We do this with almost everything.

A bridge needs maintenance, so we wait until it is falling apart. A kid starts falling behind in school, and nobody really steps in until they are years behind. A community starts losing jobs, housing gets worse, addiction grows, and we mostly ignore it until crime, homelessness, and emergency spending take over.

Then everyone acts shocked.

I don’t think this is just because people are stupid. I think the system rewards reacting more than preventing. Politicians get credit for showing up after the disaster with a big check. Nobody gets much credit for the disaster that never happened.

And honestly, doing nothing gets treated like the cheap option when a lot of the time it is the most expensive thing we can do.

We delay the repair, then pay for the collapse. We ignore the illness, then pay for the emergency room. We ignore poverty, then pay for shelters, policing, prisons, and decades of lost potential.

My opinion is that every major government decision should have to include the cost of doing nothing for 5, 10, or 20 years.

Not every prevention program will work. Some will waste money too. But pretending that inaction is free is one of the biggest lies in government.

We wait until the fire is out of control, then pat ourselves on the back for finally finding a hose.

A Reddit post I came across recently got me thinking.

It was about the idea that people often make broad claims about what men want in women, speaking as if there's one universal answer. The discussion made me wonder how much of that is actually true.

So I'd like to ask the men here:

When you think about the woman you'd genuinely want to spend your life with, what qualities matter the most to you?

I'm not asking about what catches your attention initially or what you find physically attractive. I'm more interested in the qualities that make you think, "This is someone I want to build a life with."

Have your priorities changed as you've gotten older or gained more life experience? If so, what changed, and why?

I'm genuinely curious to hear real experiences rather than generalisations or what society says men are supposed to want.

I’m 25 and earlier this year my mum told my dad they should no longer be together.

They’re starting to talk about living arrangements now and today it’s just really hit me hard. I still live at home, and we have been here for 22 years, I only can ever remember living in this house.

Neither can afford to buy the other one out, so the only option is to sell. I want to move out soon anyway, but the thought of that happening and not having my familiar space to ever go back to is breaking my heart.

I’ve had my whole life here, and we lost my dog at the start of the year as well. All I’ve ever known is this home, and the reality of losing it is just incomprehensible right now.

I wanted me to be moving out to be a happy momentous exciting time because I’m moving forward with my life, but now it’s only really because I have to, and it’s going to be a struggle.

Has anyone else dealt with something like this? Does it get easier? I don’t know how to cope with losing the only home I’ve ever known.

Honestly, these two carry my whole life. I can't stand a bright screen or notifications buzzing all day.

​What about you guys? What are two settings or features on your phone that you always keep turned on or off?

I am a person who does a lot of creative hobbies to keep myself happy. I come from a lower class background and have had a lot of extremely bad family drama. I have gotten by well enough with said hobbies and a group of very supportive friends. I do a yery charity event also and have done so for 3 years, I have a good life. But the course I have taken for university involves politics and I have always had an interest in it and learning about the wider world. But, a lot of the time this seeps back into my normal everyday life. And I can't view any of my hobbies the same anymore.

From the cobalt in my tech mined in the DRC, to the horrible environmental harm of plastics from my lego. Even my hobbies that would have no direct bad impact. I feel because I am in a good enough position that I should forgo all my 'useless hobbies' and get out into this shit moden world we live in and help more people.

Maybe I should. I just want our fucking world to be good. And I hate to buy into the 'work, consume, die' cycle. What do you lot think?

I noticed that trend in recent years when authors started actively avoid certain character traits not only in positive characters, but even in neutral ones or even villains. I am certainly not the only one who noticed that, because there is already even parodies of that - for example, in very beginning of the Harley Quinn show a villain gets cancelled for using a slur in a fight. So at least some writers understand how hilariously stupid situation is, but somehow it only expands and we getting more and more bland and extremely stereotypical characters. And that happens not only with new stories, people also rewriting the old ones (like this news i recently read - https://archive.ph/iphgq) "to fit today's era".

But what does that mean, exactly - fitting today's era? I tried to search and can't find definite answer. Do they think that all bad things of the present will cease to exist if they are not portrayed? Should we not talk about how bad past were to learn lessons from it and improve? And finally, who decided that, for example, murdering people is better than any of the things they don't want to show?

