AI is a general-purpose accelerant and force multiplier. It provides a mechanism for automating and deploying at scale, a set of attacks on our society, against which we have little experience and almost no defense—nor even any good means of detecting, at least not until post-mortem forensics.
The most obvious harmful avenue for this is venal criminality (which will be awful) but the real danger is in the political sphere.
There is already widespread use of AI for disinformation purposes in e.g. the Ukraine war.
I have been saying for the last N months or so, my immediate concern with AI is not AGI but augmented intelligence applications which are leveraged enough to be destabilizing.
In specific, I believe the 2024 election cycle in the US will be decided by AI.
Can't you just ask the "entity" chatting with you what they think of the movie that came out last week? If they're trying to convince you that you're a time traveler because that movie hasn't launched yet, they might just be an AI.
> a set of attacks on our society, against which we have little experience and almost no defense... In specific, I believe the 2024 election cycle in the US will be decided by AI
Hell no. You are probably thinking about things like 'misinformation'. Let me tell you that all such concerns are totally unfounded:
People just buy into whatever already fits their existing bias. Even if they are lies or proven lies. They don't care if something was a lie. If there is more stuff that confirms their existing bias, they will shout louder. If there is less, they will shout less. But they will still vote the same way.
So when the 2024 elections happen and there is a lot of misinformation, everyone will just buy into ! whatever ! confirms their existing bias - be it truth or be it a lie - and vote in the exact same manner they were going to do before that misinformation.
While this reduces the concerns about misinformation and/or the effects of the AI, it also suggests that objective politics is difficult because people are not affected by facts, truth, or even their own prior experiences.
“Decided by” is a bit much for me but “greatly influenced by” seems like a done deal. Any digital political organization should be salivating over the potential scaled personalisation options across email, social media, and text messaging.
Any new technology has some benefits and some drawbacks.
Electric cars have no direct emissions but increase mining operations in certain parts of the world. Or they can be used to plow through a public gathering of people. Or with some rewiring to electrocute someone to death. If you think hard enough, you can find nefarious purposes for almost any household item that's made your life easier.
I think what's important to focus on are the "net" benefits but the outliers feed into our emotional response.
I don’t focus on the “net” benefits as mush as I used to, in large part to FB. For the first several years, the “net” benefit of a connected digital world where you can communicate and connect with friends anywhere sounded so fantastic. But it’s become almost consensus that the very real downsides, and this societal consequences, may not have been such a great deal after all.
The reason outliers feed our emotional response is a survival/skin in the game mechanism. Parroting Taleb, all it takes in ruin once and the game stops. It’s not unreasonable to be hyper focused on reducing long tail risks with potentially catastrophic and unknown results. Caution and fear is warranted here.
> If the UK government really wants to follow through with their plans, they need to set up a Great Firewall - just like China - to block their citizens from accessing encrypted services like Tutanota.
We (the UK) already have a great firewall. Try to access thepiratebay.org or other pirate sites, or other sites that the UK gov deems inappropriate (CP obviously), etc. Its just a case of encroaching that same system just a little further, step by step.
People only tend to fight back when large sweeping one-off changes come in. If you consistently and repeatedly wear the other side down, you eventually get your way. How many times did the house of commons vote on brexit? How many times did the US congress vote on Kevin McCarthy becoming speaker? Yeah, as long as you just keep on and on about it, you get your way.
> Try to access thepiratebay.org or other pirate sites, or other sites that the UK gov deems inappropriate (CP obviously), etc.
I don't know about the "other sites", but tpb isn't part of any "Great Firewall". It's just ISPs have been required to update their DNS servers to _not_ resolve the DNS record. Even then, there are still quite a few ISPs that have not implemented it. It's why changing your DNS servers to something like Google or Cloudflare means you can easily access tpb.
So blocked websites in the UK are nowhere near on the same level as the Great Firewall.
My guess is those other sites are a bit more sophisticated, or if not, ISPs are willing to comply easier.
