My ex and I just broke up.
One of the bitter issues we had was that he was really controlling.
He tried to convince me that the changes he made to my health were things that I wanted.
1) I got off of my birth control. The first reason he gave was that it lowers men’s testosterone. He also said that there was research saying it had “negative impact on relationships” and said that it never ends well?? And he said that I would need to be off of it for a year before he’d consider marrying me. I argued back that we live in a state with no reproductive rights, so I would have to go out of state for an abortion or he would need to care for our kid that he can’t support right now. He convinced me to stop it “for myself”.
2) I was on a prescription medication for insomnia that happened to be an antidepressant. He is very passionately anti-pharmaceutical; he said he does not want a partner or a mother of his children to be on antidepressants or pharmaceuticals. I argued back that that is for my doctor or OB/GYN to say, not him. Apparently he knows better than them though so he convinced me to stop it “for myself”.
3) I made all of these changes for him. When he had a problem with me, I had to change it otherwise he’d give me an ultimatum. But if I had a problem with him, I had to get over it because he’s right and I’m wrong and he doesn’t have to change himself. Just me.
4) We went camping and everyone was partying, drinking, smoking and I got dehydrated because of the cold, making me more drunk than intended. Nothing happened. I was just drunk and my boyfriend had to make sure I didn’t fall in the pond because I wanted to paddleboard. My boyfriend took a photo of me drunk and sent it to my sister’s boyfriend to shame and embarrass me. I discovered it, and confronted him. He threatened to break up with me, and put me on an “exercise program” where I had to exercise to “earn” drinks during the week. Yep. If I exercised 3 times a week, I’d earn one drink, etc.
5) Someone asked my ex why he had not proposed to me, and I wanted to know too. This was after I had made all these changes for him and was working on other problems he had with me. He said he, “Still had to see more progress from me” for a while until he was sure. At that point, I felt like goal posts would just continue to get moved and I would always be trying to meet certain standards. Stick and carrot.
6) He told me multiple times that his love was conditional. I had to meet certain conditions and standards to earn his love, and if I didn’t, he would withdraw that love and affection from me. He would become mean, cold, withdrawn, a stranger.
I mean, typing all of this out, I’m thinking who in the hell would be with a man like this?? But the blame is being placed on me for our breakup. He was treating me like shit on vacation, like I was worthless and meant nothing to him. His friend treated me with basic kindness and decency, nothing inappropriate happened. My ex was fighting with me, putting me down, making me cry, and his friend was hugging me, asking if I was okay, being supportive to me all right in front of my ex’s eyes. While my ex was treating me like trash, my ex said he was watching the whole time us getting close, yet he never stepped in to tell me he loved me, he cared about me, that I meant something to him, or any sign of affection or love. He just berated me and made me feel bad about myself.
I’m questioning my sanity.

Hello everyone,
I am a recent graduate from the Master of Public Policy Program at U of C. I wanted to share my experience of this program for those who may be thinking about applying.
TLDR: The program offers some great opportunities for networking and jobs/internships, but it can be a difficult experience for those without an economics background or who may be working full/part time.
Quick background about myself. I did my BA in Sociology and Minor in Economics. I spent two years at the MPP program. Yes, the program is only one year long, but I took an internship with the Federal Government at Environment and Climate Change Canada, so I extended it to two years. This means I have been in two cohorts, and have therefore been privy to both cohorts' complaints about the program. What I write is a personal account as well as a summary of what I have heard from others.
First, the good stuff.
Networking This is where the program really shines. You will get an opportunity to meet some real heavy hitters in the policy field, ranging from ex-cabinet minsters, authors, and high-ranking public servants. Some notable people in my cohorts were Janet Brown and an exclusive event with the Governor General (sadly, I was unable to make it to that one).
The teachers themselves are also great resources, and many of them are really well respected and known in there field (for example, Duane Bratt, Blake Shaffer, and Trevor Tombe). The cohort size is small, so you will have lots of opportunities to develop relationships with the instructors.
As well, the program prides itself on admitting a diverse cohort from varied backgrounds. Both cohorts I was in were fantastic. Generally, everyone is really kind and get very chummy with each other by the end of the program.
Job Opportunities This is the second best aspect of the program. Quite simply, if you graduate, you will get a job/internship. I have not seen a single person struggle to find a position after the MPP program. You will get sent job opportunities daily in the winter term, and the program has access to the APIP program - an internship program with the Alberta Government that is exclusively available to the policy students at U of C and U of A.
On top of that, if you choose an interesting capstone project, it is not unheard of for a professor to want to work with you to publish it after graduation, and they will perhaps even recruit you as a research assistant.
Capstone Your experience with the capstone will be highly dependent on your supervisor. If you have an unresponsive supervisor, you will probably have a bad experience. However, the capstone itself is very open in terms of what you want to write about and how. There are requirements - it has to be policy-focused, has to use a methodology, etc. -, but I did not feel at all limited by these requirements.
The capstone itself is not very long either - spanning only 8,000 words maximum. This means you will have lots of time to start and finish. Make sure you establish a good working relationship with your supervisor early. I suggest meeting up in person the first few times, then moving onto zoom meetings and emails.
Now the bad stuff
Work Load This is probably unsurprising since it is a one-year program., but when I say workload is heavy, I mean it is HEAVY. You will be working all the time, and you will never feel caught up. If you are the type of student to do all the readings and show up to class always prepared, you will be miserable; the program is only survivable by triaging your work to the most important assignments and letting your grades suffer strategically.
The nice thing is that the cohort suffers together, which is great for bonding. Admin and the professors can sometimes be understanding, but they tend to not budge on the amount of work assigned. If you are working a job, or if you have any other large commitments, I suggest you do not apply, or you break those commitments prior to starting.
Classes Don't get me wrong, some of the classes are great. The communications class, the decision analysis class, the first semester political science class are all well structured and interesting. However, the vast, VAST, majority of classes are poorly executed. The professors are often unhelpful - expecting that you figure out things on your own and coming off as annoyed that you are asking for help - so don't expect to get a clear answer from them at any point.
Further, the program is VERY economics focused. Now, I did my minor in Econ, and there are lots of Econ majors that apply, but if you have not solved a math problem since high school, I promise you will be in for a rude awakening. I cannot stress this enough: if you go into this program you will be doing economics, and that means math. Further, if you did econ in your undergrad, you will probably find the classes to be boring.
Anyways, that sums up my experience. If you have any questions, I will answer in the thread. I hope this helps those who are thinking about applying to the program!

Coming here hoping to get some helpful advice, or find out if anyone else’s kid did/does this and it’s normal and not something more alarming.
We have a recently-turned 3 girl. Less than a year ago she started to exhibit the same odd reactionary behavior. Whenever my husband and I accidentally hurt ourselves, regardless of if we accidentally did (ex. Stub our toe, hit our head on something) it, or let’s say when we’re horsing around with 3F, and she accidentally hurts us, she will pause for a few moments, start hysterical crying, and claim she has a boo-boo.
The first time or two, we didn’t worry too much about it because we thought she may be trying to imitate us. Like when kids imitate us when learning the world around them. Then, it kept happening.
We thought it was an attention thing. That the hurt person was getting more attention than her in the moment. So we would try and ignore it or not bring excess attention to her when she’d do that. That didn’t help and we don’t think that’s it.
Then we did the opposite. We would acknowledge her claimed injury while explaining it’s ok if someone gets hurt. If mommy and daddy aren’t upset outside of saying “OUCH!” Or “yeow! That smarts” we’re ok. She doesn’t have to get upset. That’s did not work.
For example, today, when she accidentally pulled my hair I went “Ouch!” (It took me my surprise). Important to note I did NOT say ouch like yelling / reprimand directed at her. It was just a sudden, undirected, “OUCH!” And wasn’t even looking at her but straight ahead. Then looked at her I said “it’s ok Peanut you didn’t mean too, mommy knows that. I love you and know it was an accident.” Then hugged her. I did this because I was trying to prevent what I knew would happen. Didn’t work. She gave it a pause, lost her mind sobbing, pointing to her mouth claiming she had a boo boo.
Does anyone else’s kid do something similar? Does anyone have suggestions on how to get her to stop doing this? It really comes across as early one-upping behavior, but we don’t think that’s it. We’re at a total loss. Open to suggestions. We feel we’ve exhausted all possible ideas on how to handle, and opening up to a forum.

