Yeah, I think this is something that ever gets truly registered in the naivety and confidence of a young adult’s mind, once it bites you in a consequential way.

Can’t talk for everyone here, but I definitely shared the hubris once, the lack of perspective, once upon a time when I was in my 20s. Based on all the late evenings spent recollecting past lives with so many different people through the years, I think it’s just being human, a shared experience, a trial of fire for adulthood, if you will.

To op: Worth listening to everyone here. It might not feel justified or reasonable to you now, but you might consider that all that might come from a place of experience and goodwill.

I have to say, this is so strangely captivating, I can’t stop looking at it honestly! Weirdly in sync between the two very different approaches! I have zero idea why this is so enthralling but I couldn’t just scroll away without explicitly voicing my confused enjoyment, so peculiar

Bad analogy perhaps. But I mean, sometimes games are shit, but look good, and people buy them due to that. Then the sale is made, even if the game is shit.

Perhaps the smell thing was off, but the sofa breaking right after buying or having sharp spikes under the mattress that poke you if you sit wrong, would not work because things like sofas have warranty for those kind of things. I’d bet smell wouldn’t pass so easily there.

Anyway, point was, good games need not look so pretty and “modern”. Bad games can entice you to buy even if they are bad, if they look good enough. Nothing deeper than that

The more the hardware capabilities and our expectations rise, so does the outright complexity of making the games. I’m sure some of us would be fine with less ”bleeding-edge” games if they were otherwise written and designed great, but I think it makes sense, from publisher’s perspective, to hedge the bets and try to also impress with the fidelity of presentation.

If you are looking for a sofa and find one that smells a bit off but is otherwise functional, comfortable and looks nice, you might think you’d be able to live with the smell and buy it.

You almost certainly won’t and will likely regret the choice, but the sale was made and it’s a whole thing to do returns for something so big and hard to transport and move around.

That’s what you want to go for, even if you think it might smell fine. If it looks good enough, it might nor matter if it happened to smell rank ultimately. Numbers must go up!

Wasn’t my intent to undervalue it. Just noting that the strangers for example, could’ve happened to anyone, those times it just happened to be me. I am privileged in that alone, but the privilege isn’t or wasn’t inherent or special to me, just pure chance.

Which is to say, it could and can happen to anyone. Which is the point I wanted to raise, I think. Life and world is chaotic. Nobody’s excluded or fully shielded from good luck. Nor bad shit. Some might have more things going for them one way or the other, but nothing in this chaos entirely discounts anyone, ever.

But these were weird ramblings from me, I tried (and failed) to make a point and be coherent. I’m not an authority to listen to here, not really sure where the confidence came to present myself as such in these comments.

I get where you are coming from, and fair enough, but I strongly feel it’s more sensible not to mirror this through the worst possible scenario, but the average one.

Either way you make more sense here than I, through a more empathetic and understanding lense, and ultimately I’m not sure what it is exactly I intended to convey with all this back and forth.

Maybe just that things are not always as hopeless as they seem, and if a thing feels out of reach, at the time, unachievable, doesn’t always make it so, or mean it’ll always be so.

But the “all you need is some elbow grease” pathos I’m really not sure where that came from, I didn’t intend it to sound that way, but reading back, that’s what my responses sound like.

Oh well. As long as we dare to dream and hope, we are still alive. And as long as we are alive, it’s never too late for anything, however unlikely or distant they may seem.

In that sense, everyone is and can be lucky. It’s not like you know or feel, at the time, that things would ever improve. Things feel final. It never feels like you’ll get another chance at life.

Yet, most do. I was lucky in that it never took years. But even those seemingly stuck, tens of years on the street, can always get a chance, be it luck or resolve. Or both. I suppose luck means nothing if you don’t have the resolve to seize the chance and do something with it.

All to say, with some resolve, and yes, luck, having your own roof over your head is not a far shot, it’s the genuine common case for most everyone. Maybe it takes time and work, and luck, and will, but there’s no place in world where it wasn’t generally the average person’s situation, as in, more likely than not.

Oh I’ve been homeless, couch-surfed and unemployed with clinical depression that recurs even today, driving those periods of my life.

