That is the topic of my latest Blooomberg column. This exercise is speculative, but here is my tentative resolution:
Workers have been undergoing a serious crisis of morale since the pandemic — and they really are doing less. So businesses, in turn, have to hire more of them just to keep pace.
Does this hypothesis fit with these economic signals? With inflation still in the range of 5%, slow economic growth cannot be due to insufficient aggregate demand. More likely, it is due to supply-side and productivity considerations. The biggest natural disaster of the last half decade has been Covid, which damages not capital but labor — whether workers’ health or their morale…
Could part of the explanation be the broader adoption of the work-from-home option? I know there are studies that say WFH increases productivity, but even the author of one of the more widely cited papers says that more research is necessary and that a lot depends on how well the arrangement is organized. Meanwhile, America is experiencing a mental health crisis, arguably made worse by both Covid stress and the accompanying lockdowns.
The productivity question is even more puzzling. If worker productivity is low, why keep on hiring? The key may be to look not at total productivity, but at productivity per hour — and not per reported hour, but per hour actually worked.
I concede that there exists no measure of productivity per hour actually worked. (The official number, which is not doing great either, measures productivity per reported hour.) But if the average office worker only puts in say two to three hours a day — and it is not implausible — then there is a lot of slack in the worker’s day, especially if they are WFH.
So consider this thought experiment as a possible explanation: You are a manager and have noticed that new hires tend to be more enthusiastic and hard-working than current employees. Under this theory — and that’s all it is — you decide to hire more contract workers for well-defined, short-run tasks. Meanwhile, you redouble your efforts to bring workers back into the office.
Viewed through an economic lens, it is puzzling why there aren’t more gains from trade. That is, workers agree to put in more effort, and employers agree to pay them more. That is a trend which _should_ be expected — but WFH makes monitoring difficult.
Note this same pattern of mediocre output growth and labor scarcity is evident in many other economies, including Germany and Czechia, as discussed in the column.

The post Why mediocre gdp growth and a strong labor market? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
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](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/06/why-mediocre-gdp-growth-and-a-strong-labor-market.html#comments) - Is there more to it than just running large deficits? I think ...by Law Dog

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Hello everyone, I (18F) am traveling right now, and am on my way back home soon. I just broke up with my first boyfriend (he was my first everything), and I was honestly sort of semi-open to rebounds on my trip. The issue comes when I was hanging out with a girl (17F) that I met through a mutual hobby. She invited me to hang out and dance/drink with her friends in a park together, and so I went and got a little too messed up. I kissed her friend, but quickly realized that I was not into him so I turned him down and he was very respectful about it. I was still upset about kissing someone other than my ex, so the two girls (one of them being the one I kissed), went off to leave, and ended up talking about how it was okay that I was moving on from my ex boyfriend.
This is where it gets weird, I was alone with the girl since her friend had to leave, so we tried to get food and eventually started to make out. I was still very very drunk at this time, and she asked me how people kiss in a certain way, so I offered to show her and she accepted. It led to basically making out for half an hour, in a situation where I was drunk still and she was completely sober. It was okay, but I regret it even without what she said, so I was already feeling strange about it.
Today she texted me and said that she felt I forced her into it, and that she was uncomfortable but did not know how to say no. She also said she was trying to push me away a bit, but at the time she was kissing me back, so it confuses me that she was apparently doing that. Also that she did not know how to say no, and that it was sort of her fault she gave me the wrong idea, and that she regrets it.
The main part of why I am so thrown off, is that I asked her explicitly if she was okay with things I was doing, and she said yes. I specifically asked her for consent while we were kissing, and each time she said yes, and I was drunk and unable to realize that her yes was secretly a no??? She says she did not know how to say no, but I feel like since she was sober, there were many opportunities when I specifically asked her if I was ok or not to touch her or kiss her, where she said a clear yes. She is the third person I have ever kissed, first girl, and I don’t really know where to go from here.
I texted her in response that I regretted it but that I wished she said no when I asked her if it was okay, instead of being enthusiastic with kissing me and saying yes. I am so weirded out that I went past someone’s boundaries, but at the same time am sort of upset that she said yes to things and went along with it, especially with the parts she said she was uncomfortable with. I know for a fact I asked if it was okay to touch her, to which she said yes and she was touching me too, and I just feel so uncomfortable.
She knew I was very drunk the entire time as well, which just makes me feel even stranger personally, especially as I would assume that since she was completely sober, she could’ve said anything other than yes when I asked for her consent. If she had said something, anything, I would’ve stopped, I just can’t understand why she accepted my requests for consent and kept going with me if she felt the way she did this morning about it.
What do I do from this point? I regret it so much even without knowing that she felt like that (kissing anyone honestly so soon after my breakup), but now I regret it even more with her telling me she didn’t want it. I just can’t understand, since I asked for consent and got the green light. She seems to regret it too at the least, and I asked if she was okay/mentally stable after it and she says yes, it just weird me out.
Any advice would be appreciated, thank you for reading :(
TLDR: I drunkenly kissed a sober girl (3rd kiss in my life), and she feels I pressured her into doing uncomfortable things (touching her and kissing) after the fact. She says she did not know how to tell me no, but I feel upset because I specifically asked for consent multiple times, and do not know why she would say yes and then tell me I forced her into what we mutually (?) agreed to. Am so confused right now.

