia. There is no long-term planning, there is a really delusional belief with some people that actually says “Once the population sees how good it will be, they will fall in line” and I want to scream and physically shake you idiots out there who think this shit.

You can push our society towards more social policies that help more people, but this is nowhere close to a realistic time to talk about actual takeovers and coups. It’s insane and stupid and it fucking HURTS the cause advocating for better policies and social services.

You also don’t affect lasting, meaningful change with dreams of an “uprising” or other fanciful ideas spawned by stories of Cuba in the 50’s. There will be no romantic struggle here, no plucky rebels, no heartwarming finale where everyone is happy.

If you want to make the world better, work on it from within the system and learn why the system is the way it is and what power you have as an individual and as a group, THIS is how people have changed the world before.

I would delight in socialism becoming more widespread and accepted as a system to maintain population growth and happiness, I argue for it all the time, we need a number of very important safety nets before we start feeling like our tax money is going into something less abstract than “America: fuck yeah!” But I also know it takes more than cosplay theatrics and defending tyrants.

edit: the tankies are mad.

The things you think that people care about are most often the things people care least about.

Personal insecurity comes from lack of understanding of systems that impact you.

Everyone has different needs and wants out of their society, but we all have the same axioms. Learning how to connect your axioms to your political identity is a very strong way to feel more connected to your community and the people you care about. Learning how the world works can help guide choices and support others who may also be struggling. Understanding how politics and sociology work gives you a window into how people are motivated and you will make better decisions.

And more than anything, the MOST important part of learning how the world functions and how science, politics, religion, emotion and relationships are all tied to each other, is that it defends you against bullshit and lies.

You and I are very vulnerable to the way others can trigger emotional responses and then use those feelings to explain an agenda. People do this all day long, every day, on every side of the political spectrum, and it’s VERY easy to get pulled into these clubs and communities, most of which are either scams or grifts trying to sell you something or trying to get you to become a walking advertisement for what they’re selling.

Politics are dumb but very, very important

I know that saying well.

And I agree. You are not learning to understand politics because you think you’re going to run for office and change the world, you learn so you understand what’s actually going on and so you can help educate others.

Seriously, everyone out there who rather just block out anything to do with politics and society and are overwhelmed by the idea of finding the path to least harm, you are only going to make your insecurity and anxiety around politics worse by ignoring it or condemning it when you see it. Forming strong values around your axioms is politics, and when you find a confident stance like “Do good things, don’t do bad things” and learn what consequences are of different attitudes and actions, you become a LOT more complete and confident and less likely to be absolutely railroaded by the very real forces out there who will exploit your apathy. It doesn’t mean you have to preach or lecture anyone, just know how things work.

Sitting it out, ignoring it, hiding from it… that feels like you’re escaping, but you are just playing into the plans of those who need you to be apathetic. You don’t get out of taking a side here, so start learning.

How about a young guy with truly progressive ideas?

What are you, insane???