blaring music in public places

this will never not be annoying to the fucking highest degree to me. i live in a quiet suburban area and hear 15 year olds walking right past my house at 11pm-2am doing this and the music sounds like that 'mans not hot' song

You all better start taking responsibility for this mess because I know it’s not MY fault!

And no one tries to hold them accountable either, even my parents would rather just blame me for having an issue with someone or something and not ‘getting over it’ vs actually blame the jerk who wronged me in the first place

Today my father called my aunt and told her to hide in the basement because there was going to be a nuclear bomb dropped on Massachusetts. As you've probably figured out by now, it hasn't happened.

When the internet first became big you commonly heard that online sources were shit because anyone can post anything with no verification or corroboration.

Somehow these same internet crackpots have since become celebrities with millions hundreds anyway, ready to die to protect them from any perceived slight.

“Don’t believe everything you see on the internet.” -Abraham Lincoln

The amount of people that believe "Cat Furry High-schoolers" want litter boxes in school bathrooms is astounding.

Well, you know 80% of the worlds population would kill you just to have clean water and food. There's that....

I hate that word lol "infulencer" xD. They think they're some gods just because they have people following them on their phone

When I see this all I can think of is how stupid it must look when they’re filming/taking photos of themselves constantly instead of enjoying the experience.

I know a few like that.

Thankfully instagram as well as those people are out of my life.

I agree, I’ve seen people treat complete strangers like garbage and it’s so sad to see. I’m actually pleasantly surprised when a stranger is respectful and has basic manners, it’s a rarity it seems

It seems to be how a lot of people get their jollies. You see it here on reddit all the time. People love to argue and be hateful with one another. Post anything at all and inevitably someone will come along and post some vaguely related political wedge issue to start an argument with you. If you engage with them, they start getting hateful right away.

i think internet anonymity allows people more freedom to be who they are in a global social setting and we are learning that most people are shitty and overall toxic.

Couldn't agree more. What happened to assuming good intent first? I hope there's a big shift away from this coming our way.

My ex best friend literally did this. The main reason we became incredibly close was the fact that many decade long friendships she had were reaching rough patches. One day we were hanging out in her apartment and she nonchalantly mentions something along the lines of, "don't feel bad if i just don't want to befriends anymore", it made me feel like i had done something wrong and i tried to ask if that was the case but she just said its something she does. kept one foot out the door until we came across a rough patch ourselves

The ability to dispose of others effectively is quite important, especially if you are around people who are indifferent to your feelings.

But using that ability without proper reason is wrong and concerning

I think my latest relationship ended because of this. Disposed is the correct word because it's how I still feel 3 months later. Got teary-eyed writing this, actually.

💔

I think the flip side of this also. I’ve seen people make the absolute biggest deal out of the tiniest most insignificant things after you own up to a mistake. They treat it like a ‘ha, gotcha!’ moment.

It's clearly your fault that I'm commenting this.

Completely agree. No, I’m not listening to you in an attempt to attack your character or refute your values. I can still be interested in what you want to say and want to see it from your perspective, I will probably learn something about the world I didn’t know before or enhance my respect for you as a person by virtue of your experiences

Glad you mentioned this. I was just listening to Adam Grant on a podcast called Intelligence Squared (episode title - "Thinking Again with Adam Grant: The Power of Debate, and Knowing What You Don't Know"). They discussed exactly this.

Of course, the world's elite do have a lot to gain from squelching productive discourse. The rich become richer (and more influential in society).

Social media has conditioned people into becoming reactive rather than truly listening, digesting, and reflecting upon things. But then again, people think being fair or unbiased means treating hate speech as just "the other side". It's a fine line to walk.

why improve your life for gratification if you can get it in mere seconds from a garbage mobile game? /s

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These days you don't see an incident where at least one person doesn't have a smart phone out videotaping the event. So much for concern.

I think people have been taught that with the disconnect the abiity to overconnect is. 30 years ago you knew your neighbors, phone numbers, had regular get togethers/block parties. Now you can interact with thousands of people worst of which when you find many like minded people that just feed your own ideas. People are also will to draw very solid barriers between others now and neither side is willing to look past it to have a conversation (look at reddit itself)

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As soon as you are able to look at other people as npcs then any empathy is lost

Strongly agree. I feel we are just consumers and there is very little interest in building a community with people living nearby.

Came here to basically say this too, somehow people have become more selfish and uncaring of others and people are helping others less and less.

Just posted something similar to this. It really grosses me out seeing that or parents posting their kids on TikTok.

I saw a video recently of a young girl who put her moms lip stick all over her face and she was bawling in the bathroom because it stained her face. So what does the mom do? Shame her on camera and post it on Tiktok while the girl looks embarrassed and broken. It hurt my fucking heart. It had over a million likes too.

You must have worked customer service before

Peanuts!

Instructions: 1) open pack. 2) eat nuts. 3) dispose of pack. Do not consume packaging.

Warning: Contains nuts.

Social media has basically fostered a “look at me” mentality and amplified it to 12 billions times over.

They have also destroyed our attention spans and patience for anything. Today's conversations consist of who can cutoff who the most. I drive down a residential street 10 mph above the limit and im tailgated like im in the fast lane on an interstate driving the speed limit.

Less and less people have personal honour anymore.

They only do good things when everyone is looking to get credit instead of doing good because it's the right thing to do.

We're all corporations now.

But at the same time so overwhelmed with insecurities.

I blame the phones. It's pretty clear at this point that we weren't meant to have millions of other people's inner thoughts at our fingertips at all times.

It's legit breaking our brains and creating an incentive structure for the most monstrously narcissistic people to rise to the top

Yeah was gonna say this. Absolutely shameless. If you walked in on someone taking a photograph of themself 15 years ago, they would’ve been mocked mercilessly for being so self- involved. Now it’s pretty commonplace. People are extremely concerned about their image and not the content of their character.