How he block is implemented is not of any concern to the public at large.
Whether it's a simple DNS block or stateful packet inspection, the vast majority of people won't be able to access.
Once any blocking requirement is in place, it's only a matter of moving the slider to more technical means of enforcement to plug the holes in the system.
So you're right, the UK is nowhere near China in terms of filtering, neither does it need to be to still become a digital island.
That's not true, at least for VirginMedia. I use Cloudflare DNS servers and I can't access ThePirateBay without a proxy or a VPN, it's more than just a blockage at the DNS level.
When I was on virgin, I noticed that ip addresses used by some TPB or similar websites weren't routed to the internet, which is obviously quite bad. I'm not sure if it's still what they do.
Better ISPs only do DNS blocking though. Some don't block anything actually.
Until encrypted SNI/encrypted client hello is a thing, the hostname is still sent in the clear.
Also, it can still be DNS blocked - just because you use Cloudflare's DNS doesn't mean they can't rewrite the responses as they still transit unencrypted. You'd have to use DNS-over-HTTPS or DNS-over-TLS to work around that.
Wasn't there a law passed that you need to provide ID before your ISP will serve porn sites? Or was that just a proposal? Either way, the powers that be are thirsting for a Great Firewall, an end to net neutrality, and backdoors to encryption.
That is already the case on most ISP's. I don't think it's legally required, but most ISP's do it with a wink wink nod bid agreement with the government.
It helps that ISP's want to do a credit check on their subscribers because then they get paid by credit checking agencies (credit checking agencies love checks for utilities because it gives a strong address to name to payment bounced-or-not linkage, so will either do the check for free, or sometimes even pay the utility for it).
So now the ISP can do a credit check on the subscriber to know their true identity, and know they are over 18, before allowing them to access the checkbox to enable porn sites.
> Wasn't there a law passed that you need to provide ID before your ISP will serve porn sites?
What happens if you don't provide your ID, is there a blacklist that only gets disabled if you authenticate?
Do they also enquire about the type of porn, what you intend to do with it, how often, and whether it's wholesome, traditional, honest to goodness British porn or some unbearable thing with pesky foreigners?
There was a law passed (Digital Economy Act 2017, pt.3[0]) but it's basically been shelved anyway as impractical.
In the UK many laws don't take effect immediately, but only on 'commencement' (normally by government order). If you look at the Archives copy of the act in the link, you'll see that there are several sections marked 'prospective' (not yet commenced). Although it looks like section 14 (the operative one which puts a duty to prevent access to under 18s) has been commenced, if you look at the footnote it only has been 'for specified purposes' and if you click through to look at the commencement order it's only actually in force for the purposes of subsection (b) (the Secretary of State may make regulations to define 'commercial basis' for pornography).
Although this is terribly confusing for people trying to work out what the laws are, it isn't unusual. It'll probably sit in this limbo state on the statute book for a good length of time and then be cleaned up by repeal next time the government passes a law in a similar area.
Or it might just sit there. The Easter Act 1928[1] setting a semi-fixed date for Easter is still extant but not in force. There may be older laws yet.
> Wasn't there a law passed that you need to provide ID before your ISP will serve porn sites? Or was that just a proposal? Either way, the powers that be are thirsting for a Great Firewall, an end to net neutrality, and backdoors to encryption.
Yes, but it was never enacted because it is being combined into the Online Safety Bill, the same legislation that Signal are discussing here.
And not just porn sites - effectively every site on the internet will have to age verify under the legislation as stands, or make their content suitable for young children.
Andrews and Arnold are the best niche ISP in the UK if money isn’t an issue. They’re technical, incredibly on the ball and take quite a good stance on privacy and rights.
