Ok? But the comment I was replying to was complaining that bullying today follows kids into the safety of their owns homes and driving them to suicide. I’m just saying, whether you’re a kid or an adult, if you don’t want to be bullied in the safety of your own home, don’t make it possible for that to happen. It’s very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very easy to avoid.

Then you can’t blame social media if it goes south. You know the risks.

That’ll do it. But also having to hear about side effects 100 times a day, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, constipation. indigestion, belching, flatulence, fatigue, and dizziness, pancreatitis, gallbladder problems, kidney issues, and vision changes, thyroid tumors, including cancer, may not help.

People, super especially kids, should not have social media with their real name. No one should use social media or the Internet in general with their real name unless they have bodyguards, a PR team and plan each post like a mission to Mars. There’s literally billions of people who can see you, and one of them is definitely going to be lunatic who can find out where you live and murder you in your sleep.

Like I said, it’s like stepping back into Plato’s Cave. It’s almost impossible to explain what it’s like.

It not so much the context. There’s no build up to “children with cancer”. Whether it’s about that or not, a block of advertising is a string of shitty short films specifically designed to be like a tear jerker to get a reaction out of you within 30 seconds or less. If you’re not used to that psychological tug of war, it almost physically hurts.

I have diabetes and the vascular disease that comes with it. If Mike and Jay make jokes about it, it makes it easier to live with. But if a commercial starts with a deep booming voice dripping with dread exclaiming “Diabetes”. Oh yeah, I forgot for a second that it’s a deadly serious disease that will probably kill me. Thanks commercial. I was living my life for a second.

That’s a problem as old as the Internet. If you go through ancient forum discussions from 25 years ago, you won’t be able to spot the bots. It doesn’t take modern AI to create posts online. That tech has been around forever.

Do they take into account the ads that are run on those sites?

I mean, everybody talks about how YT is killing everyone but I don’t get it. Unless… There was one day I sat down for breakfast, feeling great and started to play a light hearted review of a movie from Red Letter Media, about to eat a spoon full of Cheerios when an ad snuck past my ad blocker. It started off with “Cancer is different when it happens to a child.” I immediately closed my browser and sat there in stunned silence for five minutes with my chin on my lap. That ad just shat all over my day before it even began. When I got back to watching RLM, I was still thinking about kids with cancer for five minutes while Mike and Jay made jokes.

If people are bombarded by that kind of bipolar stream of videos while watching YT, I can see how it can ruin your life.

I blame commercials and PSAs. I stopped watching TV in the mid-2000s and have ad blocker online. Watching TV today is like stepping back into Plato’s Cave. You don’t realize how psychologically damaging commercials are.

As an example, a few years ago I watched a live stream of the local news during a weather event with ads that couldn’t be blocked. Four hours later, I had seen the same commercial for an HIV drug at least 8 times. I had the thing memorized and I was very, very aware of HIV all day as it replayed in my brain. I don’t ever think about HIV. But I was forced to. I’m usually happy go lucky but after that ad, and other ads for a myriad of other drugs for diseases, plus PSAs reminding me how my life is a vicious jungle with death just a step away, I felt pretty bummed. Some of those PSAs are down right mean spirited.

Without ads, I can control my exposure to the horrors of the world. With ads, you’re at the mercy of the station or website drowning you in human misery. There probably needs to be a law to limit those kind of commercials. Like one PSA a week and one pharmaceutical commercial a day.

If it is, I think it’s illegal in the US at least. By law I think employers are required to give at least one 30 minute break a day.

Most of them, OCD, the rehab and drug enforcement industry, I was trying to get you to ponder the concept of addiction. Saying what I said so bluntly is like telling a Christian that Jesus died 2000 years ago and he ain’t coming back. I couldn’t just dump that on you.

What you don’t understand is that addiction is actually a symptom of another illness and doctors would like to get rid of the concept of addiction, but they can’t because it’d collapse a billion dollar industry, turn the DEA and the rest of the government against them, and they’d never hear the end of it from the lay people. “Preoccupation and duration of use” are fuzzy weasel words without any clear definition tacked on to this criteria simply to appease us wall-eyed villagers.

I was seriously asking. Judging by your reaction though, I assume it doesn’t give a number. Probably because it doesn’t really factor into the diagnosis at all. The core of the diagnosis will be based on how much it affects your health and happiness.

Woke to the average person who isn’t terminally online means “Why did Maruchan change the name of Oriental ramen to Soy? Must have something to do with that whole woke thing.”

That’s interesting. How many times does the DSM-5 say you can gamble before you have an addiction?

I’m not trolling. I’m trying to get you to think about what you’re saying. I’m hoping if you do, you’ll realize that doctors have to base their diagnosis on “I want to stop but I can’t” and that’s all. Unless it’s something like drinking or drugs that can kill you or harm others, they can’t help some one who says they don’t have a problem.

It’s not a gotcha. It’s more of the Socratic method.

Yes I read your comment. So if a man is compelled to murder two hobos a month and can’t break the habit, that would not be a strong indication of an addiction?

So how many hours of TF2 can you play a day before doctors will diagnose you with an addiction? Four, eight, sixteen?

“With enemies you know where they stand, but with Neutrals, who knows? It sickens me. What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?” - Capt. Zapp Brannigan

It is correct. If you do heroin everyday, you will have physical problems. If you stop playing Team Fortress 2 and it causes you to start shaking, vomiting, and shitting your pants, then that’s comparable to heroin. But you won’t do that so they’re not the same types of addiction. That’s why the medical community defines addiction by how something affects your life and not by some arbitrary number of times you do it.