Hedonism

huh, never heard that term before. but I looked it up, and yeah, I guess that’s it.

I’d extrapolate this priorities conversation from “sex” to pleasure. Hobbies, video games, casually socializing, and sex as you said. Obviously different people enjoy different activities to different extents. But this greater conversation is the hill I will die on.

USAmericans society has retained this conservative/puritanical idea that your work is your life, “idle hands are the devil’s plaything”, and everything else: vacations, video games, hobbies, sex… is a way to “unwind” so you can get back to work. The way we talk about these endeavors is truly depressing. We categorize and judge people based on “What do you do for work?”, and hobbies and other entertainment is reserved for those truly close to us. Steve, who works in Accounting, might hate his job and only live for MTG Arena, but most conversations will steer toward How he survives rather than Why. Even sex and romance has been relegated to a systematic process, talked about and hijacked by consumerism more as a way to advance social standing, than for love or pleasure. Date (buy food), Engagement (buy ring), Marriage (fund ceremony, buy ring). And this is without any legal framework that requires that or prohibits casual hookups/co-habitation.

This whole “side-hustle”, “grindset”, “become the brand” extremist capitalist bullshit grates my sanity every time I hear it. That is what I believe creates the mental health difference “less prudish Europe” and “puritanical US”, as you pointed out. I believe the idea vision of society is where we automate as much of our necessary processes as possible, implement a comfortable UBI, and pay people a good amount for filling those positions. Why the rest of society doesn’t think that is beyond me.

After all, human society is made by humans, for humans. It should not be geared for labor machines.

okay Switch to Linux if you can and are willing to undergo constant troubleshooting. I chose not to, and this is how I managed that.

I’ve been using my device for well over 5 years and have had zero issues. And there isn’t much of an alternative if you need Windows compatibility.

my two cents - install an older version of Windows 10. I use 20H2. You can find clean ISO files on the Internet Archive. Disable automatic updates, and use services like Blackbird (getblackbird.net) to de-bloat your instance.

“if we’re happy together we stay, if we’re not we split.” Beautifully put. You and your girlfriend have been together for 5 years, which seems like a commitment in itself.

Personally I seem like marriage is an outdated practice, from a time where women were treated as property. It’s a legal contract, like you’d make with a business partner. Marriage isn’t even permanent (nor should it be). It just makes separation more expensive. Even if both participants want to split, and they agree on how to do it, now they need to get a judge to dissolve that contract.

And in the modern economy, many couples are choosing to forgo marriage, and put the money they save toward a shared house, which is a commitment in itself. People might argue that it’s necessary if you plan to have children, but most couples can’t afford that, some others don’t want that. And if children are a future goal for you and her, wouldn’t you have a commitment to that child? Plus, there are child support systems in place, whether the child was born in wedlock or not.

I could ramble on. The whole system of marriage only ever mattered because society said it should, and now that women aren’t forced to be a “side-piece”, and people don’t gasp at the idea of premarital sex, it’s just an expensive celebration. Marriage won’t make a relationship more stable. It will just make it harder for both people to leave.

It absolutely is. I’ve sensed it coming for years now. Gen Y and Gen Z have been struggling under student loan debt. Car loans are getting years longer. People were micro-financing weddings and vacations. Now services like “Klarna” and Afterpay are just repackaged credit card debt.

The majority of people in America can not survive. College degrees aren’t enough to find a job, and raises/bonuses are non-existent. Most people are working for minimum wage, and that minimum wage is stagnant. If you had real estate or stocks, the boom in the housing and financial sector could offset this pressure, but with the majority of property getting swept up by large hedge funds, there’s no room for average Americans to get their foot in the door with a mortgage.

So what do people do? They stop buying. It’s the same market-stagnation effect that deflation has, only with all the micro-economic stress that inflation creates. It happened before in 1929. It’s happening again. Because America allowed itself to slip back into the capitalist trends that created the previous Gilded Age.