I’m done. No matter how many fiefs I conquer, no matter how much gold I acquire, no matter how many clans I recruit this blond fuckboy prince manages to cock it up. I dominated the entire north side of the map for him and he manages to lose it all in just a year.
The Western Empire which I utterly smashed into just a couple of castles and clans has made a complete resurgence and is now destroying us.
I’m just sitting in my fief until this dude dies bro.

Maurine and Virgil back from Japan and tired but happy to be home. As everybody in the house, meaning those two, Max, Bea, Felix, and Norman now over his redness and itching despite going to a doctor and getting more medication and also having to clean out the pool in order to make sure that it was no longer affected by the itching powder.
Everybody was sitting in the TV room drinking milkshakes and eating candy. Chase and Dustin told the four while Max's mom and Virgil were in Japan, that the commercial will be set for this time and that the four needed to keep this a secret until the commercial was filmed.
Watching TV, there was a commercial with such a huge guy and he was washing as the PA announcer told the viewers to get this brand soap. The guy was smiling and was getting a towel and wiping himself off. The only line he said was "It's Well Worth It!"
Maurine and Virgil told Norman that it looked like him but even the fowl was surprised, knowing nobody had that height except.....Norman!! Wow! Virgil usually the one doing the talking was very speechless. Nearly spitting up his milkshake.
"Norman is that you in that commercial?!" Virgil looking at a aw shucks and smiling Norman and the bodyguard/guardian nodded his head.
"Oh how you all! How did you manage to get that filmed and kept it secret until now?!!" Maurine had her mouth opened and eyes popped up.
"You have surprised me! Even I mean how did you do that without telling us and kept it a secret?!" Maurine went on.
"It is a very long story mom and Virgil. Really it even shocked me and Normie!" Max added but Felix and Bea looked at him with suspicion initially for not including them but then Max allowed them to be involved later on.
"Even Bea and Felix were shocked and rode with us two to film the commercial. Seems like a commercial manager was eyeing Normie" Max later saying apologetically as his two friends smiled later on.
Indeed it was a very long story that allowed Max to do the talking. From a prima donna named Lars and the pool having to be cleaned over itching powder. But it was worth it and that they contacted Norman the agency to have up to two other commercials and then he would get really good money over on it. Afterwards, he can fade into the obscurity.
Just one of many adventures and stories over in Mighty Max!
-The End!

Male - 23 y/o Past issue (maybe )
So this is going to sound strange, but during my childhood I had odd "episodes" I say this because no matter who I ask about it with Doctors, they cannot ever explain it so I might as well try here.
I am not sure what caused these episodes or how they came to be but they included following feelings; Feeling like I am in a dream, everything is going too fast and it scares me (Like fast forwarding a VHS tape), unable to sit/rest or do much of anything except wander and panic
These would not happen as I wake up, I would be fully awake. Something that triggered these would be someome snoring too fast/slow, or if i thought about things moving too fast/slow
Doctors tried to tell me it was panic attacks but I am long term diagnosed PTSD along with many other mental illnesses and this doesnt feel the same at ALL
The only thing thaf ever helped ever was watching TV oddly, back then, but not all the time. I have not had an episode since I was 12, I am 23 now.
Does anyone know what this is? I have been wondering my whole life. Thanks to anyone who can help!

