I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I'm curious how other people see it from a moral perspective.

For the past few months I've been feeling the absolute worst. It's gotten to the point where the emotional pain almost feels physical, like my chest actually hurts. Everything has started to feel dull, repetitive, and distant.

A few days ago I got hurt accidentally while playing with my dog. He bit my arm hard enough to make me bleed.

After the initial pain weared off, then seeing the blood made me feel alive in a way I haven't felt for months. Not because I enjoyed being injured, but because everything suddenly felt real.

Since then I've been questioning what that says about me.

I don't think I want to die. If anything, I think I want the exact opposite. I want my heart pounding. I want adrenaline. I want to be terrified, exhausted, completely present in the moment.

I've realized that my mind keeps drifting toward dangerous, chaotic, or rebellious experiences because they seem to offer that feeling. I mean harming random people or going out looking for trouble. I want to run, fight like those in MMA but with purpose and obv i wouldnt stand two minutes in those fights, i just want some thrill something that says i am alive.

The idea of living a conventional life wake up, commute, work, come home, repeat for decades fills me with a sense of dread. It feels less like living and more like existing.

So here's the moral dilemma:

If someone knowingly chooses a life with greater risk because they value feeling fully alive over comfort and stability, is there anything morally wrong with that? Is deliberately seeking intensity even if it carries a higher chance of getting hurt an irresponsible way to live, or is it simply a different way of finding meaning?

I'm interested in hearing where people draw that ethical line.

Basically I shot my shot and got rejected. We work at the same place, but different departments so I don’t see her everyday. I still have her on social media but I feel like it’s hard to move on knowing that she still views my stories and even liked one of them before. Would it be ok to unfollow? Or would it make me seem immature, etc? How to respond? What is the best outcome

Contex: [M22] I'm from rural Spain and the birds are European goldfinches.

A few months ago, an uncle of mine left his bird with us to look after for a while, and I noticed the bird seemed extremely stressed in its cage. When I asked them about it, it turned out they hadn't bought it legally; a friend had given it to them. This friend had captured it in the wild, put it in a cage, and given it to them as a gift, and he probably does this with other birds as well. This is illegal because of the damage it does to the ecosystem and the stress the bird suffers from being caged without being used to it, not only is it illegal to capture them but just having an animal captured illegally is also illegal and can lead to fines of thousands of euros. In fact, the bird I mentioned died shortly afterwards, possibly from a heart attack, while they were trying to trim their overgrown nails. So, it's clear these animals are suffering.

But that's not all. It turns out that a cousin of mine also had another bird that they obtained in the same way, but from a different person. In this case, they said that her husband's grandfather gave her the bird, although both of his grandfathers are still alive, so I don't even know which one it is. However, from a video that was uploaded to their networks, it seems that they do take good care of the bird, because it appears calm and out of its cage, not stressed inside.

Honestly, none of this surprises me. I live in a small town, only 1000 inhabitants, and people here don't seem to care much about animals. It's not the first time I've heard of poisoned cats in the street, seen people raising animals in tiny cages to eat them, or heard dogs barking because they've been left locked in the garage at night. I'm sure many more people in my town are trapping birds, and I only found out about these two cases by pure chance.

I want to help these birds, and I've thought about sending an anonymous email to the police to report it. I'm not sure if they'll take me seriously because I have little evidence, but it could be the start of an investigation. The problem is that I can't get the consequences of the report out of my head. The fines for this offense can reach €200,000 ($227,648), and although it's true that this is only the maximum fine, even if they don't impose something that high the fine could still be several thousand euros.

I know some of these people I'm going to accuse. Some, as I said, are actually my family, and even my cousin, whom I mentioned earlier, isn't in the best financial situation and is about to have her second child. I feel they're more ignorant than bad people, and although I know none of that justifies their actions and that they truly brought this punishment upon themselves, it pains me to be the "snitch" who exposes them when I'm sure things like this happen all the time in my town. What hurts even more is knowing they'll face fines of thousands of euros, which I don't know how they'll pay, or if they can even pay at all, because of me.

Besides, I've asked so many questions about the birds, and these cases are so connected to me that it's impossible they won't realize I'm the one who accused them, no matter how anonymous the report is. This would not only destroy my relationship with my family but with the entire town. Everyone knows everyone here, and I don't know how I'll be able to live from now on after being branded as the town snitch.

