both companies notably ruined the internet in the 2010s by consolidating discourse then taking various steps to destroy the user experience and the feel of the communities for profit.

so, broadly, the web went from cozy, small hobby forums in the 90s and 00s, then with the 10s as a transitional period, the 20s being practically complete corporate control of online discourse.

it's a bummer. but nothing lasts forever. where will we go next?

i genuinely feel like my entire life and mindset have done a... at least a 90 by now, by somehow, somehow getting this hail mary pass off and setting this up. i can't believe this is real life it's very bizarre, i'm just shaking with anxiety and energy

i just feel like she'll hate me upon first sight (this was thru an app) for some reason, she'll sense the autism, she'll know i'm off and the next hour will be awkward and she'll politely say goodbye.

i mean, alternatively, it could go well, she could be cool. she seems cool which i suppose is why i did this. what is happening i cannot believe these are things that are going on in my life i feel like i was just in a major major hitting slump for 10 years, strikeout after strikeout

and then also what if she ghosts me or stands me up like in the films. what then? add it to the list of failures and try to rebuild my self image?

aghufasdf

By that I mean, it must be an inherently comforting thing to think - we inherently know this and want there to be something after death, because it feels right, or more meaningful. There's a reason basically every civilization ever has some sort of afterlife ethos.

I realize I am basically horseshoeing my way into evangelicalism but still. Maybe life was better if we believed there was something beyond this. [edit - please note that yes, the world is shitty, things are awful and getting worse, and that is exactly my point -- we get THIS SHIT, and nothing else? god that's awful]

by that i mean, those are intangible, effervescent parts of a human being that should not be quantized down to a fucking amazon star system. the 'anything less than 5 stars is actually bad' thing is disgusting as well - all modern companies do this.

apparently my city literally literally banned public rail funding, and people online love jerking off about how good biking is, so i figured might as well try. I have come up with:

pros:

• good for mental health / exercise / endorphins
• arguably quaint
• feel like an old timey guy taking his wares to market
• feel european
• can annoy others
• less of a police state around them vs cars
• more flexible parking, routes
• capacity to be peaceful
• nice in summer

cons:

• look like an annoying dork (esp w neon - which also hurts the quaint factor)
• have to wear a helmet (^)
• getting sweaty, potentially "unpresentable" for work
• still have to find safe parking
• still takes a while
• have to find new routes to places
• can't listen to music or might die
• little meaningful protection against severe injury
• can only carry so many groceries/etc
• sucks in winter

i am in shambles - I bought two Weatherproof Vintage short sleeve men's linen button down shirts last month from Costco, they were like $15 each, thinking little of it, oh these are probably going to be ok, normal big box store shirts.

but I've worn them, and slowly realized: these are the best shirts I've ever worn. they're comfortable, they fit perfectly, they feel absolutely perfect, the linen is perfectly breathable and feels perfect on my skin, they look very summery and nice, I've never enjoyed a shirt more than these shirts.

So I want more than the pink and blue that I bought, because that's only 2 days of the week. I go to the official website and the shirts start at $60. I am wrecked. I should've bought 15 of them at the store.

Costco themselves have a few left online, but only in obscure sizes and ugly colors. I am in shambles.

i posted a fairly obscure support request on an obscure sub and instead of just saying the post isn't live, etc etc, it'll fake-show me the post as #1 on the hot page of the sub, #1 on the new, but then if I open the sub in a private window it isn't there -- so it either wasn't approved at all, or hasn't been approved yet. why lie? why why why.

it's so fucking frustrating, because usually there's literally no other place to go for support, and now I can't even post about my issue because some mod who works for free decided my valid thread with support logs and everything "isn't good enough" or god knows what. sick of it.

people have been demonizing it for most of the AD years i think but it's quite pleasant really. are there any proven negative effects?

i feel like when i was younger i exclusively did the first thing, just relate to the main character. but now it's more fascinating to zoom out more.

ex I'm watching Black Swan atm and instead of being like oh dancing is hard the teacher wants to fuck me etc, I'm thinking about like, that's a lot of effort just to do ballet, which the opening 5 minutes establishes is a completely irrelevant art form

this is stupid. something about activation energy? are there any activation energy hacks?

I mean, that’s 4 years of our lives taken! 4 years of opportunities that were more challenging because they wanted a number on a computer to go up! 4 years of feeling worse than necessary about my finances and management of them and general personhood because i felt like i couldn’t afford anything because everything was priced egregiously!

And now they’re saying ‘oh well we fixed it now’. Fuck you!!! Get over yourselves! Holy shit, I can’t wait to happily be friends with the giant corporations again!! Just the arrogance that we’re happy to once again be at their beck and call because they changed the numbers they could’ve always changed. Sickening.