Hey all,
This may be a pretty lengthy post. At this point, I’m posting to get the support of others (or the pushback to know I’m in the wrong) because I’m tired of the biased answers my parents and everyone else are giving me, and I need an outside perspective.
I wanted to ask for advice regarding a topic that's really been nagging me. My old friend and I are on a call right now just talking things through, and as someone who was honestly hurt real bad I need to ask for advice about what to do. I can't really talk to anyone else in my personal life about it, as my parents would likely try to make the decision for me
I [16M] was best friends with J [16M] for over 12 years. According to my mother, we met at 2-3 years old when we were at preschool and got along very well, and he was invited to my 5th birthday party. There are so many specific memories I could bring up, which I could never stop writing about, but we grew up together. He was my only friend growing up, being born with a speech impediment that has since been corrected and the label that comes with it. We went through periods where we talked nearly every day and periods where we talked once every couple of months. But we made a lot of memories, and each time it’s as if we never stopped talking.
We created things together, spent holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Years hanging out together, pulling all-nighters. And these are less than 0.1% of all our total memories. It was honestly the most amazing friendship I’ve ever had and will likely ever have, unfortunately.
November 2022 was the two year anniversary of a small Roblox game I created. He had been recording and making videos for the longest time, and I had just released a video to celebrate, which he seemed to be impressed by. Again, it was as if we never stopped talking, but from that period on it was every single day. We had never talked that much, spending weekends together and doing amazing stuff. We even streamed together on YouTube to raise money for charity as part of the Thanksmas event. And he’s in a lot of my videos and other creations.
We pulled each other through hard times. High school, as you can guess, is where romantic relationships begin developing. Whenever I needed advice, he was there, and vice versa. I helped him get through a toxic girlfriend he had, and he found love again.
The only thing that really bothered me was that I was the one who introduced him to ChatGPT, which is an amazing tool if I’m being honest. I’m not mad about that, I’m mad that on my 15th birthday, which I believe is a milestone if I’m not mistaken, he didn’t take the time to write just TWO words “Happy Birthday” that would have been enough, and instead used ChatGPT to generate a birthday card, just smack dab copied and pasted. I brushed it off though, as it wasn’t too big of a deal honestly and only stands out now that the events that transpired have taken place.
This new girl he had, we’ll call S. S is an extremely manipulative girl, very good at it I’ll admit, but our mutual friends at the time, L, C, and K picked up on that, as well as myself. I consistently tried to warn him, but it was no use, and he was beginning to change to the point that it was irritating me to new levels. It’s important to note he confided in me about how unhappy he was yet he stayed and acted as if everything was normal, and appeared upset when I brought up the times he told me he was upset about everything.
Eventually, it got to the point that was all we talked about. S. It was so damn annoying. We couldn’t even have normal conversations anymore. And I wasn’t the only one, as C and I talked about it occasionally.
August 23, 2023. The day my world changed forever. He told me to screenshot messages containing him confiding in me, and send it to her privately. I did so, and she posted it to a group chat containing J, herself, K, C, and myself, and just started berating him. It’s important to note I had previously let her off the hook for insulting my mom, which I never do at all. It’s important to know that I’m not forgiving at all, and when I do forgive, it’s pretty rare. Although I can’t be sure, I believe it may be tied to the fact I used to be so forgiving to the point I allowed people to walk over me in elementary and middle school, and I never will allow that again.
The stuff she said, honestly, if she were not a girl (I would never hit a woman) and she were next to me, I would have knocked out her teeth. Although my mother and I argue from time to time, one thing I cannot deny is that she went through absolute torture to keep me alive when she was pregnant with me, and now I’m a fully healthy young teenager.
So I just started releasing everything, telling her how I felt about her hurting the people I care about and trying to play victim. It’s important to note she used J as a rebound from an ex she was clearly not over (you don’t compare exes 24/7 in a new relationship, guys!) and I previously was not going to call this out at J’s request. However, after she started going after my friends, I just said I would do it. J threatened to block me as a way to deter me (which actually solidified my decision to do it) and it was at that moment I just felt the switch of brotherly love and care (he was practically my brother) turn off in my mind. I could not believe he would threaten to do that for a girl he had been dating even shorter than the amount of time since the summer started, after well over a decade.
He blocked me on Discord after I challenged him to see if he would really follow through or take back what he said, and when I say I blocked him on everything, I mean EVERYTHING. If he tried to reach out to me through even Gmail, I wouldn’t know because it would go straight to my spam folder.
I didn’t know much, but what I did know was that he tried to reach out to me twice through mutual friends, asking for forgiveness. I learned through K what the deal was, at J’s request. A week later, S’s mother found out, and although I will not say specifics, let me just say that I’m not even sure if I can legally say anything without landing myself in a courtroom to testify.
I got a video in my YouTube recommendation tab in November (one of my comments on his videos got over 50 likes or something) about him returning to YouTube and addressing “everything.” I was interested, so I watched the entire thing, and I was surprised that a good third or so of the video was about me. I learned that he was fine the week after because this girl spoke to him (which really says a lot in my opinion) and only after his life went downhill did he realize what he did. He expressed how bad he felt about it, how he missed me, and how it’s worse because he feels like he could have fixed it, as (he claims to have lost me, not the other way around) he didn’t lose me to something like a car accident, or cancer, or some killer disease, and he was essentially pleading with those watching that he lost to reach out to talk about it. I ALMOST reached out, as he said we didn’t have to be friends, but I didn’t at the time.
Now, life has gone by at its normal pace. It was very hard living with it every single day. It's been about nine months since it happened, and we finally talked about the entire thing tonight. The thing is, I really do want to forgive him, but I'm just so anxious. I haven't healed, I'll admit, from what happened and I don't think I ever will. I see a beautiful future, but I'm also really scared that something worse could possibly happen in the future.
I wanted to ask, what would you do? If you were me in this situation, would you try to fix everything, or just leave it in the past?

I (14f) have feelings for my best friend (14f) [lets call her A] and I don't know how to go about them. She always says she's straight but everyone (including our close friends) thinks she's just in the closet. I personally think she might be asexual but haven't brought it up with her because I'm pretty sure it's not something she's considered and I think she should figure that out on her own terms. We've talked about romance and those kinds of things and she mentions wanting to be in a relationship but she always talks about not wanting to have sex with anyone and finding it entirely unappealing. I'm also aware that we might just be too young and she might think about it differently as we grow up. Anyways, we became friends through one of our other mutual friends (13m) [J] who dated her childhood best friend ( they've known each other since they were like 3) and at first he joked about how we got rlly close rlly fast and that we hung out with each other without him more often. Lately he's been my confidant which is always a little weird because it turns out he likes her too and confessed to her a few months ago. (She hates him now because he told one of our other friends [M] that he liked A because she was so much like ([N] his ex and A's best friend) & that the two of them, A & N were practically the same person. (They're really not) So now its all sorta weird. But getting back on track, she's sort of flirty with me (I think, I don't have much experience with these things) and I think it's different than how she is with some of our other friends. We all always hang out in the library during lunch (We're nerds, we're all literally the top students of our school) and sometimes she just randomly holds my hands or stares at me for no reason. Most of the time we're there as a group she and I are like in our own little world and our friends notice it too. We went behind some shelves one time and they all said we were making out (I wish) and they sometimes say things like "Oh go talk to your girlfriend" or "I think your girlfriend is calling you" and she never corrects them. Some of our other classmates think we're dating because we always walk each other to class too. (Neither of us does that with other people) But i don't know. I'm not planning on making a move but I just don't know what to do sometimes when I get overwhelmed if she's being 'too' friendly if yk what I mean.

The relationship has been mired in the conflict since the beginning. Things have gotten ugly many times. Her neighbors called the cops on several occasions. One time last year she was arrested for felony DV. I refused to cooperate. No charges were filed.
I got a call from a sheriff's deputy the other night looking for information about an incident that occurred at my house. He said they received an anonymous report. He wanted to come over to make sure everyone was okay. I told him no incident had occurred and I wasn't at home. Then he said my ex-girlfriend had made a report about a fight we'd had earlier that day. He asked me to come into the station to make a statement. That sounded like a setup. California is a mandatory arrest state. Anytime a DV allegation is made, if there's probable cause to believe it, somebody has to get arrested. I'm a full-time single father with mean spirited baby mamas. Getting arrested would be a disaster for my children and I. I have priors, I'm a felon. My entire life could disappear in less than a weekend if I'm in jail. He told me if I didn't come make a "Mirandized" statement in the next 24 hours he was going to file his report to the DA without any statement from me. I told him I would speak to my attorney before deciding what to do.
My attorney reached out to him the next day to let him know I would not be making a statement. He supposedly filed his report with the DA that night, Friday.
It's now Saturday evening. I've been staying away from my house for the most part and parking my car a few blocks away. But nothing has happened. No knocks on the door. No cop cars on the street. No attempts to serve a protective order. Nothing.
I'm in the dark as to how serious this could be. Some moments I think my life is over. That at any minute the doorbell will ring and I'll be taken out and bracelets. My older kid left to figure out what to do about the baby. Wild accusations, serious felonies, bail too high to afford, (More) years in prison.
But then I reconsider. If they thought I was dangerous wouldn't they have done something by now? At the very least tried to serve a protective order? Maybe she told the truth. That my injuries were worse than hers. So they took an official report, shrugged their shoulders, and said so what?
It's Saturday and I don't expect to hear from my attorney until Monday. I can't wait until then. I'm a nervous wreck. My life could be on the brink of extinction. Am I fucked? Should I be preparing my children for the worst, selling off everything I own to have cash on hand for bail, saying goodbye to all my friends? Or should I exhale, lay low, fill out the paperwork for a DVRO against my ex-girlfriend, and post on social media what an responsible asshole she is for threatening the lives of my children like this?
What's the consensus?

