exasperation @ exasperation @lemm.ee

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I do.

I know some who work in defense/military/foreign policy who had assumed that there would still be guardrails in place to prevent the nomination and appointment of totally unqualified conspiracy theorists to the highest positions in the defense and intelligence world, the haphazard effects of DOGE cuts on the military and intelligence and veteran agencies, or the vindictive pettiness of some of the senior military firings (or even the termination of security details for officials from the first Trump admin).

I know some who work in healthcare who are terrified about the cuts to healthcare and science research, and a lot of the informational/data infrastructure that they depend on: tracking diseases, etc.

I know some who work in finance and banking who thought that the tariff talk was just a negotiating plot rather than a true belief, and sees real danger that Trump permanently ends the post-war global economic systems that elevated American prosperity.

I even know some in oil and gas who are now convinced that even though Trump says he cares about their industry, he's not even competent enough to protect them from the harm he's causing everyone.

And sadly, the worst examples are the immigrants I know who didn't actually believe us when we told them that Trump 2.0 was going to be a disaster for immigrant human rights and livelihoods, even permanent residents and legitimate visa holders with high incomes and educational backgrounds. Now they're sharing stories of good law abiding people they know getting rounded up and questioned, and just otherwise fearing for their safety.

And this isn't exactly the same as people only caring when things affect them. It's slightly different. It's people only realizing that he's full of shit when they come to mess around with areas of their own expertise and experience.

So yeah, I know a bunch. I try to tell them they've been duped and that we can move forward by lobbying the Republicans they voted for, but the underlying unspoken theme does often carry a bit of an "I fucking told you so" foundation.

No, if you look closer I actually managed to avoid the 2008 stuff by kinda being immature and "behind" by not being super set in my career path in my late 20's. My smart friends from high school and college were decimated by the 2008 recession. When I went back to school in the early 2010's, I basically got my law degree with a bunch of people who were younger than me, and got myself on the middle millennial track (despite being an old millennial).

My delayed career progression, as a slacker in my 20's, saved my financial situation.

And if I were even older, 2001 might have permanently set me back, too. Lots of late Gen X never really recovered from that.

Plus they live very short lives, giving less opportunity for the accumulation of a lot of knowledge.

Their reproduction strategy and life cycles also basically don't allow for generational interaction: most octopuses reproduce only once, produce tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of offspring, and die shortly after reproduction. Then the young paralarvae drift as plankton until they grow large enough to settle wherever on the sea floor they happen to be.

Some of us millennials have been extraordinarily lucky.

I'm an old millennial but I avoided any personal impact from the 2001 recession by being in college, on financial aid.

Then the 2008 recession didn't hit me very hard because I wasn't a homeowner was a single childless dude who was flexible enough to just up and move wherever there was a job, across the country if necessary. I had a different job in a different state each year from 2008 through 2011, taking big raises with each move, then eventually back to school.

Then the 2020 recession didn't hit me very hard because my wife and I both had counter-cyclical jobs (I tend to be busier when businesses are failing) and already owned a home, allowing us to bypass much of the inflation of the post-2020 period with a fixed rate mortgage we had refinanced to below 3% in 2021.

Now, the 2025 recession is probably gonna hit us hard. But I've basically escaped the last 3, so maybe I'm due.

I think in Lilo and Stitch the aliens mention in passing that they use Earth as a wildlife preserve for mosquitoes.

Taco Bell was a cynical invention by Alexander Graham Bell to sell more Bell peppers.

Code switching is a thing.

I have my professional voice for work emails and meetings and stuff like that. I still joke, but usually it's the kind of mild humor that can be broadcast on TV no problem. I also avoid self deprecating humor on anything actually related to the job (I can still joke about being a bad dancer or singer or athlete or whatever).

I have my parent voice when dealing with my kids' schools, doctors, friends' parents, etc. Most of my jokes here are relatable parent humor.

I have my casual voice when dealing with strangers outside of work: friends of friends, neighbors, etc. I joke but don't really do anything with politics, religion, sex, profanity, etc.