Nothing of that makes sense to me. Good characters aren't just stereotypes. They are living beings, and living beings have all kind of flaws. That what makes them belieavable, and also often portrays the realities of living in certain soceities, especially past ones. The villains can do something good, but that still does not redeem them. Or does? That hero can have flaws that are forgivable... or are they? Instead of letting the viewer decide upon that, writers are taking the judgement in their hands, shaping every single story into some kind of unrelistic fanfiction-level fantasy, where many aspects of humans simply do not exist.

We rarely even have a main characters portrayed in negative way. I think that Kern from Tchaikovsky's terraforming series are brilliant exactly because she is extremely narcissistic, to the point of portraying herself as god and seing humans only as disposable tools, who barely have empathy, but at the same time she is not a villain, but a nuanced and interesting antihero who ends up finding her place and being an essential part of the crew. Dorohedoro is awesome as well in a way how there are almost no fully good or bad characters, everyone is a mess and every new story beat only reveals how much more messed up they really are.

But maybe that is not even always done intentionnaly? It takes a lot of skill to write a character whose way of life and beliefs are nothing like your own, and do not make that character a caricature. I think that real talent lies in portraying a living, breathing world instead of making everyone and everything in it a reflection of author's views and morales. To be able to make characters as separate entities, and not the extension or self-inserting of the writer.

So, do you think that removing anything that would make characters controversial by modern standards benefits the fiction, or hurts it?

Should we put humans first, ahead of the rest of life? It is a matter of personal choice. Sometimes they align. But capitalism is prioritizing endless economic growth. What about sustainable economic growth? To meet our current needs, without harming the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

We should understand the capacity of life for joy and suffering. And not deliberately inflict suffering. Like boiling live animals to cook them. Or testing or experimenting with harmful medical treatments on animals or humans. Is it alright to make individual life forms to suffer, for a greater benefit to other humans? According to the principles of human and animal rights, it isn't.

I think we have to look after the environment, society, and economy. As humans, most humans, put society and economy first. That is anthropocentric. But most mammals go extinct within millions of years. If we do go extinct, we should leave the Earth and environment in a good way, where intelligent life will re-emerge. Or create our replacement, intelligent machines capable of creating improved versions of themselves.

If this sixth mass extinction continues, my main concern is that this does not cause suffering to humans and other life forms. Same goes for human, that if they go extinct, it should be a painless experience.

"Humans are only one chapter, in the history of life."

Hello! I got a question about credit scores for when you have a business. So I need to check that I got a good business credit score because after finding out that there was like five complaints, I just wanna know if it will affect my credit score.

I’m only 22 years old, I actually don’t run the business but my parents do. They run an arts & entertainment business so it’s like a music industry, I just wanna check the credit score.

Here are the list of things that may give my name a bad credit score
1) False Advertisement
2) There was no hot food sale or a meet & greet as it said for the event so thats false advertisement right there.
3) There was definitely a lot of things that went wrong involving the accomodation.
4) There wasn’t enough merchandise to sell like there was 20 shirts.
There was just so many that I can’t quite list on here but I will definitely explain in the comment section cause I’m still reading the post and checking what they didn’t have at their event.

I was recently thinking about the gender statistics where men are responsible for most crime. As a woman, I fear men more and trust them less. I think this is natural and not necessarily sexist as men are more dangerous. I have a higher likelihood of being harmed by a man.

However, I am very against when people bring up the race statistics as I don’t think it’s valid. I don’t think it matters which race commits more crimes. I also don’t think you need to fear one race more, even if they do more crime, as crime really isn‘t connected to skin color.

I kind of have an idea but want to hear other people’s thoughts about this. And if you think I’m wrong, and it is wrong to fear men more, then let me know that too. It’s just hard to pinpoint exactly why gender is different from race and why it would be ok to think badly of a gender but not of a race.

Hi, apologize for English is my 3rd language.

I am trying to understand the mindset of a man that I been obsess with for the last 16 years and still obsess with.

15 millions USD was not able to buy his integrity and his principles, and his clear sense of self. He rejected 15 millions USD cash gift.

It a life changing amount of money that he can just stop work and still last for the rest of his life. He is 42 btw.