First, for context; I was raised in a household where I would get either physically or mentally beaten if I did something wrong. For example, if I were to talk back to my mother she would mentally hurt me, which is why I have a low ego and constant suicidal thoughts. Now I'm an even worse person who gets mad every time someone comes into my room.
My mom believes that I am an asshole and I do too. I also get mad when anyone touches me without permission, causing me to flinch back and make them either worried or upset. I have lashed out at my own mother for touching me multiple times without permission and she tends to insult me when I do so.
I do have feelings, I'm not some emotionless person who doesn't care about anyone at all, (Not that people who hide their emotions are all like that) but I like to keep my bad emotions hidden since I used to get bullied for being the crybaby. My bad emotions are saved until I'm at home and reading, that's when I let all my bad emotions out. Nobody cares about how I'm doing (if I'm feeling bad), and I enjoy that lack of attention; which is why I like keeping my emotions hidden.
I found a quote that perfectly describes how I am in public: Chin up, Princess, or the crown slips. I'm not sure where it comes from, or who said it, but in my mind I'm always saying to myself Don't show your emotions, or you'll face bullying again. I hate myself for this, but I feel I should get over it.
Anyways, enough backstory, I just accidentally hurt my dog because I was mad, but gave her some treats right after because I felt bad. I feel like an asshole because I feel like I mentally hurt everyone around me. I don't deserve anyone who's nice to me because I just put on a mask so I can keep friends. I'm the definition of a faker and I don't get why I'm still alive if I just hurt everyone around me. I take everyone for granted and if they get mad at me my mask just slips off. The only negative emotion I show in public is anger and even when I do show my anger I just get backlash anyways so I always try to apologise either the next day or in the next 2 hours. Sorry to anyone who's actually taking time out of their day to read this, I know it's long. I've been forgotten by my father, who left when I was born; He doesn't even have partial custody and he forgot that I exist, leading him to forget my birthday last year. I'm basically the opposite of a narcissist, (for anyone reading this who doesn't know what a narcissist is: it's someone who has too high of an ego) meaning I hate everything about me, from my mind to my body to my personality to my life. I have thoughts of death every day and I know most people want long happy lives, but I don't.
I kind of just feel the want to get on a private jet as the pilot and purposely crash the plane.
I do self harm, but not cutting, I'll get into that later. I already have the tools to hurt myself. I sometimes pick at my body while finding everything that people hate about me, even if they don't say it. I honestly am a brat, and my mom is so helpful at cheering me up. Lies. She is awesome at making me feel better about myself. Lies. My dad is always there for me. Lies. My life is absolutely awesome. More lies. I honestly hate everything about me, like I already said. I feel like everyone I love is so happy and has a great life, other than this one friends of mine who is going through the same thing as me. We both seemed to have started getting suicidal thoughts for the same reasons. Our grandparents hate us (In my case grandparent) and they treat us like dog shit as if we're not human. We also started having these thoughts at the beginning of our fourth grade year (In which we were in the same class.) The only two things keeping me alive right now is that I'm a fucking pussy who can't act on her thoughts, and that I have things to research that I wish I had. A recent example was a study of skin cancer. I believe I have a disorder called Body Dysmorphia, meaning I see my body as a very disoriented version of it. People say I'm skinny but when I look in a mirror I see something different. I enjoy starving myself, which is one of the only types of self harm I do; The other type of self harm consists of picking at my skin with any objects that will pinch, basically I would use a crabs claw if I got that desperate to feel pain. Pain brings me joy for some reason. I'm not talented, I'm only skilled. I have nothing special to keep me going and I'm a financial burden on my already struggling mother. Sometimes I just think of killing myself but then I think about why my mom would think. All of her friends either forget about her, abandon her, or die.
I can't talk to my mom about anything, because she's not reliable with emotions. What I can rely on her to do is feed my want for my life to end quickly.

I, 21(M), is planning a cabin trip with some female friends of mine. My girlfriend, 23(F), is obviously also invited, but seeing as she has an exam coming up when the cabin trip is, she won't be able to go.
So for the people that's going, it's me and two friends. Both 20(F). Let’s call them A and B. I've known them for almost a year, and have become very close with both of them. Only problem is that me and my gf's relationship has been long distance for the past year, since we’ve both attended university in different places, so she doesn’t know these two friends of mine. She has only met one of them (A) on one short occasion, and got a somewhat bad vibe from A, where she felt as if she didn’t like her. Personally I didn't pick up on anything, but I'm just oblivious like that… everything goes straight over my head. But at the same time, A has only come with positive remarks about my girlfriend and our relationship afterwards. Me and A have a very close platonic friendship, and are by many of our (Me and A’s) friends, considered to be a duo from hell - but for someone who doesn’t know that, it might seem like it’s a lot more than that. Some of my girlfriend’s friends have stated that they think it seems a little sketchy, even (but all they have heard is from my girlfriends perspective). One of her friends has a tendency to be a bit of a doomsayer as well, which certainly doesn’t help to calm her down either. Personally I just clicked with A from the get go, and consider her to be one of my closest friends, and would never want anything more than that.
Now, my girlfriend trusts me, but due to the bad vibe she got from A the first and only time they met, she's not sure if she feels comfortable with me going or not.
Do you have any ideas for how we can resolve this? If she says that she doesn’t feel comfortable with me going, then I won't. But she has told me to go because she wants me to have fun, and she’d also feel a lot of guilt if she were to tell me not to go. Is there any way where we can both come out as winners, where I have a good time at the cabin and she only has to worry about her exam and not about me and A?
She is by no means a controlling person, and I love her with all I have. This is actually the first real conundrum we’ve had in the year and a half we’ve been together. But she’s had a prior experience where her ex cheated on her on a cabin trip she wasn’t with him at. I definitely understand where she's coming from, and will try to do anything so that she only has her exam to worry about, and not the cabin trip added onto that as well. And of course I want all my friends to have a good relationship with my girlfriend, and all of her friends.
TLDR; I'm planning to go on a cabin trip, and sadly my girlfriend can't join. And now she's worried about me only going with two female friends of mine.

Hope everyone is enjoying the tmnt collab. who do these 4 stack individually compared to their competition?
Mikey: great tank, amazing self survivability, cheap and useable at low ranks for bossing. He is the least important and weakest of 4 bros. nobody is in a rush to replace any tank in pvp for him, and bc the other 3 bros can perform well putting a diff tank in his place. He sadly does a lot of things worse than both r-Honda and gouken. Also weak sp 40/80.
Ralph: great all round trigger. Brings damage, offensive buffs, damage resistance in one. While ppl are concerned about his damage, I will point out he is aoe and simply a better GM Ken. One huge standout no one talks about is unlike other triggers, his c3 still attacks as long as c1 hits, meaning even if your teams c3 dies, ralph c3 is go! Ralph damage will be revisited after FS as his stock can move up and his flaws are he does need proper team building to work outside turtles (r-Honda is good place to start).
Don: pizza ex move is here! Good c1 and c2! Some say he’s the best turtle. After using him, there are flaws I do have to point out to be aware of. He must be on field (not tag) for FS-30 to work. This limits your team comps to only being able to use a dps that can be hidden in tag or you lose a speed unit. Your dps therefore must not be overly reliant on using super. Also his sp is reliant on you using c2 which either forces you to sacrifice Ralph as assist to get both c1/c2 effects or you have to build a team (say Abel) to use his c1 so Don can use c2. If you can build around these conditions, he’s top 2 support.
Leo: the 2nd best bosser, 2nd best pvp dps dethroning oni, strong reliable, ignores immunities and shields, can fit in many teams, works the best without the bros. Considering how scarce competitive c3 pvp dps can be, awesome to have even if you got v Vega. His only drawback is he does need at least 1-2 combos to get going but minus v Vega, every dps needs some time to setup. Leo is the true prize in this collab.
Should you pull p2? Yes if you have at least 400+ total tickets. Get Don to sss min, ralph to ss min. This collab has shown that even w turtles not power creeping anyone’s the value for our resources is unbeatable. The potential to only spend 800-1200 SST for 4 units to at least SSS or better is a much better value proposition than spending 600-800 SST for just one on normal event. Best case is you at least grab Leo and Don and get Ralph assist. Enjoy!