It has been a few year since this happened, and I've spent that time reflecting on it all and trying to make sense of it. Now it's going up on reddit.
Back in 2015, I began my journey as a new DM. I had never been able to be a player for longer than one or two session since for whatever reason the games I tried to join would just collapse, but I figured running my own game would prevent this - I was excited. Joining me were my two IRL best friends, and one other guy that our friend group hung out with, but with whom I was not particularly close. Let's call these people E., C., and A..
E. and I grew up together. Our parents went to school together when they were kids. We had know each other for decades and had been close friends since high school. E. was the ultimate nerd in our group, but he had a very short attention span. He would go on wild deep dives into obscure things, then get board and never come back to it.
C. and I met in high school. Over a period of a decade he became my closest friend. The lengths I went to just to be a good friend to him seem ridiculous now in hindsight, but he had schizophrenia, so I always tried to cut him some slack since his grasp on reality was tenuous at best.
A. and I had very little in common, but he was/is a genuinely good guy. He's the sort of guy that would give the shirt off his back to a homeless man, and then only feel good about it if nobody saw him do it. A. wasn't here to play D&D, he only wanted to hang out with C., and so began a 5 year long struggle to make him learn his character sheet. But, that's not what this post is about.
Fast forward to 2018. I'm running the game. I've poured my heart and soul into this game, and I've never worked harder on anything ever in my life. Work prevents us from playing every week,yet slowly but surly we are advancing into the higher levels. Weird things have been happening IRL though. Out of game C. has started acting strangely and being distant. C. has demanded to switch out characters about every 3 months, and it's beginning to become impossible to keep up with his countless still living (now NPC) characters with 20 page backstories and 50+ member families that are still impacting the world.E. has started going on weird political rants about racial supremacy (blacks and whites, and others too).I chalked up C.'s behavior to him trying to cope with his mental health issues. As for the weird stuff E. was doing, I just tried to ignore it and hoped he would get board and move on to something else.A. still doesn't know what an attack roll is. I patiently explain it to him almost every week. He's acting normal though, and has actually started trying to role play.
2019 rolls around. I'm still running my campaign - now going on 4 years into the story, but this will take a back seat for now.E. has started his own game, and invited me to be a player. E. is still going on rants about his bizarre racial/cultural cleansing though enslavement and murder nonsense IRL. It has actually gotten a bit worse. I try to talk to him about it to hopefully snap him out of it, but I fail to get through to him. I still end up joining E.'s campaign, figuring I'll have time later to help my friend come back to he senses. He introduces me to a new person, who also happens to be a girl that he likes. She is also a player in his new campaign. She seems nice at first, but as time goes on I notice she keeps making passive aggressive comments about me. The more I try to just ignore it, the more aggressive and the less passive those comments get. After a few weeks, I decide to interrupt one of her snide remarks and ask her what her issue is. She flatly denies everything and says I'm imagining it.A few months pass. By this time I've tried to ignore her, to appease her, and to directly confront her when she calls me a slur, or tells me I don't count as a human being. Nothing stops the behavior, and I'm getting very frustrated and close to dropping out of E.'s game. C. says nothing when this stuff happens and it bothers me. E. refuses to do anything about what's going on. I ask E. repeatedly to put his foot down, but he won't. Privately E. admits that he knows his (now girlfriend) has been lashing out at me and that it's a problem, but he tells me that she has been sucking his dick a lot, and he doesn't want to mess that up. Enraged by this betrayal, I go talk to C.During this whole time (many months), C. has been extremely withdrawn. I've noticed him and E. having secret conversations behind my back, but they're friends too so I didn't pay it very much attention. Now however, as I spill my frustrations to C., he tells me to my utter shock that he doesn't want to take a side, since he has joined E.'s new religion. I ask him what he is talking about, and he tells me about the "religion" that he, E., and E.'s girlfriend are part of. The more C. describes it, the more it sounds like some kind of Jim Jones bullshit. The cult openly preaches and calls for the torture, enslavement, and mass murder of "the bad ethnic groups".I drop out of E.'s game, but tell C. and E. that I will still be friends with them, and I'm not going to give up on changing their mind about all this weird shit they started believing. Internally, I was holding out hope I could snap them out of it.
2020 arrives. I'm still running my campaign with A., C., and E., though only intermittently - perhaps once a month at most. Interpersonal tensions are very high. I've been taking every opportunity out of game to try to convince them that slavery and mass murder is morally wrong (never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would need to). They argue that they would be doing these races a favor, and that it will usher in a global utopia once the cult has purged all those who oppose them. I dedicate all my time and spend months on end trying to break my friends out of the cult.Meanwhile, A. is totally oblivious to what has been going on for the last two years. Instead, he is completely focused on the game. He has not only started role playing his character, but has actually (after 5 years!) learned how his character works. A. has become invested in the game after learning that the reason the government has been hunting his character, is that he is a clone of a super soldier that accidently gained sentience. A.'s character has finally tracked down the secret laboratory of the evil nobleman that destroyed the life of the non cloned version of him. The next session was to be the final boss fight of the story arc.
Unfortunately, that session never came. A few days before the session, C. called me and told me it was time for me to convert. He told me I needed to take poison to prove I was serious about converting to his religion, and if I didn't, he wouldn't be friends with me. I told him "No". He hung up, and I never heard from C. again. The next day E. called me to say we couldn't be friends anymore. I never heard from E. again either. I have no idea what happened to either of them, and I miss them to this day. We had a lot of history before all the bad stuff happened.I offered to do a solo epilogue session for A.'s character, but he was pretty upset when he found out what had happened, and ultimately he decided the game should end for good on the last session's cliff hanger. We still talk every once in a while - I'll call to wish him a Merry Christmas or Happy Birthday, that kind of stuff.
Following everything that happened, I vowed to never run a game again. I poured my soul into that game, and it was ripped to shreds by the people I loved. It hurt too much to ever consider running another game. And yet, it's been a few years now. The anger and confusion has slowly subsided. I've discovered a wonderful new group of people online that I play with. We've actually finished a few short campaigns together! They are not the same as IRL friends, but, I feel like they could become it someday. Beyond that, next week a new campaign is starting - and I'm the DM.
Thanks for reading this long story-rant. I've been holding it in for 3 years. I finally feel free.

Is it me or the guys?
This may sound weird but let’s just say I (19F) have had sexual encounters with a few guys and almost all of them have had a hard time keeping it up during sex. These are all men in their early 20s, it’s same with everyone we would start making out they would be mind-blown by me (I consider myself good looking I have always gotten compliments and many guys) so these guys will shower me with compliments like you’re so pretty, sexy, beautiful etc… Boom! they can’t keep erection and end up doing a mediocre job. It’s just frustrating seeing that I can see they are excited and all but it’s a mood killer. They are often embarrassed too. So I am a bit confused it can’t be that these guys all have ED or something but what makes them so nervous? Any tips on how to overcome this?
Recently, met an amazing guy at a party (22M). He kept on saying how beautiful I looked (I did) and then he was so excited he got a hotel room in city, couldn’t keep it up, came too soon.
Previously, similar experiences, guys will get excited, get a room and get nervous.

Aphids are attacking everything. Peppers, tomatoes, herbs, flowers, I've been spraying with neem oil but they keep coming back because my neighbor's yard is infested too.
Is ordering a bunch of ladybugs off Amazon and releasing them a good idea? Would it work? Would my neighbors hate me?
And if this isn't a terrible idea, how many should I get for a tiny yard that is probably 20ft x 40ft?

