You sound like someone on the ASD spectrum - honest, principled, not confirming to social norms, overthinking. You had to mask to survive, yes, so obviously there is a facade, but that don't make you a thief. You are thoughtful & intelligent, & capable of using logic to steer the conversation, but that don't make you manipulative. You are honest man with morals, how can you not be kind? Why don't you consider yourself a nice person?

Haha, humans taking over AI jobs!

Somewhere along the way, I learned that for a village to thrive, the creative people (the artisans, the musicians etc) must move in first, they form the roots, then the rest of the village follows them.

The creative people moved from Digg to Reddit. That's what made Reddit Reddit, not the brand, or the UI, or some genius exec.

The creative people have mass migrated to Lemmy, & hence Lemmy will thrive. How do you know - see where og memes originate. Genius is not the domain of AI, & hence Reddit is Deaddit. We're now just waiting for the rest to follow.

The British did a 'divide and rule'. Religion was the tool used to do the division 75 years ago at the time of separation. Religion is the same tool used today to divide the country internally and manufacture hate and consent for war.

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

Because their followers seem to accept everything they say as truth. It has been working.

And the rent remains the same!

Creative people in the Reddit/Lemmy village are the geeks & intellectuals

It's not just corporations. It's the individual over the collective. And that is just the nature of certain societies, specifically more competitive societies. In India for example, the mindset of everyone in traffic is 'me over others' - fuck everyone else, i grab what space I can get. If I don't, the next fucker will. Like if it starts raining, your 1 hour trip is now 3 hours, not 1.5 hours because there will be a jam at every intersection in the city. There are just so many people on the road and infrastructure (and society / government at large) that hasn't lent itself to cooperation but rather competition. It becomes their mindset, it becomes everyone's mindset. That is why many from that region turn right politically. I bet it's the same for many Latin countries.

That business is just constant problem solving one after another and going through as many to-dos as you can day after day, while still maintaining sanity. That is persistence.

That business is always a house of cards that can fall apart anytime and so you must always keep your eyes on it. That is exhausting worry.

That business is so hard, you'll be tempted to quit everyday. To overcome that urge to quit you'll need a much bigger purpose or mission that drives you. Purpose brings determination.

That business really is about value creation for the entire ecosystem (customers, employees, vendors) and that a business is not above that ecosystem. Wall St & American capitalism is short sighted because it demands you pass lesser and lesser value to that ecosystem quarter after quarter, and that is like a slow axe to your own foot.

That most modern economic theory taught in business schools and used by execs in the biggest companies worldwide is all flawed because it fully relies on capturing and optimizing all sorts of business data, but the truth is that it is impossible to capture real world in data.

Climate change, wealth inequality, fascism, war, the global epidemic of loneliness & depression aren't distinct disconnected problems. They are a singular globally connected problem. And it requires a singular globally connected solution. We'd need a few things -

1. We will need to take care of all human essential services like healthcare, education, food, banking, technology etc. Only things that add positive value to society. We can have a singular globally coordinated effort.
2. We will need an economic engine, so as to provide a UBI for all, reasonably paid based on cost of living. To generate income we can sell our products & services at a markup to non-union members.
3. We will need an army because the enemy has one and we need to defend ourselves.
4. Decentralization is also a defence mechanism. Don't build 1 giant bank, build a million connected credit unions all utilizing the same backend tools & processes. It's such a nice defense mechanism that we might even be able to skip the army altogether, which bank are you gonna breakup when we can open a hundred more tomorrow.

What differentiates humans from all animals including apes is our ability to cooperate & coordinate. Cooperation is what has allowed humans to dominate the world. I'm quite optimistic about the future simply because our innate sense of cooperation is all the good we have ever needed to conquer any and all evil the world has managed to create at any point in history all the way to now, and will continue to hold true forever.

Your friend is making you insecure for just being yourself. He is a manipulative bully, not your friend.

Here & now, here & now, here & now, I chant in my head as that's all we have.

Man can be free only when and if he's able to rise above his insecurities

Although America makes it hard (healthcare, car, cost of living), you must move on, find something else, leave that place behind, you won't miss it. 2 decades ago, I quit my very first job at a large multi national corporation because I hated it so much - I just stopped going one fine day, no notice or resignation letter or even a text to my supervisor. No place is worth losing sanity over. Self love / self preservation over everything else. Hugs to you.

I've had similar experiences - endless tiring bad faith discussions. I sincerely believe market socialism is a realistic step we can take to improve human condition, but they seem convinced against it and hell bent on 'revolution'. It's clearly a cult with group think, they've arrived at their conclusions by reading theory, not from personal experience, self awareness, empathy & logic.

Closing a tab requires that I apply immediate effort in deciding that I'm never going down this path ever again till the end of time, and yet I risk future regret if I ever want to reference a closed tab. So much effort for so little gain - tidiness for the sake of it. If you become cool with clutter, then these open tabs are different pieces that help understand and solve bigger picture problems.

Across all my machines and browsers, I think I might have over 10k tabs that I've opened but never closed.

They were on the correct side of the value system, but could not bring themselves to agree to the tactical compromise.