But I’ve found my footing each time with a bit of resolve and bad enough situation to eventually accrue and warrant the resolve. And luckily, friends and empathetic strangers.

But I live in the 1st world and have also had a family to help and overall safe and helpful society to fall back on, even when I’ve fucking lost the map, not even able to kill myself due to my cowardice, no place to stay, ashamed to ask for help for months at end.

So I know a little, the hard way, about not having a home. Not even the one the op has with their parents.

But I also know, the hard way here too, that it’s only about surviving long enough to accumulate enough resolve to figure things out. If you outlast the call of the void and the shame and despair and the uncertainty of even things like where to sleep this night, can I manage something to eat, etc. then it ultimately works out, with enough resolve.

And when it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter anymore. Losing the resolve is either answering the void or giving up and accepting the bleak situation, until you one day either retry with resolve, or join eternity.

Right. But in much of the world the average wage would be sufficient to cover a home. Not that one should if they can co-live with family or friends, but seeing as op desires their own home the most (the thread), I would assume they’d choose not to. Which comes back to usually being able to “just get one” if one really wants that. Unless they have no income. But almost always that’s a problem that can be solved with enough resolve, disabilities and such notwithstanding.

All to say, if one’s own home is the dearest wish one has, that’s, in vast majority of cases, entirely doable. Which is to say, the dream will come true in this case, with some work and resolve. Unlike some of the other dreams here. Which is an amazing thing, and a hopeful one for the op, which I was trying to highlight to them

Is there a reason you don’t have one? Couldn’t you just get one?

Being content and at peace without being constantly tired or feel shame and guilt about finding it.

I mean, if I asked them about it, their answer would likely be the very same as yours. They just have different view on what crimes are so horrible as to deserve death, otherwise it’s the same argument.

I’m not trying to dishonestly compare or liken you to them or anyone for that matter. Just trying to make you aware that their reasoning is the same, so the question I have is, which one of you is right, or are both right? And if not both, who makes the objective call on all these thresholds of horribleness that demand executions.

Which is to say, we can’t eat our cake and have it too. You can’t just say death is fine for my reasons, but not for someone else’s reasons, because that is dishonest. Either executions are fine, or they aren’t, but anything in between is just trying to have it both ways and assuming that your point of view is the better one than the others’ who do this same argument and ideology. Which is fair and all, you are you, these are subjective things. But the subjectivity is precisely what makes it such a disingenuous argument in the first place. Everybody defines those lines that get crossed, differently. Then based on whose point of view do we make the calls? It’s not obvious, it’s never going to be unanimous, and it will lead to further conflict and disdain in the long run, as we very well know and see ourselves, today.

But it’s a valid stance, it’s very human, I’m not saying you are wrong to think so. It’s just not very rational, is what I’m saying, which makes it, in my opinion, not a good argument for things that lead to deaths of people…

Right, so you say some deserve the chance and some don’t. Who or what makes the call? I bet the Arab countries that lynch homosexuals for example, they think and reason the same as you. So their well-being isn’t your concern? Or do you consider yourself the better moral compass? Should you make all the calls then? Or do you simultaneously judge others making the same rationale, but with different principles/rules, and advocate for the very same thing but with yours? You are fine with the dissonance, then?

No place for them in society as they were, but rehabilitation is always possible, always desired. There will be a place for them after rehabilitation.

We have to trust that system. If we don’t, then what’s the point of prisons in the first place? If nobody can ever change, then they’ll always just remain a threat and there’s no sense keeping everyone in prisons indefinitely. Either we believe they can rehabilitate or we should just kill everyone who’s ever unfit for society, I suppose, no?

Ceremonial killing, executions, are an antithesis to the concept of prisons, rehabilitation. It’s never just, if we have a belief that people can and will change.

Its only use would be to act as a scare of some sort, but a lifetime of forced life, contained in cells, always watched, always mistreated, never a chance for a dignified life, is way more of a scare than death. Death is easy. Death is quick. It’s merciful in comparison.

A temporary stay at a prison without the belief of anyone being able to rehabilitate, is just deferring and allowing further crimes and violence in future.

