u/DipperJC

Hi there.

So I'm a Xennial, a child of the late 1980s and early 1990s. As such, I have something of a natural distaste for what I consider "old" movies; basically any movie made before 1960 is just unwatchable to me. Even movies I gave a chance and really liked (It's a Wonderful Life, for example) just aren't really palatable because of the grainy footage and the black and white picture and the overly simplistic storylines because anything that had a whiff of controversy wasn't really allowed to be made back then (Anything Goes is such an ironic song/play to me because they had NO idea how much further down the rabbit hole they still had to go).

When I engage with my younger friends, I sometimes encounter resistance to movies from my childhood. And I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, I know that movie quality in 1985 was probably filmed in 720p tops and that's going to be qualitatively different from something filmed in 8K+, so I start to think maybe the youngins in my life are having a pretty fair reaction, no different from mine. But on the other hand, it's arguably a much smaller difference than the old timey pre-1960 movies, and it's not like movies in the late 20th century were sanitized (if anything, they were actually more permissive than movies of today - imagine trying to make Back to the Future in today's world, everybody would clutch their pearls and scream in outrage at the concept of someone's mom jumping their bones and attempting to kiss them romantically in a parked car). So on that level, I feel like their prejudice has less validity to it than mine does.

So what do you think? Am I just that grumpy old man who's out of touch with the preferences of modern youth? Or is media technology so comparatively new that it's possible for me to have a genuine gripe?

So I was reading something on r/no that got me curious about the poster. I post creeped a little bit, and turns out they had commented on r/averagepenis a couple of months ago. I mean, hey, I like penis, so I figured I'd see what it was about...

Holy CRAP, there's so much engagement in that sub. Puts like every political sub I comment on to shame. Honestly, puts every sub I'm on to shame. I had been a little bit concerned, given some of the political banter, that we were in trouble... but for some reason, seeing all those flesh sticks rising up like flags in the air makes me feel a lot better. Turns out we're all just perverts.

To paraphrase JFK, "Ask not what the world can do for your kid, ask what your kid can do for the world." I've seen FAR too many posts in far too many places with the same theme about how this world isn't suitable to bring a kid into and it would never have any hope of being happy and content.

You are prioritizing the feelings of nonexistent people over the needs of our species.

We're not supposed to have kids so that they can be happy. We have them to pick up the work we're leaving unfinished and get shit done. We invest in them to get payoff when they have to take care of us. Sure, there's love in the mix and that's nice, but at the core, we're talking about conscripted soldiers for the war of survival here.

Fuck their happiness, get them on the front lines.

I want to preface that I specifically checked Rule 4 before posting this and I feel like I'm on fair footing.

So I'm participating on another thread (one which is a clear Rule 5 violation, if I'm honest) and I'm noticing some... disparity, shall we say, in response to my engagement. You know how it is around Reddit, either your take on something is popular or its not, and the upvotes/downvotes flow accordingly. Maybe you even start to casually think of them as currency of a sort, you "spend" them to lay out your controversial takes and then splash about a bit in the "safe" subs to replenish.

But this one's different. +14 for one comment, -19 for the next, +8 on a third, even though you essentially had the same position in all three.

I think we can be proud of that, largely, because it means we're more open-minded than the average community. We're paying attention to context, we're acknowledging the good points even in positions we disagree with. That sort of thing. I think the show kinda trained us to think that way, to varying degrees. I've known a few subs like this, and they tend to be the most interesting.

But there's an anomaly unique to this one, and that's the fact that whenever you have these "split reaction" things here, the higher numbers tend to be the negative ones. Which is unintuitive to the platform, considering they literally collapse posts at -5 or more, so you have to take the extra step of opening them up to engage with them. Which means we go out of our way to do it.

Hence my title statement.

It's a funny thing, the way we're going about this life. Every other aspect of the human condition is optional. We don't force our young to work out in the gym, so a minimum strength level isn't of value to us (despite some pretty strong arguments that could be made for it). We don't force them to toughen themselves up by walking barefoot on rocks or exposing them to pain, so a minimum constitution isn't on our priority list either. Our education is social skills is all unofficial at best, we don't have them dodging and weaving through mandatory obstacle courses. In virtually every area of life, we're fine with having people just lean on their natural ability and whatever improvement they come about due to self-interest.

But when it comes to intelligence, our attitude is completely different. We force that down our kids' throats ad nauseum. Twelve years of drilling facts and thought patterns into every single one without exception, completely mandatory.

Why do we do this? Why are we trying so hard to create a society entirely composed of potential leaders and deep thinkers, despite so many career options where too much intelligence is actually detrimental? What would it be like if we didn't do that?

They had us.

I mean, there's no other way to put it, the Dominion had our asses good. But then they lost the edge that they've had for thousands of years, the ability to change their shape.

It makes sense why it hadn't happened before. In every previous conflict, the enemy didn't even know Changelings were among them. They had gone to great lengths to be the power behind the scenes, and they were naturally suited to it.

