People ask me fairly frequently why I’ve never had kids.

And one reason is because I’d make a terrible father. I’m selfish, do not like kids and did not like being a kid. No, I wouldn’t like a kid even if it were my own. I wouldn’t want to inflict me being a father or anyone having to be a kid on someone either. There’s already enough suffering in the world and I have no desire to add to it.

Also, there’s likely to be much disruption due to climate change and potentially WWIII. Who would want to bring a child into that?

So that’s the simple answer.

The world became a lot more dangerous when chipmunks started becoming vampires and some garbage bins switched to a carnivorous diet.

Be careful out there.

Have you experienced the feeling that male needs in a relationship are less important? How have you approached this?

In every relationship I’ve had except my current one, my needs were definitely seen as less important and less a priority than those of the woman’s.

In this one, we are true equals and working to make it better all the time.

I think men being seen as less important is the societal default?

Do you have a favorite child? A new study may have the answer.

My sister was definitely the favorite child and I understand why. She was far more agreeable, less aggressive, much cuter and had a sunny disposition when she was younger.

Meanwhile, I the opposite of all that. I was a bit of a demon. So it only makes sense. I would not have been my favorite either.

Dell outlet sent me the wrong server.

That’s 737TB (yes, terabytes) in there. Those drives are like $15,000 each. To me it looks like they sent you exactly the right server.

I want. I need. I wish Dell would send me this very right server accidentally.

When I’m on the phone with IT people from other companies, it’s dispiriting to realize how much more I know than they do.

Sure I’m bragging a little, but I honestly wish they knew more. Their lack of subject matter knowledge makes getting anything accomplished so much harder.

Most people are average. And around half of them are worse than that.

Why are tattoos so heavily judged in certain professions?

Tattoos demonstrate you have poor judgement; therefore professions where good judgment is required accept them less readily.

Simple as that.

About this, I would work an in-office job for $100 million for a year. A year only, though.

So I do have a price here. But no matter the payment, I wouldn’t work one of those abominations for longer than a year again. Not for a billion dollars. It just is too much of a toll on mental health. But I could do it for a year for $100 million. That’s enough that it would substantially change my life versus the torture involved.

Anyone want to pay up? I’ll go to your damn office and waste time (which is all you really can do in an office) while I do my actual work at home as normal.

Unless aliens kidnap my partner (or me¹) there’s not a chance I’ll be in the dating scene soon, but if I were I’d definitely go somewhere overseas if I wanted to subject myself to that hell again.

There are a few advantages to that approach. It automatically makes you unusual and exotic, and depending on the country the women haven’t been as utterly poisoned by social media. I’d concentrate on somewhere with low social media use, low tattoo prevalence and low obesity.

Then I’d learn the language (relatively easy for me, if I want to do it²) and make it happen.

American women are basically undateable now due to social media-induced mental illness, tattoos, ridiculous levels of entitlement and obesity. It’s just about a crime to do that to yourself.

1. Green alien girls are a-ok with me.
2. Though I dislike talking to people in general, so I’m far better at learning to read languages.

It’s notable that Aella conducts more valid and interesting social science surveys than nearly anyone in academia¹ as she is not constrained by IRBs, prudishness or lack of curiosity.

That says really bad things about how our academic culture and practices have developed.

1. At least for the subjects she cares about.

Can someone explain to me why you prefer conversation view in your email client? Tell me either here or offline. I just need to hear someone offer some sort of logic.

Modern email clients already did conversations (reply/forward, etc.) as a feature and have for 30+ years. For me, the “improved” conversation view makes items absolutely impossible to find. That might come from that I worked on helpdesk and related for so long and really need to be able to identify items and requests by date, which conversation view makes extremely difficult.

I just don’t get it and probably never will. But I’d still at least like to hear some sort of reasoning about it.

Someone should really do a deeper dive into why when someone says a change or restriction is for “security,” so many people accept it readily, nod sagely in agreement, then become snivelingly obeisant.

That’s always puzzled me. Yes, I know there is a lot of literature slantwise to that subject, but I mean something really specific. I’m referring to as close as we can tell to finding out what happens neurologically there that just seems to shortcut all thought and consideration.

It’s like a scifi cognitive hack and I think that’s equal parts horrifying and fascinating.

About this, though — I do have to spend a lot more on monitors because I cannot stand bad fonts and eye-breakingly low normie resolution. And alas I can tell the difference between a 2K and a 4K monitor at 10 paces, and can easily see the difference between a 5k and a 4k monitor at reading distance.

So I pay a lot for good monitors and it is very much worth it.

I’m lucky because I cannot tell the difference between the $500 mattresses and the $7,000 ones, nor can I discern any meaningful sonic distinction between the $1,000 speakers and the $10,000 ones.

That has saved me untold amounts of currency.

Same. Personal experience shows me this is the case. During the dotcom boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s I told my friend this directly: “If you keep doing this, you will piss away all your money. You will go bankrupt and lose everything.” I did not mince words. I put it that bluntly.

A few months later, he was way overextended on margin as the NASDAQ crashed 60%. His broker did the expected margin call and in addition to losing his principal, he owed Datek tens of thousands that he did not have. He squandered everything he had and more chasing a few lousy bucks. He couldn’t even make rent. If he’d listened to me he would’ve been up well more than a hundred thousand dollars (around $200K in 2024 greenbacks).

Listening to my advice was the easy and obvious thing to do as it was clear the market was unsustainable and that being so far out on margin was dangerous. But it didn’t matter.