A few obvious facts:

1. Whenever Trump has been asked to quote the Bible, he refuses. He claims "It is personal". That is %100 grade A bullshit. Have you EVER encountered a Christian that didn't quote the Bible before him doing that? I grew up in Southern Baptist - Jerry Falwell - Old Time Gospel Hour - the Moral Majority. You know who I'm talking about. I NEVER seen it. Ever. To this day I've never seen it before Trump.
2. I bet if you offered $5000 in cash to give to his campaign and all he had to do was quote the Bible, say 5 verses, he would refuse. Reason - he NEVER reads it.
3. Have you EVER seen a picture of him praying by himself? It doesn't exist.
4. A full blown narcissist can't be a Christian. To do so means saying God is better than him. His ego won't let him do that. He sees religion as simply as a tool to control others so he can get what he wants.

If you REALLY wanted to put Donald in a spot - you do this at one of his rallies:
You get near the front and when he is talking, yell out asking him to quote the Bible. Say he is their Christian leader and you want guidance on his favorite Bible verses. When he refuses, (and he will) start saying "Why are you afraid to quote the Bible? You are our spiritual leader! Please quote the Bible! (and other nonsense like that). If you can get the audience to chant saying for him to quote the Bible, that would really do a number on him.
The point here is you are catching him in one of his lies in front of everyone, he can't say no without pissing off his audience. If anything when they will start chant, he is now in a position that he either has to pony up, or they call bullshit.

So I (21F) and the girl I’ve been talking to (23f) have been talking since mid march. Things have been going great we have a lot in common and I feel like it’s so easy talking with her. Well recently something happened and I had posted something that I told her I didn’t feel comfortable sharing with her. Well the next day after posting it I didn’t respond to her good morning text like I would usually do because I felt overwhelmed. But I ended up texting her later that day apologizing for not answering her sooner and she told me how she saw the post. Well I post a lot of things and kinda pretended I didn’t know what she was talking about because I had a clue but wasn’t sure until she confirmed what I thought. Anyways she did confirm what I thought and told me how she felt sad I wasn’t able to share that with her but was able to share it publicly and how she had been thinking about it all day and she didn’t know how to bring it up with me. I apologized to her because honestly I didn’t think about how she would feel and that was my fault considering now we’re in a weird place at the moment. Also I will say I ended up drinking and getting drunk when we started this conversation which I know wasn’t the best idea but it did help me say some things I wouldn’t have been able to say sober. Anyways she ended up confessing her feelings for me which I didn’t expect because like why me of all people I’m not anyone special. But I told her about my feelings and how my ex who fucked me over not that she was evil or anything I just thought she was the one ya know like she was my first love so I know some of y’all know how that feels. But yeah she was scared to lose me and of course I reassured her she wasn’t going to lose me because even though I was scared I do have feelings for her too which is scary considering I haven’t felt anything for someone until I met her. Today I had texted her back after passing out and asked her what she wanted from me and what she wanted coming from this conversation. She didn’t answer even though I could see her interacting with other people. Also all this is all on twitter that’s where we text. I have my issues especially from my ex so it’s hard for me to be intimate or even be vulnerable which I told her and she understood. I did tell her I was developing some feeling for her. Uh we ended up working things out as I was truthful to her because I want her to know what I’m thinking and feeling and I want to her to be able to do the same. But I want to know is it okay to be okay to be talking with someone even if I’m not completely ready to be in a relationship? I mean i told her I want this to work even if it scares me. I do like her a lot even if it’s hard for me to express it but I don’t want to lose her. (also i did drink some more so Im sorry if some of it doesn’t make sense)

So I've never posted here before but this is an issue that has been sitting on my shoulders for a bit now. Recently I had a dream about a friend who I cut off last year and I've been thinking about reach out again. Things have changed but the fear I harbor just hasn't. For context unfortunately I have a long story to type. As recently I've recovered from a two year long stretch of extreme depression and well this happened during that time. Sorry.
Between the years of 2022 and 2023 my life basically spiraled down the toilet with no end in sight. One of my close friends died, my great uncle died, I lost two friends in ugly ways and honestly I'm better off from those two, and I also was stuck in an abusive (mentally, emotionally, and sexually) relationship with my now ex boyfriend. 2022 was hard. Harder than I've ever experienced and compared to that year the years of depression I'd experienced were honestly a cake walk of teenage bullshit.
The thing is I spirals so hard that at the beginning of 2023 I made an attempt on my life. I'm not proud of it. And since I've seen a few different professionals and admit I still have some therapy that I need to get. (It's just not cheap to see a therapist and a psychiatrist.) The reason this is important is because during this time we were still friends. Seemingly close friends and I talked to him a lot. Mind you my mental chaos can be hard to handle and I try to keep an open mind about people not wanna hear me go on about my misfortunes but I always have the mentality wanting them to tell me. Like let me know if I'm being to much and I'll pull back because I don't wanna overwhelm you. But this friend just let me go on and slowly seemed to just pull from me.
I felt that pull and changed tones with them. Focusing more on maybe us hanging out or how they were because I couldn't tell if it was me or if something was wrong. And I really cared about them, I still do I mean we'd been friends since middle school. We graduated high-school together back in 2015 this one someone I considered one of my best friends. But slowly I think I began to realize I wasn't theirs. It probably didn't help that we always had this will they won't that weird attraction to each other. And during this time he admitted it was still a thing but said it wouldn't work out because he considered me codependent. But even still went on to admit physical attraction to me later on which confused me more.
Regardless when all was said and done after the attempt I went and apologized to him because I'd lied and said I was okay when I wasn't. And when he told me that he knew? Well something inside me died. Something about him knowing I was tettering on the edge and just sitting and waiting because I wasn't woman enough to admit it felt weird. Because it wasn't a talk to me when you're ready it was more like if you won't just spit it out than I'm not gonna bother. With a mixture of that and his canceling of everytime we planned to hang out I let myself flip my lid. Naturally I went back and apologized but it didn't seem to have any affect anyway. Like it bad never happened. So I let myself fade away.
To this day I sometimes wonder if I even made the right choice. I mean I could have just asked him to tell me what's up. Or expressed the truth of the depth of my feelings when it felt like I was bring brushed off and the only conversations we could have were about the girls on his dating app possibly catfishing him. Or maybe I was right to assume he just didn't want me in his life anymore. I've just got myself all mixed up because he was one of the single most important people in my left to me. And the ghost of that still lingers.
TL;DR During a really depressing time a friend and I fell out of sync. Because I felt they didn't want me and my depression around anymore I made myself scarce. It's been a year but I still miss them and wonder if maybe I should grow a pair and reach out.

What do I do in my situation? Another coworker of mine asked me when I came into work today if I liked “persons name” at first I was like wtf? Why would I like her? And then she said that I “followed her around” a lot or something. And I talk to her a lot or something? Idk but that’s the gist of it. I don’t even know what she means by that, I’ve never followed behind her for no reason at all whenever I’m with her. I thought me and her were good coworker friends. We talk about how our day was, and sometimes she’s the one asking me first. She keeps asking me too so it’s not a me asking her a bunch of questions and she doesn’t care situation.
At work usually me her and this other guy hang around each other a lot if we work together that day. When it’s me and her I treat her like she’s the other guy in the group because shes sort of like him. So I treat her like a bro pretty much. As for why we hang out together a lot It’s because we share a common interest in that we like to vape together. I’ve never done anything that would imply that i liked her anyways.. I thought I finally found another good friend but she took my kindness as me liking her or something? I’ve never seen her act a way that would show that she hates me. Sometimes I do look for her and ask if I could hit her vape, since sometimes I forget to bring mine. She’s doesn’t mind at all. And sometimes she asks if I want to hit her vape.
How do I resolve this situation? Do I confront her and ask her why she said that? Do I go to my store manager first? Do nothing? I need help. I don’t want rumors spreading around that I like her when I don’t. How could I like her if 1. Although we share some common interests, she is not my type. 2. She already has a bf, and that bf I’m friends with. I’m not dumb nor a homewrecker. And 3. I’m not even over my exgf yet from years ago. Why would I like her if I’m not even over my ex? It’s so dum