Not sure about SNI sniffing as other commenter mentioned and IP block block (erm) I guess it depends on ISP and it's not so clear cut (everybody does it, especially if there's too much abuse from a certain block)
Just to throw a wrench into this conversation - I applaud Tutanota on this (I was curious where Signal sees the line between Iran and the UK). However:
> (CP obviously)
Are there options on the table for dealing with this in a freedom-respecting way? Even if freedom were your only priority, the worse the problem gets, the more political capital the politicians have to shut it down. If it gets worse and worse, it strikes me as inevitable that encryption will be curbed, even in the United States.
Alternately, is there a really compelling argument that CP is not a real problem? Mind you that whatever arguments are out there, I'm going to be looking out for motivated reasoning. It seems like so long as freedom-enhancing technology increases, bad actors doing worse things is inevitably going to be a problem. I'm concerned about this, because (in addition to CP being bad) if it's true, proponents of encryption would be shooting themselves in the foot by being in denial.
> Are there options on the table for dealing with this in a freedom-respecting way? Even if freedom were your only priority, the worse the problem gets, the more political capital the politicians have to shut it down. If it gets worse and worse, it strikes me as inevitable that encryption will be curbed, even in the United States.
What Apple was going to do with the on device hashes?
This actually makes me think. Apple was only implementing the scanning prior to upload to iCloud, because they don't want to be liable for hosting (in any way, shape, or form) CSAM.
So in my mind, the obvious way out for everyone else is supporting things like Matrix hosting to make it turn-key for normal people. Not a managed service, but their Dendrite server and proper P2P [0] becoming usable. Now I just need to find, test for myself and family, and contribute to, a reasonable photo backup alternative (unless "Get a Synology" / "I picked up a Synology for family" becomes a crowd favourite in some insane universe).
The whole internet has a "great firewall". Kiwi Farms (whatever you think of them) was taken off the internet for a while due to (I think) backbone networks blocking/not resolving the DNS address. Any power that can be used for you can be used against you.
I agree, but for "violent crimes" I would think along the lines of the "hire a hitman" forums that were reputedly on the Silk Road dark web site before it was taken down.
I have no problems accessing the piratebay.org, or even tor, in fact I know the MOD get to monitor all internet access so they can even tell what you are looking at or buying on the darkweb!
However I do have great difficulty accessing rt.com I usually get ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED in MS Edge, like right now!
Why are they so scared of Russia? Has the Oligarch money run dry?
Now if its any endorsement for Kasperky AV Internet suite, it picked something up on my machine a few years back, so I booted from the supplied recovery ISO burnt to cd, and it needs to download the latest AV definitions. It was unable to connect to Kasperky's servers, in order to do an offline scan and removal, ergo I was unable to wipe the malware from my machine.
In the past, when I have had my systems so locked down so I can account for every packet of data coming in and going out, my internet connection just goes down so I cant get online. I've even had bios passwords reset locking me out of machines.
On the point of being worn down, it would seem shouting the loudest, or controlling the media outlets works [1]
A suggestion for @ tutanota.com, I've made this to other online email providers, but no one seems interested.
Having a delayed send from servers located around the world.
If anyone is aware of traffic shaping, and traffic profiling, they will know its possible to determine what type of data it is despite it being encrypted.
For example, youtube will send from multiple servers to your device in bursts, its not one continuous stream of data from one server. Obviously this also enables Google/Youtube to work out your exact physical location based on the time the different bursts of data arrives at the device and get reassembled.
Its also possible for the 5eyes+X (5EX) operators to work out if you are typing or reading an email, and when you click send, there is a very small window in which to work out where that email is going.
So if the email comes back into the UK, they will know what email server its being routed to. In time, its possible to work out more stuff which I wont elaborate on, but they can then carry out impersonation attacks on the entity in both directions in order to solicit more information.
Lets face it, how many people get to speak to the same person in a call centre? And do call centre staff remember and recognise their routine customers?
