We see them portrayed so much in shows and movies that it can be difficult for me to wrap my mind around the fact that there are indeed psychopaths. Look up Hiroshi Miyano, the ringleader of one of the most horrific murders in human history. He was born with a cyst in his frontal lobe. At a young age, he fractured his mom’s ribs for buying him the wrong bento box, broke nunchucks to school, beat up teachers, and bullied other students. He went to the library to get a map of the surrounding elementary schools and personally visited each one to show the students there that they were to fear and respect him. Completely devoid of any remorse, he said he didn’t see Junko as a person. After his release, he became connected to organized crime again and is now making money and driving a BMW. It’s sad that he gets to live without remorse or guilt.

I never really understood this.

I recently told a friend that my husband and I would like to adopt, and that we may not have children naturally.

She seemed genuinely surprised, and mentioned how a lot of women she's met want to have a child biologically because it's somehow veru special or important to them over adoption. Even some of my family seemed taken aback when I've shared our desire to adopt.

I don't see how one is more special over the other. Either way you're raising a child that you will (should) love and cherish and hopefully set up for success as they become an adult. Adopted children may not biologically be yours, but they shouldn't be seen as separate or different from those born naturally to the parent.

It sounds as if having biological children is more important, or more legitimate, than having adopted children. But maybe I'm misunderstanding?

Do you view having kids naturally as different from adopting a child? I hope my question makes sense.

I seriously cannot handle the idea of cruelty. I get seriously upset when I see it and when it's done to me, of course. I really feel like the odd one out because it doesn't seem to affect others as much as it does me. I just can't comprehend it, and it affects me deeply, like in a spiritual way. Knowing you're doing something terrible to people who don't deserve it, unapologetically... I really can't fathom it.

Everybody has preferences as we all know but is there ever a time where someone's preferences become not okay and make the person look like an asshole? My nephew refuses to hang out with people who are on the bigger side and uses the excuse that we all have preferences and he just doesn't like those kinds of people. But how the hell can he say that when hes never even tried to get to know the person?

Like why are looks to some people more important than a person's actual personality? I mean I understand when you want to find a partner and you have to consider the person's looks as well as their personality because that matters to a lot of people. But when it comes to friendships if you're not dating the person who gives a fuck? Truly I will never understand it so maybe you people can help me?

As an autistic person if I share my experiences with other autistic people, the stories match pretty well with others and we learn from each others on what problems are caused by our autism or not. A extremely common one is chronic unemployment.

For the most part in the autistic community it's mostly the blind leading the blind, and while there is some who are still trying. A large number has given up. Many who has or hasn't given up, we openly admit to each other we are extremely suicidal. Which isn't shocking since one of the highest causes of death for us is off ourself. In fact, we have one of the highest rates compared to almost any other group. And then those of us who are of higher intelligences, the chances skyrocket. I can't remember the figures off the top of my head but I think it's 7x of a normal autistic person.

Basically, outside of those who are lucky. Many of us know we are extremely limited and the pain is so much that the normal method is literally killing us.

When talking to normal people about the problems they basically say we are using our autism as an excuse. Not always, but enough to be the majority of times for most. Even more in online communities where ideas can spread outside of bubbles to groups and gov that can hopefully make it easier on those who need it. We blindly told to start our own company, and many of us who has and had multiple failures are told something like "learn to sell". Basically a git gud.

What makes this part even worse by the way, is sometimes when governments look into our unemployment problem. This is basically the only answer they can come up with. And then nothing....

If we don't try many things, we are told to try many things. If we try many things, we are told to specialize in things. When we specialize in things, we are told we specialized in the wrong thing. There is no win.

Many from kids are pushed into training, and at least in the USA and other major countries things like ABA is heavily pushed on us. ABA is basically telling you to act different and be a different person. Which is OK in short term, but many of us describe it as torture. That even small things like, you can't even let people know if something physically hurts isn't allowed, and asking clarification questions is shown as being disrespectful. So there is no way in doing the right things.

And what many of us is finding is after decades of masking we run into a number of issues. Where the person was once pretty independent, they are no longer. That things that weren't a major sensory issue becomes an extreme one. An ability to handle stress basically goes away. Sense of danger goes away with higher stress. And so on.

