Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here

It’s annoying names end up with this sort of baggage, I had my heart set on Karen-Chad for my first

A friend of mine, whose surname is Harris, always insisted he'd name his sons Tyrannis or Brontos if he had any. He didn't have any though. Well, not yet.

Margaret and its derivatives are pretty interesting to me. My wife is an Elizabeth, for which there may be almost as many variants (Liz, Liza, Eliza, Beth, Betsy, Betty, etc.). See also Anne to Nancy.

In the preindustrial olden days there just weren't enough names to go round (the few factories couldn't keep up with the demand) so pretty much everyone in England was named John or Mary.

Or that's my personal crackpot theory.

Every man in England in the Tudor era was called Thomas, unless you were a king, then you were called Henry.

And if you were a dick, you could be called John Thomas.

Or, of course, Richard.

Margaret and its derivatives are pretty interesting to me. My wife is an Elizabeth, for which there may be almost as many variants (Liz, Liza, Eliza, Beth, Betsy, Betty, etc.). See also Anne to Nancy.

In the preindustrial olden days there just weren't enough names to go round (the few factories couldn't keep up with the demand) so pretty much everyone in England was named John or Mary.

Or that's my personal crackpot theory.

even as a Thomas/Tom I did not anticipate the apparent strong current association with the tank engine. he’s nice and earnest enough, but kind of a snobby class oppressor vs the freight and passenger cars rly

My most visible namesakes in film were played by Danny Devito and Jorma Taccone

i'm an american Oliver and I barely encountered another one for most of my life, it seemed way more common as a pet name.

Omg I almost want to tell the story about my friend’s mom helping translate for Balkan asylum seekers in the 90s

but bro—— u can't steal from a communist

good grief, people, are you still talking about driving

THAT’S WHERE YOU BELONG
IN MY ARMS, MOTHERFUCKER

I don't think I've ever wished death on as many people as I do now.

how many people are we talkin here

i din't mean it man

i feel like 0 is understandable, 1-4 is common, 5-20 is relatable, 21-100 is kind of a lot though but 101-999 if you really think about who fucking sucks and 1000-9999 well you and 10K- well it's not really like that though but 100K i didn't realize that and 1M i'm actually asleep stop texting me now though

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/565c1ab5e4b05079e4bfa169/1598944177906-1O35CG21OOBXZAK2QJDM/Metallica+Kill+%27Em+All+Vinyl+Album+Cover.jpg

kill some of 'em al

l

You can kill me, Al

A+

oh c'mon like y'all have never wished for the total extinction of the human race

except me.. I still have 'last human' fantasies from childhood, where I alone would have the run of the place

...maybe add 1 (one) optometrist to your fantasy... (just thinkin' baout old Twilight Zone...)

... maybe a doctor too... and a couple of farmers...

fantasy's getting crowded now...

The one where you get to go to the car yard and drive all the cars and the videogame shop and get all the consoles and the McDonald’s and get all the burgers? That was my favourite 8yo fantasy. But it was never solo, me and the street mates knew we’d be in this situation together

...maybe add 1 (one) optometrist to your fantasy... (just thinkin' baout old Twilight Zone...)

― m0stly clean (Slowsquatch)

i love burgess meredith, but the premise kind of falls apart if you look at it sideways.

so let me get this right. it's a story about a man who is apparently legally blind in a world where reading is taboo, despite there being writing everywhere and the continued publication of periodicals. his boss yells at him for being bad at his job, but his boss doesn't yell at him for not being able to make change right, his boss yells at him for _reading on his lunch break_. and not just, like, books. it's not like "what you readin' for?" kind of stuff. no, he gets yelled at for _reading the labels_. so what the fuck do they do instead? do they just not do anything for entertainment? they have to do _something_. we don't see it. it's probably the most weaksauce dystopia ever. that's it? that's the whole dystopia? it's like our world except everyone thinks _reading is bad_?

maybe i'm indulging in presentism. writing from 2023, i can see what a post-literate society would look like, and there's nothing really dystopian about it. it's just, like, there are other ways of communicating information, communications media that have both advantages and disadvantages compared to the written word.

i mean, am i missing something here? there's some genuinely good twilight zone episodes, but i don't get how _this_ is considered one of the greats.

oh c'mon like y'all have never wished for the total extinction of the human race

When I was younger, I thought Smith's monologue in The Matrix about humanity being a virus was uncomfortably close to the truth.

Come to think of it, I still do.

But in terms of identifiable individuals, I think pretty much everyone in Trump's orbit would be doing humanity a service by kicking off.

The thing that keeps me from misanthropy is knowing that all the ppl I think most epitomize what's wrong with humanity would also think Agent Smith's speech is otm.

Yeah, but those people typically exempt themselves from the description.

Eh, best to be like Reagan: love people in the aggregate, act politely frosty one-on-one.

I think most people are actually quite amazing, but that hegemonic systems prevent them from showing themselves and realizing their potential. I include myself in this. Misanthropy of any sort forms the beginning of the slide to the worst impulses that humans can harbor.

The biggest obstacle, I think, is, from the MAGA cousin who insists on courtesy when you hang out to the most insouciant social media addict, how rarely we realize the consequences of our actions.

i cant decide whether reagan approach or the opposite is better i think i lean towards the latter tho

Misanthropy absolute dud. Recent update in the Calvin and Hobbes thread says everything that needs to be said about it

Save you a click

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GBeIDqtXwAAf_3u?format=jpg&name=medium

TBC, I do not actively wish for the destruction of humanity. But, I often despair at our seemingly endless ability to destroy our own habitat, and think that the Earth as a whole would be better off without us.

Then I think of Negronis and Bryan Ferry's hair and all is well again

Call it pride, but I can’t seperate the earth and our lives on it; till the day eventually comes

Geez that is a great mop ain’t it?

love you jimboo but can’t agree

I'm glad you can't, I don't particularly like feeling this way.

Optimism vs pessimism is the easiest of binaries, right? And so capitalist. Best to go on with your day extending kindnesses where you can and being grateful that you wake up at all.

Without question, and in my little orbit, that's what I strive to do every day.

xp as a depressive I have to ask, are you ok?

that was to Jim

Yeah, and thank you for asking. I have four kids, I worry about the world they will be living in after I'm gone. I know it weighs on them too. I suppose it's an anxiety that has replaced my childhood anxiety about nuclear war.

Understandable <3

True and prognosis isn’t great but I’d argue too that it’s never been good. Many of our ancestors lived with vastly more uncertainty than us - they just weren’t aware of the exact scope and scale like we were. I was looking at some of the old census records of part of my family a few years back and fifty years after the Famine, there is a household of my ancestors where the oldest of them would have been adults during that time. They would have survived seeing people dig in the dirt for roots to eat, possibly may have been those people themselves. Unimaginable to me, their modern descendant , a period of human suffering so profound that we don’t even really talk about it even today. Yet here on paper they were, a flourishing household, and enough context clues to suggest a happy one. The human suffering of their lifetimes didn’t exist in their actions: they still wanted love and families and to continue. Nothing is guaranteed in life, not security or happiness for any of us, and it’s cliche thinking but it is so for a reason: we could all be dead tomorrow, so exist in the moment.

Otm