I have an honest followup question to this meme (because I lived it): how long do you expect the girlfriend to stay?

At age 23 I was in a great relationship, we were in love, then I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I stopped being able to do physical things, I dropped out of school, I was bedridden. She went from being my girlfriend to being my nurse. She cared for me for a year, one long miserable year, then she left.

Is she at fault for leaving?

If we use the original definition of the word “meme”, which is “a unit of cultural transmission” then yes literally everything is a meme.

It was coined to be analogous to the word “gene”. One of the similarities is that the borders of genes and memes are fuzzy: when you split a gene in half, you get two genes. Both genes and memes are nested inside of themselves like a Russian doll.

The misdefinition of “meme” as “image macro on the internet” was ill informed, and is thankfully going out of style.

I heard you like polyrhythms is actually a really good song imo

Your heart is in the right place, but I think “no regrets” is an insane take.

As a fellow unemployed CS grad, I once thought software engineering was my best shot at a middle class life.

Now after 5 years of unemployment, the financial reality is setting in. I will never be able to afford a home. I will never be able to afford a family. I will never be able to afford retirement. I will never be able to afford a vacation. I will never be able to afford most things that make life worth living.

I thought I was going to be an engineer. I thought I was going to be a professional. Now I’m fasting at the end of every month bc food stamps always run out, and the electric company is threatening to shut off my power.

Choosing CS is deeply regrettable.

Lol well I guess it’s easy to get confused. I was submitting job applications to write computer applications.

I was submitting app apps.

Over the years I have tried a handful of subfields.

I always felt particularly adept at assembly language programming, so I had a couple projects doing that, and applied to every relevent job I could find.

As a math nerd I enjoyed data science and machine learning, I had quite a few projects like a neutral network from scratch in Matlab, and many data analysis and computer vision projects in R. I was always aware this field is very competitive and my chances were low here.

I had a friend get a job in the biomedical field, so I tried to follow that, I have Python projects doing basic gene sequencing and analysis, even a really cool project that replicated evolution.

Another friend landed a government job, so I followed his advice and got some security certs.

I also had smaller projects and attempts at databases, finance programming, and video games.

There was even a class action suit against UW for their negligence during covid. I guess the case is already settled, so I’m looking forward to my meager restitution check.

And I actually feel lucky that most of my serious classes were complete before Covid lockdown, bc the quality of education during covid was absolutely pathetic.

I’m not sure I was misled, what you said was explicitly taught to us at University. I think my degree is the #1 thing on my resume, but of course I also had projects, a few certificates, and multiple attempts at more specific fields.

Back when I was applying, my GitHub activity was pretty solid green.

You’re right that my time was wasted, and knowing the outcome, I wish I could go back and do more project work before trying to enter the job market.

But I don’t think that is a financial possibility for most Americans. Going to school drained my savings, when I graduated I had almost nothing except for school debt, medical debt, and high rent. Saying “I’m gonna take off and work for free for a year” never really seemed like a possibility.

And as for my apps, the 3000 were not shotgun, they were all personalized, custom cover letters, keywords, etc. It only averaged out to 3/day. I did not track the apps where I used AI to submit them- the AI ones were definitely shotgun.

I fled from the Midwest because there were no good jobs outside of the oil and gas industry, and ended up in the Seattle area. Saving up and moving cost 2 years of my life, Im not sure I could do it again.

…and I did apply to some jobs on the west coast, although most of my apps were around Seattle.

But please tell me, where should I have went instead of Seattle?

No I have a spreadsheet with 3200 lines of submitted applications, which includes both entry level positions and internships. Many with customized cover letters.

When you do the math its not even a strong pace, only about 3/day over 3 years. On a good day I was submitting 12-15.

I even applied to some famous ones, like the time Microsoft opened up 30 entry level positions and received 100,000 applications in 24 hours. It is rumored thet they realized they cannot process 100k apps, so they threw them all away and hired internally.

Whether they actually threw them out or not, that one always sticks with me. Submitting 100k apps is literally a lifetime of human work. All of that wasted effort is a form of social murder in my opinion.

I graduated with a degree in Computer Science and Software Engineering from the University of Washington in 2020, during the height of Covid.

After over 3000 handcrafted applications (and many more AI-written ones), I have never been offered a job in the field.

I know of multiple CS graduates who have killed themselves, and so many who are living with their parents and working service/retail.

