u/Xotngoos335

I came across this video of a man who apparently has been consuming motor oil for years and somehow is still alive. I was shocked and thought the video is fake, but it's by a legitimate news company.

What is motor oil made of and how much does it differ from lipids found in plant and animal foods that a human or other animal would naturally eat? And from a biochemical point of view, what could explain this man's bizarre ability to digest an industrial automotive product?

Looking for answers. Thanks!

I've never had this problem in my life but the last 3 times I've gone on 16 hour flights I've gotten sick. Is it the dry air? Or the fact that planes are filthy? Or have I just gotten unlucky?

I have a 16 hour flight coming up and I really can't afford to get sick this time. Should I wear a mask the whole time?

I can't speak for everyone but I've had people in my life who keep trying to poke their nose into my investments in a very nosy fashion, always wanting to know what kind of investments I have, what I do with my money, what my views, goals, and strategies are, etc. And I'll mention right now that I'm not a 6 figure earner or anyone big. Just an average person going through life. And then when I try to shut them up they get annoyed about why I'm not entertaining such a "casual" conversation.

Do you try to keep this topic on the down low? Or have my individual circumstances just been weird? Are most people more open about this topic?

I feel like a lot of ancaps have something against urban areas and want to live out in the wilderness away from civilization.

My dream life is owning a house in a European-style city with no government, city municipality, or HOA. I want all of the perks of city life without any of the bullshit.

I see posts on social media all the time of people in their early 20s traveling around the world having the time of their lives and I genuinely wonder where the money is coming from. Obviously I realize social media is not reality, but the fact is that there's still people doing this. And I happen to personally know some people like this myself so...

I doubt most college kids have money to be backpacking around Europe or flying to the most remote places. And if you're done with school, you're probably working and paying bills in this outrageous economy. And even if you have the money, where are you finding the time to travel if you work full time and don't get much vacation?

So many questions that I'd love to know the answers to...

I was in a shop where one of the workers stocking the shelves dropped something and said "fuck." He must've been 20 or so. I also heard another 30-something year old woman say "fuck" while speaking only in Armenian.

It sort of got me thinking... is this some emerging trend with people under 35? Armenian curse words are extremely taboo and generally can't be used the same way as English curse words for things like dropping something or bashing your foot into a rock. I'd imagine English curse words are a solution to this "problem."

I don't drink alcohol but I want to buy a bottle or two as a gift. Where do you recommend buying and which brands? Looking for high quality Georgian wine but not crazy expensive.

Thanks!

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I'm 24, live with parents rent free, and will have 100K in 3 months (80% stocks, 20% savings). I work 70 hours a week and it's honestly an exhausting lifestyle because I never have time for anything, including career growth. I personally don't consider 100K a lot at all in this economy, especially for FIRE goals, but I'm wondering if hitting that milestone can justify quitting my warehouse job that pays 21/hr.

I'm afraid that if I quit, I'll be losing my second source of income that could help a lot in achieving financial independence in my 20s. At the same time, I really want to improve my main career skills in my free time to get a significantly better job but don't have the time to do it. I could quit my second job and work on upskilling, but there's no guarantee that I'll find a better job (especially in this market), and then I'll be held back from FIRE.

Thoughts anyone? Thanks!

When I first became an ancap, I was rather optimistic about human nature and had faith that statism will be abolished within the next 100 years. This wasn't blind optimism. I had reasons to assume that and argued, for example, that chattel slavery was abolished as a result of moral and intellectual development. I reasoned that if humanity could abandon that, there's no reason to assume it couldn't abandon statism, too. This is an overly simplified explanation of my optimism, but it gets the point across.

Lately though, I hate to say I've been moving more towards the pessimistic end of the spectrum. I've been spending more time learning about psychology and our evolutionary past, and it's led me to think that we really aren't moving forward that much. Tendencies to adhere to group behavior and believe in authority and myth are hardwired into the human mind, and there's only so much culture and rational intellect can do to cover that. I think a case can be made that modern moral advancements are fragile. You might have a society that values freedom and equality, but if education plummets, after 2-3 generations you might have people justifying slavery and violence again. Actually, you don't even need massive social changes in society to devolve into more primitive behaviors. Just five years ago I would've said that corporal punishment for children is on a sharp decline, but now I'm seeing it make a comeback with some current conservative movements. And it makes me think... "Really? Is humanity really regressing this badly?"