I am sure that each and every one here has seen the fight that started with a flying kick like Tekken and ended up being girl fight with throwing slaps all around...Now that video has been posted all around Reddit, I go through comment section and see number of hurtful comments like how Indians can't fight...so many men yet not one puch has been thrown,How Indians fight like girls,And how a Single highschooler from west can beat up all of them etc.Not gonna lie even if those words were offending and hurtful one cannot deny that fighting style of India is very bizzare,We shout Loud with lot of expression but when it comes to action🥴🥴...What do you guys think? Should we train ourselves to fight better

Hello family!
Just wondering how is everyone's experience with Human design? How accurate do you feel it is?
For me, my chart shows me as a Mani gen. So my throat is defined. And have 20-34, 1-8, 2-14 channels. But I have always struggled to be heard and seen by others. Especially in artificial environment like school, uni, office, etc. Sometimes I feel people don't hear my voice and often misunderstood me. I wonder how my struggles relate to my chart at all. Unless I'm not living in my chart.
Would love to hear your thoughts and your experience with Human design.
🙏🌻

Looking at building a Lizardman Warband but rules say I can only “buy” Sacred Markings when building the warband but it only lists the value of the marking as “points” while everything else is listed as “GC”. There is nothing saying how many “points” I have to spend, only that a warband is built with 500GC.
Is the reference to “points” actually a reference to GC? Or Steven “Grafix” Gibbs just make a mistake? Or both…

Hey. So I got 99 slayer a while ago but never tried to use the cape to get back to back tasks. Today I tried it for the first time. Boom hit that 1/10 let's go. Finish the second task and think maybe I'll go for another, boom hit that 1/10 again let's go. Finish that task and think maybe I'll go for another, boom hit that 1/10 again let's go. I'll save you some time. I have now tried to use it exactly 4 times. It has proc'd all 4 times. Now I get rng be weird, But hitting a 1/10,000 on your first go is crazy.
I am sure you will want me to keep trying to see how many in a row I will get. I have to go to work now but when I have more time I will see what happens.
Has this happened to anyone else?
Btw task was nechs.

This could possibly make some people angry. Note that this is my opinion, so please respect it. And sorry if there are spelling errors.
​
I have been playing UDG for almost a whole month now. I really like most of the characters, and I find the game fun to play, and also has a good story, but that's my opinion. But I don't see people talking about UDG or even including UDG characters in things like tier lists and YouTube videos that claims to have "every Danganronpa character" (which annoys me so much).
I really only see THH, SDR2, and V3, but I rarely see UDG or Danganronpa 3 (an anime I don't know how many people know about). It makes me sad because I actually really like UDG, probably because the characters and how it's more dark than the three mainline games. So tell me, why is UDG so underrated?

I dream of one day having a good close friend that I play video games with everyday. I've slowly lost all my gaming friends through the years and I seriously miss it. I don't really know how to go about finding a friend to play with. I've tried playing with random people in Last Epoch, for example, but it's just not working out. I don't want to play some random game that is boring alone, like, say, New World, just to look for a friend. It sounds a bit much.
So I'm looking for people here, though it doesn't seem to be working that well either. People keep ghosting me with no explanation why. But who knows, maybe one day the perfect person will come along and read this. And it only takes one person, right?
Gaming alone is not nearly as fun. I don't really care what game we play, as long as we're having fun. That said, here's some games I like:
I just got Age of Wonders 4 and have been playing it a lot in my free time. I have never played an AoW game before. I also just got Darkest Dungeon 2. I've also got back into Pathfinder: Wrath of the Rigtheous. But those latter two are single-player games, and AoW4 doesn't seem like a game I'd want to play multiplayer anyway.
Just before that, I had gotten back into Last Epoch, with the 0.9 patch that released not long ago, and now multiplayer is a thing! I mostly played my offline necromancer by myself, but let's make new toons together and play together! (Or we can use our old toons if you already have one.)
I also like Old World some, but have never played it with another person. Maybe we could, if you want?
Aside from that, I used to play Hearthstone a lot. But not anymore. I would love to find a new TCG/CCG type game to play. Not Marvel SNAP or Legends of Runeterra.
Would also like to find someone to play Slay the Spire with too where we watch each other. I'm not sure about the co-op mod as I hear it sucks, but maybe. I've played it a lot and have beat Ascension 20 and then some with the Silent, been getting into the Defect some but don't play the other 2 classes at all. Would love to have someone to play this game with or show them the ropes.
And I play some other obscure titles like Thea 2. Would be nice to find somebody to play that with.
I would really love to find someone to introduce a new game to me in a genre I like. TCG, MMO, ARPG mainly. Really, I'm just looking for a friend to play with that is fun and we get along. That's all that really matters. Sucks playing alone every night.
MMORPG's I have played and enjoyed include Elder Scrolls Online, ArcheAge, Bless Unleashed, New World, and Wakfu. I would love to get back into one of those with someone! I'm NOT interested in playing FFXIV, WoW, GW2, or Lost Ark! Don't ask! If you know of any other good MMO's, though, let me know and maybe we can play it together. Though I could definitely have fun playing one of those MMO's I've played before if I was playing with the right person.
ARPG's I have played and liked in the past include Path of Exile, Last Epoch, Diablo 3, Undecember, and Grim Dawn. I think I might be permanently done with playing PoE alone, but would like to try playing it with someone else, especially someone knew who I could teach everything to. Diablo 4 looks lame.
A little about me: I'm 34 years old, live in the US in central time zone, and live alone with my 2 cats. I'm looking for friends to game with because I don't really have many. I'm online every night and usually gaming! I'm super friendly and talkative and looking for the same, and someone who has time to talk and to play. I'm also LGBTQ+ friendly in case that needs to be said. Also looking for people who have a sense of humor. I don't care about your age as long as we get along. Voice chat is mandatory (sorry!).
I pretty much game 24/7 when I'm not working or sleeping. I sleep odd hours but I will be online for the rest of the night and into the morning! You can add me on Discord: MeltedWater (Yes, no #whatever anymore, I guess it changed, if it don't work try MeltedWater#9972 but should work WITHOUT the numbers.) (Please don't message me here on Reddit, the messages aren't going through for some reason.)

