Never don’t downvote posts with the word “patriarchy” in them. The right says “DEI hire” the left says “Patriarchy.”

Let’s put it another way:

“Why aren’t men using electrical appliances anymore?”

“Well, since the Republicans shut down Underwriter’s Labs 40 years ago they’re just too dangerous. A poll conducted by Pew Research in 2062 found only 30% of men between the ages of 20 and 40 have attempted to use a kitchen appliance and of those 30% none polled did so without being shocked, burned or lacerated. Of the men polled, none of them reported cooking indoors more than twice a year; they either exclusively seek food that requires no preparation or those who have access to the outdoors cook over wood fires. One in ten report eating canned or frozen food cold on at least a weekly basis.”

“There’s just nothing you can do to get men to seek mental health services, is there?”

How is individual talk therapy supposed to fix industry deregulation due to crony capitalism?

===

I live in a town that is mostly a suburb of a military base. They’ve been cutting down as much forest as they can to cram in oversized McMansions to accomodate the influx of people moving out of the cities. Deer and raccoons have been running rampant in my neighborhood because their habitats out in the woods are being destroyed for subdivisions and shopping centers. The county recently failed to get the general assembly to budge on water restrictions on the two rivers the county government is authorized to pull water from, so they’re starting to pressure my town (which has its own waterworks that pulls from a different river than the county) to share ours. None of the people coming into the area are joining a community; none exists here. People here build tall opaque fences on their property lines and watch Netflix alone. There is no community, only a crowd.

And then a therapist is going to ask a stupid and unhelpful question like “How does that make you feel?”

My car doesn’t start most of the time and when it does it doesn’t run for very long, I’ve missed work three times last week alone because of car troubles, he’s threatening to fire me if I don’t get it right but I don’t have the money for a mechanic. “How does that make you feel?”

Feelings are the raw ore from which bad decisions are forged. How I fell is wrong and irrelevant. What am I supposed to DO?

There is an often panned movie starring Robin Williams called Club Paradise. It’s not a good movie but it’s a fantastic feature length SNL skit.

Explain to me in actual words what a therapist is going to accomplish.

“Doctor doctor you’ve got to do something! Third spaces don’t exist, there’s no loitering signs everywhere you’ll be arrested for standing around talking, everyone my age had kids and their lives fell off, bars charge $9.50 for an ounce of bourbon and expect a tip and they play Nickelback loud enough to be heard from the moon so I’ve just been sitting at home alone drinking diet soda and playing Subnautica over and over again and while I utterly love this game it’s getting a little stale and Below Zero isn’t…good at all? So I guess I’m a little bored.”

“…Here’s a prescription for an SSRI, that’ll be $900.”

My previous cat Harry had shockingly good English comprehension skills. As I was walking out to the car to go get some fried chicken, Harry was milling around near the front door. Fried chicken was his favorite food. I said to him, “Harry, I’m gonna go get some chicken. If you’re here when I get back I’ll give you some.” He sat his fluffy ass down on the spot and when I got back there he sat.

Another day he was on the far side of the yard. I stuck my head out the door and said “Harry, come here.” And he stood up and started ambling in my direction. I said “Come here quicker.” And he broke into a trot.

I think the folks suing are going to be the ones whose commissions were stolen. I’m kinda hoping someone gets their head sewn to the carpet over this, it’s a very business major thing to have done.

Society died but people kept having children anyway.

Here’s the best way I’ve seen it illustrated:

Imagine walking into a physical retail store, something like Best Buy. You want to buy a TV. A blue shit salesman talks to you for awhile, helping you pick out the TV you want with the features you like. He says “Okay, so take this slip to the register, pay for it there and they’ll bring out the TV to your car.” The slip has the salesman’s name on it so he gets a commission on the sale.

On your way to the register, a slimy guy in a suit says “Hey let me see that sales ticket, maybe I’ve got a coupon for that TV, save you some money.” So you hand him the sales slip, he says “Yeah, here’s one for $2 off on this $900 television.” And he hands you that coupon plus a sales ticket…not the original one, another one with HIS name on it instead of the salesman. The slimy guy in the suit is stealing the salesman’s commission.

