Maybe, maybe not. Doesn’t matter, it is currently free and people prefer it over your nerdy cousin because of that

There’s the argument that despite what your nerdy cousin says, he doesn’t actually like making art, he just think that if he can be an artist he won’t have to have a real job. He doesn’t want to draw a picture for you, otherwise he would have done it for free simply because it was fun

This is why AI art is so incredibly popular

Fuck my nerdy cousin, AI will do a bang-up job for free

This is the problem… people tried

“I need an icon for my twitch channel”

“I’m an artist, I don’t work for free” /r/choosingbeggers

https://time.com/6965267/women-having-kids-later/

In 1970, the average woman in the U.S. had her first baby at around 21 years old. That’s hard to imagine now: new federal data published in April show that in 2022, the average first-time mother was a little older than 27

The foundation for this trend was laid in the 1960s, when the birth control pill came onto the scene

it has become increasingly common for people to have children later in life for a range of reasons, including concerns about finances and child care, waiting longer to get married or find a partner, and prioritizing education, career, or leisure time during young adulthood.

it’s still far more common for people to want children than to plan to stay child-free, and that most prospective parents want more than one baby. What’s different from decades past, Guzzo says, is that people are increasingly pushing back the ages at which they have those kids, often into their 30s and beyond.

Normal people don’t use VS Code either… what’s a silly article

I don’t use a scalpel… so I guess scalpels are stupid and Surgeons are idiots?

They want to stay younger longer

The dream is to be young and rich so you can travel and go to nightclubs and shit… not be young, rich, and a mother of 6 children

Eventually you get tired of the nightclubs and that’s when you want kids… but influencers like MrBeast, IShowSpeed, even the Kardashians didn’t rush out with their money and have kids

I’m not rioting for bread, I’m rioting to tear down a broken system

If I want bread, I’ll just steal it. I don’t have to burn down Target to steal bread now, why would that change?

I do need to remind the people in charge who they work for though… and if they’re not willing to share what they have, then I’ll take it from THEM. If they’re not willing to get rid of their shit to save the environment then I’ll get rid of it for THEM

I don’t want to steal a TV from Target, I want to steal the TVs from the CEO who decided bread costs $7

I tell people all of the time

“I won’t throw the first brick, but when the bricks start flying give me a call”

The thing that broke me wasn’t data centers or hot weather, it was when I had to pay $7 for hot dog buns

The business men who put a $7 price tag on hot dog buns during the 4th of July are not nearly as afraid of the public as they should be.

It’s fucking bread. Bread!

When stealing bread to feed your family is almost a felony… burn it down.

Problem is, if it happened, you would need to choose your targets wisely for it to be effective. Looting a Target isn’t the answer. The point is not to get yourself a new TV; it’s to advocate for real change. Don’t burn down your own place of business, don’t burn down your own neighborhood… burn theirs

Find the motherfuckers in the Epstein Files, sink yachts, tear down the walls surrounding billionaire neighborhoods, etc…

Yes, money is a factor, but it’s not the only factor and it’s not necessarily the largest factor

People want to be younger longer. Graduate, go to college, drink, party, sleep around, get a job, focus on their career, go to concerts, hang out a breweries, travel, etc…

Tying yourself down with kids by the age of 20 or 23 is no longer a common dream. So the same amount of people have kids in life, they just star having kids later and end up with less of them.

There are less accidental pregnancies thanks to better sex education and access to contraceptives and when it comes to doomer-ism, young people are worried about climate change, over population, and like you saw from an earlier response, stupid cry-baby shit like, “I don’t want to make another wage slave”

I keep thinking about the beginning to the movie Idiocracy. Yes, it’s just a movie but the picture it paints remains somewhat valid. While money was an issue to the middle class family, the trashy poor family in the trailer park ended up with six kids.

So yeah, maybe money is an issue to you but it’s not to everyone.

And don’t get it twisted. Being poor and having kids doesn’t make you a bad person. Lots of people grow up poor to hard working, intelligent, loving parents who give them a pretty good life overall. PS5s and new cars don’t make you a good parent. A soccer ball and a tent can do wonders

Again, money is an issue, but it’s not THE driving force you would assume it is

For example, lifestyle plays a big part. People want to be younger longer. They want to graduate high school, go to college, party, drink, sleep around, go to concerts, etc… once they’re a little older they want to get jobs, focus on their careers, spend their days at breweries, traveling, etc…

The dream of getting married within a year of graduating high school and having your first child by the time you are 20 is long gone

This means that roughly the same amount of people are still having children, they’re just having less children because they start having children later in life. The average family size use to be 3.5 kids, now it’s 1.5 or 2.5, I can’t remember

You can see this if you go watch shows from the 50s and 60s. Shows like My Three Sons or The Brady Bunch. It was totally normal to have 3 kids; hence “middle child syndrome”

There are also less accidental pregnancies thanks to better sex education and easier access to contraceptives.