So we have to believe people can change. Because they can, and they do.

And if we hold that belief, killing is not only killing the misfit in question, today, but also any potential good deeds and meaningful life they might’ve lead after rehabilitation. It’s killing someone, in future, who deserves not to die.

I never understand people who advocate for temporary jail stints and death sentences at the same time. It never makes sense, it’s irrational.

At least you have ipv6 as an option…

I will switch the second it becomes available here. Won’t hold my breath though…

I’ve refused to watch or even listen to theirs, same as any others (I haven’t been able to escape my country’s one though, it’s on news and all), and I won’t watch the show for the very same reasons (Israel).

So I don’t know what it is, and hopefully won’t. Which also means this is exactly as plausible to me as anything else. And I would imagine anyone still choosing to watch the thing would be more than fine with that…

I can’t believe an entity like Eurovision lacks the spine to do the right thing, even with some big participant countries/artists/broadcasters pulling out or boycotting otherwise.

I genuinely liked the concept, it was a fun yearly tradition to watch with friends and drink and eat well and all.

Oh god, I am almost certain I’ve had some dried residue on my hair and scalp when friends with pets have come over! The dogs are always so friendly and full of licks and smooches that I’m genuinely shocked I never thought of the residue itself, never realized it’s actually fatal! How long does the minoxidil itself last, or whatever the active compound is, that is dangerous, vs. the alcohol and others in the topical that might leave residue? No dogs or cats have died so far or been sick after visiting, but for future, I will eventually run out of luck, so better see if you’d know more, and if I have to always shower and shampoo the full scalp before any pets come by from now on 😟

Personally, as an enby, I don’t consider myself trans as such. I have never felt I’ve transitioned, just been whatever I came as. As in my physical and psychological reality matches my identity, though I admit I’m no expert here. My struggles are mostly paperwork, nothing more.

But trans issues, politically, are almost 1:1 same, whatever the real overlap, so there’s no real meaning in the distinction. I don’t want to muddy the waters by claiming to be trans, but whatever I am or am not is neither here or there, when, whatever the answer might be, the issues are almost all shared either way.

And the label doesn’t matter one way or the other. Whatever is most respectful to most everyone, is fine for me, and I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other. But fundamentally I have been blessed, deserved or not, with no need to ever really transition as such.

27 was supposed to be the big year I get my peace. Thematically appropriate and seeing I was born just day after Cobain died, literally, seemed perfect in almost all ways I could imagine.

As fate would have it, the younger me found themselves in a temporarily good place and life situation back then, and that plan, long planned and honed well, got scrapped in that momentary distortion of perspective. Having been clinically depressed for over a decade back then, in hindsight, it just seems so ridiculous to have dismissed all that so readily…

Oh the naivety and pure innocent energy of being young like that. And I’m not that much older anyway now, although the lens through which life opens to me has changed dramatically since.

Fucked up big time. Hasn’t felt the same ever since. That, there, was the time to do it if I ever was to do it. Now it all feels mundane in comparison and almost just undeserved too.

Imagine being born a day after Cobain died, then after exactly 27 years, die that very same day, turning exactly 27 years old then and there.

That just seemed so perfect.

”en jaksa mutta jatkan / tämän yhden mäen vielä / sateen jälkeen täältä näkee kauas”

Vorna - Kauas

Don’t know exactly why, but this has always got to me, hits some spot nothing else prior ever had, and nothing else still has not since.

Translated to English, it’s something like:

“I have no will or energy, but I shall climb / this one last hill / after the rain you can see so far from here”

It doesn’t translate well, but something about it really resonates with me. I’ve lived with clinic depression for so long, and I’ve been so close to giving in, but always just choosing to climb that one last hill gives some perspective and after all these years… here I am.

I’m too tired to continue, but I’ll fight this one more fight before I fall to my eternal slumber. And after the fight, as the dust settles, the rains stop… well, the view is beautiful. The world is beautiful. But I’m tired… too tired to go on. So I shall only fight this one more fight before I get my peace. And so on and so on.

It just feels like I belong in those words.