So could your email system have a delayed send built into it, perhaps something like X users from the UK, click send to send an email and these emails could be sent from some of your servers which would ideally be located around the globe?
eg. I log into your service by connecting to the German server, I click send after composing an email and the email is routed in a batch with other users to say the US server before it gets delivered, well after I've logged off and delivered in a randomly delayed timeframe, because most people dont need emails to hit other peoples inboxes straight away, they are busy doing other things. In fact being able to send now could be an opt in, like those times when on the phone to someone and you need to send them an email at the same time, because the 5EX workers will know you are already communicating with someone, and what can they gain from knowing about an email being sent at the same time?
With VPN's the easiest way to work out where VPN traffic is going, is slow down your targets VPN connection and the 5EX operators look for other encrypted VPN traffic that also slows down elsewhere. This is how the 5EX workers can work out what websites you are visiting.
Likewise a VPN that can also include Chaff [2] when the connection goes idle, will also get to hide the type of data passing over the VPN, again affording the user of VPN's some privacy, where currently there are no VPN's affording this. I know some do VPN tunnelling ie a vpn running inside a vpn for double encryption, but that still gives out the type of data and where its going to when you have an infrastructure overview of the internet in the 5EX countries.
And if the VPN service connects to a proxy server that can keep the 2nd and subsequent relays/legs still downloading, the VPN company gets to find out who the 5EX workers might be targeting. At the very least, it would reduce their existing level of intelligence, and expose what secret court orders might be in place with infrastructure company's like At&T's Room 641a[3]
All's fair in love and war!
I'll also point out the obvious, people tend to visit websites that are in their language, this then narrows down the websites and data centres to look at.
However if someone is multi lingual which would have been obtained by the state during the school and college years through lessons learnt and/or by association of being born or raised by parents who are not native speakers of the country they reside in, or are multi lingual, the scope for the websites that could be visited can increase, introducing more legal doubt.
Anyway an insight into 5EX internet surveillance, what GCHQ would call looking for the needle in the haystack, and example can be found here [4].
Its probably best to think of the internet like monitor vehicle movements, you can see trucks moving around, but you don't know what's in them initially, but over time, you can work it out, which is why the EU & UK have agreed the Windsor framework, namely Squid Game Green light Red light [5] customs between NI & GB.
> However I do have great difficulty accessing rt.com I usually get ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED in MS Edge, like right now!
> Why are they so scared of Russia?
This is a mystery for the ages! What reason could there possibly be, in 2023, for blocking a major Russian propaganda/state news outlet?
I mean, I could understand it if there was a war going on, with Russia desperately spreading propaganda specifically to try to get NATO states to see Russia's aggression as being totally understandable and actually our fault, so that we stop sending money and materiel to the people they are frantically trying to murder in order to get them to stop resisting their takeover of their entire country...
Every country should have their own "Great Firewall" in order to control what's accessible (countries have their own laws) and to protect themselves against attacks, including by cutting themselves off from the internet.
In any case, as you mention many countries can already block specific websites and services from being accessed from within their borders.
I don't understand why the topic always elicits snarky comments.
"Great firewalls" are necessary as a matter of fact. They have nothing to do with government overreach and curtailment of freedoms. In a liberal, democratic country what is blocked is what has been identified as illegal/criminal enough to warrant it, so why would Joe public want to get technical tools to "ignore all of that" has to raise red flags because that would not be "to protects his rights"...
Crucially, as mentioned, there is also the aspect of national security and protection against cyber attacks.
It's good to have ideals but on those issues we should not be "too simple, sometimes naive" (Jiang Zemin)
Because Laws have never declared illegal/criminal things that should never have been declared as such? Or just because at the time it is considered Criminal, Noone should have the possibility to protect themselves from the government until (in the hope) that the unjust law gets rectified?
Is the History not enough to convince you that no mater the purpose (nefarious or not) Democratic/Liberal Governments can be wrong as much as Dictatorial ones in enacting laws?
If even access to information is forbidden, how are people supposed to get informed that maybe something is not right with these laws so they try to change them?
No they aren't. You posit they are because of alleged threats and I and others suggest that the biggest threat is policies like this and people like you trying to give governments huge censorship abilities to coerce conformity.
