houseoftolstoy @houseoftolstoy@merovingian.club

Part 1

A man is traveling by foot when he sees a party of merchants walking in the opposite direction. With that party is a donkey who is heavily burdened with all the merchandise. The man noticing the donkey ready to collapse, states, "That donkey is carrying too much! Take off some of those things so that he does not die from exhaustion!"

The merchants take a look at the donkey and see that the man is correct. They start to discuss among themselves what they should do.

I have a theory about the supposed increase in autists. The internet is to blame. Not simply because people can look up terms and mis-diagnose themselves (though this is part of it), but rather that the internet has the unfortunate side effect of allowing people to be "terminally online."

When you are doing the vast majority of your communication through text alone, you are missing most of the actual communication you would get in a natural social situation (vocal inflections, emotions)

/1

For anyone who wants marriage and family in their future, I have some advice:

Don't marry wrong. If that means not marrying at all, so be it.

It is indeed better to not marry at all than to make the wrong choice on who to marry. I will never tell any man that they have an obligation to get married, because in spite of the fact that I am married myself, I understand that my path is not one that can or should be prescribed to all other men.

Another complaint about it "being too expensive" to cook for yourself is people refusing to eat the same thing for days in a row. It also prevents the "it takes too much time" excuse, because if you only cook a couple times a week, you get more bang for your buck.

"But I don't want to eat the same thing every day!" If you are broke, too bad. You can't afford variety, so learn to eat leftovers. Also, leftovers "tasting bad" is just a skill issue.

The worst excuse I have seen for broke people not conserving their budget by not cooking for themselves is "It's too expensive!"

Bullshit. You need to learn how to shop and plan for cheaper ingredients. And you clearly do not know how to do math if you cannot see that ordering takeout is more expensive than making it yourself.

Yes, it takes practice. But if you are broke, you cannot afford not learn this skill.

And "we have to support single mothers". Yeah, we have been doing that. And it is only making things worse, as it makes it harder for families to afford having their own children given the welfare state taxing the productive to pay for the single mothers.

Not that I accept the reasoning that it is all economical, as I argue there is not such thing as a "good enough economy" to raise birth rates. But I know it does not help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scnYVZyJ280

I give credit where credit is due regarding the fact that focus on careers creates fewer children (though not explicitly stating it is more a problem with women), as well as pushing against the idea that "we should have policies like the Scandinavian countries" as a solution to birth rate issues when those countries are also below replacement rates.

No solutions beyond "changing the culture," but we all know why that is the case.

Those that are incapable of accepting generalized statements of truth regarding any topic will often proclaim that they are doing so due to their superior intellect:

"It's more complicated/It's more nuanced than that."

The purpose of a generalized statement is that it is true for most cases, not for every single case. Exceptions exist, but focusing on the exceptions too much shows that you are actually not intelligent and/or you are pushing an agenda.

Bills in Congress are a lot like women: when they are big, they are not beautiful, no matter how much anyone insists on coupling the terms "big" and "beautiful."

Making a bad choice that is not entirely your fault does not mean the choice was not bad. It is just that you were not making decisions based on correct information. The conclusion you should gather from that is not to double down and claim that you made the right choice and say that others are just jealous, but rather to use the information you now have to help others not repeat the same mistakes.

Taking the double down option just shows that you are no wiser in spite of the experience.

One of the major problems I see with the younger generations is that even though many of them will place blame on the boomers for many of their financial issues (correctly), many of them will still somehow think that going to college was worth it in spite of the crippling debt and wasted years on a degree that gets them no job.

It's okay, you can admit it was the wrong decision. The boomers led you astray there, so you don't have to defend that choice. You were lied to about that too.