I’ve noticed this sub in particular has had a very ahistorical and reactionary position on the concept of “patriotism” that I think needs rectified. I’m open to hear everyone’s positions and disagreements on the matter, but I don’t often see the “pro patriotism” position even coherently mentioned so I’d figure I’d give it a shot.
First off, I think it’s important to understand that when socialists say they support “patriotism”, they are talking about proletarian patriotism, which is intrinsically connected to internationalism and is even argue a central component to Marxism Leninism. It is a patriotism that focuses on the betterment of their conditions for its people, for people to come together to help each other, and to promote the idea that everyone should participate and help each other promote and perpetuate these principles. It isn’t nationalism, it isn’t hyper militaristic pro imperialist patriotism, in essence it doesn’t take a class collaborative form. It doesn’t promote the nation above all, nor that class collaboration in the form of developing pro-imperialist positions should be advocated for in order to maintain the nation. It does not uphold some mystical nation as a concept that must be protected.
I think that the idea that America has some uniquely (exceptional) impure history that makes patriotism an unusable tactic to be the same as buying into American Exceptionalism. In fact I think it is an essential tactic that we must utilize, otherwise we give up so much concessions and ground to fascists.(read the Dimitrov quote I give below on the subject.)
I also believe that people often forget that patriotism was utilized by essentially every Marxist Leninist figure throughout all of history. Here are just a few quotes:
“On their own part, the progressive forces in the mass organizations have made considerable appeal to American patriotism and traditions for constructive ends. But this appeal has usually been weak, spasmodic, and ineffective. The workers, farmers, professionals, have not understood how to bring forth in their agitation the basically constructive role they have played historically in building American democracy. ​ In this respect the revolutionary movement has been especially weak. From the foundation of the Socialist Labor Party in the 1870’s, down through the life of the Socialist Party and the IWW, and during the early years of the Communist Party, there was a dominant tendency to ignore and to scorn American tradition and love of country. This arose out of a narrow, sectarian conception of internationalism, and it did much to weaken the position of the revolutionaries in the organizations of the patriotically minded toiling masses. Here again, a better study of Marx and Lenin would have prevented this grievous error. Only during the past few years, notably since the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International and through the writings of Comrade Browder, is real progress being made by our Party in correcting this costly mistake and in basing itself upon a correct Leninist line.
The cultivation of the democratic, revolutionary American traditions among the mass organizations is one of the most important tasks in the building of the democratic front. We must not permit the reactionaries to steal and distort the national traditions and aspirations of the people. The great democratic masses must be taught by constant reference to American history that it was their struggles in the past that built our republic, that the democratic front movement of today is the continuation of all the fights for liberty in the history of our own country; that in the achievement of the current demands of the masses lies the fruition of all that is progressive and glorious in American history; that socialism is the climax toward which the entire historic struggle of the democratic American people inevitably tends.” - William Z Foster.
“Is a sense of national pride alien to us, Great-Russian class-conscious proletarians? Certainly not! We love our language and our country, and we are doing our very utmost to raise her toiling masses (i.e., nine-tenths of her population) to the level of a democratic and socialist consciousness. To us it is most painful to see and feel the outrages, the oppression and the humiliation our fair country suffers at the hands of the tsar’s butchers, the nobles and the capitalists. We take pride in the resistance to these outrages put up from our midst, from the Great Russians; in that midst having produced Radishchev,[3] the Decembrists[4] and the revolutionary commoners of the seventies[5]; in the Great-Russian working class having created, in 1905, a mighty revolutionary party of the masses; and in the Great-Russian peasantry having begun to turn towards democracy and set about overthrowing the clergy and the landed proprietors.
We remember that Chernyshevsky, the Great-Russian democrat, who dedicated his life to the cause of revolution, said half a century ago: “A wretched nation, a nation of slaves, from top to bottom—all slaves."[6] The overt and covert Great-Russian slaves (slaves with regard to the tsarist monarchy) do not like to recall these words. Yet, in our opinion, these were words of genuine love for our country, a love distressed by the absence of a revolutionary spirit in the masses of the Great-Russian people. There was none of that spirit at the time. There is little of it now, but it already exists. We are full of national pride because the Great-Russian nation, too, has created a revolutionary class, because it, too, has proved capable of providing mankind with great models of the struggle for freedom and socialism, and not only with great pogroms, rows of gallows, dungeons, great famines and great servility to priests, tsars, landowners and capitalists.
We are full of a sense of national pride, and for that very reason we particularly hate our slavish past (when the landed nobility led the peasants into war to stifle the freedom of Hungary, Poland, Persia and China), and our slavish present, when these selfsame landed proprietors, aided by the capitalists, are loading us into a war in order to throttle Poland and the Ukraine, crush the democratic movement in Persia and China, and strengthen the gang of Romanovs, Bobrinskys and Purishkeviches, who are a disgrace to our Great-Russian national dignity. Nobody is to be blamed for being born a slave; but a slave who not only eschews a striving for freedom but justifies and eulogises his slavery (e.g., calls the throttling of Poland and the Ukraine, etc., a “defence of the fatherland” of the Great Russians)—such a slave is a lickspittle and a boor, who arouses a legitimate feeling of indignation, contempt, and loathing.
No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations,” said Marx and Engels, the greatest representatives of consistent nineteenth century democracy, who became the teachers of the revolutionary proletariat. And, full of a sense of national pride, we Great-Russian workers want, come what may, a free and independent, a democratic, republican and proud Great Russia, one that will base its relations with its neighbours on the human principle of equality, and not on the feudalist principle of privilege, which is so degrading to a great nation. Just because we want that, we say: it is impossible, in the twentieth century and in Europe (even in the far east of Europe), to “defend the fatherland” otherwise than by using every revolutionary means to combat the monarchy, the landowners and the capitalists of one’s own fatherland, i.e., the worst enemies of our country.” - Lenin
“Can a Communist who is also an internationalist at the same time be a patriot? We hold not only that he can, but that he must.” - Mao
“Communists are the most patriotic Americans I have ever met, and you all are the non-patriots.” ( towards the HUAC) - Paul Robeson.
“Under no circumstances must we underrate fascism's power of ideological infection. On the contrary, we for our part must develop an extensive ideological struggle based on clear, popular arguments and a correct, well thought out approach to the peculiarities of the national psychology of the masses of the people. The fascists are rummaging through the entire history of every nation so as to be able to pose as the heirs and continuators of all that was exalted and heroic in its past, while all that was degrading or offensive to the national sentiments of the people they make use of as weapons against the enemies of fascism. Hundreds of books are being published in Germany with only one aim -- to falsify the history of the German people and give it a fascist complexion. The new-baked National Socialist historians try to depict the history of Germany as if for the past two thousand years, by virtue of some historical law, a certain line of development had run through it like a red thread, leading to the appearance on the historical scene of a national 'savior', a 'Messiah' of the German people, a certain 'Corporal' of Austrian extraction. In these books the greatest figures of the German people of the past are represented as having been fascists, while the great peasant movements are set down as the direct precursors of the fascist movement. Mussolini does his utmost to make capital for himself out of the heroic figure of Garibaldi. The French fascists bring to the fore as their heroine Joan of Arc. The American fascists appeal to the traditions of the American War of Independence, the traditions of Washington and Lincoln. The Bulgarian fascists make use of the national-liberation movement of the seventies and its heroes beloved by the people, Vassil Levsky, Stephan Karaj and others. Communists who suppose that all this has nothing to do with the cause of the working class, who do nothing to enlighten the masses on the past of their people in a historically correct fashion, in a genuinely Marxist-Leninist spirit, who do nothing to link up the present struggle with the people's revolutionary traditions and past -- voluntarily hand over to the fascist falsifiers all that is valuable in the historical past of the nation, so that the fascists may fool the masses.” - Dimitrov.
"Marxism-Leninism is ultimately deeply internationalist, and at the same time, deeply patriotic." -Fidel Castro
"Patriotism is not an empty concept. Education in patriotism cannot be conducted simply by erecting the slogan, 'Let us arm ourselves with the spirit of socialist patriotism! educating people in the spirit of patriotism must begin with fostering the idea of caring for every tree planted on the roadside, for the chairs and the desks in the school.
You have to begin with what is within the grasp of the younger generation, things that relate to their lives, and then gradually move on to educating them to defend consciously the interests of the country and the people. There is no doubt that a person who has formed the habit of cherishing common property from childhood on will grow up to be a valuable patriot."- Kim Il-sung
"From the commencement of the titanic American strife, the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class. The contest for the territories which opened the dire epopee, was it not to decide whether the virgin soil of immense tracts should be wedded to the labor of the emigrant or prostituted by the tramp of the slave driver?" -Karl Marx
"The history of modern, civilized America opened with one of those great, really liberating, really revolutionary wars of which there have been so few compared to the vast number of wars of conquest which, like the present imperialist war, were caused by squabbles among kings, landowners or capitalists over the division of usurped lands or ill-gotten gains.
That was the war the American people waged against the British robbers who oppressed America and held her in colonial slavery, in the same way as these "civilized" bloodsuckers are still oppressing and holding in colonial slavery hundreds of millions of people in India, Egypt, and all parts of the world." -Vladimir Lenin
"We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America. Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson scratched across the pages of history the majestic word of the Declaration of Independence, we were here." -Martin Luther King Jr
“Us on the Left are second to no one in our patriotism.” - Michael Parenti