Your arguments are basic and the kind that lead us to the Iraq invasion and many other wars that are for profit but, at the time, always sold as a matter of national security or similar and dissent is punished in whichever way possible.
You can make dissent virtually nonexistent online if you censor enough.
What is your definition of freedom? Because if it's having the absolute right to do exactly whatever you want that's not how freedom works in a free society.
I'm obviously provoking with that quote but it is a very good point: The world is not black and white and claiming that it is is extremely naive and simplistic, and I am afraid that what I read here in response to my comment is exactly that.
People arguing for censorship can never show anything that needs to be censored but there are countless examples of things that shouldn't be censored being squashed under policy. There's literally not a single example through history of a truth that had to be squashed for justice and safety. There are no great stories of historical censorship not because they're secret, but because they don't do anything except protect the people in power.
A censorship policy is, by nature, impossible to check. If anything is being censored you have to assume that other things, including proper discussion of the censorship, are being censored. It's not some complex "not black and white" thing where you're partly right, it's a failed idea with absolutely zero support from historical precedent.
You can't censor away bad ideas because we can't even agree on the bad ideas - such as for instance your censorship push. Why shouldn't your push to censor people be censored itself? Why do you assume that your choices for societal control are the correct impulses, which need to be bolstered with thought control, rather than the harmful impulses which will destroy society though totalitarian means?
No, censorship is always wrong because it removes the ability of the people to make decisions on the facts. Any politician who pushes censorship has to be assumed to be trying to undermine democracy because censorship can't do anything other than weaken the electorate.
> The world is not black and white and claiming that it is is extremely naive and simplistic, and I am afraid that what I read here in response to my comment is exactly that.
That's fallacious because it assumes that censorship deserves a better rhetorical chance which it was denied when in fact it's simply a bad idea. If you suggested to punish people for their family's crimes you'd get similar pushback because it's a similarly corrosive policy.
You haven't properly argued for censorship at all, by showing thoughts which need to be censored and why, you've just argued that it's a super important tool without any examples or reasoning.
National Borders are not there to enforce "thought". They are there to protect Physical Security (and Economic one that can be ported again to the physical Security). Exchange of Information (What Internet is) has always been a borderless thing. To continue your Borders Analogy, Noone will stop you at the border because you have with you a coded paper that the border guards can not decipher, or even worse because in your country (not with your person) you have coded papers that might be used to communicate the same ideas that are "dangerous" to this country.
The Role of the Government is to protect society from phenomena that are provenly damaging the society without encroaching on personal rights. It's a balance that needs to favour the personal rights in any occasion because what this government thinks damaging the other one might not, the personal rights are those that are more lasting.
Not an expert but my basic understanding is that the hyperventilating before holding your breath basically oxygenates your blood so that you can hold for longer.
Thats quite a good marketing trick actually. Something that most people can do and probably would do. Getting them to buy in do the small excercise and then going to the sign up. Well done to whoever thought of this.
Gotta remember that just because you put something in a contract doesnt mean its legal. I could put that you must murder anyone i tell you, even if you sign that it doesnt make it legal. But thats criminal law.
I terms of the UK, realistically its still just a curtousy, but employers put it in because employees often thinnk that they have to adhere to it, they don't. If in the scenario the employee doesnt work the notice period and just immediately leaves, the employer technically could take them to civil court, make a case that they need them to finish their notice period, and the court could theoretically grant them that due to the employee's breach of contract. But i'd imagine thats almost never happened (just guessing), because that would take considerable time, effort and money to do that, and its less hassle just to let them go.
So yeah, its put in because employers can, and employees often incorrectly think they're beholden to it and comply anyway.
If all the companies have to wait it just becomes normal.
It might not the best advice in Germany, where a reference letter from your previous employer can be very important for a new job (maybe not so much for expats).
To be clear, in the UK, setting up a Ltd company is incredibly simple and easy to maintain.
