Thank you for expanding on that point. I meant it to be a “here’s how we got here” before the rest of my “this is where we are today.”

You’re totally right, and any conversation about men’s behavior at large should include the experiences you just described. Even though we didn’t get ourselves into this situation - in that we didn’t raise ourselves - we’re the ones who will get us out.

I’m a therapist who works almost exclusively with men. Here one pattern I’ve seen often:

• Man is conditioned from a young age not to identify, process or express his feelings
• Man doesn’t share his feelings with anyone - friends, family, partners - for years
• Man sees woman as safe, caring and validating
• Man confides in woman only and continues not sharing feelings with others
• Woman becomes overwhelmed, resentful, dismissive
• Man gets the message that he never should have opened up in the first place

It can be true both that men need to open up more and should not treat their partners as therapists. We all need support systems because no one person can always be available to give us everything we need. It’s not wrong to confide in a partner, but if that partner is the only confidant it’s precarious for both. And I want to emphasize this is not the fault of a man, or men as a community. This is the result of generations of conditioning from both men and women, and both men and women play a part in the solution. I also want to recognize that many of us don’t have a network of people we could open up to even if we wanted to, and many more can’t afford therapy.

If anyone reading this can afford therapy, I highly recommend it. It’s a place to undo some of that conditioning, to sit with someone who’s committed to listening, caring, and not judging.

young people feeling depressed and isolated is the least of your problems.

Children are the future of EVERY country. The future is looking bleak for young people in the US. Where do you live? Are young people unaffected by social media or what?

Out here in actual civilization though, tik tok youth drama is not representative of reality whatsoever.

That’s the thing though. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around sometimes, but for lots of young people, social media IS their reality. This became even more true during the pandemic. We asked young people to go to school on a screen and pretend it was the same as doing it in person. Why wouldn’t they have the same mindset about chatting, hanging out, flirting, dating, etc.? They don’t see it as simulated socializing, it’s just how they socialize.

I agree that this is a sickening amount of e-waste, and companies should be responsible for processing/recycling their own waste, but what’s the alternative in this case? Mail the faulty batteries back to Anker?

Oh I don’t at all support what Meta has done, and I don’t trust any company not to harm and exploit users. I was responding to your comment by saying that talking to a chatbot doesn’t necessarily indicate that someone has “bigger problems.” If they’re not in a crisis, and they have reasonable expectations for the chatbot, I can see how it could be a helpful tool. If someone doesn’t have access to a real therapist, and a chatbot helps them feel better in the meantime, I’m not going to gatekeep that experience.

I’m a real-life human therapist (honest!) and while I don’t think it’s a substitute for talking to a real person, I’m happy that some people get some benefit from chatbots. I had a client who used Rosebud Journal in between sessions and found it helpful. I tried out Rosebud myself and I was very impressed with how it replicated the basics like reflective listening and validation. It was even able to reframe my input using various therapy models when I requested it. I didn’t use it for long because I’m not big on journaling, but I wouldn’t dismiss it completely as a tool.

Did the article say it was shaky? Even if they didn’t use the iPhone image stabilization, surely they could adjust it in post-production so it looks good.

FWIW, The Criterion Channel is worth every penny. They have not enshittified one bit, and they do amazing work in curating, restoring and preserving older films. Not just classics like Kurosawa but more rare and obscure films too. They have themed collections that rotate every month. It’s like visiting an independent video store staffed by film scholars.

Next Level aren’t as cheap as they used to be, but they’ve been my go-to for over a decade. As you said, they’re much more flattering on me than most boxy basics.

Part of the magic for me is that for years after its release it was so weird and mysterious. Was Tommy Wiseau in on the joke? Who the hell is this guy, where is he from, and where did he get the money to finance this? I don’t normally care about so-bad-they’re-good movies, but The Room is such a treat.

I had the same thought. How were they calling it a bomb after like 5 days? Keep it in theaters long enough for word-of-mouth to spread and things would be different.

OP wasn’t arguing that Italian-American culture necessarily resembles Italian culture. Of course they’re different. You’re implying that the concept of “Italian-American culture” is superficial or illegitimate because it differs from the way that Europeans talk about international or intergenerational identities, and that’s some prescriptivist bullshit. “Genuine cultural identity”? Get out of here.

Daniel Radcliffe in the Weird Al movie. Everyone in Possessor.

I had never heard of her before Pearl, and she fucking blew me away. I’ve been underwhelmed with her choice of roles since then, but she’s earned my respect.

Is it possible to set up the pihole so certain devices are unfiltered? My partner works in digital marketing and needs to test that her clients’ ads are functional.

I’m naive. What’s the motive for an attack like this?

Oh my god that didn’t even occur to me. Maybe I am a beginner!

To be honest, I recently got a TCL Roku TV and I almost gave up on trying to use it as a dumb TV. I’m not a beginner at this, but setting up a network connection was so embedded in the initial setup, from the moment you turn the TV on. I did a couple factory resets and I could not figure out how to bypass it. Turns out I had to set it to “store display mode” at a certain point and then connect my other streaming device.

"Our youth love luxury.  They have bad manners and despise authority.  They show disrespect for their elders and love to chatter instead of exercise.  Young people are now tyrants, not the servants of their household.  They no longer rise when their elders enter the room.  They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up food and terrorize their teachers.” -Socrates ~400BC

And I’m in no hurry to see it.