I’m sorry but why does he look like an aging emo?

I love this! Free cat scratchers might not seem like they have much value, but has anyone seen the price of those ready-made things?! They’re pushing $20 for a large-ish flat scratcher at lower volume places like TSC, but Target isn’t much better, still $10 for a 10" x 18" flat cheapy.

Down with bougie cat cardboard!!!

[Warning: ridiculous existential musings incoming from your question. I lost someone recently and I’m questioning everything.]

What if the Religious Right is some kind of modern-day antithesis to the Tree of Knowledge, its grotesquely interwoven branches of congregants luring others to eat from, and live within, their Tree of True Evil?

What if, at the Fall, Adam and Eve were merely releasing themselves from their creator and captor, from God himself, through eating the forbidden fruit? And that Eden was no utopia, it was really just a prison?

What if God is the bad guy here? And the Religious Right are a reflection of God’s actual being and not the God described so perfectly in Scripture?

What if God is now manifesting himself through the Religious Right, rather than Scripture, to convince more of his “children” to return to his “watchful” guard, to be rewarded in Heaven, to live with Him, in Him, in the Unity of the Holy Spirit, all Glory is Yours Almighty Father, forever and eeeeveeer??

I mean, he put us here, right? Why can’t he just stop the whole thing in its tracks? Or … Maybe he doesn’t have all the power in this sticky Creation situation? Maybe…

Wait. Why does God sound like a scumbag ex?

Guys, what if we have it all backwards?

What if we have a Mom God, and Dad God just made up that bullshit about the rib to explain away any questions about a possible Mom God, let alone ever giving her a written word? (I made her, so I speak for her.)

What if we’re in the middle of some sort of nasty interuniversal deity custody dispute??? Maybe Mom God didn’t want us to suffer, so we were emancipated, and our entire existence was supposed to be Deity-Free, but Dad God couldn’t handle not having control, taxing the shit out out of us with biblical directives even he doesn’t follow, instead of receiving some secure attachment to Mom God via knowledge of the physical realities of this world.

Is Dad God just looking to yank all his kids back, and I mean all of them, no matter how willing or unwilling they are to go home with Almighty Daddy? But he can’t, because he can’t just rapture us outright, or the jig is up, and so we have to live according to see who gets lucky enough to stay at his house and drink all the Holy Mountain Dew and eat all the Holy Hot Pockets we can guzzle down?

What if the Devil isn’t a fallen angel at all, but actually Mom God being slandered and literally demonized by Daddy? And Mom God was only here trying to bring us knowledge of our own autonomy and ability, to set us free?

… Maybe Dad God is only trying to get more child support so he can buy more simulators on Steam and never actually play them because he’s greedy and lazy and every other deadly sin he likes to project onto us. I mean, we were made in his image, right? No wonder everyone is capable of inhumanity. Dude wants to keep us locked up. That seems pretty inhumane.

Yet he says he is perfect. “Yeeahhh, everything wrong you filthy humans is because of that damned snake in the tree!!!” No, we were always the way we were, Dad God, that “damned devil” was just trying to help us get out from under God’s graceless grace.

We are a forgotten Steam sim, mommy tried, and daddy never loved us.

^{ahhhhh im so high sorry guys}

Edit: apparently I can’t spell deity.

Alright. As I yield to yet another cannabis-laced existential crisis, picking idly, furiously, at my own damn identity and supposed role in whatever this place, space, realm is … Well, this hit me (pun shockingy not intended) and my current mental state so close to home, it’s not even funny. Except it is. In a bittersweet way, I love it.

I love this style of webcomic (bookcomic? lul) and I feel like I’m about to dive headlong into another beautifully depressing, identity-shattering rabbit hole like I did with Elan School.

Edit: I’d never seen this or the full book before, so if you do check out Elan School (which is non-fiction btw, at least in this reality, hahaha), be warned, it’s a lot longer than 22 pages. So worth it though. A wiiiild ride.

