Recently got my partner a miyoo mini, it looked so fun that I got myself one too. It’s been really nice to just play retro games for short moments, and because it gives me a much needed break from scrolling my phone it actually feels productive and restful. I’ve just finally completed Link to the Past, a game I played for the first time 30 years ago but never finished.

I’d heard the term but hadn’t seen the strip. Quite satisfactory indeed.

Comfort eating. Before I got adhd meds I had zero impulse control, so I’d eat nothing or eat everything. I would be 75% through a giant bag of snacks, and I’d be actively not enjoying them and wanting to stop, but I just couldn’t. I’d stop and put them away and ten seconds later I’d be back eating, even though I was feeling sick and gross.

On meds, that’s stopped and I’ve realised that my craving for snacks is all about comfort, stimulus, and self regulation, and nothing to do with hunger. But even knowing that, I struggle to bother with other harder but healthier ways of stimulating and relaxing, when I could just eat crackers with thick slabs of salty butter, or alternate between dark chocolate and salty peanuts. It’s not the worst, but I’m very conscious of that it’s not really about the food and so it feels like a lot of empty calories just to chill me out a little.

Up lemmyed, funny, but for anyone else confused about the satire https://www.truthorfiction.com/rep-jack-kimble-a-whopping-25-of-american-students-are-in-the-bottom/

I’ve had lots of problems in life (late diagnosed neurodiversity), walked out of jobs, changed careers, gone back to uni three times, and had a series of mental breakdowns. But despite all that, because I had a caring family, I knew that the worst that could happen is I’d have to move back in with my parents, which might be. A bit humiliating but would be easy, comfortable and safe.

This security allowed me to spend two decades fucking up until I got the right diagnosis, medication and a satisfying professional career. I’m extremely conscious that if I’d not had love and support I’d have ended up an unemployed alcoholic, or dead. I have so much respect for people fighting through life on hard mode, but I’m also so glad I happened to get the lucky draw.

Similarly, being a normal looking white guy is an amazing superpower. Although “invisible disabilities” absolutely have their own challenges, the fact that my problems aren’t easily spotted means that despite being repeatedly terrible at a wide variety of jobs, and a general screw up, I have gotten every job I’ve interviewed for, often massively beyond my actual skills and expertise. And it’s not just the external appearance, the confidence I grew up with from being white, male, straight passing, and middle class, has meant that people just believe stuff when I say it, and take me seriously even if I don’t really know much about whatever we’re discussing.

Obviously there’s some small amount of individual traits and whole lot of luck (you can still lose a game in easy mode, and sadly I know folks who have) but it so obvious I’m playing with a stacked deck compared with most of the world, that it boggles my mind that people try and deny their ‘privilege’.

Aristoles’ Nicomachian Ethics (2300 years ago) basically argues that what makes a person “good” is that they are in the habit of doing the right thing. A villain might do a random act of kindness, and a saint may give in to temptation. If you want to be “good” you need to practice being good all the time so that it becomes second nature, or, one might say, a habit.

It’s that carefully developed habit of doing the right thing that let’s others know they can trust you to act rightly, and gives you confidence that even in a difficult situation you won’t be a coward or a liar or whatever. Because you’ve built that habit over countless smaller situations, and it’s a reliable part of who you are.

I don’t know, I actually like the whole flawed idea of vulcan logic. Throughout the different shows we come to understand that ‘vulcan logic’ isn’t some weird alien “their brains work differently” thing. They used to be violent and emotional, and they came up with a social system that helped solve that, and ushered in an age if peace and progress.

But “logic” isn’t a meaningful method to live a life, it’s a very specific tool for certain types of problems. Even our primitive earth philopshers have identified many problems with thinking that we could live life purely logically, as Hume puts it "Reason Is and Ought Only to Be the Slave of the Passions”.

So we’re not seeing a bunch of transcendent android minds, we’re seeing the equivalent of a bunch of recovering alcoholics clinging desperately to a worldview that they cannot question, but that is itself “illogical”. So their disdain for other races is partly a consequence of their general directness and not holding back criticism, but also an anxious defence mechanism of people who know that even their indoctrinating school system and constant peer pressure might not be enough if Vulcans feel like it’s okay to like humans or whomever, because that’s only one step away from “well, if they’re doing okay why can’t I fall in love and cry and laugh!” and that way lies bloody civil war and a return to barbarism.

Zoloft been in use since 1991, and “Is that your phone?” was a perfectly cromulent thing to say in the 90s, meaning “do I hear your land-line ringing?” not “is that your pocket computer on the table there?”

Nah, an English muffin is basically a bread product - you shape them and leave to rise, but a crumpet is more like a fancy pancake - it’s a batter poured into a ring on a hot pan, and has baking powder as well yeast (which gives it the trademark holes). But maybe that’s just in Britain? Maybe you chaps have different crumpets?

I’m British, and if you offered most British people “a muffin” they would assume you meant the American style sugar and oil affair. Some people do enjoy an “English muffin” but they’re not very popular, much less loved than crumpets, which themselves are probably below scones. The main use I see of them is as the base of Eggs Benedict, which works because they are basic and go well with butter. A white chocolate & blueberry muffin is a much more controversial paring for poached eggs and hollandaise.

I get the sense from your wording that you might be in the younger end of the spectrum. Although the world can feel pretty shitty and messed up, it’s often worth remembering “this too shall pass”. Obviously no one wants the world to be awful, and living through hard times isn’t desirable, but just like the good stuff never lasts, the bad stuff changes too. The Great Depression lasted a decade, the Nazis ran Germany for just a bit longer.

Those were presumably fucking dreadful times to live through. But the decades that followed were comparatively prosperous for the countries. What’s happening in the US is depressing as all hell, but it’ll change, and all you can do is the best you can to make it less dreadful, for yourself and the people around you.