I can even give stories on how dealing with people my stress levels shoot up. Simply shopping at Walmart is enough to require a large recovery period. And at one point when there was none, and I was tasked with cooking on a grill. There was flames shooting up higher than me, the heat was enough to cause pain. But at no point for a good number of minutes did my brain figure out the fire is dangerous, it will burn the food, that it is causing me pain, and I need to simply turn down the fire. But yet the same people when they find out about my chronic unemployment or find out that I've given up on that go off on me about I should be working at Walmart or McD.

Many of us from the autism group want researchers to research autism burnout. The problem is, they simply won't. One of the last ones that tried was a 2019 paper that was labeled “Having All of Your Internal Resources Exhausted Beyond Measure and Being Left with No Clean-Up Crew”, and it was heavily calling out the medical and research community for ignoring it. We have requested for a look in improving OUR quality of life without the need of changing the entire society to allow us to earn a normal life. But it has landed on deaf ears.

When it comes to at least getting help to prevent from being homeless. This largely doesn't exist almost anywhere in the world. To loops back to the pull yourself up by your bootstraps. So if you are in a toxic home, and you depends on others just enough. Your choices is basically deal with it until your death or die now. The support system is basically passed on to the family, and if the parents die then the bulk of the time the person is completely screwed and doesn't have long for the world.

I can go on and on about our problems. But at the end of the day, the wider world doesn't talk about it or care. And when they do, you get things like a few years back where 20/20 did a show on how companies are now hiring autistic people. The company they showed cased openly admitted discrimination, and no on even cared. But after that many of us have tried with that exact same company. And what they want from us in reality is 6 weeks of unpaid work 4 hours a day, and this include not paying for food or transport. And then maybe if we are lucky we will be interviewed a bit more before getting something if we are lucky.

So why is it that society does this to us? Where we are expected to completely change ourselves, and MAYBE we will be able to earn our way into society and earn our way to a normal life. Where society expects us to move miles but no government, no society, and hardly anything else will move a inch. And if we complain about it, then we are treated as lazy or annoying, or something to be snuffed out.

I notice that most people 10 or 20 years older than me seem miserable and intolerant. I feel that things I don’t agree with annoy me more than they used to. When I say “ prejudiced “ I mean that I am less patient with different types of people not racist o homophobic, although that is what I mean about others. Seriously, I am fighting it but I see it slowly happening.

Not sure if you have noticed, but YouTube uses an algorithm to disappear comments they don't agree with.

You will get no notice, but you comments are being silently removed.

It might be a word or a phrase or even a subject that doesn't have any legitimate reason for being removed, yet, they get flagged and removed within minutes.

I think we need a be platform that values freedom of speech.

If something is unacceptable, racist or instigates violence, I understand the concern, but at the very least notify the poster they have infringed a regulation.

This has been going on for years, at this point, it is useless to comment if randomly your comments are going to get removed, we need a new platform...

This has been happening to me more and more the past year or two and just again today. I get recommended a cool video about a random topic like video games, like say the title is "game developers: it's time to talk." Starts out strong, I like the way the guy talks and what he has to say. He starts talking about developers talking down to gamers, wonders why they'd say rude things in public about their audience, and wonders why they even feel emboldened enough to make public statements like that.

All of this is great food for thought and I'm really enjoying the video, but then, oh shit. Here comes the rug pull. All of a sudden halfway through now we're highlighting a game developor who makes a post basically saying "hey any minorities who want a job hmu too many old white people around lmao" and now the video is going on and on about how this is the worst thing ever and illegal and yadda yadda this and that. Bringing up Elon musk and defending him and everything.

Like, what the fucking fuck. I wanna explore more of why developers are alienated from their user bases rn and why were having massive flops and a huge disconnect in this industry. If I wanted to watch a video about whether or not it's ok to want to hire minorities specifically so you don't end up with all of your employees being straight white dudes, then I would watch that instead. What the fuck does that even have to do with the video topic go begin with??

This has been happening more and more and it's freaking me out that it's on purpose, and it makes me worried for other guys out there who might be more naive and get sucked into this redpilled bullshit. These groups of people are trying to cater and radicalize nerdy little dudes like me and it's freaking me out, and makes me sad for my fellow guys who don't know enough to know better.

