You just described me. I don’t think I’d ever linked this particular part of my personality to why I enjoy and am good at being a product manager… I just always thought of it as enjoying being IT-adjacent without missing my saga* of being in IT. But your reasoning makes so much sense!

It might also be why I feel like a different person at work than in my personal life—more confident, more outgoing… because in my personal life I feel like I’m on the margins of every groups I’ve ever been a part of, but at work I found that to be an important place to be.

*”Saga” was an autocorrect that I didn’t notice until after I posted this, but now I don’t know what I meant to write. And honestly, “saga” feels accurate enough so whatever, I’m leaving it.

Shutting down third-party apps through unreasonable API pricing with extremely little notice, then actively lying about their conversations with Apollo’s developer about it even though he had recordings of the calls.

I think there was even more BS at that time that made it against my personal values to stay, but those were the nails in the coffin for me.

It was hard. I spent over ten years on reddit, and I’d been active in some meetup groups over the years, so a lot of my real-life friends came from there. It felt like ending a part of my identity.

But hearing what kinds of nonsense they’ve continued to pull, I know I made the right decision and I’m glad I moved.

There are lots of app options for Lemmy. If you want an excuse to break the habit, EOL of an app is a great reason. But if not, try something else. That post is about 3 years old but it was the first I found and I didn’t feel like digging for more, lol.

Originally they sold tramadol as “not an opioid” (and not addictive) but then they backtracked on that, so yeah, it is. But most people mentally classify it differently.

Every time I’ve had other opioids, they literally have no effect on me, including not reducing my pain. My lay understanding is that tramadol gets metabolized into a different kind of opioid while in your body, and I suspect something about that process allows it to work for me while others don’t.

And in general I seem to have a lot of abnormal responses to medications, including some paradoxical effects (like Ambien keeps me awake, or Claritin-D—the non-drowsy one—puts me to sleep).

It’s obviously different for different people but yeah, for me it’s just the difference of “in pain and miserable” vs “tolerating pain and normal.” And this is from someone with a standing prescription for tramadol, the only opioid that actually works for me. I only have to take it a couple times a year now, thankfully. Gabapentin has never actually helped with my pain though.

Ha, someone else said Koyaanisqatsi, to which I countered Baraka. Yours was the next response down.

I’ve seen Baraka many times but only watched Samsara once, I believe. Though we’re supposed to have neighbors over to watch it soon. Thanks for the reminder!

It’s more of a documentary with no narration. I replied this above, but I’d recommend Baraka instead. Baraka offers incredible visuals of humanity—the good and the bad—with a stunning soundtrack.

I’d definitely recommend Baraka over Koyaanitsqatsi. Baraka’s my partner’s favorite movie and I’ve watched it at least five times. After the last time he pulled up Koyaanitsqatsi, and I see where he was trying to go with it, but I don’t think he was there yet. However, I think he nailed it with Baraka.

Yes.

The book The Sociopath Next Door asserts that up to 4% of people are sociopaths, defined as people who lack empathy and conscience. Many sociopaths end up being celebrities, politicians, or CEOs, as they seek fame/power/money and don’t have empathy for others acting as an internal ethical conscience; not all end up violent.

Your father and brother, and possibly even mother fall on this scale. They are just on the extreme violent side of it.

So how many households are like yours? I’d assert, based on that book, it’s a max of 4%. But more likely it’s significantly lower than that since yours is on the extreme side.

The majority of people are not like them.