I mean I’m in my 50s and for years Reddit was awesome for me. Sure “Reddit” didn’t make all those posts themselves - but they created a space where folks like me could (and did) enjoy contributing and engaging.

Has been getting worse for a long time, but that doesn’t mean it was never good.

I don’t mind that Reddit in some ways profited from the content I contributed- because

1. I got enormous value from the site and it was 100% free for me
2. I intentionally was contributing to the site knowing that they would host my content and potentially profit from it.

AI takes without consent and charges for benefit

Agree “many obvious reasons”. That said I feel as though there may be some merit to the “we need a way to keep AI bots from just taking all our content and reselling it via AI”.

There are a million other reasons to stop using Reddit and I won’t be going back.

But for years they built up a ton of great user contributed content. Just like it’s unfair for art, music, other content to be absorbed / plagiarized and repackaged as AI… it is also unfair that web bots steal all the old/good Reddit content and don’t give credit + make money off content generated by old Reddit.

Note: reddit bad. Also AI plagiarism bad.

It’s great for us all to be the best we can be, and to always be working to improve.

“Perfect” is an abstract idea - it’s not really applicable to something as complicated as a human. Not just because it isn’t obtainable, but because we definitely would never be able to agree what the criteria are.

If you are tense and emotionally uncomfortable and/or the doctor is rough or rushed or just uncaring = it can be a bad experience.

Generally speaking the speculum is not comfortable but not painful. It is there so they can use a swab to get a sample from the woman’s cervix to check for abnormal/cancer cells. Some women don’t even feel the swab and others find it painful - most feel it but don’t find it particularly painful. If they do find problematic cells they cut a little bit off the cervix for testing.

I have always had nice doctors - when I was younger I felt a little weirded out - but never uncomfortable or in any pain. Until I had a cervical biopsy- which did hurt and left me cramping for a bit. But it hurt at around the level it hurts to get stuck with a needle when you give blood. Yes, it hurt - but not severe.

It’s just much much more scary to hurt in a sensitive area then it is to hurt on, say, your arm.

Everyone makes mistakes.

If you had a reasonable childhood count yourself lucky - your mistakes will probably be reasonable. If you suffered from severe trauma/abuse or you have mental health challenges then you are likely to make different kinds of mistakes.

It is everyone’s job to work towards being better. You do something shitty then YOU did it - your childhood didn’t do that, you did. It also might be true that you don’t even recognize how shitty it is because you were taught it was “normal”.

We all are responsible for our actions, but some folks have been surrounded by kindness from birth so kindness is natural and easy. Other folks have to work really hard and make a lot of mistakes to learn that their behavior isn’t ok.

Yes, we are all responsible for our actions.

Equally true = some folks face enormous challenges because of background or brain chemistry, while others have it so easy they don’t get why anyone would struggle.

Absolutely humans are deeply affected on conscious and unconscious levels by all kinds of things that are out of their control - both experiences and brain chemistry. Absolutely it is a privilege afforded to only a few to have access to the support and resources needed to become aware of their situation and create deep change for themselves.

It’s also true that if you do a bad thing you did a bad thing. That does NOT mean you are a bad person, it does NOT mean all the things you can’t or couldn’t control are your responsibility, it does NOT mean that you even were fully aware of what you did.

But if you do a bad thing you are responsible for what you did. YOU did it. It is your responsibility to get on a path that will allow you to recognize and change that behavior.

It is nobody’s job to be perfect or beat themselves up for mistakes. It is everyone’s job to work towards being better - to themselves and to the people around them.

Part of that is understanding that you are responsible for your actions. You may genuinely not have been capable of making a better choice at the time - but if you did it = it’s on you to own the mistake.