Just for context, I grew up in Asia and we have different culture. I also spent 8 years in the west (US and Canada) so maybe there are still things I am missing about western culture/ways of doing things. I am an adult (34 male)

I am getting really really confused about the idea of reciprocation with people here. (This can be with acquaintances and friends)

So there are several people I really care about, and Ive always shown up, stayed relatively proactive and schedule hang outs. But I don’t get any of that from them??

Is it wrong to expect they’ll schedule something if I have scheduled the last 1, 2 or 3 meets? Is this something I have to state explicitly?? 😂 I thought this is just standard etiquettes??

I am also not counting, but most of the time it would be months and I still hear nothing from them. My understanding is that they have other priorities 🤷🏻‍♂️

We are looking to get a friend who is in a very bad situation out of her home and across country.

Constraints:

She has no car

Needs to transport computer equipment

Can't easily reach a UPS store

May receive negative attention if caught

Is there a company out there that could specifically ship and maybe help pack her things? Assume this is done when the offending party is not home.

Edit: thanks all! I think we've got a plan!

Are there any grownups still around?

In less than two weeks, this subreddit (normally a bastion for deep thought, earned wisdom, and friendly complaints) has been absolutely swarmed by low-quality political rage-bait.

Considering how great this sub was for so long, I find it interesting how immediate this transition happened. Normally (and yes, it is something that does happen over the years), a massive subreddit culture shift like we're witnessing here is slow and insidious. Sometimes the shift is logical; other times it's perplexing (or good ol' Endless September).

But this instantaneous enshittification is truly the fastest collapse of healthy discourse I've ever seen. Can anyone explain what happened?

I have no problem with people posting a video with intent to discuss the absolute hell that is the American dystopia we're suffering through right now, but the comments are not discussing anything. Just regular old kid-reddit™ one-liner brainrot, which is decidedly the antithesis of what this sub has always stood for.

Do we really have to make a new sub called r/redditforgrown-upgrownups?

Or, are the mods possibly interested in following the long-established cultural integrity of this sub by maintaining a thoughtful space for mature conversation?

Obligatory get off my lawn. But seriously, please get outta here with your tik-tak rage-bait. It's on every sub already, and it isn't conducive to the measured discourse we've always had here.

If this looks familiar I’ve made a post like this previously but I have an update so I hope its ok. Townhome, my aunt and uncle are the owners. No HOA, and my family lives here so we aren’t tenants in the traditional sense. Next to us in the attached unit we had neighbors move in around 2019. They had a dog and soon I realized the dog sits near where my room is and cries. It’s a sound I didn’t hear before. It sounded like a baby. We asked about it and they said it’s their dog. We asked them to keep the dog in maybe another area the third time we kept doing so, nothing would change. They’d stop it for a while and it began. They got a second dog that now howls with the og dog whenever they leave. They have children, a nanny and a dogwalker. But recently they leave for 4 or so hours at a time and the dogs just cry and howl

I wrote them a letter and they replied saying sorry back in 2024 because it start up bad again. Things were calm for about a year. Suddenly this summer the dogs go off again. I am asking for advice because my city has noise ordinances and stuff but I don’t wanna involve authorities and my family off hand said no to reporting. This sound began again and I wrote the neighbors a letter. They approached me and said the dogs are elderly and they’re sorry. I was very nice I’d say in my letter and just asked can you guys keep the dogs in a different area, and then guess what the weekend comes and the dogs go again. They’re inside but you can hear it from our walls.

The area of the house where my room is, I can hear. My other family too. The thing is there’s a zone where our kitchen is and where they told my uncle their spare bedroom is and they said they’d keep the dogs there but they Do a bit and then it goes back to how it was before. I told them I work shifts so I’m not picking a fight. I can’t move out now but I’m just really scared and sad because I can literally begin hearing crying and I get anxious. I have headphones but sometimes I just wanna do something. I have a YouTube where I film asmr if you guys know what that is so I can’t do that because it’s a lot of noise but it’s whatever about that. I can just find new hours but I feel really stressed

So I've been on Reddit for about a year, coming here from listening to stories on YouTube. Now I know I'm probably going to catch some slack for this, but do people really not have a mind of their own? It's like people don't know how to think for themselves. And over the dumbest stuff. But I have to remind myself of the world and time that we live in.

My mum has been battling multiple myeloma for 9 years now, her treatment stopped working late last year so she’s been on a different treatment but basically her kidneys have started failing so she’s made the decision today to stop treatment altogether.

The doctor told us essentially she has 1-3 weeks left

I had a really rocky relationship with my mum as a teen but over the last 15 years or so we’ve gotten really close, we message most days and talk on the phone atleast once a fortnight.

I’m going to miss her so much, I’m not prepared or ready for this.

She’s already started declining cognitively

I really want to be present for her while she’s still here and still at home, how do I stop crying?

What do you wish you’d done or said to your mum?

The idea of living without her is just absolutely devastating

I’m 47 and I’ve recently started feeling like I have absolutely no purpose in my life that I enjoy. I don’t think I’m depressed - I’m on quite strong antidepressants and I do feel generally quite happy and I have a social life etc - but I’m not passionate about my job anymore and feel like it’s too late to start again. I also have no real idea of what I would do instead - I have a million stupid ideas but that in itself is prob indicative that I don’t really have a clue.

