May I suggest a monthly gallery post instead? While I appreciate your commitment to your hobby art, it is littering the feed - on Reddit too, but more so here due to the low volume of non–your-drawings posts.

I can circumstantially pretend to be outgoing and enjoyable for short interactions with strangers or people with little impact on my life. Phone calls and virtual work meetings for 1 hr or less are OK, but you bet your ass I’m walking away from my desk immediately afterwards to decompress.

The kicker is I question whether I’m actually introverted. I’ve always had an incredibly difficult time making friends, even as a kid. The isolation is absolutely soul crushing sometimes. I crave and thrive on very close friendships… Even 1-2 is enough, which in our society is conducive to dating – and I eventually met an extroverted ray of sunshine who I’m still with. I still don’t feel like I belong around her friends, though, all these years later. Social anxiety is a bitch.

A strange observation: I’ve found myself far more comfortable with people from a certain region, about 3 hrs from where I grew up, but had no exposure to as a child. Interactions with them tend to be relatively effortless and enjoyable (is this what extroversion is like?).

In summary, I very much despise the way I am, but most people are on a significantly different social wavelength than I. The energy required to match those foreign wavelengths is measured in gigawatts… except for my wife and a few prior long term girlfriends.

I plan on someday experimenting with psilocybin as a therapeutic tool to better understand and potentially (partially?) mitigate some of my social puzzle and trauma believed to be a source of “introversion”.

Perhaps this resonates with you or someone else reading this.

Discord is OK for real-time chat or VC, but is awful for forum-like discussions. Comment-specific context is lost in the single-threaded noise and search is borderline useless. The true forum-designed format of Lemmy, Reddit, and predecessors is far and away better. In my opinion Twitter - the legacy, ubiquity and tech - would be a better forum than Discord. That was hard to type and I need to quickly bleach my fingers.

These are direct quotes from DFV in his livestream. He never says where his mountain of money came from - only that it was his.

• “I’m the one active on my accounts”
• “the accounts I’m showing and my positions are MINE”
• “I’m not working with anyone else”
• “I’m not working with hedgefunds”
• “I’m not an institutional investor”
• “Those positions I posted are my only positions”
• “…there’s no other positions”
• “…no other folks i’m working with”

I’m not sure about the “legality” of lying about these things on a Youtube livestream while trolling with buffoonery, but it’s a possibility. I personally think he was being truthful, albeit very selective with his words.

I absolutely doubt he was able to scrape together 200+ million (after taxes!?) by himself. We were all shocked he had the financial means to double down in February 2021, and I assumed he tapped a massive line of credit when he quadrupled his position just a few months later. Hundreds of millions, however, is waaayy beyond a 3rd mortgage. Note he did NOT say how he came up with his mountain of money, only that it was “his”.

Possibilities:

• A whale individual(s) with a penchant for chaotic good could’ve gifted him ~$300 million (-1/3 for taxes) with no strings attached - with the assumption, but not the requirement, he’d use the money for a massive GME play. No need to speculate on names.
• Ironically, he could’ve been paid as a consultant by Gamestop for something extraneous (no insider info) with a very handsome payout & no regulations on how he spent the money he “earned” without access to insider info.
• Anonymous crypto donation by Russian oligarch via a proxy to DFV as part of an economic warfare tactic, with the desired effect of discrediting the US stock markets and inducing economic stress to force austerity measures & stifle aid to Ukraine.

I’m going to suggest possibly irresponsible advice, but step 1 - you need to solve your depression and porn addiction, and ASAP. For that you could try therapy, and/or psilocybin or DMT… Not a heroic dose, but enough to get introspective from an altered POV. Therapy is the obvious long-term recommendation, but the psychedelic route may get you there faster, and you might learn a few things, such as your social obstructions or root causes.

Second, you need a close friend, at least one, preferably one who is also your desired romantic demographic. Maybe not someone who you’d normally “go for”, but who you’d be happy spending time with - platonically, romantically, whatever it does not matter. The goal is to ground yourself with empathy for that person, and they for you too.

If this was Reddit I’d give an award or whatever they push now. Amazing, thank you.

Would you be willing to provide more info regarding the sect you’re referencing, for instance the name? I have a fascination with “original” gnostic/apocryphal beliefs, but this one is extremely intriguing & I want to learn more.

It’s back up now. They apparently use Bing as the backend search and Microsoft fsck’d it for a few hours: https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/23/24163094/microsoft-bing-search-outage-copilot-duckduckgo-chatgpt

If it weren’t for DFV’s comeback perfectly coinciding with the warm-up & run, I’d also be 100% of the opinion this is the prophesied “fake squeeze”. How the absolute fuck did he foresee this run? The movement, volume and speed of this burst is FAR beyond the capabilities retail, even considering DFV.

• Our buys don’t hit lit exchanges
• Options do force buys via hedging, but this has rocketed past 90% of all call positions.
• Gamestop corporate is authorized to buy back 100m worth of stock, and at these prices they’re not getting less bang for their buck at these prices.
• Larry Cheng bought just a few weeks ago and is on the GME board & “investment committee”, so why would he risk insider trading charges?
• Even if so, how would DFV have known Gamestop corporate were buying back stock?

First thought is this is UBS closing out CS’ toxic Archegos bags containing GME shorts, but they’d be foolish to do so with such speed - why not draw it out over time to temper the price & close it out cheaper? Maybe they chose to go first & fast before others with massive short positions have a chance to react & follow suit to survive? But if so, how did DFV have recon on this happening?