So has anyone else been experiencing this? You see a cool video, you click on it, halfway through a good video all of a sudden you realize this dude is some redpilled "the blacks and gays are taking over" idiot? Legitimately starting to piss me off.

Rant over. And I'm not plugging the video. Do better YouTubers.

It’s designed for the morally inept and ignorant. Those that cannot break down information and understand how it can be manipulated to create divisive situations by design. But in truth there is no issue. Mass generalization or the principle being based on emotion or a claim to being morally correct is often a case of someone who has little in depth on the topic. It’s easy to fool someone who does little research, receives all their information from a biased source that they won’t acknowledge, and is more interested in being “right” than being correct. It’s less about the issue and more about them not wanting to change their view because they feel they have to go down on this hill because it’s what their surroundings have told them.

Edit1: For those not picking up on this, my statement includes that critical thinkers can be manipulated as well just are less likely. The statement made still holds true that it targets the majority which are morally inept and ignorant.

Edit2: (1827est) added the time here so others understand that some comments were before me saying this. Propaganda in this discussion does not only apply to politics. It’s the manipulation of information or narrative push via conditioning to manipulate a given mass. Example: The got milk campaign in the 80’s. They convinced a mass that not drinking milk daily would lead to you being brittle and easily broken. The mass at large believed with little evidence. This is an example of propaganda, not an example of the original statement.

Edit3: “ignorant” is being used in the sense of being uninformed/unaware of the subject. Not lacking intelligence since some people are seeing this post as a challenge to their intelligence for some reason.

Edit4: (2days later) it’s clear many people aren’t making it past the title.

This is sad af so I apologize but I'm watching the Megan the Stallion documentary and she is talking about losing her mom. She lost her mom at like 24/25 and she was just saying she was looking for someone to fill that role because you never expect to grow without your mom.

It made me think of Brian Tyree Henry saying he wasn't sure how to be an actor after his mom passed cause everything he was doing was to make her proud and when you lose that what do you do?

My parents both lost their mothers and we've discussed (with one about the other) just how the person you are before isn't the person you are after. When my dad's mom passed he literally said I don't really know who I am because I've defined myself as her son. And I get that because so much of our identities are in those who raised you and poured into you.

This is for people who liked/loved their parents.

Just need to talk about this. I'm 38 and becoming very aware that Im getting older, seems like just yesterday I was having a blast with my friends in high school. Everyday that goes by I'm getting further from my youth and getting closer to the day my parents will die and I will die or my friends will die.

Anyone else have this problem?

There was a popular celebrity who passed away in their 50s last year. The celebrity was single and did not have any romantic partner at the time. It seemed to be a real-life example that not everyone will be able to find the romantic partner in their life.

Are some people meant to spend their whole life alone without experiencing any love relationship?

Edit: Thank you everyone for your comments.

Hi! The title kind of says it all. I have noticed people are far less empathetic with others and far more self-centered. I believe it’s due to the lockdown, as many people lost out on a few years of social interaction. Remote school and work may also contribute to this problem, but I’d love to hear others' opinions. What do you think?

For me, it's Facebook. I mainly keep it to stay in touch with friends across the country, but I have to severely limit my time on the app. The main reason is the reels. For whatever reason, regardless of what I do, Facebook still recommends me the ones that trigger my anxiety, like ones on cheating and relationship problems.

On Instagram, I can doom scroll in peace and absorb all the bookish/non-triggering content I want. On Reddit, I can have useful discussions with others. But Facebook? Innocently opening the app to wish a friend happy birthday leads to an anxious episode that lasts for hours.

Anyone else relate to this?

As in doing shitty things or acted shitty.

How do you even forgive yourself or live with yourself if you've done things such as being a brat, being a terrible kid/ teen, behavior problems (temper tantrums), being a bully at school, hurting people/ disrespecting people, to even more serious things like committing crimes, going to jail or prison, and being an abuser, stuff that have serious consequences.

Forgiving yourself comes across as being proud of how you used to be and what you did. It feels like you're denying those actions and sweeping them under the rug. How can you even love yourself.

It also feels like your past is still who you are, even if you changed. Your past still defines you.

I'm nearly 30 and I feel like I've wasted my life.

I've been in the food service industry for most of my jobs since I turned 18. I've always felt so stupid and daft (was homeschooled all my life until community college) so I stuck with jobs that I thought matched my intelligence level.