sorry, I just need to share this door knock experience I had today.
I just had the Jehovah's Witnesses call. One of them knew my deceased mother and myself though I can't recall his name but I was surprised they called. I've been waiting for this but still my heart was beating fast. After my pimi father passed away my elderly pimi mother lived here with me until her death a couple years ago due to not accepting a blood transfusion. When I heard the knock on the door I was surprised since I had been through the angry phase of grief and leaving a cult so the local JW’s knew my feelings. I’ve since calmed down and am now probably more in the activism phase having spent time recently talking to the JW’s on the carts, usually until they left the area, or until I got bored and left. I was still surprised one of them would venture back to my place. Anyway we caught up about mum initially then started talking about the bible. I tried to ask what evidence there was for the bible being a true document from God and they talked about the resurrection being evidence, so I asked for proof but they just pointed to the bible so I said that the bible makes lots of claims but how do you know they’re true, it says that God created plants before the sun and bee's...thousands of years apart, despite it saying “an evening and a morning a new day” after each creative day so why would they not be 24 hours days. Even your creation video online says it was written from a human perspective but they're not 24 hour days? They kept talking about water above and waters below and that they cleared to reveal the sun. I showed them the flat earth model on my phone and said read it again looking at that picture and you'll see it's talking about a flat earth model.
They disagreed but couldn't defend it so kept saying the same thing. I had my bible by this time and my "was life created" brochure and tablet with the references from the brochure. I tried to argue the bible's account of creation was flawed and not scientific. The creative order is wrong and doesn't work creating plants before the sun and bee's. They kept trying to say that there were waters above that filtered the sun despite me showing them verse 16 where it says God made the sun and moon…on day 4, not made it visible. They said that it was just a summary of the previous day so I pointed out that day 3 ends at vs 13 and day 4 ends at vs 19 so wouldn't everything between be what happened on day 4? They wouldn’t agree and I forgot to ask them about why the creation order is different in Chapter 2 from vs 4 but if they come back I’ll be able to save that one.
Anyway I then showed then the “Was life created” brochure and asked why the Watchtower misquotes scientists and showed them the quote of Wolf-Ekkehard Lonnig in the paper “mutation breeding, evolution and the law of recurrent variation” where they add a capital “M” and mine quote a section to say that “Mutations…” do not create new species when the paper actually says that it is not viable…not that it’s not possible.
I tried to ask them what the Watchtower had done to show them that God supports them. What evidence has the WT supplied? The men that say they represent God but have to lie to provide evidence of his existence like in the brochure I showed them. They tried to say that they supported people in natural disasters so I had two questions, 1, show that they helped anyone that wasn’t a JW and 2. Show exactly in their financial records which disasters they gave to and how much? I said that other organizations did a lot more at natural disasters so does that mean that God is behind those groups instead or as well? Again I came back to what evidence has the WT provided to support their claim that God supports them?
They then said that obviously I didn’t like them to which I quickly replied, “no, you’re wrong” I have no animosity to Jehovah's Witnesses, I feel sorry for them allowing the WT organization to continue to tell them lies that they won't fact check. I’m disappointed that they won’t research anything without using WT material and that you’re allowing the WT corporation to fleece you. I wanted to say like lambs to the slaughter but wanted to keep it light. I don’t understand why anyone would think being told to be sheeplike is a good thing. I continued, the WT buy and sell properties and make the Jehovah's Witnesses pay for them. They don’t provide any social services or aged care facilities. To which he agreed and said “No, they don’t”, I continued that they don’t care for the elderly in their homes, they provided nothing for my mother who was a lifelong member, I had to provide her a safe home in her golden years because the WT had taken every bit of spare money from my parents over their life and told my parents “don’t worry, the end of the world is coming soon”. They’re building a big new video studio in Australia but the end is so close, the last of the last days. To which he quickly added that it will be used after Armageddon so I said, Oh is God going to protect them, is that in the bible? Do you have a scripture to back that statement up? He didn’t so I continued, they’ve sold all those properties in NY and even the local KH making my elderly mother have to travel 10 times further to a local hall. Expect to be told that you need to buy them a new KH here to replace the one they sold, sometime soon and if the organization is growing why did they sell off the local KH?
He evaded that question by asking if I had ever brought up these views with my mother when she was alive and I said no. She was safe here in her golden years but I knew that you are told that if anyone says anything bad about the WT or questions it that you have to flee. If I had said anything to her I knew she would have tried to leave this safe environment. I returned to, what is it that proves to you that God supports the Watchtower? He tried to say that he follows Jesus but I said so without the WT you could still follow Jesus? But he didn’t reply to this and was starting to leave at this point. I said I really urge you to do some research outside the WT material. I looked him in the eye and said calmly, “you’re not going to do that are you?”. To which he admitted he wouldn’t, I nodded and said “I know” it’s a pity that you’ll continue to allow the WT to lie to you and the brochure “was life created” has many examples of how they twist things to say what they want it to say…but’s it just lie’s. I’m really sorry you won’t do any real research but you’re welcome to come back and talk some more about it, I really enjoyed our talk. Then I looked him in the eyes again and calmly said “you’re not going to come back, are you?”, to which he replied no as I expected.
If you’re the person that came to my door today and are reading this, please come back when you’re ready to talk some more. We don’t dislike Jehovah's Witnesses, we dislike that you’re being lied to by the Watchtower Organisation.
Stay safe friends.