It costs £12 and takes about 20min to create. Then you get a bank account with startling/monzo which is very simple (easier than high st banks). All tax is done online which again is fairly simple. Sign up for freeagent (or another accounting package) and just keep on top of your accounts. When it comes to filing your annual accounts and confirmation statement, again its all incredibly simple and can be done yourself without the need for an accountant as you'll qualify for mico-entity accounts and freeagent handles it for you. Or you can pay roughly £1200-£1500/yr to an accountant and have them do it for you.
Its honestly not hard at all, happy to answer anyones questions on the matter.
> Or you can pay roughly £1200-£1500/yr to an accountant and have them do it for you.
Any half decent accountant will probably be able to SAVE you more than this; mainly by optimising your tax affairs (assuming you have a modest turnover).
That doesn't help with IR35, as the law looks at the practical situation of the individual and not the formal situation to determine if they are really an employee.
It's obviously a minefield, especially substitution. If you're being hired for specific niche in-demand skills, why should you be expected to provide someone else?
What seems to happen in practice is the Revenue occasionally has a spasm and decided to investigate a selection of freelancers. This ends with a lot of confusion, plus various tribunals and court cases, because the reality is not clear and many freelance situations can be argued either way.
The simplest option - not infallible, but very helpful - is to have multiple clients and work mostly from home on fairly short projects. That makes it very hard to argue that you're an employee.
If you're on-prem and exclusive for an extended period for a set number of hours, supervised by management and using equipment supplied by the employer, it gets much harder to convince a court that you're genuinely freelancing.
And as long as you're running a proper business with multiple clients, your own equipment, your own hours, etc, then you dont fall foul of IR35. If you are however basically being treated the same as a PAYE employee would, 1 client, their office, their equipment, their hours, their conditions, etc, then you're dodging tax and thats the point of IR35.
As long as you're running a proper business you shouldn't fall foul of IR35. Sadly that won't stop a lot of risk-averse large clients insisting on paying you through an umbrella company. And it won't stop many other clients from insisting on money-costing and time-wasting IR35 assessments so they can take out insurance policies. And even if you don't have any of that to deal with it won't make you feel any better if HMRC decide for any reason to launch an IR35 investigation that will eat a shocking amount of your time and money even if you are eventually found to have done absolutely nothing wrong. All of this risk has a chilling effect on this whole sector of the economy.
Even if they're determined to keep IR35 the government could at least clarify their intent for people like contractors who work with a single client but for a limited time. Right now I have the sense from my own network that there are a lot of games being played in that sector to try and avoid being caught by IR35 because no-one really knows if they're supposed to be. If the government wants to charge people who are working as flexible labour through a PSC the same taxes as permanent employees then they should at least be honest about it and accept responsibility if that flexible workforce then shrinks and economic damage results. Or if they want to incentivise the flexible workforce then they should give clear guidance on how long is considered to still be "temporary" and won't be treated as disguised employment (even though the "employee" probably lacks any of the job security and benefits of a real employee as most contractors do) to remove the risk for many genuine short-term workers and increase the efficiency of the contracting market.
And we're only seeing it from the IT sector point of view. IR35 also wrecked the HGV driver market and is one of the reasons for the shortage of drivers.
What are the ramifictions of a company that hasn't earned during a tax year? Are you still expected to pay anything at the end of the tax year (at least in terms of a salary to yourself)?
What pjc50 is correct, but might help to be more specific. If you literally mean its had 0 revenue and 0 expenses, then its basically a dormant company and you can file so.
However, if you've ran the company in previous years, even if you've taken a year off and had 0 incoming revenue, you may have other taxes to pay. There wouldnt be any corporation tax as theres no profit, but you may have some very small expenses like bank fees, maintenance of servers, subscriptions, etc that might be left over. So you wouldnt be dormant, you'd be a loss making company, but still active.
If you had a big chunk of money in the biz bank account and still paid yourself, there would be taxes on that, both on the company and personal side depending on how you paid yourself.
I wouldnt recommend setting up a Ltd company to literally do nothing with it though, 0 revenue and 0 expenses, you're not really benefitting for any reason.