I don't know. I could be right, I could be wrong. What do you think and why?

I loved all the school subjects. I could spend hours talking about macromolecules and the life of Marie Antoinette. But I cannot justify the hours and years of time wasted on teaching kids these things when 95% of them are not going to care. When I was in high school I considered becoming a biology teacher, but then I reasoned that I don't want to be wasting any young person's precious time teaching them how DNA gets replicated when there's better things they could know and anyone who actually wants to understand DNA replication will pursue it on their own.

For me it was a purely moral conviction. I could not justify being responsible—at least partly that is—for forcing kids to learn something they don't need and don't care about when they could be choosing for themselves what they want to learn about and acquiring skills that will actually help them in life. Sometimes I wonder how teachers feel good about teaching detailed subjects knowing very well that the overwhelming majority of their students won't use it, won't appreciate it, and are only learning information to pass a test and forget it 3 hours later. What is the point?

My T1 help desk job that I've had for 3 months is super easy and I really don't feel like I'm learning anything. Jobs are hard to find and I can't exactly hop around right now, so what are some things I can do outside of work to improve my skills and land a better job?

I feel like some people say that projects and homelabs don't actually get taken seriously by employers, and neither does collecting certs (I already have the CompTIA trifecta). In that case what am I supposed to do? I can't just wait on the job market or wait 3 years to move up slightly and only get a 2 dollar pay increase.

Thank you!

I read one source saying that he spoke it quite well (can't find it right now), and I read another source saying he actively translated the works of certain Armenian writers into Georgian and published them in his newspaper Iveria.

I haven't found other sources confirming or denying such a claim, though, so I'm skeptical. I mean... he didn't exactly like Armenians... so how well would he have known their language?

On a scale of 1-10, how will the average person take it if you say they're evil?

Like 1990s style chat rooms where you can just go on and talk to strangers about random things? I tried looking and found forum.hayastan.com but that seems to be long dead.

I'm mostly typing on the phone where it's not a problem, but on the computer it can be kind of annoying because when you switch on the Armenian keyboard, all the number keys and some of the punctuation keys become letters; so then when you need to type numbers or punctuation, you have to switch back to the Latin keyboard, then switch back to Armenian.

I feel like there has to be a trick to make it easier...

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My store gets trucks 6 days a week but 2-3 times a month it'll only be 5 trucks in the week, so there's a no truck day that we'll be scheduled for. I usually call out on these days unless there's an SDC or a bunch of training to do. But if there isn't, then all I have left to do is packdown or striped boxes, both of which I despise.

From a young age I've always made it a habit that if I eat something greasy with my hands, I don't touch anything until I wash with SOAP. Napkins are not good enough, water only is not good enough.

You see the problem is... grease is not like dust. It doesn't just get blown away by the wind or disappear into the abyss when you brush off your hands. It stays on whatever surface you touch. And needless to say, not every surface can be cleaned easily. If you touch a bowl with oily hands, we can wash that. If you touch your computer keyboard while you're snacking on potato chips... well that's just gonna stay like that because I can't wash a keyboard under the sink.

You know it's really not that hard to just wash your hands with soap after you're done eating your burger and fries. Please people... soap is your friend...

I know this sounds like a silly question, but hear me out. As ancaps and libertarians we sometimes feel like the world we want will never exist because the things that we're asking for go against human nature, and most people can't restrain themselves. It's human nature to want to force your ways onto others, to push, to want to influence, to give unsolicited advice even if you're trying to help someone.

Hypothetically, if you successfully start spreading the idea that we need to keep to ourselves, mind our own business, and leave people alone, and apply that idea consistently to the very end... is it going to cause long-term unhappiness in some people? If you live in a society that values hyper-individuality and privacy and condemns even the SLIGHTEST form of projection and imposition, are some people just going to be miserable and perpetually annoyed that they can't push their way onto others?