Back when my (23M) sister, Crystal (26F), was 16, she got pregnant by her ex-boyfriend, Andrew. She and Andrew decided to keep the pregnancy despite our parents' disapproval. She left to live with Andrew's family after our parents kicked her out.
In short, my sister Crystal said she endured a lot of "abuse" at the hands of Andrew's mother and sisters, claiming they kept trying to control her during the pregnancy and were mean to her.
You would think she would try to work this out, but no. After she had an argument with Andrew and demanded that he choose her over his mother, he obviously picked his mom. My sister then went to Planned Parenthood and had an abortion.
She told Andrew about this, and he and his family were heartbroken. Worse, my sister was very cold to him during this and would just say she wasn't ready for a future to be treated like that by him and his family. She moved in with our aunt, who supported her, as our parents were disgusted by her cruel actions, and I was too.
Fast forward to now, she got engaged and wanted to introduce her fiancé, Axel (26M), to our aunt, and decided to invite the rest of the family to get it over with, saying Axel wanted to meet our family out of respect.
When I met him, I was really surprised that a guy like him would go for my sister. She's a materialistic person and loves to flex her life on social media; she's basically a spoiled brat, while Axel is the complete opposite. He's in the Navy SEALs and is more respectful and overall someone that wouldn't typically look at my sister as a potential life partner.
This is why I felt like he was being lied to and needed to know the truth about her. Over dinner, I confronted her, asking if she had told him about what she did to Andrew. My aunt cut in and told me to mind my business. I told Axel that he should be worried about having kids with her since she would abort it the moment things don't go her way. Crystal started crying, and Axel told me to never speak to his wife like that, along with some nasty words, and they left.
My family (except my aunt) is on my side. I got a text from Crystal calling me an asshole for trying to ruin her happily ever after.
AITA? I felt like he deserved to know.

I don’t know what’s causing me to be so angry today.. yesterday I had a good day at the amusement park with my friend, besides waking up today being a bit sore from the rollercoasters. I mean I had an argument with a guy earlier today, it was a guy I liked, and I found out he was sleeping with other girls, and since then I’ve been angry at the entire male population. People have tried to check up on me tonight and I just lash out on them. I repeat the same thing “nobody cares about my feelings, especially men!!!” I’ve been looking up depressing quotes also. I can’t find the right words to explain how I feel to anyone. I’m angry, irritable and stressed out and I don’t know why.

For context this all started 9 years ago I have had a lot of time to reflect on this and I guess I just want to share my story.
Back in 2014 during my (18 m) freshman year of college I met a girl (18 f) I'll call her A. She was fun and cool with lots of common interests. We were in the same clubs and I developed a crush on her. She had some emotional issues which made her drop out of school but she came back in the spring semester. Looking back on it I did a bit of "white knighting" for her to try to be there for her in order to have her like me. Eventually that summer we ended up fake dating because she wanted her parents to stop asking her if she was going to date anyone. Later that summer we made it official and actually dated. I visited her once during the summer and she visited me during the following fall semester because she decided that she wasn't going back to college, but I slowly started to feel more and more distant from her.
During my sophomore year I met another girl (19) (I'll call her B) and we started to get along. I was feeling lonely so I would invite her to watch a few shows in my dorm common room. I knew she had a boyfriend but I kinda got the feeling she didn't care about him much. At first I was trying to encourage my friends to date her, because they were single. She started to develop feelings for me and I developed feelings for her and we ended up hooking up. I felt terrible about it and the line from Hamilton "I wish I could say that was the last time, I said that last time, it became a pastime." Kept ringing in my head.
In the end A broke up with me. I assume that a friend of hers from the college told her what was happening. She never confronted me about it, she simply said we were better as friends abd ended it there. I felt like crap and wanted to end it there with B. B ended up using guilt to encourage me to date her properly after her boyfriend broke up with her.
We dated through out college, at first people were excited because they thought we were a cute couple. Then for a while my friends started asking me if I was happy in my relationship with B. I would tell then yes because I was young and stupid.
Skip to 2020 during the pandemic we were fresh out of college and living together. We would still have my 2 best friends over but didn't really talk to anyone else or go out much due to covid. She never liked me leaving the house or doing anything because of covid. She ended up making me miss my grandfather's birthday. Which should have been a sign, but I kept trying to rationalize it as her being worried about covid. My friends were still asking me if I was happy and it kept getting harder to say yes. I watched philosophytube's video "Men.Abuse.Trauma" and started tearing up and I couldn't understand why. I kept rationalizing it as "She isn't as bad as thier ex."
In December she broke up with me. I felt devastated because I kept trying to sacrifice more and more for her. I kept hoping and praying that there was something that I could do to make myself the perfect boyfriend agian.
4 years later I am only left with the quote from Romeo and Juliet "These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey Is loathsome in his own deliciousness And in the taste confounds the appetite. Therefore love moderately; long love doth so; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow."

What will you be doing with this PC? Be as specific as possible, and include specific games or programs you will be using.

• Mainly play non intensive games with streams up. (League, OSRS, CS2, etc…) Generally have discord and Spotify up as well.

What is your maximum budget before rebates/shipping/taxes?

• $1400

When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Note: beyond a week or two from today means any build you receive will be out of date when you want to buy.

• Not entirely sure but within the next 2-3 months. My current PC is about 12 years old and I can no longer watch streams and game at same time.

What, exactly, do you need included in the budget? (ToweOS/monitokeyboard/mouse/etc)

• As of now, just the PC and OS. Don’t need any peripherals.

Which country (and state/province) will you be purchasing the parts in? If you're in US, do you have access to a Microcenter location?

• Live in Alabama with no direct access to microcenter myself, but could potentially go to one in TX if deal is worth it.

If reusing any parts (including monitor(s)/keyboard/mouse/etc), what parts will you be reusing? Brands and models are appreciated.

• Not entirely sure what model monitors, just older ASUS. K70 Corsair keyboard but will probably downsize in future. Zowie mouse.

Will you be overclocking? If yes, are you interested in overclocking right away, or down the line? CPU and/or GPU?

• No

Are there any specific features or items you want/need in the build? (ex: SSD, large amount of storage or a RAID setup, CUDA or OpenCL support, etc)

• SSD

Do you have any specific case preferences (Size like ITX/microATX/mid-towefull-tower, styles, colors, window or not, LED lighting, etc), or a particular color theme preference for the components?

• No, don’t need it to be pretty, just cost effective.

Do you need a copy of Windows included in the budget? If you do need one included, do you have a preference?

• Yes, Windows 11. Planned on getting key from Reddit.

I, 21(M), is planning a cabin trip with some female friends of mine. My girlfriend, 23(F), is obviously also invited, but seeing as she has an exam coming up when the cabin trip is, she won't be able to go.
So for the people that's going, it's me and two friends. Both 20(F). Let’s call them A and B. I've known them for almost a year, and have become very close with both of them. Only problem is that me and my gf's relationship has been long distance for the past year, since we’ve both attended university in different places, so she doesn’t know these two friends of mine. She has only met one of them (A) on one short occasion, and got a somewhat bad vibe from A, where she felt as if she didn’t like her. Personally I didn't pick up on anything, but I'm just oblivious like that… everything goes straight over my head. But at the same time, A has only come with positive remarks about my girlfriend and our relationship afterwards. Me and A have a very close platonic friendship, and are by many of our (Me and A’s) friends, considered to be a duo from hell - but for someone who doesn’t know that, it might seem like it’s a lot more than that. Some of my girlfriend’s friends have stated that they think it seems a little sketchy, even (but all they have heard is from my girlfriends perspective). One of her friends has a tendency to be a bit of a doomsayer as well, which certainly doesn’t help to calm her down either. Personally I just clicked with A from the get go, and consider her to be one of my closest friends, and would never want anything more than that.
Now, my girlfriend trusts me, but due to the bad vibe she got from A the first and only time they met, she's not sure if she feels comfortable with me going or not.
Do you have any ideas for how we can resolve this? If she says that she doesn’t feel comfortable with me going, then I won't. But she has told me to go because she wants me to have fun, and she’d also feel a lot of guilt if she were to tell me not to go. Is there any way where we can both come out as winners, where I have a good time at the cabin and she only has to worry about her exam and not about me and A?
She is by no means a controlling person, and I love her with all I have. This is actually the first real conundrum we’ve had in the year and a half we’ve been together. But she’s had a prior experience where her ex cheated on her on a cabin trip she wasn’t with him at. I definitely understand where she's coming from, and will try to do anything so that she only has her exam to worry about, and not the cabin trip added onto that as well. And of course I want all my friends to have a good relationship with my girlfriend, and all of her friends.
TLDR; I'm planning to go on a cabin trip, and sadly my girlfriend can't join. And now she's worried about me only going with two female friends of mine.