As the title states I have traded one addiction for another and I'm really struggling. I'm getting older and it's getting more difficult to lose weight. Up until about 5/6 years ago I never really worried about the number on the scale. My relationship with food was always very toxic due to an abusive upbringing. Many many times I would end up in tears because I wanted to put food in my stomach but my brain would not let me. There was never any good reason to eat for pleasure, food intake was purely for survival. I have also struggled with substance abuse since I was between 18&20 until recently, I am not completely clean and sober but I am stable and I have gained back everything I once lost. I havent been this content and happy in years. Lately I have been struggling with my weight, I really need to lose at least 30/40 pounds. I have never been this heavy and it is starting to affect my mental health. I sometimes eat in one day what in the past would've lasted me a week. I eat purely for pleasure, I enjoy food, it really sucks. My weight is also affecting my physical health. I know if I got into shape my body would t ache like it does recently, I wouldn't get winded as easily, I would have more energy and my self confidence would improve. Not to mention my kids are all still young and I am no where near ready to leave them. Ugh what I would give for an eating disorder again. I don't know how or where to find the motivation to do something about the number on the scale.

I posted this to my Facebook as I posted Tate-related content there and upset but also pleased a few people so I wanted to make my mindset adjustment public. I'm gonna copy and paste it here with some extra stuff that I didn't want to say on my Facebook because it would shit-stirr my family but I truly want to get it off my chest a day spread my message.
After taking plenty of time to think about it. I've decided that I am no longer a supporter of Tate. When you're just another one of the many young man outcasted by society, having your masculinity blamed for everything wrong in your life, bullied by the popular kids in school, never having a girlfriend and being blamed for all of those things, it's easy to see why I fell for his trap.
Having already left Incels and decided I want to try to improve instead of just giving up, I saw a man who told you it's okay to be masculine, it's okay to want the hot chicks, it's okay to want to drive sports cars, it's okay to want to be rich, it's okay to want submissive wives, it's okay to want to fight, it's okay to be a man! It's very hard not to be drawn to it in a world that tells you these things are toxic and will keep you celibate, that this is the reason women aren't attracted to you. Tate comes along with his 4 wives, videos of him with women in bikinis, his big muscular physique, his hundreds of millions of dollars and his 4 world kick-boxing champion belts to prove that notion wrong.
"If I'm such a misogynist then how come I'm fuckin' and you're not fuckin'? If I'm such a misogynist then how come women are coming to me?"
"All I talk about is how men are better than women and I'm still fuckin' more pussy than you are."
It's hard to argue with that point. The answer is because being a misogynist doesn't stop you from being attractive.
But, that doesn't excuse it. Tate knows with his money, status, physique, influence, accolades and confidence that he can still have a plethora of shallow women at his disposal and still get away with spewing his sexist vitriol.
"Women should not be allowed to drive"
"Women have been trading sexual favours in exchange for career advancements for decades, it doesn't make it sexual assault just because of the metoo movement"- Response to Harvey Weinstein's scandal
"When women end up in senior management it's nothing but a shit-show and a bitch-fest"
"I'm a realist and when you're a realist, you're sexist. There's no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist"
"When a woman marries a man, she belongs to that man"
"I was getting on a plane and I could see through the cockpit that a female was the pilot and I took a picture and I said, ‘most women I know can’t even park a car, why is a woman flying my plane?"
"A woman cheating isn't even on the same level as a man cheating"
"Female promiscuity is disgusting and it has been looked down upon in every era of human history to the point where a female could be executed for it." "As they should be"- Another man on the podcast "Get the rocks"- Replied Tate
Men, there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve yourself! You can work out, figure out how to make money outside of employment, learn how to increase your testosterone, do NoFap, quit porn, jaw-maxing, eating clean, learning how to pick up women(and let's be honest, accepting that their advice on how to do so sucks 😅) learn a combat sport, have submissive women, be polygamous(as long as it's not deceptive). This is not cringe, it is called AMBITION! But here's the news flash:
YOU CAN DO THIS WITHOUT DEEANING WOMEN AND TRYING TO TAKE AWAY THEIR RIGHTS 🤯
Some people will call you cringe for doing this. Because they want to keep you on their level. Most women will say that you need to be a feminist or you will stay single and that self-improvement is cringe. But just laught it off, it doesn't matter. And no you don't have to be a feminist either. You can just be a respectful person who doesn't want to divert women's rights they are entitled to in the modern day.
The reason us sexless, emasculated, envious, unloved men felt compelled to him is because he offered a way out. A way out of the deception that you have to be feminine, emotional and deceived by fourth wave feminism to be accepted in society and have women attracted to you. This is a lie. When these young men fall for this lie, it becomes hard not to be angry and resentful when women do not act the way our parents, the education system and the media tells us they do. That they don't like the assholes, the bullies, the jocks, and yes... the MISOGYNISTS. We were told just being a nice guy who respects women is enough.
When this lie unravels, many unfortunately go one of 2 routes:
The red pill- Aiming for self-improvement and maximisation in every metric of your value(nothing wrong with that). But unfortunately then using this to control the women in your life and preach oppression to make things the way they used to be.
The black pill- Where men convince each other that they will never be able to obtain sex/relationships no matter what and their situation is inescapable, to just give up. Some of which tell others to rape women; some of which do. Some of which tell others to commit mass shootings; Some of which do.
Many men have now left the black pill because of Tate which is great and it is better they idolise him than murderers like Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian or content creators like EggWhite and WheatWaffles. Some never were black-pilled but admire Tate for preaching masculinity and stoicism in a world that demonizes it. I will reiterate to those men- YOU CAN DO SO WITHOUT DEMEANING WOMEN
So why does Tate do this? 2 reasons:

1. He is a misogynist and wants women to be oppressed because he is threatened by their freedom and wants to enjoy the pleasure of seeing them controlled, at his service, being dependant on men, not being allowed to lead in any corporate or industrial organisations because he believes they are incompetent in doing so. He doesn't listen to his own rule here. But just because you want that and it is feels better to live that way as a man, doesn't necessarily mean you should do it.
   
2. He doesn't care about you. He really doesn't, he just wants to profit off you. He knew that targeting lost young men, a group that is hated, lonely and angry could be easily radicalised. Same as Hitler did with the Nazis by telling them it's okay to be German and then pointing the finger at Jews to blame them for all the injustice dealt toward them. It's a classic trick that is yet to fail.
   

Tate's mindsets are helpful in many ways:
"Do what needs to be done regardless of how you feel"
Beat Tate at his own game! Self-improve, do the hard work even if you don't feel like it! But draw the line with the misogyny because wven thought it FEELS tempting, comforting and easy to do so, doesn't mean you should. Having that said, it is painful for me to acknowledge I was wrong and deceived by this evil genius. It's also very satisfying to know that a certain someone was seeing me support ideologies I knew would never be approved of and that the brainwashing, abuse and manipulation I was subjected to wasn't working. I wanted to stick it to you and show you how wrong you were for trying to strip me of my masculinity. I hate that you will be releived I am moving on and respecting women and that you will feel justified in the way you treated me. But:
"The most important part of being a man is not doing what you want to do but doing what you have to do. Your feelings don't matter as a man!" -Tate
Thanks for reading 💚
The "certain someone" was my mother. She made me sleep with her until I was 14, walked around naked in front of me and encouraged me to do the same. She would tell me my penis was big when it is in fact under-average. She used to constantly make small-penis jokes, say misogynists, show-offs and even rapists were projecting their small dick insecurity. She also told me my bullies had small dicks. This hurt when I realised I had one myself but she wouldn't listen and insisted me it was above average for my age and I'm still growing. My father on the other hand would open the door on me in the shower, wave his finger at me with a stupid smile and tell me I will never impress any girls with a small one. I of course didn't wanna say this on my Facebook with my real identity and my sister thinks my Mum is some kind of saint who can do no wrong and nags me for a justification for ghosting her and I obviously don't want to provide the details because a; I have to admit I have a small penis in order to do so and b; I know I will probably be accused of lying or just gaslight me and say it's all in my head.
The worst thing she ever did was when I told her this 13 year old disabled girl had a crush ok me and I was being bullied for it so she told me "I don't think I can trust you to not have sex with her. You have high testosterone and are treating girls like sex-objects." This is difficult to say but I remember never loving my mother again after she accused me of being a paedophile who would take advantage of a disabled THIRTEEN year old girl.
We suspect she has Munchausen Syndrome and she told me I was sick my whole life with things I wasn't. Every morning I had to wake up and drink celery juice with no breakfast be cause she was convinced I was poisoned with toxins I was given at the hospital as a baby after I got bitten by our cat.
She told me I was gluten and dairy intolerant, I have since eaten these things and am fine.
I had developmental echolalia throughout my adolescence(if you don't know, similar to Tourette's syndrome, causes involuntry ticks and is common in autistic pubsescents). Both my parents and my sister told me I was doing it for attention and I could control it. I would get bullied in school for it and they would continue to tell me I could control it or to just "cover my mouth" when I do it.
She told me that my sexual urges were unnatural and for a "boy like me", I should not be "Seeing women as sex objects": This was her reaction to me telling her I would get erections and sometimes ejaculate when I saw sexy women in skimpy clothing and I tried to refuse going to the beach because of the women in bikinis but she would still force me to. I would usually rub one out before leaving if I had time or try to go in the water until the boner went down.
She also assured me before high-school that because I'm so handsome and "wasn't like the other boys"(respectful gentleman she apparently raised me to be) that I would be very popular with all the girls. When this didn't happen, she said it was because I must street them like sex objects.
She told me I was "addicted to masturbating": Apparently 4-5 times a day was addiction which in reality is just normal all teenaged boy stuff.
I explained that I was attracted to the hot women and not the nerdy ones like she told me to be and asked why this was. She told me it was because I had entitlement problems and it was due to my high testosterone. She said to avoid the hot ones because they are "too much drama" and that no matter what my girlfriend looks like, I will enjoy sex with her just as much because the emotattraction is what counts and hit girls will only manipulate me and take me away from her.
Because of this she would cry and hug me, telling me I was going to grow up to be a suicidal sex addict. She then went to the adult store and bought me a fleshlight as per my father and his friend's suggestion. She told me it would satisfy my urges and stop the spontaneous ejaculatiobs in public. I told her it wasn't do she threw it out and kept buying different variants, tryto find tge one that would work. None of course did.
She would tell me I needed to be saved to prevent myself from taking advantage of all the women with bad fathers who would want to sleep with me and I couldn't resist it because my testosterone was too high. She told me I needed treatment for my "hypersexuality". I told her I was hesitant and she would say "I don't know why you want to be a sex-addict. Why do you want to live like this? Why do you want to be a misogynist who abuses women? I could never deal with losing my boy, so please get the help you need.
She then took me to accupunctural therapists to give me treatment for hypersexuals that constricts blood vessels to the genitals and would convince him to administer it by telling him the same bullshit she told me.
I now look at my small penis and hate her knowing that it could've been even just a little bit bigger if it weren't for her "treatment" and I will never forgive her for the physical and emotional damage she caused me. There is so much more I could get in to about how she and my father too abused me but it's gonna be too long.
I always get worried when I see mothers who say they want their son to be "different".
"I don't want him to rape, be a patriarch, stalk women who reject him, embrace his emotional side, be attracted to strong and independent women" etc.
To those mothers. I am warning you, allow your son to embrace his masculinity, teach him to be stoic, if he has a father figure, let him influence him as an adolescent, let him be attracted to who he is attracted to. Don't be like my mother or he will resent you, he will he scarred for what you do.
Thank you if you read this far. Feel free to follow me for more and comment your thoughts.

