The flu vaccine (pre Covid). Always been pro vax in general, just never saw the need since I never had symptomatic flu. My immune system is good enough, right?
Well, it was like a switch flipped in my brain. One day, I suddenly realized getting the shot isn’t about me. If I don’t vaccinate, I get the flu, and I don’t have symptoms.
That makes me a carrier. I’m a disease vector. Somewhere throughout my day, I’m going to pass it on to some immunocompromised person, and I will be the reason someone’s grandma doesn’t make it for the holidays.
“Just the flu” still kills hundreds of thousands of people every year.
Marriage.
I was firmly opposed. I had a few girlfriends and each time I thought “I don’t need my relationship to be recognised by the state. What a waste of resources.”
Then I met my wife and it was like having pocket aces. I was all in before the flop.
22 years later and I’d give her both of my lungs if she needed them.
I also took a 180 on marriage but not when I met my wife.
When my (now) wife and I started dating, we both were anti marriage. Several years later, we considered marriage for certain benefits that the legal status would have had for us, and because our relationship was solid and we were already committed to it on the long term, we decided to go ahead with it.
I actually started to like the thought of it as soon as we started planning the wedding. We didn’t want to spend much on it (after all, we didn’t really believe in marriage), so we DIYd the whole thing, it was a nice bonding experience with each other and with friends who helped.
It really started to make me feel different about my relationship after a couple years. It does feel different to think “I have a girlfriend” vs ”I’m married. I’m someone’s husband.”
There was a certain warmth to it. We both liked being married and calling each other husband and wife. This warmth or security worked quietly in the background for years to further strengthen our relationship. And I do think it helped too at low points and conflicts to remind us that we want to fix our problems, not walk away from them (the latter sometimes seems easier on the short term when one is exhausted or desperate, it’s not a bad thing to add some friction to that process).
So while marriage on the surface is just words, rituals, and legal status; in experience I found that it’s also commitment, belonging and warmth.
Next time I will tell about how we both agreed we never want kids until one day…
After the October 7 attack I was very pro isreal. Of course it’s totally unacceptable for a neighbor to enter one’s territory and kill hundreds of innocent civilians. You can’t commit such an act of terrorism without consequences. However I have seen that the Israeli invasion has been all but moral and the use of the word genocide feels more and more justified. It has gone way over board and I have staunchly become anti isreal. The war was supposed to be a war on Hamas but the innocent civilians in Gaza have had to bear with unbelievable suffering which I no longer believe justifies the war.
What made you not realize the decades of Israeli aggression that caused October 7?
as someone who went through the same, it was mostly lack of attention. i had a vague idea that israel and palestine hated each other, and it was easy to understand from a perspective of israel taking palestinian land, but when you don’t think about it too much it’s easy to both sides it or feel like the supposedly western, supposedly democratic one has a point. i think a lot of people in the west had that vague, unrefined view when oct 7 happened, and it’s easy to stand with someone who just suffered a terror attack.
but it just kept being a focus in media, and the more you look into it, the clearer israel’s crimes against humanity become. and the crazy part is that the vague perspective of israel taking the land for themselves is absolutely correct, but when you see it for the real atrocity it is, rather than an abstract curiosity, it’s impossible to side with the occupiers if you’re not a bigot.
I can only add that, as much as I despise what occurred to Israel that day, it achieved their objectives in a way nothing else probably could have. It’s difficult to morally reconcile, but the evil they committed against Israel exposed a greater evil Israel was committing against them.
Trans athletes in student sports - now I believe there should be no student sports. It’s a waste of educational resources to have a team run by the school system. I went to the football stadium in Allen, TX and I realized how messed up schools have become
Personal story: Ages ago I was in marching band in TX, so we had to visit multiple other schools to play against them.
Some of those stadiums, even 20ish years ago, were ridiculous. So much money that could have gone to much better programs, or even a publicly available stadium that aren’t locked to a specific school district. I left band before graduating.
Noisemakers in electric cars. I thought it was a conspiracy of the incumbent manufacturers to make EVs as shitty as ICE cars. But I’ve had plenty of situations where people were unaware that I was driving up to them and that’s not a good thing. Just to be clear, I don’t expect pedestrians to jump out of the way when I come along with my car but situational awareness is an important factor for avoiding accidents.