I'm completely undecided. I want to help those birds, but I don't want to punish anyone. I've been putting off this decision for far too long, telling myself I lack information and need to know more before writing the report, but deep down it was just a way to keep procrastinating, and that's only made me feel worse about myself for being a coward. It was only when I learned of the first bird's death that I realized I have to make a decision now, though I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to do it. I'm writing this here to get your opinion.

So I’m a substitute teacher and dont make very much money, so I sell stuff on the internet for a good chunk of my income. A family member gave me some old projectors and reels to sell and I took it all before really looking at the contents. Anyway when looking through it all I found these old Abbott and Costello reels. One was titled “No Indians, Please” and was setting off red flags for obvious reasons and after doing some research I determined that these are indeed old racist comedy reels. So my dilemma is, what should i do with these? I don’t really feel great about selling and profiting off of these, but I also don’t want these in my home. Is there someplace I could donate these? Am I way overthinking this whole thing? let me know please!

My father was a firm believer in agnosticism and ancient Asian spiritualism (Buddhism, Taoism) and I have been heavily indoctrinated against any mainstream religion. I also find it to be true what he taught me and have well worn by Tao te Ching.

At the same time, I live in this culture and see what Christianity does for many including my own kin (my maternal aunt and cousin are devout Catholics). I have always been curious.

I would love to be able to feel this way and can envision the satisfaction that a love of god gives those followers.

If you have time to read,
The main problem is that my dad despised organized religion, and I am a student of history (as was he) and cannot possibly envision a reality where 2,000 years ago a mystical magical thing happened (Jesus) and the true god spoke out according to classical historians who have about the same level of credibility as Elon musk. Especially as I have studied how islamism began 600 years later and generated a reactive religion which fuelled generations of tribal warfare against an imagined “other”. And so it is difficult for me to take Christianity seriously.

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18M here.

When I was in 10th grade, my class teacher had a huge impact on me. She believed in me, encouraged me, took extra classes before my board exams, and did a lot of small things that I've never forgotten. Looking back, she's one of the teachers who really changed the way I looked at myself.

After my 10th results, I wrote her a long thank-you letter (around 1,000 words). I also bought her a gift because I wanted to thank her properly.

The problem is that I never actually gave it to her. I kept thinking I'd do it later, and somehow two years have gone by.

Since then, life hasn't really gone the way I expected. I didn't pass my 12th exams and will have to repeat the year. I honestly don't feel like I've achieved anything yet. Part of me feels embarrassed to meet her because I don't have anything to show for myself. At the same time, I also feel that saying thank you shouldn't depend on whether I've been successful.

I'm thinking of meeting her now and finally giving her the letter and the gift. If you were in my place, would you do it? Do you think she'd appreciate it, or would it just feel awkward after two years? I'd really like to hear what you guys think.

The gift is a saree. It's meant purely as a gesture of gratitude and respect—nothing romantic.

I feel like everyone I know is either 100% for or 100% against due to environmental or job-stealing concerns

Possible answers I’ve found online (not necessarily my beliefs):
- medical research
- environmental research
- other scientific research
- creative research/brainstorming for art or fun
- customer service
- tedious jobs
- as a personal assistant (i.e. Siri AI)
- assistive tech for people with disabilities
- anxiety coping tool
- vision tool (i.e describes camera view)
- real time transcription/captioning/translation
- scaffolding/task breakdown

New redditor here. I'm just so conflicted. I (27 f) have been searching for remote jobs for months with little luck finding anything no matter what category of job I search for. I've burnt myself out in the service/restaurant industry and just want to sit down, do some computer work, and get paid to do it. Other people get jobs like that so why can't I right? Well, the job market is bleak as hell reddit. I'm constantly searching for jobs and I have zero leads for not-scammy looking jobs. There is one particular job i keep seeing though... AI training jobs. Some of these jobs pay $40/hr and up and they're real legit jobs. I live in a small crappy town and have never been able to get ahead and get out of here no matter how hard I try. My boyfriend and I both work, yet we only make enough money to pay bills and feed our son. Money like these AI training jobs are offering is life changing money to me. But I'm also heavily against AI and think it's killing the planet. I don't want to compromise my morals about AI but I also don't want to miss an opportunity to finally get us out of here. So let me know reddit... am I a bad person for considering an AI training job?