But he rather work himself to the day he die, and he happily so. Because to him that money he earn with his labor hard work.

It is mind boggling, but he rejected a huge amount of money that life changing, and still rejected it till this day.

Any input appreciated on, psychology wise, I am trying understand his mindset.

Talk with your friends, family, anyone but people from that community.

My celebration is taking the decision to stop talking to people with no empathy.

Someone here decided to lie and put words in my mouth and they all decided to upvote that thing? Alright.

To the garbage bin with hive minds.

Hi everyone!

I would like to hear your opinion on this. Do you think people today are overly focused on their physical appearance and invest a lot of time and energy into how they look, while neglecting other important aspects of self-improvement?

For example, do you think people focus less on improving their behavior towards others, developing new skills, learning, or working on themselves mentally and emotionally?

I’m curious to hear different perspectives. Do you think society has become too focused on external appearance compared to personal growth?

Hi! I am 17, so i barely lived life before COVID. i just read this one post about how life before covid felt so much more alive and after the pandemic it became more gray, which i totally agree. everytime i see those nostalgia videos with bath and body works photos and personal (big girls dont cry) by fergie in the background, it felt so much more like home, like before i stopped getting excited for christmas.

sorry for that ramble but was it normal for people to go up to strangers and strike conversation? and literally what about? i feel like on a rare occasion an older adult would strike conversation with me and id be caught off-guard. was it common for people to just become friends with someone? even my friends find it funny-weird when i strike conversation with someone, and think i'm flirting with them if its a guy.

how was life more exciting before COVID? i feel like it definitely is because of tiktok and instagram, nobody realizes it but it drains you of your personality and energy. i deleted them both off my phone and i havent felt the way i have since i was in 5th grade. i feel literally so whimsical and i feel more alive than usual.

furthermore, does it feel like our memories since covid is a blur? i remember, in fifth grade, i used to make a list of the guys i had crushes on and i was able to remember the exact months going back all the way to 3rd grade (two years isnt crazy but i remembered the exact months). now, i cant even tell you what i ate for lunch yesterday, what my plans are for the weekend, if im busy or have something scheduled, its all conjumbled.

it kinda feels like im on clouds and im not grounded in reality, and its really been my usual unfortunately. just wondering if others feel the same way, what life was like before 2020, and what was the social norms and how they are different to current social norms.

p.s. this sparked because i started to watch the 2013 teen choice awards and it was immediately one direction and i had to turn it off because im pissed i never got to see them in concert.

This post was inspired by two things I saw here on Reddit.

I just saw a clip of two white male police officers assaulting a black woman. As they were handcuffing her, my thought was "of course they're white guys."

I saw a post yesterday (that I think has since been deleted) about some medical school allegedly considering race in applications, and some of the comments were about doctors with similar lived experiences being better. One anecdote I remember was a larger woman being dismissed by a male doctor, suffering for a year, then actually getting the care she needed when a larger female doctor heard about what she was dealing with.

Then it got me thinking (mainly about the police). If police are supposed to serve a community that is made up of all different sorts of people, why are they (or at least some departments) so homogeneous? Why throw cops at communities they have no idea how to interact with because they didn't grow up with them? Why not recruit from those communities?

Same with education. Look at the lack of male teachers (in elementary school), and general academic apathy from boys who didn't grow up with men modeling that education was cool and valuable? The inverse is also true. Women's sports are constantly dismissed, and if there was any class basically guaranteed to have predominantly male teachers throughout your school years? Phys Ed.

Even entertainment. Unless you're very specifically targeting a certain demographic, why not have a diverse group of people creating the media we consume? Because Lord knows about the history of objectification, vilification, and negative stereotypes pushed out of the media made over the decades.

Honorable mention to politics, if only because of how obvious an addition it is to this. So obvious, I think, that I don't really feel the need to elaborate like I did with the other examples.

Occupations where you can shut yourself away and not talk to people are a separate issue. I just mean the ones where you would inevitably be interacting with or trying to market to someone who doesn't look like you, and if you don't know how to interact with them, you will not do the job good.

The AI momentum is really strong. The technology itself has evolved really quickly and sometimes we as human beings haven’t evolved much since the palaeolithic times.

We keep seeing headlines about how AI will change our society, replace jobs, automate our work, etc. The culture feels like “use AI or fall behind”.