Odo made things different. With Odo, for the first time, they were facing an adversary that not only knew to look for Changelings, but also had access to one for study. They didn't see it coming, and suddenly they were infected with a pathogen.

A pathogen created by Section 31.

You really have to appreciate the details of the pathogen. Why did it stay dormant in Odo for the longest? To make sure he spread it to as many as possible before succumbing to it as a big middle finger. Because they knew the only way the Changelings would get this virus would be if Odo betrayed them. If things had gotten that far.

Without their shapeshifting abilities, they couldn't monitor enemy battle plans. Troop movements. They were operationally blind for the first time in history, and they found out very quickly how important their superior military intelligence was to their win ratio. It was very clearly decisive in the outcome of the war.

So Julian Bashir can suck it, because if you aren't willing to go dark to defend what you believe in, then what you believe in can't survive.

Okay, look... we don't talk about it much, but we all know how it is in Starfleet, right? Humans breed like rabbits and live to 160 so Starfleet? Pretty humanocentric. I just figured that was the way it was and didn't think much about it.

But I knew this had to happen to someone, statistically, and it happened to me. I got assigned to the USS Armstrong. Crew compliment of 87... and I'm one of only 2 humans. And I dunno, it just... it bothers me. Like, is this what Bolians and Tellarites go through all the time? The smell alone!

Am I a bad person if I request a transfer?

Basic deal:

My mom's almost 82 years old and has very advanced dementia. We're talking way past just not remembering that I'm her son; she's starting to have trouble reading, she mixes up antonyms like hot/cold and wet/dry, she consistently asks when her parents are picking her up and she tries to eat food with pencils.

A minimal dose of Citalopram has done wonders concerning her attitude in general, but she still does have occasional outbursts of verbal aggression. They last about 5-10 minutes, maybe a little longer if she sucks you in and makes you forget redirection tactics. Nothing too huge because she can't hold a grudge or retain her anger for very long.

We've had an aide in her life for almost a year now. The sweetest woman, very special and dear to us. But this aide is very sensitive and easily lets these outbursts get to her. Usually, I'm able to redirect fast enough for it not to be a problem for her, as I work from home and am always pretty nearby. Twice in the last two weeks, though, I've either been unable or unwilling to do the redirection, and on both of those occasions, the aide simply fled from my mom to another part of the house. The first time, I was in the shower, and I heard her say she was leaving as she went down the stairs; she did not close the baby gate behind her, so for the two minutes it took me to finish shaving and get clothes on, my mom was left alone with the open gate and the potential to attempt going down the stairs after the aide. I expressed my disapproval of the response at the time but the shift was almost over anyway and we both just let it go.

Fast forward to yesterday, where the aide was taking a personal phone call (I normally don't care about personal calls during shift, I'm honestly VERY easygoing about the aides because all I really want from them at the end of the day is more socialization with my mom, I don't much care about the busywork chore stuff). I thought she was in my mom's room, because the door was closed, so when my mom wanted to change her jelly-stained shirt after her snack, I said we had to wait a minute because her room was occupied. She did not like hearing that and it triggered an episode. As it turned out, the aide was downstairs anyway, but she walked in during the episode and was immediately subjected to a profanity-laced tirade aimed her way. Again, she fled. But this time, for over an hour, hiding downstairs and justifying it by doing sweeping and mopping of the kitchen floor; yes, technically a job on her task list, but as my mom never actually goes downstairs and doesn't much benefit from it, easily very very low on my priority list. Meanwhile, I was left doing the caregiving work, including a bathroom run, for the hour in question. When I attempted to confront her about it, she insisted that she "wasn't going to take my mom's abuse" and that it's "not just the dementia" but also inherent in the personality my mom had underneath (technically true, but she obviously doesn't get that the dementia prevents my mom from learning a lesson or growing or changing to not express that personality trait). I re-expressed that my priority is my mom's socialization and that much time away from her was not acceptable to me. It doesn't take an hour for my mom to reset.

This morning, she didn't discuss it openly with me, but belatedly documented the conversation, misrepresenting my words to say that I insisted she spend every single second at my mom's side. When Aide #2 arrived, I was able to read the note, and it incensed me. Aide #1 returned later (split shift), and I confronted her concerning the wording of the note and the underlying issue. She said she "wasn't going to have that conversation again" which was pretty much the moment I decided she couldn't continue working with us. The other aide tried to suggest compromises, but it was pretty clear both myself and Aide #1 were dug in on this.

Now I feel... meh. I mean, I don't regret it, I did what I had to do. But the weight of making such a monumental decision on my mom's behalf is rough. Both my mom and I liked this aide, so losing her is also rough, at least for me. My mom, bless her heart, has already forgotten this woman existed and won't even notice she's gone. It also sucks thinking of the former aide's finances, which I know were rough and obviously this isn't going to help her. I have a lot of empathy for where she was coming from. But I really don't feel like I had a choice.

Or did I? I guess that's why I'm here. I need some validation that I did the right thing, or criticism if I made a mistake, or just... maybe just to be heard by people who fully understand what we go through in situations like this. Anyone have a similar story?