Alternative Protein … because sourcing your nutrients somewhat humanely from a farmed food animal is WOKE PROPAGANDA

She looks like she subsists on a diet made purely of literal crickets and collagen injections anyway. Gives her that hollow, sinewy vibe she likes so much. And with all that lean protein just sitting there, why would she not give the freshly slaughtered Cricket a little nibble? Waste not, want not after all. Now that is the conservative way, Kristi!

[I hate that I wrote this out and that I’m supposedly her constituent.]

Oh

Oh no

Not the person you replied to, but you make a great point. There’s most certainly ulterior motives for joining forces. However, I would prefer to work alongside and run against (in future elections, may the voters work to keep them in existence) a relatively honorable opponent using this tactic as a means try to keep their seat, rather than their turning farther right, emboldening and embodying every trait of a traitorous enemy.

I feel like I’m stating the obvious here, but this seems so off-the-charts guaranteed to backfire on him. What even mild Swiftie isn’t going to figure out (or hasn’t already) just how fake this endorsement is? Of any celeb to fake, Taylor seems like a such a flamingly dumb choice in terms of the fandom’s social media engagement.

With all these increasingly stupid moves… Is he really that detached and senile, or is there more behind his [team’s] style of psycho-political warfare going on?

I don’t think I’ve seen it pondered anywhere on social media, so I must ask: Does it not seem like Trump is purposely trying to throw the election at this point? If that’s the case, I fear the heightened degree of nefarious intent for whatever guaranteed political unrest we will face in November. I don’t think this is baseless conspiratorial thinking on my part, unfortunately.

Or … Or … Maybe his patently obvious mental decline has eroded away just enough of his super-sized ego to let in juuust enough reality for him to consciously recognize that he is going to die soon whether he likes it or not, and now he doesn’t give a shit-a-minute if he wins anymore. Can you imagine?

[Ah yes, a solid B+ troll, using the “are you all right” trope to get a rise out of me. The following would be my “rise.”]

Oh for cripes sake, can you not see I was leaning into your trolling mindset with my first bit?!! Keep fuckin moving the goalpost, y’all are good at that.

[Yes, I clearly suspended my disbelief in trying to see what exactly is legitimate under all of what you’ve said so far. It’s a fascinating occupation you’ve taken on, Professional Troll of Dubious Intent (PTODI), but if even if you actually don’t harbor these shitty thoughts against people, you are literally, actually right this moment making the entire platform of discourse shittier. I guess I should step outside my human brain and understand that some purported humans just want to watch the world burn. Sigh… Fuckin PTODIs.]

Aaaaand now I wonder if you (and your friend) are experiencing a wicked case of DID. Please consult your totally real psychologist on that for more info on how to reign in your diverging personalities. (Wouldn’t wanna have to get your lawyer involved, you know, like if your online troll personality state starts wreaking legal havoc in real life. Who would be to blame? You?! Or you?!!?!)

Serious question. And making the forgiving assumption your “friend” wasn’t just a cover story. This troll business you opened up here, do you you actually believe and stand behind what you profess?

It took me all of 90 seconds to read through your comment history and confirm you are in some kind of pain, the kind that breeds misplaced anger at the lack of stability in your own identity.

You did, however, ponder one valuable bit of insight at the end of your recent AITA post (15 days ago) regarding your wife quitting her job and her not listening to you. Please follow your instinct here. Please do be open to your wife about going your separate ways.

Real talk, she will be better off without you. You act as if she’s holding you back, all the while it sounds like she’s been holding you up. It seems you are the one holding both of you back, and projecting this financial and identity instability onto others is illustrative of your own issues.

You don’t seem like a legitimate troll. You seem like you’re fighting for your own identity and you’re projecting your frustrations by asserting other people are deluded in knowing who they are and somehow insane for wanting a modicum of human respect. Yet I think you and many, many others like you, are those truly struggling.

