My 16 year old: "I can't wait until I can do whatever I want!"
Me: "I thought the same thing. Turns out it's not as fun as it sounds."
I respectfully disagree. I realize that everyone's experiences are different but I greatly prefer being an adult to being a child.
Being an adult got awesome once I developed basic self control
23, would much rather be 16 again even if only temporary
There is a term for this, but I can't remember what it is.
It's a phenomenon where a person goes through their formative years in a given structure, where you are raised by your parents, go to school, and are given set goals for every year - do X and you'll get to Y. This goes all the way up to your early twenties if you go to university, possibly longer if you join a structured company with similar guardrails, or much longer when you join the armed forces and live in a regimented way.
Once people leave these guardrails, some really struggle with the freedom they are granted. No one has a goal to point you towards, no one cares if you fail, and ultimately your life has a degree of freedom you haven't experienced ever.
One thing we're terrible at as a society is either guiding people with no clear path, or supporting those that don't want a clear path and want to find one of their own. Some people really struggle with this, and the freedom of being able to do shit like overindulge on drugs/alcohol/food with no support or community support can ruin lives.
That's why religion unfortunately continues to exist. They are the imaginary guardrails, but towards an imaginary goal that is often taken advantage of.
A lot of things are worth doing for the sake of challenging yourself, but then battling your own mind about if something is a wasted effort or not is the real war.
As a general rule, anything you have to repeatedly do you should master.
Or figure out how to do it less.
A few years ago I worked as a telecoms engineer. The role itself was pretty free-roaming and a large part of your working day was unsupervised and allowed you to make your own decisions and your day to day achievements were pretty much all down to you and/or the guys you were working with.
Anyway, the company had a spell where they hired a lot of ex armed forces personnel into various engineering roles, many of whom had done long stints in the military. Pretty much every veteran I worked with was smart, hard working, organised and a joy to work with. With one caveat, most of them needed an 'order' to do a particular thing, or pushing into thinking for themselves. They had spent their entire working life in a structured, order based environment, that left them unprepared when they were given the freedom to think for themselves.
I can totally get how homelessness and addiction problems can beset people when the structure they have spent their whole lives within, is suddenly not there any longer.
I think this is the cause of a lot of veteran houselessness and suicide unfortunately.
There are no guardrails in life
Except for, of course, any actual guardrails you encounter.
Those are usually only guard suggestions
Nah. Unless you have a severe condition like psychopathy or some other neuro divergent state, your brain is pretty consistent with giving you warnings. These take the form of "bad feelings" and second guessing. Most of us just choose to ignore them and then begin the mental gymnastics, altering the chemical pathways to justify and continue the behavior.
Does not necessarily apply to financial decisions because this is an artificial system with no basis in reality, brain is not wired to assess properly. Also why it's easy to con people so easily. No natural defenses.
I don’t know, some of us (not me) have pretty good instincts when it comes to resources. We are aware that money = resources. The system by which we get resources may be artificial, but it seems to me a pretty natural thing for an intelligent species to put together. Not everyone can do the same thing, we’re not like ants where we have defined roles (at least not obviously). Money kind of seems like a natural development in a post specialization world. One thing that can be used to trade for all things. You might not be interested in a shirt for your crop, but you’ll sure as shit take a note that can get you anything you want.
I don’t know, I’m just some uneducated idiot from nowhere. That said, I don’t imagine that money is the final development for our species, at least I hope not.
People would be easily conned if it wasn’t money. I can imagine a world where some jackass walks up to someone and says, “ahhhh! You look like a man who likes to eat! I see you defending that berry bush there, and I don’t blame you. It’s a swell bush. What if I were to tell you that I met a man who can turn just one quarter of that bush into a year round supply of fresh berries. Look at me, look how fat I am. I didn’t get this way eating from one bush for one season. No siree. I got this way because this man shared his secret with me. You let me leave with a basket of berries, exactly a quarter of your bush, and I’ll return with enough blessed seeds to feed you for a lifetime! Your bushes will grow in the dead of winter! You won’t have to stand here defending it anymore. It would take an entire population to rob you of all your fruit.”
We do have natural defenses when it comes to our resources, and that actually explains greed a bit. I’ve known people who are so generous with money they don’t have yet, because it isn’t a resource that needs protecting yet. “As soon as I sell this place I’ll have 2.5 million and I’m going to look out for you.” Gets 2.5 million, never hear from him again. Now that he has the resources, his instincts kick in for him to protect those resources.
Edit: Coming back for a little more because it hit me, I do have instincts about resources. I want to make sure the entire tribe survives, so I spread my resources around as I get them and work for free haha. Damn my instincts. Can’t have shit.
Brain is wired to assess property. Walk into a mother bear’s den and she will tell you all about it.
The pop up is called natural selection. Any of your distant ancestors who clicked “Yes” to eating dirt did not survive.
Sadly, we have been so good at protecting people from stupid, we need the popups again.
Never know if the dirt eaters won or not. They might've been up against shit eaters.
Ah, the two party system, dirt eaters vs shit eaters. But more parties does not equal no dirt and shit, sometimes it just becomes dirt, shit, manure, fecal matter and plain old sand.
Some people have ancestors who are dirt. It's called geophagy
If you have ever taken an OTC anti acid you've likely eaten dirt. You can actually buy white dirt in the American south still. It tastes just like tums.
Eating dirt might even work out but eating stones doesn't.
Is it that sad, or is it actually great!
Picks up bleach.
What the fuck does that mean clippy?
Yes. I'm 40 and leaving ~800k if I die at work. Tell my blood brother and other brothers I love them. Insist they spend 20k on drugs at my funeral. Buy lots of cheap and/or electric motorcycles.
Thanks Mr Clippy
Ah, but have you considerd trauma? You might regret your choice for the rest of your life.
I mean the taste of the dirt is kind of the warning?
"Broccoli is one of the worst things you can eat! It even tries to warn you with its horrible taste!"
"...I like broccoli."
Nothing is true.
Everything is permitted.
But not everything is beneficial.
I agree. Was just quoting the assassin’s oath from the Assassins Creed games.
If it works, it's true.
Perhaps not for the reasons you think, but still.
The are you sure message is your parents and peers looking at you like you are stupid.
Windows users first time on linux be like
Autonomy FTW
* Goes outside *
* Tries to fly *I think I've been lied to on the internet...
The problem is you keep, too accurately, hitting the ground. You have to miss.
This guy's on point. You really have to throw yourself at the ground and miss. If you need a good counterexample, think of what happens when you drop a brick.
I mean that's what the wright brothers did, they went outside and just tried to fly until they could
Yeah but they started off by being Wright.
Jesse, what the hell are you talking about?
Thats what religion is supposed to do. If only it would stop at that....
This is the perspective of a generation that has had total guardrails their entire lives. They can't comprehend how fucking wrecked you can get from your own actions.
That's what parents are for.
As a parent: no, I'm just there to be a shoulder to cry on when you do something stupid. Everyone knows kids don't listen to parents...
I need to get out more, there's guardrails all over this town. :-/
I think about this now and again, because the canals where I live often don't have fencing alongside to stop you falling in. A piece of the brutality of the universe in the city.
And damn few safety nets.
Damn this hits a kittle close to home... maybe i should go outside and try eating dirt?
I mean.. I enjoyed and upvoted but this is false. We have millennia of prewiring and Darwinism under the belt