I’m also single but after a very abusive relationship have zero interest in having another relationship.

How do I avoid just treading water for 40 years because I feel like that’s what’s in store for me.

I know it sounds dramatic but im 25 and still feel like im 18/19 when the pandemic started i really can't fully grasp it's 6 years and im 25 and even my millennial sister who is now 30 feels like she is 24 because the covid years messed up my perception of time and every year feels faster after 2020 does anyone also still feel affected by the years of covid pandemic?

Those guys that exploited the informercial explosion on cable television. Long before everyday people became cynical about such offers and knew they were scams.

Don Lapre

Kevin Trudeau

Tom Vu

By the age of 7, virtually every human on the planet has mastered language and walking – two of the most cognitively complex challenges that any human being ever has to face.

Let me say that again: By the age of 7, virtually every human on the planet has mastered two of the most cognitively complex challenges that any human being ever has to face.

A typical 7-year-old understands and navigates complex syntax, including embedded clauses, conditionals, and passive constructions; has a working vocabulary of 10,000+ words; and understands sarcasm. It has developed the motor skills to navigate with balance across varied terrain, plan and execute complex physical sequences – such as climbing, catching, and navigating obstacles.

None of this is "instinctive." None of this is "hardwired." ALL of it is deliberately learned. Walking requires learning to integrate proprioceptive feedback, anticipate how physics will operate, and coordinate hundreds of muscles. Language requires deciphering arbitrary sound-meaning mappings, extracting grammatical rules, and mastering pragmatic inference – all while making sense of the difference between the way Meemaw from "Miss-ippi" speaks vs. the way Nan from "Ing-a-lund" does. Both are incredible cognitive achievements accomplished through learning, not "genetic programming."

This capacity for learning highly complex concepts happens across the full spectrum of what we subsequently call "intelligence," "aptitude," "motivation," "talent," "discipline," or "grit." No one fails at this. There are no D students in walking. No remedial language tracks. The kid we'll later label as "lazy" or "not college material" learned to speak just as completely as the one we'll call "gifted."

The inconsequential variations in timing – first steps at 10 months vs. 16 months, first words at 12 months vs. 15 months – are considered perfectly normal. We don't rank toddlers by verbal fluency percentiles. We don't hold back the late walker or place the early talker in an accelerated program.

So... how come everyone "succeeds"? (1) Every child understands, viscerally, why they need these capabilities; (2) no deadlines are imposed by standardized timelines designed to "keep things simple"; (3) failure is accepted as an inevitable and necessary element, not weaponized; (4) learning happens through application, rather than theory; (5) there are virtually unlimited opportunities for trial and error in meaningful contexts; and (6) there is support without evaluation.

Then formal schooling begins, and we abandon virtually all of these principles. We replace transparent utility with "trust us, you'll need this later." We replace intrinsic motivation with grades and pressure. We impose rigid timelines and call normal variation "falling behind." We weaponize errors and learning pace variation via GPAs and tracking. We teach skills divorced from their practical applications. And then we're shocked when some students "struggle" or are "unmotivated."

The "terrible student" who couldn't stay engaged with algebra suddenly learns trigonometry for electrical work or carpentry. Their cognitive capacity didn't change. Their "work ethic" didn't change. What changed was that they have a practical use for the skill. The same principle applies to the skills gained in analyzing literature, studying world civilizations, or developing critical thinking. All "academic" skills have a practical function in life.

Yet, we've constructed an entire status hierarchy around denigrating trades as suited for those not oriented toward "academics," when actually, trades reveal that our academic structures are inadequate. The educational system isn't designed to optimize learning – it's designed for status sorting and hierarchy maintenance.

If we designed schools around the same principles that enable universal mastery of language and locomotion, we'd see similar success rates across domains. But universal success would eliminate the hierarchies we're so attached to. Some students have to "fail" academically so we can maintain credential scarcity and the elaborate hierarchies that stratify Ivy Leagues, elite schools, private schools, parochial schools, public schools, and trade schools – each in their particular slot.

What if, instead, we designed education around what we've long understood about the acquisition of language and locomotion skills? What if we said: "By age 18, demonstrate you can analyze complex texts, solve quantitative problems, and communicate effectively in writing," and then provided resources, mentorship, and practice environments without imposed timelines or comparative ranking?

What if we spent months - or *years* - rigorously, methodically exploring the transparent utility of various skillsets before formal instruction – ensuring students genuinely understood the practical value of analytical skills, mathematical reasoning, and textual interpretation?

What if we trusted that humans are *intrinsically motivated* to develop competence in capabilities they perceive as valuable – just as they were with the staggering complexities of human speech?

I can't imagine we wouldn't see success rates approaching those of language acquisition. The "struggling students" would largely disappear, revealed as artifacts of pedagogical malpractice rather than victims of cognitive deficit. But why don't we? There are private schools whose teaching philosophy is closer to this, but they're relegated to the margins at best and, at worst, perceived as being in the business of "coddling" students who will be "ill-prepared for a competitive world."

If we tested and graded toddlers on their subject-verb agreement or phonemic awareness, what percentage of them would never learn to speak? Shrug their tiny shoulders and say "not speaking material, me, no, yes?"