@Tom_Rowsell@MythoYookay Swedish pizza is an aberration. Not only the "enriched" flavours like kebab or curry, but also that stale cabbage salad they eat with their Arab-made pizzas. Weird
The romanticization of downies is very weird to me.
“Oh they’re so happy!” Yeah because they have an IQ of 34.
People see little clips of the higher-functioning minority being cute online and then feel entitled to massively underestimate the amount of mental, social, financial, and medical resources it takes to raise them.
This isn’t helped by the fact that the parents of profoundly disabled kids often try and offset the (very valid) guilt, disappointment, and burnout they feel by frantically pretending like their lives are great because farming praise for being “good people” and righteously dunking on parents who don’t want that for themselves are the only coping mechanisms they have.
A profoundly disabled child is not a houseplant or kitten, and it isn’t a responsibility that ever ends. The vast majority of downies are not capable of obtaining even a mild degree of independence.
You will be taking care of them until the day you die (and spend the last moments of your life worrying about who will take care of them when you’re gone).
Imagine being 80 years old and still having to heat up nuggets for your 45 year old child, remind them to wash, tell them when to go to bed, etc…
Imagine not being able to do literally anything without having to consider whether or not your downie labubu can join.
Imagine never having grandchildren, or never being able to see your child go to college or get married. Fundamental experiences many look forward to, gone.
It’s not like the cute little clips in the vast majority of cases.
And this is all especially true if you have a male downie because once they hit puberty and adulthood, you now have all of the urges of a horny man trapped in the mind and body of someone with a no impulse control and superhuman retard strength.
It’s all fun and games until your 300 pound adult son who has the intellectual capacity of a turnip whips his junk out in a Walmart and starts rubbing it on the My Little Pony display (I witnessed this once, absolutely horrifying scenes).
All I’m saying is… If you want to be a downie parent - awesome. I wish you the best. I am sure there are plenty of profoundly disabled kids waiting to be adopted and you can put your money where your mouth is anytime.
But I do not blame anyone who does not want that life for themselves and, crucially, recognizes they would not be good parents in that situation.
At the very least, I respect the fact that they’re being honest, which seems to be something most people can’t do when it comes to the disabled.
I just watched Backrooms. It's interesting that the IKEA from hell in the film is called "Ottoman Empire". I know it's a play on the popular piece of furniture (which usually contains hidden storage spaces, another reference), but the historical Ottoman Empire was known for actively sponsoring and supporting Barbary corsairs (Islamic pirates, like the infamous Barbarossa). Barbary? Barbara? Pirates? If you watched the film, things start to make sense—or not. Anyway, go watch it!
I hate Paris
I spent the last 4 days there, but I also lived there for around 2 years in total, so this is not a tourist opinion
Every time I go back, I have the same question:
Why do so many people accept living like this?
No air conditioning, too much insecurity, public transport that sucks, tiny overpriced apartments, noise, stress, dirt, and the feeling that the city is slowly eating your nervous system
Also, the two usual excuses don’t hold
1. If you are an entrepreneur, you say: “I need to be close to the ecosystem”
Nah, if you want a real global tech ecosystem, go to San Francisco or Shenzhen
Don’t stick to the BPI-subsidized environment
If you want to build in France with a better life, go to Nice: sea, mountains, airport, security, food, light, Italy next door, Monaco nearby
2. If you are an employee, you say: “Salaries and jobs are better in Paris”
Sometimes, yes
But €2,500 net per month in Paris is not a good salary
It is survival with a dedicated path to becoming the kind of guy who runs during the week and takes drugs in techno clubs on weekends to escape his 9 to 5
You pay insane rent, sweat in the metro, sleep badly, queue for everything, and live surrounded by communists and wokists
I don’t buy it
Please explain to me
"In the ages of crude primeval culture man believed that in dreams he got to know another real world; here is the origin of all metaphysics. Without the dream one would have found no occasion for a division of the world. The separation of body and soul, too, is related to the most ancient conception of the dream; also the assumption of a phantom body of the soul, which is the origin of all belief in spirits and probably also of the belief in gods. 'The dead live on; for they appear to the living in dreams'; this inference went unchallenged for many thousands of years."
— Nietzsche, Human, All-Too-Human, 5