I think the software engineering rush of the early 2000s will be looked back upon like the San Francisco gold rush in 1949.

I like how she tags Neil DeGrasse Tyson as if the funny haha tv scientist podcast man is out there writing budget proposals for CERN or Fermilab

Someone driving or operating machinery high is just as dangerous as someone driving drunk

You have a source or anything to back this idea up?

I delivered pizzas in downtown Seattle for a couple years, and most of my coworkers were constantly stoned. Many weren’t just hitting pens or joints, they would hit a fat dab with a torch lighter and then hop in their vehicle and make a delivery.

Both years I worked there, our delivery team got an annual award for having 0 vehicle accidents.

Obviously this is anecdotal, but if you run this same situation back with alcohol instead of weed, I am confident there would have been many accidents.

corner a pedo

And since these are internet vigilante kids with no oversight, they will inevitably corner some non-pedos too.

Put yourself in that situation- a couple teenagers with cameras approach you on the street and start accusing you of some of the sickest crimes imaginable. Even though the accusation is false, this has the potential to ruin your career, your relationships, your entire life.

I’m not sure how anyone would respond, or should respond, but I can definitely see how people might resort to violence when falsely accused of this horrible shit on camera.

Alright I watched your video. I agree it is a problem that a small subsect of secular humanism has been entangled with “anti-wokeness”, Trumpism, and fascism. Many of the figureheads of the atheist movement in the past two decades have become part of the alt-right pipeline, and that is a tragedy.

But as your video readily admits, the vast majority of atheists, anti-theists, and secular humanists are on the left. I was involved with the Freedom from Religion Foundation for a decade or so, and my personal experience was that nearly everyone there was on the left(even in a heavily rightwing state).

I think you are falling into the pitfall, judging a large and diverse group for the misdeeds of a small subsect of that group.

As for “not thinking of religious people as people”, if you would personally know me you would understand this is a laughable notion. I am surrounded by religion and religious people everyday, their views and beliefs are thrust upon me often, and I always respond with respect, very rarely will I offer a counter argument.

But I am still of the conviction that religious people are victim to religion. I believe my cousins, who do not allow their children to see any doctor, are victims of religion. I think any rational person would agree that their young child, recently ill for a month but not allowed to see a doctor, is a victim of religion.

And as for marginalization, I do believe religion should be marginalized. Just like I believe the alt-right and fascist movements should be marginalized. Good things are good, and bad things are bad, and I am convinced religion is bad. But let’s be honest, the power dynamics are heavily weighted on the other side. Religious people are marginalizing atheists, fascists are marginalizing leftists.

As for “intellectually engaging with their position”, I would love to. My experience has been that very few religious people are willing to intellectually engage in the subject. Despite this, I have had many intellectual and respectful discussions on religion, and I appreciate that you are giving me one more.

But if you are so concerned about anti-theism leading to Trumpism, then you should be much more concerned about religion leading people to Trumpism. That correlation is much stronger.

I think my post makes it quite clear that I was not referring to people as diseases, I specifically said that religion is the disease. The people are victims to the disease.

And if it isn’t also obvious, I do consider myself an anti-theist. The overall effect of religion on society is negative, and we would be better off without religion. I don’t see what this has to do with “woke mind virus” nonsense.

Those many “private, personal” benign religious people form a strong foundation upon which the crazies, cults, and conmen build their structures.

In my experience, these benign people are one tragedy away from metastasizing into the malignant religious type.

I have cousins who were benign-religious for most of their life, but after a death in the family they started following a new sect of christianity. Their children have never seen a doctor, nor a vaccine.

I agree people are entitled to their personal freedoms, but we would be much better off as a society if we could educate our way out of the cancer that is religion.

Yes the British film Battle for Haditha received funding from the DoD’s Entertainment Media Office. It is difficult to find any military film that has not been funded in part by this propagada office.

I do have one fact incorrect though, they did not receive millions. It appears they received much less, although I couldnt find an exact number.

But here you are ignoring the thrust of my argument, that the insidious free market propaganda by the US is much more effective than the heavy handed authoritarian propaganda by China. Yes, you can go get an advanced degree and learn about Haditha freely, but that knowledge is effectively prevented from reaching the broader public.

Both US and China actively deny and suppress information. The Chinese method is more authoritarian, the US method is more effective.

I argue this point on another comment in this thread.