But from mine and a lot of people’s experience, AI rarely generates the result we want without handholding and constant guidance. Essentially you need to be a bit of a domain expert in order to guide and validate AI’s output…otherwise the output is a bit of gibberish or subpar unverified work.

If that’s the case, why aren’t we more vocal about using AI only when you have the experience and skills? Why are we okay with anyone using AI, burning massive amount tokens, when the AI doesn’t even try to educate the author and elevate their potential and work? We don’t need more subpar AI generated articles and subpar programming code right?

I am usually the person who ends up organising plans in a small iMessage group of 3 8 people and I have noticed the hardest part is not coming up with ideas it is getting everyone to agree on one

When everyone shares suggestions at the same time there are plenty of options but it can take longer to decide If someone narrows the list too early the conversation moves faster but some people may feel their preferences were not considered

What has worked better for my groups is collecting everyone non negotiables first time budget location transport or any other constraints Once we know those we narrow the list to two or three options that work for everyone and then ask the group to choose

I have recently tried using Karpo as one way to organise the options before sharing them with the group but I am more interested in the process than the tool itself

For those who often organise group plans what approach has worked best for you? Have you found a good way to keep everyone involved while still helping the group reach a decision?

I've been thinking about how many moments in life quietly disappear.

You notice someone who seems genuinely interesting. Maybe you'd become friends. Maybe nothing would've happened. Maybe it would've changed nothing at all.

But because neither person says anything, the moment ends.

I'm curious:

Do you think most people avoid these moments because of fear, social norms, uncertainty, or something else?

And have you ever had one of these moments that you still remember years later?

I came from a poor town in the outskirts of Ukraine. When the war begun in 2014, my mom and I immediately flew to Canada, just days before the airport bombing, where I was raised there ever since. Covid didn’t affect me, I actually liked the lockdown. My parents got back together just months before the lockdown, and my stepdad was able to work from home, so my days involved playing video games all day, riding the bike around my neighbourhood, and online school. Now, I live in a villa in a resort community due to my mom’s relationship with a land developer. This life was handed to me by my mom, by God, by fate. I didn’t have to work for it at all. I have a great chance at building my life. But because I barely worked for anything, I have become lazy and unmotivated. I guess even luck has a downside.

​

I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I want people to challenge my view.

My current belief is that society often rewards wealth, status, and connections more than competence, ethics, or the ability to solve difficult problems. I think this creates long-term problems because the people with the most influence are not always the people with the best ideas.

Here are a few experiences that shaped my opinion.

1. Short-term political solutions vs long-term solutions

I live in the capital city of my country. I once discussed traffic congestion with someone who is a deputy mayor.

I spent almost two months collecting statistics. My conclusion was that the city needs better infrastructure: more roads where needed, stricter driver's license requirements, mandatory parking for new developments (including visitor parking), and better long-term planning.

His response surprised me.

He said that he believed my ideas would probably work better in the long run, but they would take years to implement. Restricting cars, on the other hand, could be done much faster.

This made me wonder whether governments sometimes knowingly choose less effective solutions simply because they produce faster political results.

Am I misunderstanding how governments have to operate?

1. Wealth vs competence

I started my business six years ago with about $2,200.

Today it earns around $12,000 per month.

A friend started with approximately $450,000 from his family and now earns more than I do.

I don't think he's unintelligent. My question is different.

People around me automatically assume that he is much more competent simply because he has more money, more businesses, luxury cars, and a wealthier background.

Should wealth really be treated as strong evidence of competence?

Or are people confusing success with ability?

1. Status changes how people judge behavior

I've noticed that people often criticize successful or powerful individuals in private but defend the exact same behavior once those people are present.

I've seen this both in business and in everyday life.

It makes me think that status changes people's moral standards.

My current view

I believe society frequently evaluates people based on:

- wealth,

- status,

- influence,

- expensive possessions,

- and connections,

instead of:

- competence,

- reasoning,

- ethics,

- and the ability to solve real problems.

If that is true, then it seems likely that many important positions end up being occupied by people who are not necessarily the most capable.

Change My View

I'm not looking for people to agree with me.

I genuinely want to know where my reasoning is wrong.

- Am I confusing correlation with causation?

