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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: December 16th, 2023

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  • Reddit has an absolutely massive wealth of community knowledge. If you want to find a community for $thing or gain obscure knowledge on $thing, that’s where you go (assuming there isn’t an old forum post from before Reddit killed forums).

    Twitter is where a lot of people still are. If you’re the kind of person to care what a particular person says, that’s where you probably want to be.

    Instagram is used by young people who have friends on Instagram.

    It isn’t a great system, but it is the system that we have today. This is why legislation compelling Meta/Twitter/whothefuckever to act in an ethical manner is important. Social media is to some extent a natural oligopoly, and unless we get extremely, extremely lucky, the fediverse will always be a niche community.





  • A couple of ideas:

    • Home Ownership. I know condos exist, but it seems to me that we need a solution for home ownership that is accessible and ecologically viable. Traditional houses (and even duplex’s/townhomes) are massively inefficient from a climate perspective, not to mention the space requirements and cost.

    • Child rearing. In college, I learned that children were typically raised by multiple neighbors, in order to lessen the strain on parents. I think it is unrealistic and unhealthy to expect people to nearly kill themselves attempting to raise a child for the first couple of years.

    • Recreation space. I realize this is mostly an American thing, but lawns are a colossal waste of space. To be of any use at all, they have to be at least half an acre, and realistically, there’s no reason every single family needs their own outdoor recreation space. Plus, a tiny minority of people even use them these days.






  • There is no company that does not engage in anti-consumer data collection practices. Mozilla tried to rank them a couple of years ago, but they couldn’t because every single brand got an F on their grading rubric. That being said, anything can be airgapped if you’re handy. Just disconnect the antenna(e) and you should be golden.

    In regards to reliability, Toyota is and has been the golden standard. Mitsubishi/Nissan/Honda are a mixed bag. Stellantis has been a complete shitshow for a long time. VAG and BMW tend to be reliable, but expensive to fix. Ford and GM tend to be unreliable, but cheap to fix. Hyundai has improved massively over the past 20 years, and now has several models built like tanks, but also several that continue to be tire fires.

    I don’t know what your means are, but I’d get something small and budget oriented for a first car. Smaller cars are generally safer and cheaper, and lower engine power will help make the car more controllable in adverse conditions. If you have the option, a manual gearbox is cheaper to own, and it’s a good skill to learn.

    Edit: Also, don’t buy a car the first year of a generation or a model. Don’t buy a car on a rainy day. Do wait until the end of the month/quarter/year if buying from a dealership. Do find a local, independent mechanic who is reliable and trustworthy.


  • My cousin’s wife divorced him after 6 months to move to her home country. Her stated reason was that during lockdown, she was isolated from her friends and family, and she couldn’t handle being alone again.

    It was hard on all of us but…uh…what does she think the rest of us single people did?



  • I’ve always saved very aggressively, even when I didn’t have any money. When I first moved out, I ate nothing but rice, lentils, eggs, and lard for several months to save a slush fund. Even today, I make ~15-20k USD below median income for my city, and I’ve managed to save just shy of 10k in the past year and a half.

    Obviously the ongoing coat of living crisis is a big deal that needs to be addressed, but we also need to acknowledge that saving your money is unpleasant, and a significant number of people aren’t willing to do what’s necessary in order to build financial security.

    My friends (I don’t get out much, I only have a couple) all have significantly better income/expense ratios than I do, and have exactly nothing saved. Honestly I don’t think that would change if you gave them all an extra $20k/year, because they will find a way to rationalize something into being a necessity.