Sometimes external adversity is the best motivator for internal self-improvement.

Do you honestly believe people from non-“Western” countries don’t complain about the weather?

If they did, how would you know that they do?

You also don’t know all of the battles that others are fighting. Just because you were born and live in a country that is relatively wealthy compared to other countries does not mean each individual is well-off. What might be “slightly cold” weather to you could cause debilitating joint pain for someone else. For people who live paycheck-to-paycheck, grocery prices are a huge deal. The fact that you consider them trivial speaks loudly to your privilege.

Wow the propaganda you’re consuming must be really, really effective. I can’t imagine believing that looking for ways to improve society is a “western” thing. Perhaps you need to look more closely at the news and media you are consuming and start asking yourself where potential biases or gaps in perspective could be.

Do you not think the people if Gaza are complaining right now? Or the Hong Kongers fighting for their autonomy and what’s left of their democracy? Or for that matter pretty much every country to the south east of China who is having their sovereignty infringed upon? Or within China, the Uyghurs and Tibetans and other ethnicities are being brutally repressed. Does Argentina count as western? Bcause they are talking about impeaching their recently elected Libertarian president already. What about the migrants to Qatar that are effectively indentured servants? For that matter, is Ukraine far enough east to count? Or the various other countries where Russia has been infringing upon borders, like Georgia and Kazakhstan and Moldova. I haven’t even touched upon Africa yet, but there’s another genocide happening in Sudan. India is still trying to modernize itself and get rid of the caste system.

I think this is a you problem.

Do they self-identity as Jews?

Their actual name is “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” and they self-identity as Christian.

They don’t call themselves “the Church of Joseph Smith of Latter-Day Saints”.

Jehova’s Witneses and Mormons are both Christian. Each would argue they are the TRUE Christians and all the others are misguided. They worship Christ. Jehova’s Witnesses actually started as a Bible study group.

Yeah my problem is not that they offer smaller sizes, but when they try to deceive consumers about how much they are getting in order to increase the unit price. Calling attention to it the way that this pizza box does almost feels honest in comparison to what most companies do.

I’ve seen some that claim to be low sugar, but still have a lot of carbs. For a keto diet. Protein content would not be relevant, moreso the lack of carbs.

I have not checked recently, but the last time I was keto pea protein was a very expensive option. I forgot to mention in my first comment but I have found a more reasonably priced brand of low-carb whey protein.

Also I’ve found that I generally don’t like substitutions. Trying to find a food that is similar to bread or rice really just makes me want bread or rice more. The most successful part of dieting for me is to change my mentality from “living to eat” to “eating to live” anyways. So ideally I would like eggs for breakfast (tons of different ways to prepare them), chicken breast and vegetables for lunch (tons of options here too as long as you avoid high-carb sauces or vegetables), and a protein smoothie for dinner (low-sugar Orange Juice, vanilla protein powder, peanut butter, and ice).

I have successfully started again, but I’ve had to use pork and beef instead of chicken. Which is less healthy and more expensive. Fish is also an option, though not being near a coast makes that expensive too. I’m fortunate enough to be able to afford an increased grocery bill without too much hardship, but it’s a conscious choice to cut back on saving up for big things like our next car or home improvement projects.

It has certainly been annoying, the shortage perhaps more than the price.

My wife and I were keto before the pandemic. Years of struggling just to be less overweight, and all of a sudden with keto we just dropped pounds easily. She has epilepsy too, so animal protein is a key piece of her nutrition. We were actually able to continue through the pandemic at first, but eventually a combination of outbreaks at meat packing plants, the bird flu, and of course the collusion of the major agricultural corporations, meant that we stopped because it was just too expensive. Even our protein powder went from ~$30 for a 10lb package to now $85 for a 3.4lb package.

So we stopped and gained weight. I tried to get us to start again later, but my wife had a hard time sticking to it and kept on buying more bread and rice. We finally managed to make the switch in December. I entered ketosis, started dropping weight, and was really the best I felt in years… Then we got influenza type A. I tried to stay keto through it but eventually had to stop (could not find any keto cough drops).

Okay so that’s all done and finally we can get back on keto. Go to buy some chicken and eggs and… Out of stock everywhere. And since then when it is in stock it’s even more expensive than before.

At this point we’ve already seen the mega food corporations get slaps on the wrist for colluding on reducing supplies and hiking prices for profit- we usually find out a few years after the fact and the news usually gets buried. If only there were a way to truly hold the CEO’s and board members of those companies accountable.

Yup this same story seems to play out all the time. Whether it’s a product or s home remedy, it seems like everything people try to do with their face has the opposite of desired results.

Not as much as Loops probably.

I’ve seen people ask why the Fetaverse has nothing to do with cheese

Evidence of significantly rigged elections would certainly be a cause for some significant action and demands for a new election.

But I’m not talking about one-off reports of someone using their dead mother’s info to cast an illegal second vote. Even a rogue election official tossing a couple dozen ballots doesn’t really move the needle. We would need to see evidence of millions, or even tens of millions, of votes being impacted for that.

And I can’t really say for sure whether that did or did not happen. But there’s not enough evidence to action.

Instead, I look around at my neighbors, even in a blue city, and see tons of Trump signs on lawns, stickers slapped on cars, people wearing hats and T-shirts. That’s not enough evidence for me to definitely say there was NOT fraud, or even to confirm that Trump’s win is legitimate. But it does affirm that there are real-life people who have fallen for the propaganda. These aren’t just Russian spies trolling on the Internet or bots running on Musk’s servers to artificially update posts. These are real people who have chosen hatred.