Brothers, sisters, visitors especially, Thank you all for opening this. It’s my prayer that you will read through all of this and remember who we are in Christ, especially in these days.
I was online the other day, and was just glancing over a thread and noticed out of no where, people were arguing about the topic of God. Just, general topic, you know how things go online.
There was one person who said, “love is the answer. It’s why Jesus came and to die for us. It’s all about loving one another.” To which I thought, ah yes that’s the greatest commandment of all. But she really didn’t say anything else of value. Yes, love, the greatest fruit of the spirit, the great commandment is love one another, the best part of living with others may be to show their love to each other. But she kind of hid behind saying that and nothing else.
Another was quoting verbatim the KJV versions of some of our greatest verses, and nothing else. Just kind of saying the words, no connection. It brought me back to Paul who reminds us to be tasteful in our interactions with nonbelievers so that we might be heard in a genuine way, and possibly plant the seeds of salvation.
Another, nonbeliever, was throwing out his concerns on why or why not they weren’t participating in the conversation of faith at all.
.
I want to talk about the fundamentals of our belief. As followers of Jesus, children of God, vessels of the Holy Spirit, there should be the understanding of why we believe without the answer having anything to do with tradition, or culture. We should have a basic understanding as to why the gospel is truth. We cannot be the foundation who was tossed away because of the wind. Spiritually, our wisdom must be current, and in tune with the Holy Spirit, and the fundamentals. Otherwise, we choose our own wisdom over the truth and what? God gives us to our own wisdoms leading us to foolishness? A basic understanding and capability to answer basic questions of our faith is just as important if not more than our works. Faith without works is dead, but an eager tongue with no wisdom will lead to failure and destruction.
If you’re still reading this with open ears and open eyes, I thank you. I am only the vessel of this truth and have been given the discernment to decipher it, and the ability to write it.
1) ((This is the one relevant to Gods might, wonder, creativity)): God created all things, with His word. The first 5 days of creation He finished and he said “it was good”, (Genesis 1). In the beginning of all of it, was His word, and everything that is was created by Him and nothing was created without Him, (John 1). God, with his spirit, created all.
2) ((This one is relevant to humankind being favored and loved by God)): God created man on the 6th day and he calls it “very good”. The only time in this story of creation where something is very good, not just good. Sees man is alone and says that is not good. Puts him in a deep sleep, takes his side (‘selah,’ also used in the Hebrew to describe the “side of the mountain, the “side of the ark of the covenant) and makes woman, as an ally in this life.
3) ((This one is relevant to Jesus’ role)): Adam and Eve lived in Eden, and God walked amongst them. Man was meant to be with God, and worship Him and love Him. God had created us for that andd the way we were able to was by the garden. Eden was our bridge between God and earth where we were mean to live freely, perfectly and with God. The bridge to God was broken, from the fall, through disobedience and from the moment of the fall God foretells of another way back to Him.
We all know the line. “I will send the seed of a woman to crush the head of the serpent…”— which on its own one might ask why? The answer is because this is the moment death enters. From the fall and on, we were no longer bridged to spiritual life or God at all. We were trapped on this side of existence away from spiritual life, God, Eden. So it HAD to be the seed of the woman. It had to be in our realm of reality, we were no longer on that side of reality.
Next, “the serpent will wound the heel”, representing that the man will suffer. It will be a wound.
It’s a rule of creation, all life needs blood to live. And since we have forfeited our spiritual life in Eden where we’re meant to be, to have physical life, we have no blood to live and we are dead spiritually without believing in the fact that the blood of Christ replaces ours. Think back to the creation story: “God breathed life into adam…” it was the ‘ruach’, or the spirit, that livened adam whom was formed from the ‘adama’, or the ground, and had his ‘dam’, or blood, to keep him alive. God, who is one with His Word, is the giver of life, and is the Truth.
Foreshadowed by Moses, unbeknownst to him, recorded in Numbers concerning the bronze snake, & the rock and the water (both times, first the strike representing the crucifixion and second representing the spoken confirmation—where Moses failed btw).
And so Jesus comes to fulfill that prophetic word from God. A) come to our plane of reality because we fell off His B) crush the head of Satan/serpent—destroying the power of death, and the power of the fall. C) dying—it is the blood that gives life, without blood we cannot live. D) giving us the Holy Spirit—when God gave Adam blood to live, He also gave him His ‘ruach’ to breathe. And so it is the exact same thing as now, with clean blood from Jesus to live AND the Spirit, or ‘ruach’, to breathe.
Jesus says “I AM the way” for this reason. He is the bridge from humanity to God, just like Eden.
Amen, I thank you father for your holy wisdom and I pray that someone who you needed to understand the details closely finally sees. I pray your will be done in all things. Amen.

I, 21(M), is planning a cabin trip with some female friends of mine in a couple of days. My girlfriend, 23(F), is obviously also invited, but seeing as she has an exam coming up when the cabin trip is, she won't be able to go.
So for the people that's going on the trip, it's me and two friends. Both 20(F). Let’s call them A and B. I've known them for almost a year, and have become very close with both of them. Only problem is that me and my gf's relationship has been long distance for the past year, since we’ve both attended university in different places, so she doesn’t know these two friends of mine. She has only met one of them (A) on one short occasion, and got a somewhat bad vibe from A, where she felt as if she didn’t like her. Personally I didn't pick up on anything, but I'm just oblivious like that… everything goes straight over my head. But at the same time, A has only come with positive remarks about my girlfriend and our relationship afterwards. Me and A have a very close platonic friendship, and are by many of our (Me and A’s) friends, considered to be a duo from hell - but for someone who doesn’t know that, it might seem like it’s a lot more than that. Some of my girlfriend’s friends have stated that they think it seems a little sketchy, even (but all they have heard is from my girlfriends perspective). One of her friends has a tendency to be a bit of a doomsayer as well, which certainly doesn’t help to calm her down either. Personally I just clicked with A from the get go, and consider her to be one of my closest friends, and would never want anything more than that.
Now, my girlfriend trusts me, but due to the bad vibe she got from A the first and only time they met, she's not sure whether she feels comfortable with me going or not.
Do you have any ideas for how we can resolve this? If she says that she doesn’t feel comfortable with me going, then I won't. But she has told me to go because she wants me to have fun, and she’d also feel a lot of guilt if she were to tell me not to go. Is there any way where we can both come out as winners, where I have a good time at the cabin and she only has to worry about her exam and not about me and A?
She is by no means a controlling person, and I love her with all I have. This is actually the first real conundrum we’ve had in the year and a half we’ve been together. But she’s had a prior experience where her ex cheated on her on a cabin trip she wasn’t with him at. I definitely understand where she's coming from, and I want to try to do anything so that she only has her exam to worry about, and not the cabin trip added onto that as well. And of course I want all my friends to have a good relationship with my girlfriend, and all of her friends.
TLDR; I'm planning to go on a cabin trip, and sadly my girlfriend can't join. And now she's worried about me only going with two female friends of mine.

