Exactly, it’s like playing a video game. And no matter how immersive the game, reality always demands its cut.

Welcome to The Problem!

I believe our societal models are the reason. It’s not just that all people are self-absorbed and greedy, it’s that everything we have built for ourselves pushes us toward being just that, from start to finish.

We have slowly snubbed out true values, like a sense of justice (by this I mean fairness mostly, true Justice, not Electric Chair Jamboree), empathy, collaboration, soulfulness, all of the noble qualities of humanity, and have slowly replaced them with therapy shopping and a fixation with achievement in order to cover up that which is missing from within ourselves.

Then again, some are just… empty. Devoid of personal meaning, which is why they want to empty everyone around them in order to not be alone with that hole in their souls.

I’m here for this! I’m not sure if I’m too stoned, or not stoned enough to even be able to fully comprehend the question, but I’m 100% here for this!

I have 2.1k hours in Warframe and it seems that counter’s not gonna stop any time soon… Took a two-year break after some grind-heavy new content, returned to catch up with the updates and it’s all I’ve been playing for 5 days now.

Edit: on second thought, I don’t really know if the MMORPG classification fits Warframe, but I have no idea what else to call it, to be honest…

Not sure if I wish I could have experienced it, too, or to feel lucky I have no terms of comparison with better times, honestly… Seeing things one loves slowly turn to crap is always a painful affair…

Well, here’s hoping something’ll change for the better some day soon. Would be nice to have a truly free internet. Not gonna say ‘safe’ because humans aren’t safe as far as beasties go, but at least free from these monolithic entities which want to divvy it up among themselves…

Thanks for the heads-up, but I don’t really care who likes or hates me, either:)) This is the internet, someone will always hate me for some reason or other:))

Also, may have been me, I remove the auto-upvote from anything I post.

And this is how it’ll keep going for the foreseeable future, unfortunately… They all live to become shitty.

Self-hosted seems like the best way to go if one is looking for privacy, although soon enough the only truly effective option will be to stay offline…

I know, which is why I’ve called them pricks, bullshit artists, and money grubbing bastards.

Sucks for them that my Gmail account is almost exclusively for spam nowadays, switched to Proton a while back. I’m sure Proton aren’t 100% Paragon, either, but at least they’re not Google.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less who knows what about me… Not making it easy for anyone, don’t get me wrong, I believe in not saying more than is needed. But I see no reason to not answer truthfully when asked something personal.

I’m the type of person who’d willingly give my data to train LLMs or what-have-yous if their owners weren’t a bunch of pricks and just asked me nicely instead of that “Legitimate Interest” cloak and dagger bullshit. Also if they weren’t money grubbing bastards.

Ah, but you see, I’m not looking for a good luck thing! Having the one which always works against my best interests is a reminder that everything is about balance! Some are lucky, some are unlucky, and that’s just how life goes!

My name is Bender, please insert article subject and tone specs.

As I’ve said, a symbol of luck, not necessarily of good luck. A sort of Memento Mori, but for the fact that no matter how hard you try, sometimes it’s just not up to you.

Oh, no, that particular D20 is a drama queen. I’d rather take a guess than trust that die.

I do have an XL D100 I bought more as a collectible, treated copper alloy! Think it could be classified as lethal under appropriate use conditions!

Not necessarily unique, but I mostly always carry a small pouch containing a full D&D dice set.

I haven’t needed dice in… years, now that I think about it, but I carry them as a symbol of luck. Not good luck or bad luck, just luck, chance. Helps me keep things in perspective when everything goes sideways.

Honestly, I wear a pair of old skinny jeans, the kind with a bit of lycra, bamboo-based socks because fluffy but not cumbersome, and T-shirt with thicc hoodie. This is in 21-22°C.

In anticipation of the funny looks, I’m super-serious about the jeans! They’re nice and soft at this point, and they do a pretty good job at keeping my legs from freezing off! Pretty much wear jeans all year.

And the biggest advantage is that nobody can tell I’m essentially wearing my equivalent for pajamas!

No amount of money could ever determine me to so drastically reduce the quality of my life, let alone my sleep.

If I remember correctly, one such example is the lightbulb. Some of the earliest designs were centered around using longer-lasting filaments than their contemporary counterparts, which meant considerably increased lifespan.

Thoroughly agreed, that’s what I call everything not viewed as immediately societally productive. More of a sarcastic reversal of the main complaint I’ve received throughout my life while just living it.

It really does take a while… Had a 9-month breakdown during the Pandemic, that one was exclusively for mental health care. I literally locked myself in my apartment and did nothing but eat, sleep, play vidya, get high, and have weekly therapy sessions for the entire duration.

It took 8 months to stop being anxious about not being stressed out. Used to wake up every morning with that sharp fear that I’d missed my daily meetings, then it would slowly turn into an “oh, shit, I’m not being Productive” jumble of self-loathing and panic.