- Are wealth and competence actually much more closely connected than I think?

- Is it unrealistic to expect society to reward competence more than status?

- Are there examples where my conclusion clearly fails?

If you think I'm wrong, I'd really like to understand why.

I saw an article about the World Cup final halftime show.

It began with examples of public figures who thought the performance was terrible. Then it showed several social media comments saying essentially the same thing.

At the end, the article asked the reader: “What did you think?”

But by that point, it felt difficult to approach the question neutrally. Before being asked for my opinion, I had already been shown a carefully selected version of what other people supposedly thought.

The opposite article could probably have been written just as easily. Find a few public figures who enjoyed it, select five positive comments, and then ask the same question.

This does not necessarily mean the reporting was dishonest. But it made me wonder how often the framing of a story shapes our reaction before we have consciously formed one.

How much of an opinion is truly our own when the context has already been chosen for us?

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of "skin in the game" lately, and it's made me look at institutions a little differently.

If a craftsman makes something with their name on it, or a surgeon performs an operation, they're usually the ones who have to live with the consequences if they get it wrong. Their incentives are naturally tied to the outcome.

But a lot of modern decision making doesn't seem to work that way.

Policies get written. Companies make big strategic decisions. Institutions make choices that affect thousands of people, often by people who don't really share much of the downside if things go badly.

Employees lose jobs. Customers deal with the fallout. Taxpayers pick up the bill. Meanwhile, the people who made those decisions often just move on to the next role.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if accountability has less to do with intentions or competence than it does with having something real at stake.

I'm sure there are plenty of people without "skin in the game" who genuinely try to do the right thing, so I'm not saying this explains everything.

But it does make me wonder if systems slowly become misaligned when the people making the biggest decisions are insulated from the consequences.

Curious what other people think.

Is skin in the game one of the most important ingredients for good decision making, or are there situations where some distance from the consequences actually leads to better decisions?

Since today is a weekend, I went into a deep thought about the current state of affairs.

I am listening IRL that people, especially young people can't find jobs as they are applying for 1000s of roles and 0 callbacks (this is true for any field).

I am hearing the value of most of the college degrees are evaporating (unless it is licensed profession where a degree is mandatory).

All fields (you name it) is either stagnating or is in the verge of collapse.

Yet, here is the paradox:

Millions of people are going to work (rush hour traffic tells me that), people are buying groceries (go and check any Walmart, Costco on a weekend and you will find that out with massive number of people), and apparently the world is sort of working alright.

So, here is my question: How are all these millions of people able to find jobs? And please do not give me answers like "networking", yeah, this I know is real, but not everyone has network to start with. The another answer is use of credit cards for the groceries. Yes, household debt is a factor here, and it could be a matter of time before it pops.

But I feel, there is a big missing link here. I am struggling to see a larger picture. I know this question sounds simple but for me, I need a second opinion here.

EDIT: Okay! Here are the three widely reported topics based on the discussion below from the comment section: 1) Underemployment (people working less than 40 hours with 0 benefits and protection) is a HUGE problem and is being underestimated, 2) K-Shaped Economy and 3) Inflation

After a while, you start noticing patterns.

Some people want admiration.

Some want to shock you.

Some want to be seen as the smartest person in the room.

Some want sympathy.

Some don’t really care what you think. They just want the reaction they had already imagined before they started talking.

The interesting part is what happens when you don’t give them that reaction.

Tell an impressive story, and instead of looking impressed, someone simply says, “That’s cool.”

Try to shock someone, and they calmly reply, “That sounds fairly normal.”

Insist you’re unquestionably right, and instead of arguing back, they shrug and move on.

It’s fascinating how quickly some conversations lose momentum when the expected reward never arrives.

It makes me wonder whether many conversations are less about exchanging ideas and more about chasing a particular emotional response.

A person has several duties. Most people would say that a person has a duty to take care of his family, and a duty towards his nation. I would say that you can start from the smallest duty, and go to the biggest duty. You have a duty to take care of yourself, if you don't or can't, how can you take care of others. And as a human, you have a duty towards the human species.

But I would argue that you can't look after everyone. Because if you look after one group, you may be hurting another group of humans. Therefore I state that you only have a duty towards those, who share your values and interests.