Nearly 78 million people voted for this, and another 90 million stayed home and said they didn’t care.

The whole point of democracy is to allow everyone to express their opinions through votes instead of violence. So either the election was rigged or the country wanted fascism.

I know this is a sarcastic troll post but some QoL improvements can actually help old bad games. Like Save States.

And yes, Super Mario Bros was always bad. I never understood how it got so popular, even when I was a kid in the early 90’s.

Bread, pasta, tortillas, chips, rice, etc. They are all just vehicles for sauce.

I can’t find that Sonos has ever made hearing aides. They make wifi-based “smart” speaker and, more recently, headphones that are part of that ecosystem.

1. They’re way overpriced for what they are, similar to the Apple model. Just charging really high prices and trying to create an aura of “premiumness” to justify it. Not the most egregious offense, but annoying

2. The app launch. The app now takes forever to open and I often have to retry opening it around 4-6 times anytime I want to do anything. Considering these are speakers, and that often means that I want to pause, play, change the track, or change the volume. Those are all usually functions where having to wait 60-300 seconds is an unbearably long time, especially when you need to lower the volume. Worst of all, I have my living room TV going into the Line In on one of the speakers, and the entire section of the app called “Sources” where I can select that just disappears entirely ~80% of the time. So if I go to watch TV or play videogames or whatever and my wife was listening to music earlier now I’ve got to wait several minutes of reloading the app to be able to just use the direct line-in.

They also removed the feature to play audio files that were on the controlling device. Other users have complained of other features like alarms that got removed or broken, though I didn’t use those.

The old version of the app was not particularly great, but the replacement was a clear downgrade and made previously purchased hardware worse.

3. A bit ago they had another controversy where you could “retire” of devices you didn’t want anymore. What did this feature do? Why, it just bricked the device and turned it into e-waste no one can ever use again! What could go wrong?

4. More of my complaint for my specific speakers because I don’t know if they’re whole lineup is like this, but really annoying that only 1 of my 2 speakers even has a line-in, and neither of them have Bluetooth options. I’ve got to just hope everything i want to listen to is on a specific supported service, or find a way to get the audio to play on the TV if that isn’t in use.

They were gifts from my in-laws. I was kind of skeptical about it but they weren’t too bad until the app change. I was even considering maybe getting another speaker to fill out the house before all this. But now I’m looking to get out of the ecosystem- maybe just build my own home theater speaker system for the living room and get a plain old Bluetooth speaker for the bedroom.

So I’ll start by saying I may just be wired differently. I have friends who struggle with severe ADHD and chronic depression, and I can confidently say I have neither.

There is definitely some component desire or temptation inherent to humanity. Every religion I can think of has at least sone sect that focuses on this. You could look at the snake tempting Eve in the garden of Eden or ascetic Buddhist monks that deny themselves the pleasures of the flesh. Often this is as much about people in power trying to control others as it is about anything else- a well-documented recent example would be the way the Islamic State used sexual denial to make their recruits more violent and less rational, using an afterlife of sexual reward as an incentive. It does not have to be religious, but when you dive into the history of most groups advocating for self-deprevation theres usually a strong religious component. Mormons don’t drink, Jews have Kosher restrictions, Muslims have Halal restrictions, and smaller groups like the Millerites, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, 7th Day Adventists (like Kellog), etc. Heck, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded with absolutely zero science or academia- it’s a 12 step program because Jesus has 12 apostles. And studies on its efficacy have had… Let’s say mixed results. You also see groups advocating for moderation and balance, although I’m struggling to think of many examples at the moment.

On a personal note I have two approaches that have helped me. The first is to get in the habit of considering as much information as you reasonably can for your decision making. This is easier said than done, and decision-making fatigue is a very real thing. I’m an accountant, so for me it’s about fully understanding the transactions I make. If I want to grab a beer, I’m thinking about not just how it will taste and make me feel in that moment, but how much it cost me to buy and how I’m going to feel the next day- my sleep will be worse, I will have consumed more calories and carbs so I’ll be in worse shape, my eyes will probably be tired, my joints will be inflamed (look forward to aging lol). Plus opportunity costs- I have my own boundaries and rules that I follow for drinking (no driving, power tools, ladders, working, etc).

And it’s not just drinking. If I get an ad for some neat gadget or doodad that I’m interested in, I’ll start to think about how many hours of work it takes to earn the money to buy it. Where is that item going to live in my house? Does it need charged, and where is the charger going to live? How long is this going to last?

Which brings me to my second piece of advice: set yourself up for success. Proper sleep and nutrition are really important for fighting decision fatigue. That’s why it’s often a good idea to “sleep on it” before making decisions. Post-nut clarity is a bit of a meme but also has some validity. Don’t go grocery shopping on an empty stomach. If you’re freshly trying to stop or cut back on something like alcohol, drugs, or playing a videogame, maybe you need to take a break from hanging out with friends who are doing that. Or ask them to do something else instead. Block ads or stop going to websites that are bad about that.

And also recognize that’s it’s okay to not be perfect. If you focus on the same of failure that can often lead to just a downward spiral. Moderation is often a lot healthier than cutting things out entirely. Just taking the time to think about your decisions is huge. Impulse buying and eating a chocolate bar when you’re on a diet or a budget is bad, but planning ahead and saying “this Friday I’m going to treat myself to this nice chocolate bar as a bit of a break, a bit of a reward” can be fine. It depends on who you are and what you’re dealing with: that may not be fine if you’re 600lbs.

These “Western AAA studios”… Are they in the room with us right now?