Two stories:

My mom was in a religious school for a few years, and her craziest story was sex Ed, which was mandated in the state at the time. The entire class was “take this shoebox home.” Literally no other instructions. The shoebox contained a mirror and nothing else. It was 20 years later before she realized what the mirror was for, because she wasn’t informed it was a sex Ed class.

ETA: the school was mixed gender, the classes were not. Girls had separate classes from boys. The mirror was for standing over and seeing that you do, indeed, have a vagina, and then gaining absolutely other information

I was homeschooled, but not in a religious way. My mom ordered the books the state told her to order. When we got them they were fine, until we got to the science module and it told us how ancient humans and dinosaurs lived side by side. … My mom immediately ordered different books.

Well said! And yeah, I was a little heavy handed calling the dispossessed theory. However:

Do the hungry care more about who you feed them

The rich!

Fully agree that that’s the way to learn. Do praxis, theory will develop.

However, I recommend the bread book to anyone I think might enjoy reading something like it. It changed my life fundamentally to see some one lay out the math of how a society could function like that. As suggested above,nthe dispossessed is also an amazing work of theory disguised as a very fun sci fi read. I routinely quote “where do you go when you die in hell” ever since reading it

God, I wish I was the type of person who could afford to leave my town, much less my country. :/

Seconding the other person. I am deeply curious about learning about Cuba, whether you currently live there or not. I understand if you don’t want to talk openly because of flame wars in comment sections, but I’d love to DM, or move the conversation to a different community if needed.

Why does that look so much like my brother had a baby with Leonardo DiCaprio? I’m disturbed

I always knew there was a reason God didn’t make me a rich man.

But what about the crazy German dungeon porn and the sex clubs‽

I somehow missed the twitter craze by accident. Was active on Myspace and then Facebook, but I always preferred my forums. Once I left all other social media, reddit was all that was left, and now Lemmy. It feels a lot more like what I miss, but still isn’t quite the same

One of my favorites, and my BF didn’t get it D:

A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says “why the long face? Are you depressed?”

The horse replies “I don’t think I am”

At which point, the horse promptly disappears.

Now, if you’re at all familiar with the works of Rene Descartes, you’re likely chuckling at this point, knowing his famous quote “I think, therefore I am”

But to tell you that first would have been to put Descartes before the horse.

Idk, I’ve noticed a lot of people on Lemmy that tend towards their 40s or 50s

Took me far too long to realize this was a reference to the movie, and not a random philosophy post about the impermanence of life

My mom and I moved to a new apartment, leaving behind basically everything we owned when I was about 17.

We made a post on Craigslist that said basically “in need of a couch, new apartment, single mom, can’t afford much but can pay up to 30 dollars”

We got dozens of emails. People telling us we could have tables, chairs, pots and pans, clothes… They furnished our entire apartment for nothing.

You know how if you’re reading a headline from the onion and you mistake it for real you’ve “eaten the onion?”

Is there a name for the reverse phenomenon? Where a real headline reflecting actual reality is so ridiculous that you reject it out of hand as satire only to realize it was genuine? Regurgitating the onion? What’s the name for this?

I did Nazi that joke coming…

Tried to figure out how to post this comment a couple times without it sounding like proselyting my own view point. Can’t manage it. So I’ll just add this here: that’s not what I’m doing! I’m not attempting to convince anyone of anything. Lol.

I’m a nondualist. Panentheism, to be more specific. I believe that existence is God’s way of experiencing. In other words, we are not just ourselves, and not just reincarnated as the next thing down the line, or spending eternity in heaven. But that every creature, every rock, every thing that has ever or will ever exist is you. You are Ghandi, and you’re also your own mother. You’re hitler, and you’re Stalin. You are God. And in between, after, and before, when you’re in that state of being without limitations, without boundaries and illusions of duality and separateness, you are fully aware of every thing you have been and will be. You understand all.

It brings me comfort. It has allowed me to come to peace with the fact that I will die some day. It hasn’t given me peace for the people I have lost, but I try to remember them as the forms of God I love best, and the forms of God that knew me best. One day I will be gone, and I will dissolve back into the divine, and I won’t be so sad about losing those forms and those people, because I will be with them, as them, and know them better than I could ever have in this form.

As a little aside, another way I like to look at this is through a Betty White quote. She once asked her mother what happens after we die, and her mother told her it was a secret. So whenever Betty lost someone she would say to herself “they learned the secret today”

The secret is that you get to learn everything, at least as far as I believe.

Yes! Honestly, I love the cold. If it weren’t for the fact that my favorite pass times are swimming and gardening, I’d so happily move somewhere that’s cold all year round. I love bundling up, I love the extra pockets that jackets give me. I love scarfs and the crochet beanies my mom made me when she was still here, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s the only time I think I look decent when I dress like that.

But my GOD the heat stroke when you walk in a store in January. It’s awful

I had fully forgotten the phrase “you’ll tie up the phone line!” And I just had a nam style flashback of sneaking internet time during the day when my mom was at work, and praying that no one tried to call

So I’ve seen this one floating around before (not AI specific, just the wheelchair image). It’s not as weird as it may seem. There are a ton of people who have severe balance issues, blood pressure issues that cause fainting when standing, general muscle weakness that keep them from walking normally, and a whole host of other things that may prevent them from walking and balancing, but not from using something like that.

My own mother required a wheelchair for the last 10 years of her life, but would have benefited from something like this immensely for the 10-15 years prior to that. She could use her legs, but she had serious trouble balancing, standing, and walking. She routinely used one of those under the desk bicycle things for years to keep her legs active. That motion wasn’t a problem for her. But she could only stand for a maximum of 1-2 minutes during that time in her life, or walk for about 50-70 feet at most around that time. Had we known about things like this, or thought to make our own, it may have extended her time moving around under her own power before having to go into the power wheelchair. It may even have extended her life by keeping her more active and healthy.

Not trying to be a spoil sport, just putting it out there. Maybe it’ll make someone else consider something like this if they have a disabled person in their life that could benefit from it.

On #6, I’ve been using a variation I read recently. “If someone said that about [friend] would you defend them?”

It has helped a lot. I’ve realized in the last month especially that the way I treat myself, the thoughts I have about myself, are borderline abusive. If I were in a relationship with someone and they expected of me what I give myself shit for doing/not doing, they’d 100% be a toxic and abusive partner. If someone openly talked about my friends the way my brain talks about me, I’d knock their teeth out. Just because it’s coming from inside doesn’t mean it’s not abusive. Don’t let your mind abuse you, because that POS will try every time if you let it.