Now imagine doing this with software on the internet and you’ve got a class action lawsuit from Legal Eagle.

My part of the world uses the word “barbecue” specifically to mean the kind of cooking we were talking about and avoids that ambiguity you were struggling with, so I think I can confidently say use of the word “barbecue” as a synonym for “grill” when the word “grill” is also in use is uselessly defective.

I’m good with tools. I can keep a vehicle running, I can build houses, etc. Oh I can also fly, so we could take over an island and not have to stay on the mainland.

I’m from North Carolina. There was a candidate for NC governor once who lost his race because he was heard saying he was “sick of barbecue.” It’s a THING here.

Likewise, “barbecuing” could mean grilling, so that’s too general as well.

No. No it doesn’t.

Grilling is a short duration, high direct heat process.

Barbecuing is a long duration, low indirect heat process.

Those who use barbecuing as a synonym for grilling are objectively wrong and have measurably damaged you and your ability to communicate about food preparation.

There are several ways it can be fun, and you do have one of them.

• Competitive games/eSports. These are fun to watch exactly like football or basketball is, the skill it takes to play the game.
• Speed or challenge runs. Kind of related; imagine watching a skilled mountain climber climb a mountain looking to set a world speed record or something like that. Challenge runs aka “can we do this” can be fun as well. People are drawn to that kind of story, and video games are often a safe yet compelling place to contrive that kind of scenario.
• Venue for an entertainer. Sometimes the audience isn’t really there for the game, they’re there for the player. The game is a backdrop for an impromptu comedy performance.
• To experience the game when unable. Catching a Let’s Play of especially an old game that’s out of print can be a way to experience that game if you don’t have the ability to set up an old console, or if an online game has shut down, or if you just don’t have the time. You might watch it while cooking or eating or doing some other task if you can’t find time in your life to actually play.

Exactly this.

If we used Thomas Edison, we could hook him up to an AC generator and it would be a perpetual motion machine.

if you used someone like MLK Jr. the power would turn off the second we started being nice to black people. But hook Edison up to a Westinghouse AC Generator and the situation itself will light the world for all eternity.

NAS.

Would a bedpan be a Personal Anal Network?

“Sit down I’ve got a movie I want you to watch. It’s called What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.”

• some dumb wrong people I know

1. The difference is Brian Thompson deserved it. Brain Thompson was a legitimately evil person who - in a system where consequences can happen to the rich - would have been severely punished and/or executed for the harm he has done.

And therein lies the problem. We are not in a system where consequences can happen to the rich. People like Brian Thompson can abuse the public at large for his own gain. They’ve purchased congress, they have purchased the white house, they have purchased the courts, they have purchased the police.

All legal recourse has been denied to the average citizen. Voting, writing congressmen, petitioning, picketing, protesting…these things have no effect on public policy or corporate behavior. The rich own the government, the government will do what the rich people want it to do. They’ll never arrest a rich person for, say, torturing millions of people.

The soap box fails, the ballot box fails, what’s left is the ammo box. The men who wrote our founding documents fought a grape shot, musket ball and bayonet war for the chance to write them; the idea that - when all else fails - things sometimes have to get fucking ugly was on their minds. Hence the constitutional right to bear arms in this country, with the implication being sometimes you’ve got to walk up to a rich and powerful person who is doing a lot of harm and catastrophically damage his vital organs.

I’ll leave this topic with this: I’ve seen topics of discussion here on Lemmy that read something like “You say marriages used to last before no-fault divorce? Naw, it’s just women used to murder their husbands a lot more.” And the comments section of these were nothing but cheers and applause. The overall Lemmy community is perfectly fine with that. A person in a lower position of power and an intolerable position takes the opportunity to end the life of a person in higher power over them to escape that intolerable position. It’s okay when a wife kills her husband because he’s beating her, right Lemmy? So it must also be okay when an ordinary citizen kills an oligarch because the oligarch has been denying them necessary healthcare. “He was beating me so I killed him.” “He was keeping me from getting treatment, so I killed him.” The difference I see is there are people who aren’t saying “You go girl” to the second one.

2. Probably but whatever.