TechyDad @ TechyDad @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

If there's one lesson I've learned in my 48 years, it's that boring moments are underrated and moments are overrated. Everyone says they are bored and want some excitement, but excitement doesn't mean good things. More often than not, it is something bad. I'd rather have a boring day than an exciting one.

I still hope that one day politics will be boring again. No "if the Republican gets into office democracy might fail." No "Trump is calling for the arrest of anyone who spoke up against him." Just "the two major party candidates have differing opinions but both would lead this country competently." Make Politics Boring Again!

And even if you can afford to enjoy tomorrow, there's no guarantee that your body will let you. My parents were frugal as I was growing up - taking very few vacations. For various reasons, my father retired with very little money.

Even if he had money, though, my father's health has deteriorated. He lives about 3.5 hours drive from me and can't make that journey. For him, even an hours' drive is a lot and airplane trips are out of the question. Even if he had a decent retirement savings, he wouldn't be able to truly enjoy it.

Yeah, my HR representative said I should be saving 15% of my income for retirement. I can't even afford to save that much. By the time you deduct my mortgage, health care costs, food, and other necessities, I have very little left over.

Maybe I could save 15% of my salary if I lived my life without anything enjoyable. No smartphone, no streaming service (even though I'm only paying for one and don't have cable TV), nothing purchased at all to enjoy life. Just live a Spartan, barebones life. Maybe then, I could scrounge together 15% to save for retirement, but my life up to retirement would be extremely miserable.

I feel like this advice was concocted by people making much more than I make. "So, when you get your $10,000 biweekly paycheck, put 15% of it away. See? So easy!"

During a retirement program conference at my company, the HR spokesperson said that the recommendation is that people put 15% of their income into retirement savings. Who can afford to do that? If I put 15% of my income into retirement, maybe, I'd be able to retire, but I'd be in so much debt when I got there that I wouldn't be able to enjoy retirement.

I was naive and thought I'd be able to retire. My father was forced to retire without enough saved up. (He was fired so close to retirement age that nobody would hire him for a few years and he put too much of his retirement savings in the stock market thinking he'd make a fortune.)

I promised myself that I wouldn't end up in his position, but my living expenses were too high so I couldn't put much away for retirement. I figured I'd put more away later. Then later. Then later still.

Now, I'm 48 and don't have nearly enough put away. An HR person for my company said, during a presentation, that the recommendation is for people to put 15% of their income into retirement. Who can afford to not have 15% of their income?!!! Definitely not me. And at this point, I'd need to put about 30% of my income into retirement to be ready.

At this point, my retirement plan is to work until I'm 75 or 80. Then, maybe, I'll be able to retire for a few years.

I laugh even more when they buy that product too show themselves shooting it/burning it/ or otherwise getting rid of it via some video on social media.

I highly doubt Kellogg's cares if someone buys 5 boxes of Froot Loops because they want to eat them or use them for target practice to prove how MAGA they are. Kellogg's has their money either way.

This is why they accuse the Democrats of cheating to win the election. They cheated and still lost so the only explanation must be that the Democrats cheated more! (It can't possibly be that they actually lost. Nope. Not at all!)

About the only voter fraud that's been found has been Republicans voting multiple times. And even that wasn't at levels high enough to influence the results of the elections.

And definitely no evidence of election fraud. Stuff like their claims that companies that make voting machines remotely flipped votes to Biden. There's zero evidence for this and lots of evidence against it, but they still repeat these claims because they don't like the alternative: they lost the election.

That's why I append my sarcastic posts with /s. It's a habit I picked up on Reddit where you could easily see someone posting that same comment, but being 100% serious. The /s kind of ruins the joke, but I'd rather the joke be ruined than have people think I was serious when I said those kinds of things.

I frequent Lemmy, Mastodon, and Threads. I feel like this is true in any of the three. Occasionally, I'll wade in, but more often than not I regret it.

This is especially true on Threads where the algorithm sees you arguing with someone saying X and then says "hey, you must want to see more posts that say X." I finally realized that all I was doing was feeding the algorithm and stopped replying.

I'm Jewish and I believe so. Of course, they don't follow those rules either. They want to follow a bunch of rules that they imagine are in the Bible and they won't let a little thing like those rules not being in there get in their way!

Also, Trump is notorious for not listening to his lawyers. His lawyers might tell him to not say something because it increases his legal jeopardy. Then, he goes out and says it anyway.

It doesn't matter how cheap the speech is or whether few of them would actually turn their talk into action. The death threats themselves are serious even if none of these people intend to act on it. Also, these threats are illegal whether or not these people intend to act on it. Finally, all it takes is one person who decides to act on Trump's marching orders.

If you were getting these threats, would you be resting easy with the thought that most of these people wouldn't come to your home (which they'd know the address of)? Or would you - more likely - be afraid to go home or answer your phone?

They also tried claiming that Trump not accepting the election results was fine because Hillary didn't accept the results in 2016. This despite definitive proof that Hillary conceded that night. But they can't let something as pesky and minor as facts get in the way of their talking points.

And paths to engage and discuss the issues is definitely the way forward. For example, I'm sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, but when I'm hearing anti-semitic remarks from pro-Palestinian folks, it makes me leery to publicly support the Palestinians. I know it's a vocal minority, but still it's unnerving.

Imagine if you believed a cause, went to march for that cause, and then saw some people calling for violence against you. Would you want to join that march?

No matter how good the cause is, having people there saying that I'm personally to blame because I'm Jewish makes me leery to join the cause.

I recently read an article where pastors/priests are having this issue. They are quoting Jesus Christ and then being told by MAGA followers that they are spouting "woke liberal propaganda."

Now, you don't have to follow what Jesus said to do. I'm not Christian and so don't model my life around his teachings. But if you claim to "follow Jesus," but then want to reject what Jesus said to do because it's "too woke," then maybe you should get a different religion!

When a person's vandalism is directed at places because they are where Jews go or places Jews own then there's no difference. And when someone is targeting Jewish organizations because they are Jewish, that's anti-semitic whether or not any people are injured in the vandalism.

And there will likely be a migration of humans also. As equatorial regions become inhospitable, people will try to move north and south. America will likely see a flood of people trying to escape horrible temperatures in their home countries.

In addition, I wouldn't be surprised if many southern states see people fleeing north for more reasonable temperatures and possibly fewer severe weather events. (Places like Florida, Texas, and Arizona might get more and more inhospitable while northern states like New York, Wisconsin, and Montana might start having milder winters and thus seem like better places to live.

So saying that attacking American Jewish places of worship and American Jewish owned businesses because of things Israel has done isn't anti-semitic? At what point does attacking Jews become anti-semitic to you?

Here's a post from someone on Threads declaring that all Jews are legitimate targets. This was in response to an article about a Jewish Temple and Jewish owned bakery in America being vandalized.

I tried arguing with this person and they eventually limited their "it's okay to vandalize" to buildings that fly the Israeli flag - which would be every Jewish Temple in America.