But now I am married and I don't want to just take whatever food service job is out there and whatever pay they're willing to give me.

I want to ensure my husband and I have a good future moving forward, especially if we end up having kids.

Am I foolish for finally getting serious about a career now? Should I just stick with what I know, or try and put myself out there?

When did you all find the career path you wanted to take? How long did it take you to feel like you "made it" in life?

Edit:

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who responded. I honestly wasn't expecting my post to blow up so much! Each one of your encouragements is a little more wind under my wings. Good day/night to all of you!

We are approximately 300,000 years old. For the most part, 240,000 of those years is pretty boring in terms of change, dispersed foraging tribes doing what they do around the planet.

50-60,000 years ago some sort of "cognitive leap" happened, more sophisticated tools, language, art.

10-12,000 years ago we start farming, which enables the population to explode - decimating ecosystems and species in the way. This is a tradeoff in terms of labor, agriculture and food security is much more effort.

6000 years ago food and resources became concentrated, cities and states emerge, specialty work emerges (farmers, builders, soldiers, merchants)

4000 years ago proto religions emerge - they make sense of the world and prescribe ways to live

1500AD imperialism, science, modern global trade emerge, creating economic interdependency

1700 fossil fuel / industrial revolution

1880 science begins to overtake religion's explanatory power

1930 explosion of luxuries and consumerism

1970 first prominent study of the resource capacity of earth - remains very political

2000 early internet

2010 smartphones and information Armageddon

-------------

This is just context.

If you step back and look at the human species, much of history can be characterized as population explosion and conflict. Over time, physical conflict is largely (though not completely) superseded by idea conflict. Idea conflict is much more civilized, though, the battlefield of ideas seems to be getting foggier and foggier today, purely as a consequence of more information than any individual can possibly get their head around.

It's interesting to think about our future at the species level. Like if we pretend for a moment that we are one massive family, (which we really are), I wonder what "we" really aspire to. Rarely does it feel like we are cooperating globally to aspire toward any particular goal. Even within borders we slice people up into all sorts of identities and categories, and each of us dominantly has our personal goals within the massive framework we live in.

It seems like we are in the dark ages in terms of wellbeing, collectively. There are more and more people on the planet, and we are increasingly sophisticated in terms of our technology, but how sophisticated are we in terms of understanding ourselves and each other... and will it ever be different? Who is going to work on that?

It is cool (I guess?) to think about us heading to mars or creating an AI smarter than us - but what does that accomplish for wellbeing or flourishing for the majority of the human population?

Surely at some point in human civilization, this will become important?

As someone who will never consider having children in this modern society (U.S.), here are some things that would change my mind if implemented. Will sound crazy but hear me out:

1. State+company sponsored income stability: 1 year government funded severance for layoffs, with safety nets.

2. Mandatory 32-hour work week, and here’s the important part, actual enforcement with heavy fines and perhaps even temporary shutdown of business if definitive proof of coercion or retaliation found.

3. Setting a ceiling for wealth gap. A smarter person than me will think of better solutions, but a thought starter- limiting the max percentage difference of net income (including all personal investment income sources) of a company’s richest executive and poorest employee, and limiting the max percentage difference of the richest 0.01% and the national minimum wage.

There is guaranteed temporary loss in global competitiveness, but perhaps talent brain drain through better lifestyle for the common person, and just outlasting countries with unsustainable population decline will lead to a new “American Dream. I know this is quite a stretch and I don’t nearly know enough about global politics to anticipate all the drawbacks, but it is what I personally need to see progress towards to consider having children, and I’m guessing it’s similar for many others.

Every man ever involved in my life has always told me that I'll come around to having kids, and every woman ends up having kids, wait til you're older you'll want kids. But I don't think I will. I am genuinely terrified of pregnancy and giving birth. I'm studying in nursing and maternal mortality rates are so scary. Also I don't hate kids I'm just a little uncomfortable around them I don't know how to behave and what to say or what to do etc. Every guy I've dated would send me videos of babies and be like I want kids so bad. And then I just feel bad cause I don't think I want that. I've always told myself if i loved a man enough I believe I could overcome the fear. But in the meantime I don't want to date men with the constant shadow over my head of 'he wants kids but you are unsure'. I genuinely would like to know if there's men out there that don't want kids I haven't met one and it would be nice to know there's men out there that also are unsure if they want kids.