And when it comes to internet doomerism, people are claiming they’re not having kids because they’re concerned about climate change and over-population

And yes, money is also part of this list but it’s not as simple as, “can’t afford it”

Which isn’t surprising. At 22, even if you made $300k a year, you probably still wouldn’t want to stop living your life to have a kid, especially if you are a woman. At 35 or 40, sure, that money would definitely help you make the choice to have a child, or more children, but also, by 35 or 40 lots of people can already afford it

And lets be real, it’s not like poor people almost never have kids because they make great life choices… I just keep thinking about the beginning of Idiocracy. The middle class family waits until they can afford it, the trashy family in the trailer park had like 6 kids. It’s a movie, sure, but the idea is kind of the same. Money, to you, might be an issue, but it’s not to everybody.

Anecdotal

Roughly the same amount of people want children and roughly the same amount of people have children

What has changed is when they start having children and how many they have

In the past if you had 100 women, maybe 90 of them would become mothers with 3 children

Now 85 women become parents but they only 1 or 2 children each

So yeah, fewer people are having children but not enough to really matters. The big issue is that we settle down, get married, and start families later in life, giving us less time to produce more children. So family size is shrinking.

Take every family with kids and add 2 kids, there’s your missing numbers.

It’s not that money isn’t an issue, but it’s not the driving force you would assume it is

It’s not that everyone doesn’t enjoy the same things I do, it’s the way they don’t enjoy it

I don’t know what you like to do for fun but lets pretend it’s, “Play video games”

A sane way to react to someone enjoying something you don’t is:

“that’s cool. I’m not super into video games, but I understand why other people would like them. To each their own”

But that’s not what happened. What happened was:

"I guess playing games is cool if you’re an idiot that likes supporting billionaire tech CEOs who kill the environment with plastic trinkets for nerds who have an obsession with watching millionaires push buttons on the internet. There is life besides video games and there’s a lot of stuff you can do to have fun both alone and with your friends. It’s a shame you don’t understand this. "

That kind of response doesn’t make you as cool as you think it does

My hunch is that this site is full of literal children. The vast majority of you are maybe 16 years old. If you’re older, it’s worse than I thought because it’s embarrassing to be a grown adult who still talks like that. If the internet is encouraging you to think it makes you cool to hate stuff, get off the internet. It’s bad for you. Hating shit isn’t cool, enjoying life is.

I’m happy people all over the world play video games. Yeah, there are some downsides… but I think it’s neat you can play a game tonight with somebody in another country and the two of you can have fun together; and if lots of people can come together for a big event like e3 or GDQ, great! I don’t need to engage in it myself to see how awesome that is

This has that big, “social incel” energy. Most of us went to a giant party and had the time of our lives. We drank, we danced, we cheered, we laughed, we got laid. It was great! But not you. You think you’re super cool because you didn’t go that party because, “AcTuAlLy PlAsTiC cUpS aRe BaD fOr ThE eNvIrOnMeNt”.

That’s just lame. Missing out on big fun events doesn’t make you cool… you’re just fucking up your own life. This is it, this is all you get. Don’t spend it watching from the sidelines

I’ll just copy and past something I said to somebody to somebody else

–

I don’t really use sites like this… when I was younger different forums on different sites was still a thing

I kind of out-grew that and focused on my real-world life. Got a woman, had kids, climbed the corporate ladder, etc… I get my news from RSS feeds and I spend my days actually going places and doing things. I’m still friends with people I met in elementary school. My kids have activities, I befriended other parents, etc…

But when the World Cup rolled around, this time, I’m high enough up the corporate ladder that not only do I get to work from home but I don’t really have scheduled work hours any more. I have tasks that need to be done but when I do them is up to me and if my board items are clear I don’t have anything to do. So this year I thought I’d watch the games and post about them on reddit… but that turned out to be a shit-show. Turns out reddit is a terrible place

So some quick research said, “try Lemmy”

I like that Lemmy is smaller, reminds me more of the forum days… but the people here don’t seem any different than the people on reddit; there’s just less of them

Nobody seems happy. In fact, they seem to get joy out making everything out to be as bad as it can possible be.

I just looked it up: 61% of the world watched at least one world cup game and at any give time around half the worlds population was watching. That’s fucking awesome that we do this. Half the world was cheering with me, dancing with me, partying with me… countries have ended wars in the past to participate… and the internet is full of people who think that sucks. Not just think it sucks, but think it’s cool to think it sucks.

My advice to anyone who sees this, just quit social media. That’s not new information, you hear it all the time… it’s even starting to be banned for children it’s so bad… but seriously. Give it up. This is no way to live. A past-time where this kind of constant negativity is being thrown in your face is no way to live.

I don’t really use sites like this… when I was younger different forums on different sites was still a thing

I kind of out-grew that and focused on my real-world life. Got a woman, had kids, climbed the corporate ladder, etc… I get my news from RSS feeds and I spend my days actually going places and doing things. I’m still friends with people I met in elementary school. My kids have activities, I befriended other parents, etc…

But when the World Cup rolled around, this time, I’m high enough up the corporate ladder that not only do I get to work from home but I don’t really have scheduled work hours any more. I have tasks that need to be done but when I do them is up to me and if my board items are clear I don’t have anything to do. So this year I thought I’d watch the games and post about them on reddit… but that turned out to be a shit-show. Turns out reddit is a terrible place

So some quick research said, “try Lemmy”

I like that Lemmy is smaller, reminds me more of the forum days… but the people here don’t seem any different than the people on reddit; there’s just less of them

Nobody seems happy. In fact, they seem to get joy out making everything out to be as bad as it can possible be.