You're not required to pay yourself anything in particular. If you do, then you have to pay NICs and tax; you may want to pay NICs even if you're not earning for tedious pension reasons, but that's not specific to the company structure.
“Should an emergency situation occur, you need to put your own oxygen mask on first, before attempting to help those around you.”
Rule applies here, work on yourself so that you're a better person to be with in a relationship. Work on physical health, good diet, mental wellbeing, work through any past traumas or bad experiences (perhaps with a mental health professional) so you're not carring baggage to future relationships, work on impulse control, emotional control and pretty much the most important one above all others, communication skills.
These things basically apply to all relationships, romantic, professional, friendships, family, etc and are generally good things to work on for your own happiness and wellbeing too.
My young cousin was going through a breakup with her boyfriend recently and he was sending her all this stuff about how she needed to stay with him because he couldn't go on without her because he loves her so much and she's so perfect for him blah blah blah. He was basically loving himself by proxy. I told her, If my wife asked me for a divorce because our marriage was negatively impacting her life, of course I'd say no problem, if she was to be more happy and fulfilled in that reality, I'd do it in a heartbeat, I love her! It would hurt, and I would be hurt, but ultimately I'd be fine because I trust and love myself, and eventually, even more happy if it meant she was happy. I love her because of who she is, and she loves me because of who I am, we both love ourselves and share love together.
That’s a pretty jaded response to something you clearly can’t quantify.
I’m hesitant to give relationship advice on the internet because every relationship is different but if I did “don’t love yourself by proxy” would seem pretty close to universal.
It's not jaded it's just realistic. I can't think of anything other than naivety that would make someone believe that either partner in a most relationships would be happy to get divorced because they would be happy for the other person. I can't quantify that most people don't do handstands after they get home from work.. but I also know it doesn't happen.
I am not talking about “don’t love yourself by proxy”.
They didn't say they'd be happy to get divorced. They said the opposite thing, in fact. They said they'd be happier in the long run, which is true of most divorces, and all of the healthy ones.
Not only is this a overtly negative view of life itself, it's probably incorrect as well, but depending on what kind of people you interact with, you'll get a biased view of it as a whole. "99%" is wrong, that much I can tell you though, probably closer to 50% than 100%.
I'm biased the other way, most relationships me and my wife see in our friends are closer to the model parent described, but I realize we actively seek out friends who seem to have more healthy relations than people who don't.
> How is it a "overtly negative view of life itself"? That's a ridiculous statement.
Because you're saying most if not every relationship is like that. Obviously it's not.
> but it's in the correct direction
How can you possible know this? Unless I missed some reference to you actively doing research in the area, I'm not sure how you possibly can feel certain enough to even guess "it's in the correct direction".
By this standard, you can know nothing and discuss nothing without a PhD in the subject matter.
I'm very confident saying most people can't divorce their spouse in a heartbeat no matter the reason, it is entirely detached from anything I've ever observed about relationships, marriages and divorces, over everyone I've ever known in my entire life.
Most people I know couldn't even be sure whether they'd be happier outside of marriage, many people I've known have stayed together even though they were both miserable, many people I know have had a divorce, when either or both wanted it and were miserable throughout the proceedings. That's not even going into breakups in non-married couples which follow different dynamics but aren't generally easy either.
One trap that pushes people towards the young cousin end of the spectrum is getting caught up in loving the idea of the relationship more than actually loving the other person.
How many of these relationships are you personally involved in such that you'd know that? Maybe 99% (and probably fewer) of relationships in your close personal circle are like that.
Tip: don't share opinions/wild guesses as facts if you're not prepared to answer people who want clarifications. Also, don't engage if you can't have a constructive conversation with others. Why even comment if you're not looking for interactions with others in order to further your own understanding?
Don't provide me with passive aggressive "tips". I don't think any of the replies[1] are seeking clarification. OP is not experienced in love or relationships. The comment[2] may apply to the person who posted it but it's not the reality for most relationships. I thought that was important for OP to know. Also, see the bike cuck meme.