The View from Oregon – 289
Re: Scientia sub specie illuminatatis
Friday 17 May 2024
Dear Friends,
In the past several newsletters I have discussed the lack of a science of science, and some of the ramifications of this absence. Another consequence of the absence of a science of science is the selective way in which science develops, and this in turn leads to Danilevsky’s philosophy of science, which acknowledges that science can be different in different social milieux. In other words, science is relative to the scientific community that practices science. Kuhn comes to an analogous conclusion, though for Kuhn it is the diachronic relativity of science that emerges from a history of scientific revolutions triggered by model crises and paradigm shifts. Kuhn’s work continues to be debated, are there are significant differences of interpretation that keep alive the controversy as to whether paradigm shifts are rational or irrational. (Why not both by turns?)
Danilevsky presents us with the prospect of the synchronic relativity of science, in which paradigms differ not down through historical time, but across ethnic communities. This strikes at the heart of Enlightenment universalism, but, as I have tried to argue in these newsletters, Enlightenment ideology is not intrinsically scientific, but for a time Enlightenment thinkers made common cause with the sciences as a way both to advance their interests and to fight the common enemy of traditionalism. But scientists themselves have so completely internalized Enlightenment ideology that, even if the Enlightenment can abandon science, scientists cannot abandon the Enlightenment. That science is the same, that it must be the same, for all who practice it, seems to be an unspoken presupposition of science practised sub specie illuminatatis.
I don’t know of any analytical philosophers who have taken up Danilevsky’s argument, even if only to refute it. Nor do I know of any analogous arguments, though my knowledge of contemporary philosophy of science is far from exhaustive. The closest we come to Danilevsky in the mainstream of Anglo-American analytical philosophy of science is the debate over Kuhn’s philosophy of science, which evades some of the most troubling aspects of Danilevsky’s account. But in the absence of a science of science, we cannot definitively exclude Danilevsky’s account, just as we cannot exclude the role of personalities in the development of science (the focus of last week’s newsletter), nor can we exclude the possibility of alternative sciences that explain as much of the world as our familiar sciences, but which are largely disjoint from the familiar sciences. This latter possibility is related as an anecdote in Eugene Wigner’s “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” which I have quoted many times (though, strangely, apparently not in these newsletters, as I searched back several years just now and didn’t find this quoted, though I could have sworn that I have referenced this so many times my readers may be tired to hearing of it).
Another problem potentially soluble by a science of science: every special science undergoes its own crisis in its turn as it is forced to recognize that it cannot define either the object of its research or the fundamental theoretical terms it employs. There was the crisis in the foundations of mathematics, the crisis in physics, the crisis in psychology, the replication crisis (which falls hardest on social psychology, but which leaves few disciplines unscathed), the crisis in cosmology, and no doubt further crises yet to come. Some of these crises resemble each other, suggesting analogous structural problems within the sciences, while other crises seem to be highly specific to a particular subject matter (as with the crisis in cosmology generated by diverging measures of the Hubble constant). Further research into crises may reveal a deeper commonality, or may reveal each crisis to uniquely supervene on the objects of knowledge distinctive to each science.
The above assumes that a science of science would foreclose upon these troubling scenarios we would prefer not to contemplate. I think we can safely say that we have excluded some unwelcome scenarios for science, and this implies some rudimentary foundations of a science of science, and I think that if the project of a science of science ever came about, i.e., if it ever became a scientific research program on its own—or perhaps a meta-scientific research program—it would gradually foreclose upon the paradoxes of science, excluding them one by one, first taking care of the relatively simple problems, and then moving on to the more difficult ones. We don’t yet even know what the hardest problems are, or what they will be, when we earnestly turn toward formulating a science of science. It is all terra incognita to us.
In the absence of a science of science, however, we do have something to go on, and that is the record of the most successful special sciences, which, through their utility and fruitfulness, have provided a model for the other sciences to follow. And follow they do. A successful scientific discipline spurs imitation in the other special sciences, with the methods and the research program and theoretical structures copied. Science, then, has recourse to analogy. Later sciences are constructed along the lines of earlier successful sciences, and with good reason. The successful sciences have resolved many or most of their problems, and their methods have proved to be a successful way to derive knowledge from the empirical world.
But analogy itself is a theoretical problem. It has no standing as a formal principle of reasoning, and empirically it forces us into the kind of metaphysical speculation that most scientists hate—reflections on the uniformity of nature and such like. If nature is uniform, then a scientific methodology for the investigation of nature can be uniform, and we can know that it is (or will be) as effective in one region of experience as in another region of experience. Proof of this, however, is a metaphysical proof, and not anything scientific in the usual sense.
I should not belabor this idea of the absence of a science of science without acknowledging that it was, of course, the traditional idea that philosophy was the science of science, or, more narrowly, philosophical logic as it was elaborated prior to the mathematization of logic, that was understood to be the science of science, or, as it was also commonly known, the theory of science. Many logical works were called the theory of science, as, for example, Bernard Bolzano’s four volume Theory of Science—Wissenschaftslehre—which was completed in 1837, but the first complete English translation of which did not appear until 2014. In the meantime, between 1837 and 2014, logic, philosophy, and science all underwent rapid growth, and even, we could say, directional growth, that took them in a developmental direction of elaboration that was not anticipated prior to this time.
We can imagine a counterfactual history of logic (and of science) in which logic developed linearly, and did not experience a sudden growth along with a sudden realignment, gradually converging upon the ideal of a theory of science imagined by logicians like Bolzano. While mathematical logic transformed both logic and mathematics both, what was lost in the elaboration of mathematical logic was its connection to this traditional function of logic as the science of science. Moreover, the internal integration of logic was lost, though, it must be observed, other forms of integration appeared as logic was reconstructed analogously to mathematics.
Lately I have been thinking how, with the advent of mathematical logic and analytical philosophy, theory of meaning and theory of reference bifurcated, and with this bifurcation the inverse relationship between the two, explicitly recognized in traditional logic, was lost. Traditional logic asserts that as intension expands, extension narrows, and as extension expands, intension narrows. Intuitively it is easy to see that this is the case: a highly definite meaning applies only to a very few referents, while a generic meaning applies to a great many more referents. But with the development of mathematical logic and analytical philosophy, the theory of meaning and the theory of reference developed in different directions.
What happened? The whole of Western civilization was redirected and realigned by the industrial revolution. Some years ago I wrote about how the industrial revolution essentially hijacked other developments that were already taking place, and which therefore did not have the opportunity to come to a natural fruition because industrial change was so rapid and so catastrophic. I called this the preemption hypothesis (and gave it a further application in Late-Adopter Spacefaring Civilization: The Preemption that Didn’t Happen). We can understand preemption as a more generic historical process in which one historical process that is aggressively expansive overtakes another historical process that is slower and more gradual. An invasive weedy species of cognition expands universally and crowds out endemic species of cognition, driving them to extinction, and leaving us with a philosophical monoculture and its attendant disadvantages.
The kind of industrial civilization we might have gotten had the industrial revolution been an industrial evolution instead of a revolution, unfolding over millennia, as it is likely that the development of agriculture developed, would have been dramatically different. And the industrial revolution spawned revolutions in every adjacent sphere of life and thought. The preemption that was the industrial revolution can also be seen at work in intellectual history, and even in aesthetic and spiritual history. Science and philosophy began to transform early, more or less defining by themselves the advent of modernity when science and philosophy were modern but economics and industry were not. However, with the industrial revolution, science and philosophy were given a new and more violent spur to further growth and realignment.
These redirections and realignments of science, philosophy, and logic are vivid illustrations of the kind of selective development of science that Danilevsky imagined, though he thought of these selective developments in terms of their being embedded in cultural-historical traditions. Western science was embedded in the Western cultural-historical tradition (though Danilevsky called this the Romano-Germanic cultural-historical type), and when this tradition changed due to the industrial revolution, the science (and philosophy and logic) changed along with the tradition. Had the change been given an impetus in a different direction, or had the change not happened at all, science and its adjacent intellectual activities would look rather different today. I will not deny that change would have been much slower, but qualitatively different change might have had unprecedented impacts on history. Obviously, in the present context, what I am thinking of is a tradition like the logic of Bolzano being developed gradually, perhaps over hundreds of years, until it becomes the genuine science of science the want of which we feel at present.
It is ironically reflexive that we cannot exclude the possibility of a counterfactual science, based on a counterfactual logical tradition that grew into a mature theory of science, precisely because we lack this same theory of science. We also cannot prove that our rapid progress in science since the industrial revolution might stagnate for want of a proper theory of science, and due to the cognitive monoculture favored by rapid progress, nor that a counterfactual science, based on a counterfactual logic, might ultimately overtake and outstrip the rapid progress of science after an industrial revolution. It may be the case that, when a civilization experiences a rapid and violent industrial revolution, the accelerated rate of change cripples the other institutions of that civilization, and inevitably leads to both industrial and scientific progress eventually grinding to a halt, because the rate of progress was unsustainable. We could call the two implied scenarios of scientific and industrial development the tortoise scenario and the hare scenario, where slow and steady wins the race.
Best wishes,
Nick
PS—Last Wednesday I hiked up Dog Mountain again (previously in a PS to newsletter 239 I mentioned hiking Dog Mountain on 31 May 2023, almost exactly a year ago). This time I didn’t go all the way to the top, but I went as far as the Dog Mountain Lookout, which is a viewpoint over the Columbia Gorge just short of the top. Spring is one of the best times to do the Dog Mountain walk because of all the wildflowers.
PPS— The new number of Isonomia Quarterly, Volume 2 Issue 2, is now available, which includes a new essay by me, “The Coming Coeval Age” (a PDF version is also available). I plan to also record a video about this for my Today in Philosophy of History series. As with my recent big history paper, “A Complexity Ladder for Big History,” this essay for the Isonomia Quarterly isn’t specifically about philosophy of history, but it does have some interesting implications for history that I will explore and elaborate.
PPPS—I have finished listening to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. This is a classic I have skimmed many times but have not previously read through word-for-word. It always feels good to have the experience of the whole of a classic to better understand the references generated by said classic. Often we think of stoics as being distant and even possessed of an inhuman degree of self-control, but I was surprised by the repeated references to sociability in the Meditations. There is a pervasive sense in Marcus Aurelius of going along to get along.
Immediately upon finishing the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius I started listening to How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius by Donald J. Robertson. This is not exactly a commentary on the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, but a kind of exposition, both filling in the backstory to the life of Marcus Aurelius, as well as the life of the author, and showing the relevance of Stoic philosophy in the present. This book is about twice as long as the Meditations themselves.

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