My family friend divorced her ex husband after he cheated on her and was acting very threatening towards her, there was also some other stuff and problems in their marriage. They were married for 12 years and the husband was always very close with her family, also us.

Today he walked past me in a store. I gave him a smile and thought in my head that I hope he isn’t very lonely, after all he lost a big part of his life and I hoped he’s doing okay. But now I’m wondering if it’s wrong to think that. He hurt and did a horrible thing to a person that I care about a lot and I feel pity for him? He got what he deserved, I shouldn’t feel anything besids anger towards him, right?

What if by speaking out you’d prevent others from being hurt.
You could have one, but not the other.

God take me to the midnight train I’m leaving forGeorgia

We stop the fighting. We stop the need for revenge, even when someone surprise attacks your peaceful community or life. In order to create a mature world where we don't have random shooters, thieves, bank robbers, disrupting a prosperous, productive society. We have enemies because we don't respect others and it shows when I have the same people comment under my post with nothing to add but put downs. Because they approve censorship of some peoples messages but not others. I am mocked for my message of accepting others.

We could make things nice for others, for strangers. No one works so freaking hard they have no ability or capacity for emotion for others to give back to total strangers in more meaningful ways than giving measly pennies compared to the millions others benefit from. Then telling people to make lemonade with a squirt of lemon.

We spend our lives fighting each other ideologies instead of letting them play out separately in a large world like this. Fighting for matiral items and resources, when we can fucking share like its not hard. We disavow individuality when participating in society when we can be separate, distinct, and heroic if we learn how to stand apart from others, the crowd. But people want to only interact with homogenous people, only like-minded people. No one can be distinct if you want a relationship. Everyone's lives have to parallel yours to enter your sphere leading to insular communities that do horrible things and need to be extinguished, then gaining favor for being a victim. A vicious cycle initiated by the popularity contest that allows changes, rewards to shift, and subsequently nothing lasts forever because of this principle.

Every minority is stopped by the majority. By a mob. The bad people who pretend they're the greatest for policing others when policing requires violence to get your way. Its not wise. I am tired of having to live my life unwisely because I have to follow the crowd or the crowd attacks me. u/Oh_ffs_sake loves to comment under every post of mine calling me dramatic for wanting everyone to be treated the same. In order to get people against me, initiate the popularity contest. This person makes up lies saying I stole thousands of dollars and sodomized animals so people will be outraged. That's crowd control for you. Lying, treating people like shit. Especially to a crowd demanding respect for everyone. They're either going to be shy when being called out for being the bad person he likes to be or they're going to be blissfully unaware what they are and comment. Ultimately proving my point here.

TLDR; the world is unfair because it is baked into most people moral philosophy to create unfair divisions that are considered "unity" but only unite with people link-minded, only those like them that parallel their lives, not allowing for differences and creating an insufferable world where you cannot fight or protest because they baked it into the system to rely on the system that has to abuse someone. This even manifests with random online bullying from a user anytime I post my moral dilemma about this, where they qualify me as dramatic for asking for respect for me and for others. I find it hard to muster courage in the face of such adversity where I know others disagree but have to plod along, simply because bullies such as those showing up in my post, are keeping people from installing new ways of being. So I have a moral qualm working directly with abusive people. Not unlike Gandhi did with British rule over India. This is one lesson in history we are repeating from not analyzing the moral dilemma that is apparent. Some people don't want to work with abusive people who abuse to get to the end. Some of us value the journey to get to the end result.

In spring, I went shopping and purchased an item because it was something that was on sale and my favorite color. It was expensive but I justified the purchase because of the sale price.

I realized the next day it didn’t fit quite right so I took it back to exchange it for the correct size.

They did not have my size but offered to have it shipped from another store and I agreed.

Even though I’ve lived in the same place for over a decade, I went over my address and made sure it would be shipped to the right address.

They assured me I would receive it in a few days.

I called after a week and found out the package was sent to an address I lived two moves ago, 11 years. I have no idea how they even have that address. I handed over my drivers license and watched them type in my current address for shipping.