Second thought was Icahn - whether finally closing short positions and/or taking a new long position, IEP just dropped an 8K showing they borrowed 500m… presumably for a big move. Like UBS, though IEP would be foolish to do so this quickly - Carl’s MO is stealth, and this run is the opposite. Perhaps his health is in sudden decline and he wants to see the system burn before he departs?

Third, and I think the most likely option, is RC. He is (was?) the largest private shareholder of APPL stock which recently did a buy-back. Did they purchase directly from RC so as not to impact their stock price, leaving RC with billions in cash? What if RC then brought DFV into RC Ventures, or coordinated his move with DFV? I’m convinced RC’s GME journey began with DFV, making this a poetic move.

I think DFV is the new CIO of RCV. Whether the protagonists of this story are attempting a rug-pull or not, the event has finally begun.

No offense, but you’re not worth the compromise of my privacy. Good day, fellow time-waster.

This is the internet, friend. I could be a nobody, a deputy commissioner at the FDA, or a published researcher. Your mind will not change either way.

Pharmacology implies drugs or synthetic compounds. The RDA stats are officially “guidelines” - Just ask your doctor or nutritionist to explain the fuzzy landscape to you, as well as the interactions & interplay between various compounds as they’re processed & stored by your body. Perhaps get a CBC to determine what you specifically need; they’re usually covered by insurance (assuming you’re in the states).

You’re ignoring the overarching debate, but fine I’ll address your nit-picky distraction.

“Small” is a relative term, and to the amounts that would be harmless in all situations would have negligible health benefits, to the point of questioning “why bother”. Also even small quantities add up, such as the example of 2-gallon consumption on a hot day. What isn’t controversial or subjective, though, is pure water.

The simplest solution is usually best - instead of a one-size-fits-all “medicated” water approach, just take a multivitamin that works best for your individual biology and preferences… assuming you can’t consume foods which contain the variety of compounds our bodies need, being the ideal solution. Even the USDA recommendations for vitamins & minerals are mere guesstimated guidelines which varies per individual & lifestyle.

I was being facetious and think your argument is completely preposterous, but continuing for fun. Let’s say you are dictator of your loyal subjects, and decide to medicate their water with… vitamins, including copper. What if someone is sensitive to added copper, either because of damage to their copper plumbing, copper cookware, or a metabolic issue? What if someone is working outdoors in the summer heat and consumes 2 gallons of water per day, but begins to experience symptoms of copper toxicity due to the volume of water intake? The water is excreted, but our bodies do not excrete most excess vitamins, such as copper. This copper intake then causes an imbalance/deficiency of zinc and subsequently magnesium.

Should we add prozac/SSRIs to our water to thwart depression and make the populous happier?

Most of the world doesn’t medicate their water, and their citizens are surprisingly healthier than us in the US & Australia where we “medicate” our water. How about we give people access to clean, pure water and let them supplement as they & their doctors see fit?

Do you consider water to be medicine, or a resource? Why don’t we add caloric value to our tap water too, for the sake of malnutrition in impoverished communities?

“The authors conclude that available evidence suggests that fluoride has a potential to cause major adverse human health problems, while having only a modest dental caries prevention effect”: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3956646/

I’m against removing it completely is because it’s not clear that it isn’t helping prevent tooth decay

^ I think this logic needs to be reversed - the burden of proof must be abundantly clear with few to no risks before it should be considered. The paper above also highlights interesting aspects about the initial test which spurred water fluoridation in the US. This was also a time in which broad public awareness of dental hygiene was first entering mainstream - was the causality due to amended tap water, or more tooth-brushing?

There’s a reason most of Europe (and most of the world) doesn’t fluoridate their water, and their teeth are statistically healthier than the USA & Australia, where most tap water is fluoridated.

In my opinion the water fluoridation debate has become associated with nut-job conspiracy theorists and the “don’t tread on me” crowd. There are legitimate concerns, and the debate has been ongoing prior to Roswell, etc. There are literal conspiracies diluted in public perception/sentiment by wacky theoretical conspiracies and the types who espouse them.

The delta between fluoride levels considered “theraputic” and “harmful” (per the WHO) is quite small. The most effective use of fluoride is topical (applying to teeth) rather than oral.

Without chlorination people would get sick and possibly die. Amoebas & bacteria can enter our bodies when showering or even flushing a toilet - via aerosolization. Chlorination is also important for the water infrastructure itself, and to prevent buildup within home pipes and appliances.

Should we put multi-vitamin compounds in our drinking water too? It is strange that this one thing is added to water vs the host of other compounds which are shown to benefit human health.

The website in the article, had anyone read it without their personal bias scoffing at the title and going straight to comments, contains much of this info - I recommend giving it a gander.

98% of Europe doesn’t fluoridate their water. IATP provides statistics and primary concerns: https://www.iatp.org/sites/default/files/Facts_about_Fluoridation.htm

Per the NIH: “Children in endimic areas of fluorosis are at risk for impaired development or intelligence”: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3409983/ Note: the “high” level in the report below is easily achievable by a standard diet and recommended water intake, assuming fluoridated water is both ingested and used in food processing and cooking. This excludes exposure via fluoride toothpaste.

Fluoride and cancer: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3283934/

There’s quite a list of well-documented risks, actually. The anti-fluoride website highlighted in the article goes into some of it, but the one I’m intrigued by is the established link between IQ and fluoride. The “high” level in the report below is easily achievable by a standard diet and recommended water intake, assuming fluoridated water is both ingested and used in food processing and cooking.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3409983/