That noise is awful. We’re in the fucking future, I want my car to sound like the Jetsons’
same tbh. the correct answer is no cars. i still think evs are better to have around than ice cars, but an oversized murder machine shouldn’t be the primary mode of transport, and it will always need to announce its presence.
road noise along major roads is mostly tire noise anyway, and evs still have tires
I used to be a conservative Christian. I was vehemently opposed to things like gay marriage and abortion.
Then I actually moved to a larger city and met gay people and, well, that became the crux of my deconstruction. Turns out people are people, no matter where or how they’re born, or what they choose to be or identify as.
My views on abortion have changed, to the point where I very much do not believe in fetal personhood, though I still think late-term abortions should be shied away from if they can be avoided. Regardless, it makes no sense to remove a woman’s right to choose how her body is used. It’s hers. If she doesn’t want to put her body through childbirth, or doesn’t want to take on the immense burden of raising a child, she shouldn’t have to. But, at the same time, dudes should be aware of what they can inflict upon a woman just because ‘it doesn’t feel as good’ with a condom on. Wrap it before you tap it, boys.
i used to think the us was an incredible place to live, and that most people saying otherwise were just amplifying its faults from a sheltered perspective. one single trip to nyc of all places changed that. it’s impressive how broken the us is, the decay isn’t just an abstract concept, it’s literally everywhere in a physical sense. even places that were supposed to be nice were rough around the edges in so many ways.
(edit: just to clarify, i’m a european)
Yeah it’s really noticable as an australian too. The bottom is allowed to fall out in ways that feel scandalous. So many things are just shabby. So many systems are just bafflingly, solvably dysfunctional.
It’s the fact that so much in this country is about money. We can’t have basic infrastructure or maintenance because the money it would take to build and maintain it means the guy at the top earns less, and we can’t have that. I fucking hate it here and wish that I had any hope of living elsewhere, where people are treated like people instead of numbers and a paycheck.
Not quite a major belief, but most recent:
I didn’t really care about GTA6 and saw no content about it. But the TLDR Business news channel I follow got me interested with the perspective that this is going to be the biggest (and most resource invested) art/culture phenomenon in history.
Still not going to buy or play it, but I won’t skip the gaming podcasts that discuss GTA6 as I previously had been.
Critics of mass immigration have a point, and should not be discarded as ignorant bigots. Even if they often are.
What changed my mind: seeing neighborhoods inhabited almost exclusively by poor immigrants. And rich immigrants. Both in their own exclusive enclaves. The only ones that don’t form enclaves are middle class immigrants.
There can be enclaves or castes without mass immigration. In fact, a bunch of suburban and rural communities feel like enclaves where no outsiders can feel welcome.
Critics of mass immigration or open borders have a point- in a world with global travel and trade, a country cannot work without controlling who can come in and who can work.
Critics of anti immigration politicians also have a point- blaming social problems on immigrants, fueling hate for people whose skin has a different tone, and inhumanely denying aid and shelter from refugees are not going to help anyone.
The world is changing and it’s difficult to cope. I don’t think that the enclaves of immigrants are the main reason of those challenges. It’s the loneliness epidemic due to social media use, the affordability crisis due to unchecked corporate greed with political corruption, and the collapse of perspectives for meaningful and lucrative careers due to AI and the corporate takeover of everything. Those changes are faster and more profound than a bunch of immigrants moving in next door, please look beyond them.
honestly this is mostly a result of disenfranchisement, not immigration itself. the middle class has a reason to fight through that, while lower classes are protected by their own against a hostile society. make society less hostile and the problem solves itself.
but if you wanna solve mass immigration, you should strive for global equality. even when given unrestricted immigration prospects, people tend to stay put when they don’t have a strong reason to move, and if you knock out economic and military reasons, most immigration tends to happen due to relationships and it’s fairly balanced.
insisting to prevent mass immigration in ways other than trying to solve the root reasons is just insistence on a privileged place in global hierarchy. i don’t think that’s morally sound in any situation.
Why did the enclaves change your mind?
For a functional society, it’s members must share the same physical and mental space. Even if individuals radically disagree with the status-quo, they are still a part of the same in-group. I call it a “rebel vs invader” dilemma. Rebels can succeed in changing a society, invaders will be resisted.