I just looked it up: 61% of the world watched at least one world cup game and at any give time around half the worlds population was watching. That’s fucking awesome that we do this. Half the world was cheering with me, dancing with me, partying with me… countries have ended wars in the past to participate… and the internet is full of people who think that sucks. Not just think it sucks, but think it’s cool to think it sucks.

My advice to anyone who sees this, just quit social media. That’s not new information, you hear it all the time… it’s even starting to be banned for children it’s so bad… but seriously. Give it up. This is no way to live. A past-time where this kind of constant negativity is being thrown in your face is no way to live.

61% of the worlds population watched at least one World Cup game this year.

If you had sat down and watched even a single game, at that point in time, people all over the world, lots of them, were watching that same game with you. They were cheering with you. They danced in the streets, threw parties, and just generally celebrated with you. Literally a global celebration that you were invited too

It’s such a big deal that, in the past, countries have literally ended wars with each other in order to participate

Being the weird-o kid that pretends like he’s too cool to go that party because “AcTuAlLy ThErE’s CoRrUpTiOn” is not nearly as cool as you think it is

Not liking something like this isn’t a brag… it’s just one less thing you can enjoy in life. One less thing you can watch. One less thing you can talk about. Etc…

The entire world partied for a month and you’re over here thinking you’re better because you were too cool to join in on the fun

Nobody likes that guy that tells himself he was, “too cool” to go to the party

yeah.

I made a comment in a match thread and got the alert on the little bell icon that usually means somebody responded

But instead of a response it was an auto-message that said my comment had been removed because my account is too new and doesn’t have enough Karma to post. But this auto-message also said something like, “message the mods here” and then had a link I could click to message the mods of the World Cup sub, so that’s what I did

And all I was doing was explaining that I’m not a bot and I’ll take a picture or whatever to prove it, I’m just a dude who signed up for reddit that day just to post in the world cup match threads. That waiting days before being allowed to post isn’t the end of the world but considering the World Cup is a limited-time event, not allowing me to post for days would mean I wouldn’t be able to post in match threads for 12 or 13 of the games (at that point there were 3 or 4 a day)

So I was just asking if they could lift my ban considering the circumstances

But they came back and questioned why I had no posted anywhere else on reddit.

So I told them, “I don’t really like reddit. I don’t have any interest in posting anywhere else. I’m literally only here for the World Cup match threads”.

And I guess me telling them that reddit sucks was a trigger because the response I got back after that was super nasty

It wasn’t until later did I think, “I be the World Cup sub is a sub created by reddit admins themselves because of it’s popularity. So I bet the mods of that sub are people who work for reddit. And I just told reddit employees I think their site sucks shit, hence the nasty response”

It’s just a bit ironic because it was their chance to change my mind and prove that reddit doesn’t suck. Instead they banned my entire account and just kind of proved to me that everything bad I think about their site is not only true but actually much, much worse

I got banned for making an account just to post in the World Cup threads but the sub wouldn’t let me post because my account needed to be older and have a certain amount of karma

This “you can’t post message” came with a note saying I could message a mod and then a link to click to do just that, so I did

I explained I wasn’t a bot, I was a human, I’d prove it however they wanted, but I couldn’t really wait days to post because the World Cup is happening now and in 3 or 4 days I’d miss like 12 games

They responded saying that I had zero karma and had not made any posts…

So I replied that yeah, this is exactly true because I don’t like reddit I only signed up to post in the World Cup Match threads

I received a very nasty reply where they told me that reddit was super popular with millions of users and that it wasn’t their problem I didn’t like reddit and then my account got banned

I believe the World Cup is super popular and so it’s not just a random sub ran by random people in the world… but a sub made by reddit and moderated by reddit employees. So I just told a reddit employee I hate their site and so they banned me

It’s a pretty shit site

In other words, the average person is dumb and so they’re entertained by dumb things

“You like money and sex? Me too! We should hang out”

Garfield is notorious for being lame to the point where there are no real jokes… Garfield comics are just Garfield saying the same thing everybody says

For instance, I googled “Garfield Comic” and the first one that showed up was Garfield walking up to a mirror, Looking in the mirror, walking away from the mirror, and the last panel had Garfield think, “when did the cat in that mirror get so old?”

There’s nothing to that comic, It could have been one panel if you really wanted it to be and that “joke” is the same thing my Grandma said when we walked past a store with a reflective window

And that’s all this PizzaCake comic is

Literally everybody was like, “if they’re so proud why do they cover their face?” – it’s the political equivalant of, “If it didn’t ring up it must be free”

This shit sucks