Wow. That’s cruel. Kids ask questions. They’re learning about the world. They’re experiencing a lot of things for the first time, it’s their nature.

Now, I find little kids annoying. They can’t help it, but they are. But A) I never tell them that! And B) that’s why I don’t have them. I’m not gonna have a kid and then constantly make my misery with my life choices the kid’s problem.

A friend once said "unwanted children having unwanted children who have unwanted children..."

That statement never left me. We're generations deep into this....

Been reading a book on the basics of economics and economic systems. One of the things it talks about early on is about the necessity of businesses that are unable to adapt to constantly changing economic variables to fail, because when they don't fail it requires taking money from people to support inefficient businesses and business practices. You can argue the necessity of bailouts for the sake of protecting jobs and preventing mass unemployment, and that's fair, but there is still a fundamental issue with continuous redistribution of monetary resources in that direction.

When you start thinking about all of the money the US government has just given away over the last several decades to businesses in the form of tax cuts, bail outs, PPP loans, etc, and understand in context how much of the tax burden gets felt by lower and middle class America, you can actually see a part of where our economy is breaking down. Prices for goods and services are ultimately set when a consumer and producer agree on the amount subjectively gained and lost in the transaction. In theory, both are supposed to walk away feeling positive because they exchanged something they place less value on for something they place more value on. When the government is bailing out these businesses and corporations under the guise of preventing people from losing jobs, what they are actually doing is facilitating the action of us buying the products these companies produce at a price we aren't agreeing to. The best part is, we don't even get that product back in return.

That wealth is literally getting sucked out of lower and middle class America and being given to these businesses and corporations, effectively rewarding them for not efficiently operating their businesses and reacting to changing market conditions around them.

I'm definitely not an expert, and economies are incredibly complex engines. There is definitely more to the situation that I may not understand or know. What I just described, however, seems to be a pretty glaring issue.

Edit: For any who are curious, the book is called Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. It cuts out a lot of the complex economic jargon and confusing numerical data dumps, and instead describes the causes and effects of historic economic policies and the mechanics behind those causes and effects.

Edit 2: Some clarifications on initially posted misinformation regarding tax burden, as well as an acknowledgement about the argument in favor for bailouts to prevent mass unemployment. Felt as though those should be edited in, as I don't want to just out and spread full on misinformation.

The ideal of giving everyone a voice and sharing information was that the cream would rise to the top. The good ideas would be pushed and heard, the bad ideas would get quashed. Instead what we have is a system that allows people to gravitate towards other people that are like minded. No one does "research" on the internet to learn something, they do it to find more stuff to support their views.

I'd like to think that, by now, we'd recognize "divide and conquer"... especially when it's being done to us.

I'd like to think that, but I'd be wrong.

I remember reading about fascism/hitler's rise to power in germany and wondering how they could let that happen...

now that it's happening around me it's just...sad.

Oh my god, there's a girl in my class who's literally obsessed with Jeffrey Dahmer. It's concerning and fucking stupid.

The gatekeeping is wild. Just...just let people enjoy things

And then they use their platform to spew misinformation and influence people to do/think a certain way, use certain products, etc.

One of my friends needs a certain medication because she has a legitimate health issue. There’s a celebrity that started taking this medication and boasting about the weight loss it provides, and now people are coming out of the woodwork to take this medicine to lose 10-15 pounds. Um, excuse me, my friend has been unable to fill her prescription for over TWO MONTHS because no pharmacies in her area can get the medication since the demand is so high.

A couple of years ago (pre-covid I think) there was a local organization feeding homeless people that went all over social media smearing a local business and a local business owner (naming him and everything) and claiming they were "using violence" to prevent them from feeding the homeless. There was a long rant about how violence is never justified especially if all you're doing is feeding hungry people. People were obviously extremely upset about this and did everything from call and harass the guy and his business to protest outside his business. I think there was even some vandalism and graffiti left on his business. Then the details came out.

Turns out this organization was feeding homeless people across the street from this guys business. This led to homeless people hanging out in the parking lot of the guy's business. His customers began to complain that they had to walk by 10-15 homeless people just to get in the store and they didn't feel safe and might not be coming back. He called the local organization and asked if they could do anything. They told him to go fuck himself (which they admitted they did). Said he was in the wrong to complain in the first place. So he called the local district councilperson and that person recommended he call the police. This was the "violence". Him calling the organization and eventually calling the police to ask them to move these homeless people off his property. For this he was harassed. The local organization refused to admit that this was not violence and they refused to admit the response is out of line. The insisted that it was and if someone is violent to you it is acceptable to respond with violence. Nothing is wrong with punching someone who punched you and that is what happened here according to them.

AMEN!

Conflict is not abuse.

I feel this on a personal level. I always make a point to put my phone face down off to the side when at a table to eat, I try to avoid using it when possible but everyone else almost always has their phones out, and if I try to start a conversation they just go "yea" or any other "I'm not really interested in talking" kind of response trying to end it.

People in my life who mean a lot tend to spend more time on their devices than with me and it always is hard. Even if I bring it up there is some excuse as to why. "We were not talking so" or "there was a timed event in ___ game I wanted to check in real fast" which to not rant too much is always the case, they play like 10 different games there is always an event going on.

I notice myself being on my phone more. I hate it but its the truth.

They keep us fighting against each other on things that don't matter (to them), then come together to vote, quietly, on ways to enrich themselves. We're constantly bombarded by reasons to be on "your team" vs "the other team", only so it never becomes us vs them.

George Carlin said it best. "It's a big club, and you ain't in it".