My fiance and I are buying a house with an acre of lightly wooded back yard. We don't have a patio or anything with solid ground outside and the neighbors are a normal middle class suburban distance from us, if that makes sense (some lawn between us but no one owns an estate). The yard is beautiful, fenced, and mostly flat. Beyond the back of the yard is a stretch of woods and an interstate, which is typically quiet unless some AH with a motorcycle goes by.
Ideally I would like to invite about 100 people but am doubting that many of those people would be able to show up (they would travel across the country, many with small children). I have been considering various venues but have started to wonder if it would be cheaper to host the wedding at my new house and just hire catering and a live band. I'm not sure if that would work and haven't figured out many details at this stage. Here are my questions:

1. How do you deal with not upsetting the neighbors with the noise? I thought maybe telling them ahead of time and inviting them to come to the reception would be nice, but it wouldn't really fix that I assume things would be loud until the party ends. The whole thing would be outdoors, after all. The inside will not be updated for some time and isn't really a good entertaining space in its current state. I have to budget for one thing at a time, here.
   
2. How much space do I need for that many people? I have no sense of that. For the reception, I thought about renting a dance floor, having an area for outdoor games, and tables (obviously). Do I even have enough room? I've heard that it might be best to use the front for the ceremony and the back for the reception but I'm not sure that would be so great since the front is just a small lawn and there would be a lot of cars along the street right there... There is a nice hazelnut tree on the edge to the side out front. Maybe diagonal toward the tree so we aren't all facing the road. Idk about that one...
   
3. How do you handle rain in a wooded yard? I would imagine tents would be an issue. I'm not sure how to do that. Am I just screwed?
   
4. Would catering use my kitchen? Is that a thing? I wouldn't mind and it might make things easier for drinks to be served from the kitchen but I don't know how that works. Do I need a separate space for food and bar people?
   
5. Is it silly to invite people to travel for a backyard wedding? I'd be self conscious about it.
   
6. I have 4 spare bedrooms but we don't have beds for them yet (we are upgrading and have to do these things slowly) so perhaps some of the wedding party can crash if we figure something out for furniture. Would I want them to? Tell me from experience please!
   
7. Will this really save us a lot given that we have to hire staff and catering and rent accommodations like chairs/tables/tents etc instead of having that all included in the wedding package? I was hoping this would free up money for a band/entertainment or maybe we'll pocket it and put it towards the home improvements.
   
8. Anything I haven't considered that I need to know?
   

There's almost nothing to look forward to in my life right now. Just physical pain, mental pain, loneliness, vulnerability when it comes to competing in society and earning a living. I can't even date right now because I can't sit down due to pain. I've been cast aside, abandoned, given severe trauma to work through by the person I used to trust most. Normally I can look at the things I'm grateful for, but not today.
After talking to the person who traumatized me I spent almost 24 hours having anxiety turning into a panic attack with no sleep and no one to see this weekend and my bladder hurts and I'm supposed to get a job but I can't even sit. How the fuck are you supposed to work with all this pain and I'm just rambling because it's so so fucking shitty and I have insomnia and I'm supposed to be sleeping and everything is a chore. EVERYTHING is a chore. Everything is just to keep me moving through this stupid shit world and my parents are probably going to die soon and I'm so tired.
I'll drag myself forward because I always do but fuck all of this so fucking much right now.
And this isn't even as bad as it can get. I'm pretty fortunate in some ways. (Not in others) But I still feel like it's hell.
I'm fucking angry about life and how so so many people come to this subreddit because life is being so fucking shitty to them and their brains are being shitty. None of us deserve this. What the actual fuck.
And I'm not angry enough to get the energy to fix my problems. Just angry enough to suffer and not sleep. God fucking damn it fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
I have endured so much. I have been trying my absolute best for 5 years . And a decade before that I tried my goddamn best for years after the first trauma .I'm tired. Guess I'll have to get high to get through tomorrow.