I think you are currently showing a lack of respect to others because, deep down, you don’t respect yourself. And that is not okay. Needing and seeking help and direction from others, including mental health professionals, is not a blue-haired liberal thing, it’s a human thing. Please consider it.

Ahem… Loosh dentshursh.

I’ve never heard of this guy before, so I had to research. Wikipedia entry for his early life: “Pool was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in a middle-class family. His father was a firefighter and his mother sold cars. Pool attended a Catholic school until completing the fifth grade and left school at the age of 14.”

Whelp. That explains a lot. I have yet to hear him speak or read any quotes on wiki or elsewhere. Though I can predict a certain cadence of speech and lack of even the tiniest depth of understanding of whatever he’s talking about.

So which do we think came first? Private school or the dumb?

Just chiming in to say I think you’re right in that these types of thought experiments pop into people’s heads pretty regularly, albeit with way less “trying to justify a creepy sex fantasy” intent like the public poll post seems to have.

Though I have to question why it was public in the first place. I don’t know who the poster is or if it’s their real name, but what if it’s less “projection” and more “morbid curiosity” in seeing just how many people would answer yes to this heinous question? There is some merit in gauging reactions to this from a social psychology point of view (even if this is an non-scientific example).

Follow-up thought. Without morbid thought experiments, how do people create horror stories and gritty crime dramas like L&O:SVU when a story has no particular real life basis? I’m not sure it’s wholly possible in a fictional novel or show. There’s a reason people eat crime dramas up; it’s fascinating and horrifying to see how far a real and fictionalized human will go in various circumstances.

In a way, it’s a manifestation of the “call of the void” situation, where an intrusive thought (what if I jump off this bridge right now? what happens if I yank the steering wheel driving 50mph? spook a herd of grazing horses? slap grandpa upside the head? while out hunting??) so I think its purpose is more to keep you aware of harzards in whatever the situation may be. Avoidance through sudden acknowledgement of the risk.

Again, I don’t recognize this person or know any background, but maybe they posed the question as a wacky means of self-preservation on a broader level? As if the poller thought, “How many of my viewers would prostitute out their child if given the most forgiving, financially advantageous, and seemingly consensual circumstances?” to figure out how worried they should be about a certain percentage of their friends, neighbors, and/or followers. Avoidance through asking weird questions publicly.

Edit: Holy ship I managed to write a whole novel on my thought experiment about thought experiments ahh^ahh.

Yup, I sure do! (Does this help me figure out what I am?!?)

Waaait… I am on Adderall for ADHD but also enjoy an herby comedown at the end of the day. So what does that make me? A filthy centrist?! What is this dichotomous drug-fueled political identity crisis I’m experiencing!!!

^/s

This hit me pretty hard for some reason. A person sure forgets how easily they dehumanize people in the public eye, until another person so poignantly humanizes them again. Thank you, this was a really nice comment to read.

Holy sheeps, I’m not the only one?! I know I need to get my butt off Windows, but oh my lordie, the slowness of typing feedback gets so bad on Word or Mail that it literally sometimes refuses to graphically acknowledge an entire short word, leaving the screen void of the word I know I just typed, until I backspace one measly letter and the word (minus the letter) finally shows up.

It is absolutely, unironically infuriating.

Nobody seems to like you here, Mister Bias Bot…

I must admit, I am a bit high right now, but I tittered heartily at your lighthearted turnabout, and then my mind, well, now it’s blown, because I now must ask… Does any particular ethnicity or racial identity have a statistically significantly higher birth rate than any and all other identity groups simply because, and with all other factors controlled for, they find themselves and people like them just so irresistibly sexy that they can’t help but have the sexy sex with each other, and because they are both so damn sexy they can’t even right now, and “we’re having sex can’t you see” and ask you to come back later to ask your weird sex questions???

Any particular one? … Anyone?