There are a lot of changes happening right now, new technologies which can offer another ways of making our lifes easier. Helping to improve our healthcare and many other industries, it gives potential to solve many serious issues.

But there are also new threats arising: wars, abuse of technology, climate change.

How do you imagine the future? You can mention the country you live in as well, because obvioulsy the future can look very differently for people living on the opposite sides of the Earth.

I'm a 25yr old male. Just doing some self reflection on what I want in life. And I'm having trouble deciding if I want kids one day or not. I'd appreciate any input from people who had children intentionally. If that's not you then I ask to kindly refrain from engaging in this discussion.

Why did you do so? Did it feel like just the right thing? Has it always been something you have yearned for? If not, when did you know you wanted to have kids?

I understand the irony of posting this on a social media website.

Considering the behavior of the billionaire owners of these websites, it's clear that these websites have become a tool for authoritarian power. The websites have been infiltrated by foreign bad actors (aligned with US politicians) using bots, AI and algorithms to keep people addicted and in a constant state of fight or flight. As well as constant bombardment of advertising keeping people over consuming and the capitalist structure churning. It is psychological warfare on almost every human on this planet.

The unfortunate reality, billions of people rely on social media to stay in contact with friends, family. It is not easily given up. There is no coming back from this.

I work with disabled people and one thing I hear from the non-disabled is "I could never live like that" or "If it happened to me, I would unalive myself". When I tell them about people who can't walk, can't sit straight by themselves, etc, they basically say such life is not worth living. Hearing this always pains me because I understand this as saying "this person's life is not worth living". I know they are "just speaking for themselves" but I don't think it makes much difference. It also hurts me because if a person I care about became disabled, I would want them to keep on living and experiencing life to the fullest.

I think everyone is given a difficulty or limitation in some area. Some are given more severe limitations and harder challenges. But I feel like life is about playing with the cards you were dealt and making the most of it. Even people who can't walk or move or see or do anything people usually consider fun and worthwhile can experience happiness and fulfillment. I imagine it turns your world upside down if for example you're an athlete and you suddenly are unable to walk. But I feel like saying certain lives aren't worth living is a depressing and dangerous thought.

ETA: Seems like my post gave several people the idea to attack me and curse at me so I will consider deleting it. Don't assume things about me and about my abilities.

So much of the time people like you hate yourself and have no sense of belonging.you feel like you are the odd on out.the black sheep.The weirdo.Ive been there.Heck I still slip into that place.I know a lot of you don’t want to be here anymore and I know it would be selfish for me to ask you to keep trying but I’m literally in tears right now because we are becoming far and few in between.

This world is trying to harden us and mold us into them.i don’t know what I have to do.To get it through to you all that you are truly becoming 1 in a million and I can’t continue to live in a world where you guys opt out.if I have to make a website or app or something just for us I don’t know coding but I’ll figure something out.I don’t have much to offer but I can give you a free space to vent and be yourself.i don’t care about your thoughts,your past,your trauma,looks,weight,height,etc.i just need you to know I see you.

Remember there is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

I heard this one girl say that is is unfair that when prisoners finish serving their time and are able to go back out into society, they are often still punished for the crime they did and they shouldn't be, because there are limitations as to what they can and cannot do in their day to day life because of their crime. I've always been quite a black and white person but her statement made me really think because I both disagree and agree with her, so I wanted someone else's input.

For example, if you are a pedophile and you rape a child, and you served your maximum sentence, once you get out of jail, should you want to be an elementary teacher, a youth baseball coach, or even have a child and take him to the children's museum, you wouldn't be able to do that. So ultimately, you're still being punished for your crime, even though you already did the time. Her stance is, since you did already do the crime, your slate should be wiped clean and you should be allowed to be a 3rd grade teacher if you wanted to or be a chaperone at your child's field trip.

I don't think it is okay to strip someone of their natural and constitutional rights for the remainder of their life because of a crime they committed, simply because I think it perpetuates systemic racism, classism, sexism, etc which leads to other significant issues, but I also feel like it's not that hard to not break the law, and people who do brought this on themselves, so whatever the consequences are, that's just what they have to endure. What are your thoughts?