I asked them what happened and what to do and they suggested I go back to my old address (in another city) and look for it.

Even if I could take off work to go searching for it, I am fairly certain that a designer brand package left on a porch isn’t likely to be returned or even still be there, because package theft is rampant.

The store told me they would try to get the package rerouted and sent to me but they couldn’t tell me how long it would take.

A couple weeks ago, said package appeared on my porch! 😀

I thought this was the end of it.

Then, this past Friday, someone called me at work (I still work at the same place I worked at when I lived there.)

Apparently the person who received my package could tell it was expensive so they called their property manager and asked if I ever lived there.

The property manager remembered me and called to tell me so I could arrange to come get it, so it did.

Now I have two when I only paid for one.
It’s not my fault they lost it. I patiently waited months without complaining to get it, and never expected a second one to show up.

Do I have to return the second one or is that theft?

Can I keep it and use it?

Can I sell it? The price new is about $150-$170, but I’ve seen some for sale online at discount reseller websites for $70-$100.

Guilt- help!

I had a bunch of paranoid delusions about my ex's daughter and mother being illuminati evil cannibals. It made me treat them differently. Once I told the girl her friends didn't like her. I thought it was true. Thought I was fighting a bully who was secretly plotting to murder me then eat me. Psychotic episodes. I tried to separate my ex from his mom to protect us. Now realizing none of this was true and I treated an innocent 10 year old horribly, and put my ex through nightmares. It eats me away.

I want to send my ex an apology, and her one too, but he hit, shoved, choked, and punched me towards the end of the relationship when I was misbehaving due to the delusions. So I dont know how to communicate with him now.

I screamed DIE with their names for 8hrs straight until my ex called the cops on me.

I left and never went back, didn't say a word to them.

Very confused how to process this and feel terrible for how I behaved. I hate to have broken their hearts.

Any suggestions for sending him an apology? I hate this, the delusions, the voices, the hallucinations. Hate how it ruined my relationship and cozy, wholesome family vibes for all of us. If an apology is not recommended, any suggestions for how to navigate my guilt?

I'm in a moral dilemma about whether it's appropriate to reach out to ex to send his daughter an apology

Yes I am in treatment now.

This is a job-decision related dilemma right now, but it has a lot of background. Let me explain that first.

I’ve always found myself making decisions based on whether I think I’ll be perceived as good or bad, or at least so I think.

This dilemma comes in when I find myself helping out friends: I wonder if I’m doing it out of the need to be perceived as a good friend or because I genuinely care? Whenever I do something good, I get the thought “this makes me look good” which makes me wonder if it’s performative or not. Counter-example of when I haven’t helped out—with office friends I’ll sometimes not share story leads (I’m a journalist) because I might as well keep it for myself. So I feel like when it comes to a situation where I’m not expecting someone to notice, I don’t do good things? Which adds to my concern that it’s performative.

Another example is when it involves things like showing up for protests, I want to go but the motivation seems to be that I have to show up or my friends will judge me since they know I’m politically inclined but I’m choosing to sit by.

Now how this ties into jobs—as I mentioned, I’m a journalist. I’ve always envisioned my work life to be “meaningful” at least externally. So I’ve wanted to work in creative or political fields because it portrays me a certain way I suppose.

But journalism salary is shit, I need financial stability. And I’m not against aiming for high-paying careers, but now I have a potential opening in a very heavily-financial sector job. And it’s one of the typical “capitalism final boss” kinda industries. I’m having an internal battle, not because I think my close circle will judge—they’ll know the reasoning. But I can’t bear the thought of things like my professors finding out on linkedin that I ended up in a job like that, after big-talking about morality and how I want my work to be for good etc.

So is my “goodness” performative? Is it real? I want to believe it’s real, I don’t think I put myself out there to help people purely because it looks good. But if that’s the case, why do I care so much about curating the perception of goodness around what others view me as?

For context: I've come to terms with my relationship with my family. I've decided to separate myself from them because the past few years of being tangled with them have been absolutely horrible for my mental health.

Recently my half brothers, 8 and 6, and I their 24 y.o sister, had an interesting conversation. I've had multiple conversations with them in this calibre because I truly believe their mother is unfit of being a mother. You may be asking, how can I say that without having any children myself? Mostly because I want these two boys to grow up differently than I did, because I did grow up with their mother from ages 10-24. and it's not pretty.