And as I get to know friends, I have several distinct voices that I use, depending on our connection and their own style. I know whether they're on my wavelength for political humor, crass/sexual humor, etc. And perhaps most importantly, the style of humor: I'll make references to specific TV shows I know the other person loved (Simpsons, The Office, Tim Robinson, etc.), other specific interests (sports, programming, food), which style of online meme is popular with the other person, etc.

My wife has seen all of these parts of me. We still exchange funny stuff we find on the internet on our shared interests and style of humor, even if it's only a subset of all the things we find funny.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, do these sound like the actions of a man who had all he could eat?

I wonder how much of it is horny old dudes and how much is actually lonely old dudes. These types of arrangements, somewhere in the gray area between transactional paid sex work and companionship between equal partners might not satisfy the loneliness part of the equation.

Yeah when zoomers first showed up to adulthood I remember being surprised when they started ripping on Millennials first (making fun of our love of gifs, single panel memes, Harry Potter, etc.). It was a "what he say fuck me for?" moment and it's been going on ever since.

Use context clues. It's about sounds, so it's obviously sax.

The plot of Austin Powers revolves around thawing a man who has been frozen for 30 years, from 1967 to 1997. Only 2 years to go before we reach 30 years from that movie's release.

Colin Farrell in Phone Booth perfectly captured that early 2000's feeling of where we were, technologically.

1998's You've Got Mail does, too.

The anus may have evolved from a hole originally used to release sperm

But whose sperm are we talking about here?

Ok, that's funny. I'd go on a date with you.

Her: So, you want anything to drink?

Wait are you hitting on them at their place of work, as a customer? Don't fucking do that.

Maybe forget "techniques" and be real.

For many people, being playful, like on OP's example, is being real. I'm a playful person. I have generally been a class clown my entire life, and I'd even say it's a pretty core part of my personality and my identity.

I've been married over 10 years, with kids, and I still do this kind of stuff with my wife. I enjoy being silly with my kids, too.

And when I was dating I'd rely pretty heavily on humor for flirting throughout all stages, from meeting a stranger to setting up a first date to being on a date, to going on multiple dates. The other person's laughter was an indicator of whether we were making a connection. And then, later on, I learned that I could expect my partner to be funny too, and actively make me laugh.

Being fun and flirty is a legitimate strategy for making sure you have the opportunity to connect with people. It is, in itself, attractive to some. And it might be unattractive to others, but it's better to be attractive to some and unattractive to others than it is to be forgettable and unnoticed.

If they like you they do, if not who cares?

I think this is a pretty naive way of looking at relationships. Connections require some level of effort, especially in adult life. As much as we'd all love to just naturally have friendships, romantic partners, and other relationships just fall into our laps, that's not really how that works. Most connections require a bit of work to find others, to find commonalities, to develop interest, to have some give and take of making a deeper connection, to have some vulnerability and growth and change as that stranger becomes an acquaintance and develops into someone close.

For younger people, especially under 30, looking for a partner isn't just about looking for someone they like now. It's also someone they want to grow with and experience things together with.

The native species may even do better with this loss

Not if the native species are also susceptible to the same cause of death. If that's the case, the European honeybee deaths could be an indicator, correlated with the uncounted deaths of the native species.

From this summary, The American Health Association still has a very modest recommendation to avoid excessive dietary cholesterol but no longer recommends a daily limit, and notes that foods high in cholesterol tend to be high in saturated fat, which does still show a link to serum cholesterol.

In other words, foods that are high in cholesterol but low in saturated fat (like shellfish, and to some degree eggs) are still fine.

I'd trust the American Heart Association over a video by a doctor who advocates for veganism through his books and media appearances. He seems to me to be more of an advocate (and isn't very open about the fact that nutritionfacts.org is his own marketing website for promoting his specific products). And his books rely partially on data now known to be faulty, about "blue zones" where lots of people live past 100 (turns out each are hotspots for pension fraud so it's hard to actually know how old people actually live in those places).

(I must say I disagree completely with that guy sharing messages from his girlfriend- that piece is very weird and a total breach of trust)

My impression from the original post was that kind of stuff was what drove most of the fallout. Leaked off color memes aren't going to ruin people's relationships, but leaked shit talk or breaches of someone else's privacy will.