And I feel like I have a brain disease because i’ve been worrying and posting for years about how disgusting it is that they’re just cranking the numbers up to see what’ll happen and obviously no one will stop them because this is an oligarchy — and i kept getting well-ackshullyied into the ground by esteemed logical posters explaining how supply chains work. Well look at this shit you motherfuckers!

Just the amount of incredibly deep and sophisticated social engineering is so disgusting:

>It’s a savvy play for shifting perceptions of value, crucial for consumers in the decision-making process of where to shop for bread and eggs. Customers benefit by saving some money; retailers possibly benefit even more by being known as the company that magnanimously trimmed prices.

Go to hell, stop shifting my value perception. I should be able to decide what I feel about milk or zucchini. When I think about a croissant I should be thinking about France, not Target pricing strategies.

>Most importantly, the theater of making grand pronouncements about lower prices is great for retailers’ reputations. Forget about all the price hikes grocery retailers and food brands implemented in the last few years — now companies would like consumers to focus on the savings they’re offering. “They’re all leaning into this inflation-oriented messaging,” says Stambor, which he notes is interesting because food inflation isn’t high at the moment. It’s the accumulation of past inflation that we’re still feeling the sting of; the prices just didn’t come down.

And we’re meant to thank them for this! I hope to god they can’t put the genie back in the bottle with this. I won’t forget 2020, I’ll hate these bloodsuckers til the day I die.

>For the most part, Bowlero doesn’t build its own centers. Instead, it purchases existing ones and makes them over in the Bowlero style: dim lights, loud music, expensive cocktails. At Bowleros, bowling isn’t bowling. It’s “upscale entertainment.”

>But for serious bowlers, the lived experience of Bowlero’s rise has come with a marked deterioration in conditions. Someone in Big Mike’s crew warns that lane 26 tonight is sticky right where you step up to bowl: “The approach! The actual approach!” Someone else says it’s no surprise: “They spend a couple million dollars putting in screens but can’t clean the place.”

>In its initial acquisition wave, Bowlero bought up prominent centers in large population areas from New York to Los Angeles. As it continues to expand, it has promised to hoover up centers everywhere else in the country. There are roughly 3,500 independent bowling centers left in America. For Bowlero, that’s 3,500 potential acquisition targets. “This industry,” Bowlero executive Brett Parker has said, “is fragmented and ripe for roll-ups.”

>“A lot of guys are worried that in five years, seven years, you’re only gonna have a Bowlero,” Big Mike says. “And when that happens, what happens?”

i love how everything is getting shittier in the same awful belittling way

>Companies are training LLMs on all the data that they can find, but this data is not the world, but discourse about the world. The rank-and-file developers at these companies, in their naivete, do not see that distinction....So, as these LLMs become increasingly but asymptotically fluent, tantalizingly close to accuracy but ultimately incomplete, developers complain that they are short on data. They have their general purpose computer program, and if they only had the entire world in data form to shove into it, then it would be complete.

full disclosure i was accidentally logged out today and scrolled for 5 minutes and it was pure pure absolute uncut dogshit i mean god awful bad. so i don't blame people. but on my account it knows what i want

The way people online constantly say 'talk to your doctor' like it's a panacea is a lot like how medieval peasants weren't able to read scripture and they just had to trust their clergy's interpretations

Sick of it. Usually it's not even like if I'm trying to find out if I have fucking cancer, I'm saying oh i feel sad in the evenings. why in the NAME of GOD would i want to then, for that, find the guy's number, call, leave a message cause it's midnight, wait for them to call back, schedule something 2 weeks later, worry the whole time, and try to remember and rephrase in formal clinical terminology exactly what's happening and get formal cold clinical advice for it from a guy I see twice a year. Just tell me! Give me colloquial advice and home remedies! good god!

There could be so many miracle tips or tricks online that really work but nooo people constantly shout 'talk to your doctor! call your doctor!' i don't want to fucking call the doctor, medical environments give me anxiety and all the bureaucracy and insurance and bills don't help matters either.

some zoomers on tiktok seem to get this and happily share 'oh this worked for me!' and usually it's somewhat helpful and a very nice, casual interaction that doesn't involve interaction with an authority figure and potential bills. it's that easy.

'ooh what about liability' don't care. liability has destroyed modern america, gatekeeping knowledge behind a culture of fear. if you're so scared about liability over a reddit comment, simply don't say anything! rather than leaving a pointless piece of advice that every single person on the planet knows is the default 'ideal' answer, that isn't necessarily actionable for many who don't have easy or trivial access to healthcare.