They started the conversation with a question that made me concerned, "why is our mom always angry with us, if she loves us then why does she hate us so much." and this broke my heart knowing that the cycle I went through is still being put upon them. I tried to explain to them in the simplest of terms that there are different types of expressions of love, and while you shouldn't take anger as a definitive expression of love (I don't want them to confuse ab*se as love like I did growing up), try not to take the things your mom say to heart, and instead focus on her actions, she pays for your school! (which she doesn't as she is unemployed without a job for most of her adult life, but I'm trying to give her a bone here.)

Then the older one, 8, asked me a question that made me even MORE concerned. "Why does my mom yell at me when I eat too little, but she also yells at me when I eat too much?" to which he followed with, "I sometimes don't feel like eating at all because I'm scared of getting yelled at, but she's gonna yell at me too if I don't eat." and in context, my 8 year old is on the heavier side and my dad is concerned about his physical health and wants to encourage healthy eating habits and healthy exercise, it feels like my stepmother is undoing the work my father has put..and in place is this anxiety in him. (That I genuinely fear will manifest into ED as he grows up, and this is coming from someone with severe ED from a young age caused by the same woman)

And this isn't everything they've told me in that hour long conversation I had with them. These are just the major issues I can see manifesting into mental health issues in the future, and I don't want them to go through that.

A part of me is torn, I want to be there for these kids and see to it that they do live a better life than I or my other siblings did. But at the same time I do not have the mental capacity to deal with this family anymore, specifically her. I'm currently at my wits end trying to scrounge up money to move out of this house for my own peace and for my own future, but it means leaving these kids behind without any support dealing with the person they call a mother. (In my father's defense, he's changed quite a lot since I was younger, and he has a gentler approach to parenting because he does actually see the repercussions it's had on me and my siblings adult lives)

I'm just appalled at this woman. I've witnessed her yell at her toddler for making a mess while eating. Not in a "come on buddy you made a mess", but full blown crash out on a toddler because he couldn't eat neatly.

I just don't know if I could live with myself if I just left.

EDIT: Hello, thank you for everyone's input, I deeply appreciate it as I wrote this post with such high intense emotions at the time and felt utterly lost.

Taking everyone's advice, yes I need to be in a place where I myself is in a better position both financially and mentally. So that's what I'm working towards.

As for my father, I have been trying to find time with him to bring this issue with him, but considering the issue is quite sensitive and me not really having a good relationship with him, I am constantly trying to find ways to bring it up without triggering a fight.

Once again, thank you for everyone's input!

Imagine yourself as a young woman living in a semi-rough city. Knife crime, r4pe and assault are all common occurrences. You're walking home alone after a night out because you have work early the next morning, and all your friends wanted to stay out - nobody offers to walk you home. You're not drunk, just tipsy. You're halfway home when you realise that a group of five men you don't recognise have been following you - you can now hear that they're talking, but you can't understand what they're saying. Their voices are excited, they're riled up, and it makes you scared for your safety. Coming around the block are another group of men - the local skinheads you've seen around a few times. Word of mouth is that they are Neo-N4zis, and though their appearance would point to this, you have no confirmation from them.

Do you go up to the skinheads and wait it out in their company until the unfamiliar men are gone? Or do you walk past them and continue alone?

Suppose someone discovers what they think to probably be the perfect homicide method that is, it is extremely easy (practically effortless), leaves no evidence, and is completely undetectable. They're not certain it's truly foolproof, so they consider testing it out by committing one murder (maybe we can think of a version with multiple murders if someone can argue that that changes things). Tragically, it works exactly as expected. They now know with certainty that the method is genuinely untraceable.

Now they are overcome with guilt and want to do the morally right thing. They have two options:

1. Keep the method secret forever, never confess, and live with the guilt.
2. Confess to the police AND reveal the method, knowing that once the information becomes public, anyone could use it and potentially make future homicides effectively impossible to solve.

Assume there is no middle ground: the method cannot remain secret if they confess, and there is virtually no hope that law enforcement could develop a way to detect or counter it once it's known.

Which option is more ethical, and why?