Little Things That Irk You: The Hateful 08

[Cassius_Smoke]

I got a tax rebate in the post yesterday for a whopping £64. Nice.
... Then along with it in the post was a letter from a debt collection agency for £62 from a house we lived in 5 years ago.
Damn it.

[fuse]

In conversation with my girlfriend, and she describes someone as being a spendthrift. While no-one's ever sat me down and explained specifically what that word means, I do know what 'spend' and 'thrift' mean in isolation and had assumed 2 + 2 = 4. Conversation continues and I eventually have to say "you're describing someone who spends a lot of money, didn't you say they were a spendthrift?". Cue us looking this up, and we have...

A spendthrift (also profligate or prodigal) is someone who is extravagant and recklessly wasteful with money, often to a point where the spending climbs well beyond his or her means. "Spendthrift" derives from an obsolete sense of the word "thrift" to mean prosperity rather than frugality, so a "spendthrift" is one who has spent their prosperity.

I bloody hate this language at times.

[briareos_kerensky]

The saga of the broken water pipe in my apartment continues. Last update was November last year, and only now they notice us that we'll have to vacate the building for 2-3 days so that pipes are completely redone.
Not happy at all, this is eating into my vacation days, not to mention all the hassle of finding a place to stay for those days. I don't know wheter going somewhere (but where?), visit parents/friends in Italy, or book an hotel nearby and not lose holidays.

[Asura]

IKEA's delivery. We had a problem with it, but that's a big irk. The little irk is that the delivery note the drivers are given is based on the packages they load into the van; so if the delivery is wrong, they have a piece of paper which has listed the stuff they're delivering, which by definition should always be correct. It's a tautology. We had a delivery with something wrong and all the driver could say is that it matched his notes. You can't refuse an incorrect delivery because for the driver, it's not incorrect.

[Dogg Thang]

It’s not like TikTok’s own record isn’t atrocious but here’s just another in the ever-growing list of stories on why Facebook is reprehensible.

Facebook paid GOP firm to malign TikTok:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/

Facebook is completely morally bankrupt.

Edit: and maybe I think TikTok’s record is atrocious because that’s how good FB is at this..,

[Brad]

All these platforms need to just die. They are so toxic. They will be the cause of the collapse of civilisation.

[Lebowski]

All these platforms need to just die. They are so toxic. They will be the cause of the collapse of civilisation.

Their defiantly should be stricter laws regarding the use of social media in school age children, At my daughters school this last year social media was at the center of a cutting trend where a whole class was self harming, its been used as a form of harassment to share illegal pictures of pupils (the police have been called in multiple times).

its also responsible for bringing gender identity massively to the forefront you have 11 year olds more confused about their sexuality than ever and worrying about things that they have no business being worried about at 11 years old, you may see this as a good thing but it just means kids are put under more pressure than ever to define themselves with support groups and clubs becoming massively popular and very over subscribed.

[Asura]

its also responsible for bringing gender identity massively to the forefront you have 11 year olds more confused about their sexuality than ever and worrying about things that they have no business being worried about at 11 years old, you may see this as a good thing but it just means kids are put under more pressure than ever to define themselves with support groups and clubs becoming massively popular and very over subscribed.

I'm kinda ambivalent to this. Mainly because on the one hand, yes, it probably does mean that kids are looking into these things at younger ages.

But on the other, I don't believe that kids are any more "confused" than they were; I just think they have words and terms for the things they feel.

My dad says "in my day kids didn't suggest there were more than 2 genders".

Whereas I say "in my day the kids who didn't fit neatly into society's boxes got bullied and sometimes killed themselves" - that sits alongside all those people whose life falls apart at 45 because they finally "come to terms with themselves" and the facade of the life they've lived is no longer sustainable.

I think we need some protection because bad advice is rife and young people are vulnerable to bad faith actors who want to exploit them. That certainly hasn't changed. The problem is that "protection" for many involves trying to stop children finding out about these things at all, which isn't a solution, or at least not one that I feel solves anything.

[Dogg Thang]

Yep. We also need to not pretend that the internet invented these things. No more than games invented violence.

[Lebowski]

I'm kinda ambivalent to this. Mainly because on the one hand, yes, it probably does mean that kids are looking into these things at younger ages.

But on the other, I don't believe that kids are any more "confused" than they were; I just think they have words and terms for the things they feel.

My dad says "in my day kids didn't suggest there were more than 2 genders".

Whereas I say "in my day the kids who didn't fit neatly into society's boxes got bullied and sometimes killed themselves" - that sits alongside all those people whose life falls apart at 45 because they finally "come to terms with themselves" and the facade of the life they've lived is no longer sustainable.

I think we need some protection because bad advice is rife and young people are vulnerable to bad faith actors who want to exploit them. That certainly hasn't changed. The problem is that "protection" for many involves trying to stop children finding out about these things at all, which isn't a solution, or at least not one that I feel solves anything.

As a parent what Ive seen is its pushing kids to define their identity and sexuality before their even sure themselves, what wrong with just letting kids be kids. It's not about taking these topics off the table its more about not burden kids with choices when their not ready to make them.

Kids are not any more tolerant or mature these days so the things you mentioned above still persists and haven't got any better, its just now we have a generation of kids more confused then ever.

[Asura]

All these platforms need to just die. They are so toxic. They will be the cause of the collapse of civilisation.

The most high-concept part of this dystopian sci-fi plot our society we're writing has to do with FB's recent embracing of VR and rebranding to Meta.

As if screwing up the real world wasn't enough, to get away from the governments nipping at their heels they're just going to create a new one.

[Dogg Thang]

As if screwing up the real world wasn't enough, to get away from the governments nipping at their heels they're just going to create a new one.

I guess that might be okay if they move there permanently? I mean, the best thing that happened to Trump was getting booted off social media so he'd have to create his own where all his trolls can live. Maybe we ask FB to leave the real world and go reside in its own digital world? Maybe they don't even have to know, like that Ship in a Bottle episode of Next Gen?

[Brad]

As a parent what Ive seen is its pushing kids to define their identity and sexuality before their even sure themselves, what wrong with just letting kids be kids. It's not about taking these topics off the table its more about not burden kids with choices when their not ready to make them.

Kids are not any more tolerant or mature these days so the things you mentioned above still persists and haven't got any better, its just now we have a generation of kids more confused then ever.

Went through the same thing. Self harming, eating disorders and more than half the year declaring they were trans and any that weren’t were bisexual (I’m not exaggerating). Not saying trans isn’t a thing but surely it does not affect more than half the population. By the time they’d moved into 6th form most of them had realised they weren’t trans and didn’t need to have an eating disorder to be interesting. Back then it was Tumblr where they all hung out but the apps may change but the damage caused doesn’t. The school actually had us ban the use of some of the platforms for the welfare of the kids. So yeah, my thoughts on it all are based on what I went through as a parent. I appreciate the group of people I’ve used to form this opinion is not a large set but I’m unlikely to change my views at this point.

[cutmymilk]

Doog and Asura, you both say a lot about sport and children despite admitting that you know nothing about sport and you don't work with children.

[Asura]

Doog and Asura, you both say a lot about sport and children despite admitting that you know nothing about sport and you don't work with children.

If we only allowed people to have an opinion on what they have personally experienced, then no minority of people would ever get the acceptance in society they should have, because the number of - in this instance - trans people in society will almost certainly be a minority.

By saying "I don't know much about sport" I mean that I'm willing to consider other points of view from those I consider knowledgeable about it.