[1] "That’s a pretty jaded response", "this a overtly negative view of life itself", "How many of these relationships are you personally involved in such that you'd know that?"
[2] "I told her, If my wife asked me for a divorce because our marriage was negatively impacting her life, of course I'd say no problem, if she was to be more happy and fulfilled in that reality, I'd do it in a heartbeat, I love her! It would hurt, and I would be hurt, but ultimately I'd be fine because I trust and love myself, and eventually, even more happy if it meant she was happy. I love her because of who she is, and she loves me because of who I am, we both love ourselves and share love together."
I agree with your sentiment as well as with the parent comment. I think it’s mostly young relationships that aren’t like this, or rather relationships we have when we’re young. I would wager that 99% of people have had or will have at least one relationship like this in their lives before we learn healthier ways of being with another person.
Anecdotally, long term relationships where one party improves significantly often do not last so it’s good advice to improve yourself before you find the right person.
I wholeheartedly agree with this comment. Relationships are about you and the other. Becoming a better person yourself is the best way to inspire others to do so as well (and as a plus, if the relationship goes to pieces you get out of it a better person).
One thing I'd like to add: do not think your relationship to your loved one is god given, something they owe you or something that you can take for granted. It really helps to remind yourself to view a relationship as what it realistically is: two (or more) people deciding to spend part of their life together for mutual benefit and growth, be it material, emotional or anything else.
If you do not take your relationships for granted you have to ask yourself more if this is what you want and if this is what your loved one should have to love with. Just because they said ues to sharing life with you once, does not mean there is nothing to be done in the long run.
Being comfortable in your own skin makes you more confident, confidence is attractive. It will snowball from there.
Sometimes learning a skill can help to start yourself on a good path.
For me it was going through the training to get a pilots license. Holding the license in my hands made me proud of myself and it had a ripple effect that set me on a path of self improvement. Got married few weeks ago.
The one thing you need to keep in mind is that ALL parents screw up their kids in some way or another, its impossible to be a perfect parent as humans are not perfect. You just gotta try to do your best, educate yourself as much as you can and use your own judgement. Don't worry too much, you'll become a better parent the longer you do it as you'll have more experience.
Try to talk to parents of older children and ask for their advice, try to also talk to parents that are outwith your own friends/culture circle too. Even if they've raised their kids in a wildly different way to how you have, their knowledge helps you decide how you want to parent, even if its the opposite of them.
>The one thing you need to keep in mind is that ALL parents screw up their kids in some way or another, its impossible to be a perfect parent as humans are not perfect
I disagree. Imperfection is a feature. Kids can't just deal with perfect people all the time, they need to deal with the world as it is. That's not to say anything goes, but if the outcome of parenting is supposed to be a well adjusted adult some imperfection is good.
This is not what my actual system is but its the best one i've heard of, its very much a super lazy, throw money at the problem kind of solution.
Have 2 dishwashers. Make sure all the dishes and cutlery you own fits in them. Fill one dishwasher with the dirty dishes, turn it on and onces its done, just leave the clean dishes in there, thats where they live now, thats the storage solution for them. As you use the clean dishes, load them into the other dishwasher until done, repeat the cycle.
This does scream like a solution from a single guy with too much money, but honestly, i'd do it if my kitchen wasn't tiny.
That doesn’t make a lot of sense, you don’t use the same set of cookware every time. Say you use a pot, put it in dishwasher A, wash it, now it lives clean here. Next meal you use a pan, put it in dishwasher B, wash it. Third meal you use a wok, where does it go? You still need to empty a dishwasher at some point.
I'd find it strange that you can only become senior after X amount of years. Some people are just more skilled than others. One person can do a job for 20 years and still only be medicore, whereas others could do a job for 1 year and be a master at it.
I would assume the title is based on merit and ability, not X number of years regardless of how good or not they are.
