#1
He’s the closest thing to the Bible’s description of the antichrist the world has ever seen, and Christians just bury their heads in the sand because he plays for their team.
#2
The golden era that the MAGA movement keeps calling back to -- huge U.S. manufacturing, demand for American products, outsized credibility and influence with foriegn governments -- all originate from a time when the rest of the world was crippled from the most destructive series of events in human history. America was one of the very few countries to benefit from it, and it lasted long enough that it created an entire generation who then assumed that the boom was the natural order of the world.
It's baked into their worldview, and that will never change.
But the world has changed. Instead of accepting that, or ceeding power to a younger generation with a better understanding of the actual realities of the modern world, they would rather live in the fantasy. It's infantile and entitled beyond belief, and it's also very obviously unsustainable.
It's killing our country and our planet, but instead of just acknowledging that things have changed we're arguing about how much more money the rich old people need for things to get better.
#3
We wanted to learn more about why people often ignore the elephant—or the blue whale—in the room, so we got in touch with Professor of Psychology at Stetson University in Florida, Christopher J. Ferguson, who pointed out that most people aren’t dying to get involved in conflict.
“Whatever the issue that came up, it may not be one they either were prepared to have a conflict over, or one that's important enough to them to have a conflict over,” he noted.
The expert added that choosing sides in a conflict is also something not many people are eager to do, as it usually comes at a social cost. “Often the conflict occurring may have broached the norms of typical social engagement, so viewers may not really know the social rules of what to do either.”
#4
Its not going to be easy at all to fix. We need to start with the functional literacy rate and critical thinking skills, and unfortunately grown adults don't like to be told they aren't as smart as a 5th grader.
#5
Talking about why it can be difficult for people to address certain things even when they’re pretty obvious to them and others, Prof. Ferguson explained that this might be related to a certain tendency.
“There is a tendency people have to try to go along to get along. People don't want to be seen to be in the minority or a contrarian, even if the truth is pretty obvious. Being the contrarian often comes at social costs, even if the contrarian is correct.”
#6
#7
#8
The meeting went on like normal and nobody said a word, LOL.
Even though many of us don’t want to admit it, it’s not uncommon for people to turn a blind eye to uncomfortable truths. According to Prof. Ferguson, those who do usually fall into one of the two related groups.
“The first are people who passionately don't want the truth to be true. They will become very upset when confronted with the truth, often stretching themselves into mental pretzels to do so.
“You can see this in political conversations, or when telling people that say, social media doesn't actually cause youth mental health issues, or race doesn't actually predict police shootings in the US (both true, in fact). Most people will just shrug and say that's interesting, whether they agree or not. But some become truly angry and may go so far as to try to destroy the reputation of the person bringing that information,” the expert explained, adding that the second group comprises of people afraid of the first one.
#9
#10
#11
One might think that when a person is in a group of people they know well, it might be less awkward for them to address the blue whale in the room. However, that’s not necessarily the case. According to Prof. Ferguson, the extent to which it’s easy or difficult to address certain issues depends on where the professional and social costs lie.
“People may be reluctant to intervene with strangers because it's just not worth the bother. But people close to us can inflict the greatest professional or social costs,” he noted. “Much of ‘cancel culture’ (whether on the left or right) is designed to ensure this… demonstrate the professional costs of telling the truth so people stop doing that.
“That tended to involve one's own social group, tagging of employers, and so on. Look how in June 2020, for a brief moment, it seemed like everyone thought defunding or even abolishing the police must be a swell idea, when I'm sure 90% or so of people must have understood what a disastrous policy that would have been if ever put in place at scale (even minor efforts in the US caused homicide rates to surge).”
#12
Everyone knows that they're being overworked and under-recognized, but anyone saying that is putting a huge target on their back by embarrassing their boss in an open forum, and the idea of a consequence-free acknowledgement of the boss demanding work over weekends or yelling at staff publicly destroying morale is something everyone knows, but no one mentions in front of them.
#13
The anaesthetist was having an affair with the scrub nurse and the surgeon was the anaesthetists wife who knew about the affair
That was a VERY awkward case
Edited to add - nothing went down, it was a routine case with no problems
But the psychological tension could be cut with a scalpel.
#14
#15
#16
Like full on disappeared. He stopped showing up to work with no explanation, stopped messaging his mother, didnt say a word to any of his friends or on/off girlfriends. His sister even went to his apartment, it looked like he had just vanished one day leaving all his stuff. I think a missing persons report was even filed.
He resurfaced claiming he'd been over seas interviewing for a job. Clearly something checked out because the report was dropped, but that is literally all that he said as far as I know.
We had a family get together not long after he resurfaced. Nobody asked him anything, nobody even made a joke. Everyone just acted like he never left. It was weird. Especially as my family *love* the opportunity to rib each other. The closest any of my family have come to addressing it is my uncle joking that my cousin got replaced by a lizardman in disguise.
#17
#18
With several young children in the house, and in front of his parents, my grandparents, things seemed to be going well at first. Outside of the MASSIVE collection of VHS p**n tapes that literally filled up two entire racks of tape storage just sitting next to the TV. There was some extremely hardcore stuff in there too just out in the open for all of us to see. What's worse was he kept trying to make comments about whatever football game was on at the time, but you literally couldn't look at the TV without seeing several videos that had naked women on the front.
This awkwardness went on for a little bit while we were there till my mom, who had been in the kitchen helping cook since we got there, came in and saw the videos and lost it on him and we left almost immediately. I never found out why he thought it was a good idea to leave them out. Or why no one else said anything to him up to that point. But I never saw him again after that and no one else ever brought it up again. I guess morale of the story is that when you're trying to prove to the rest of your family you've turned over a new leaf, don't leave hardcore pornography in plain view for children to see.
#19
I quit a week later.
#20
