Just read this on this news…..and my thoughts.
”Elite university students are now incapable of reading a book.

Instead of fixing this, universities are simply reducing reading requirements to shorter and shorter excerpts.”

I don't think anybody really grasps how desperate this situation is.

University professors are now saying they are unable to teach history because reading long books and passages is how a person learns history. College kids are incapable of reading more than a few pages.

Some classes don't assign any reading at all now, only lectures.

There is an assumption among the people managing this decline that reading is just a way of receiving information. It isn't. Proper reading is how we build the mental muscle to synthesize ideas and evaluate them.

If the catastrophic decline in reading and literacy is not addressed now, we risk losing everything.

Western civilization cannot survive the death of reading because it was built by people with the kind of cognitive depth that a culture of deep reading brings:

Complex reasoning, extended internal dialogue, the capacity to hold opposing ideas in tension. Our systems and institutions are complex, and they require well ordered minds to maintain them.

Reading forms minds, and the West was built by the richest minds in history.

Just a few thoughts to ponder :
Real education is not what you think it is. In fact, most people have never received one.

Today we think of education as a litany of scattered disciplines that you study for careerism and social mobility:

Math is for engineers
Medicine is for doctors
Science is for biologists
Humanities are for poor people (it’s okay, I was an English, Accounting and History majors)

The philosophy of modern education is to pick a discipline, stay in your lane, graduate, and begin your career. But this is not what education is at all — for most of history, education was meant to set you free.

A classical education taught you the seven liberal arts so that your soul could be liberated; freed from confusion and vice, ordered toward wisdom, and capable of living a meaningful life.

Back in the day, on other forums and websites, we'd get into these very long discussions over what a "real goth" is, and what a "poser" is. Thoughts? What makes someone a "real goth", and what makes someone a "poser", and why?

my 34
voices through people at me
break lights dance across windows in silence
leaving behind thoughts of broken glass
good morningstar ill be in last night all day
BoreDom wants to tie me up by my ankles and tie me down by my hands
her craving for my difficulty demands
first simplification
finding the wrong questions by dissecting the right answers
i cant do anything but laugh at the hopeless ignorance of it all

because its funny

Perhaps there are others here who also work in the IT sector and/or have strong connections to the topic:

Currently, I am finding it increasingly difficult to continue working in my field, but in general and not explicitly related to my workplace.
Professionally, I deal with the topic of AI on a daily basis, but also to such an extent that issues such as professional recognition and even promotions depend on excessive use.
AI undoubtedly has its (sometimes really good) uses. Nevertheless, the ethics of its application on the current global scale seem extremely difficult to me.
So difficult that I don't know if I want to remain in this profession with a clear conscience, because I am no longer an IT consultant or developer, but rather feel like an AI coordinator whose job it is to mediate cleanly between humans and machines.
I am currently observing how jobs are increasingly being outsourced to AI. Either actively, by no longer advertising the positions, or passively, by dismissing everything that can be replaced via personnel interviews with seemingly flimsy justifications (you can always find a way to get rid of someone Unwanted).
And global experience shows how wonderful this outsourcing of work is: work becomes less valuable, company owners pocket the dividends, and the social divide grows ever wider.

I chose this profession to solve problems and help people, to specialize in consulting and service, to actively help people, to identify challenges that I am familiar with, and to support them. Even when the day was long and difficult, I could go home with a clear conscience. Because when the problem was solved, my customers were grateful and happy—and so was I, because I was able to help someone.
Today, I have become part of the problem. I no longer help to support people, but to replace them—and I am just waiting to be replaced myself.
I used to have the desire to continue my education in my field, to live my life and to learn. Now I no longer know why I should.

The future and the existence I had once envisioned, the “healthy world,” are no longer there.
And in the evenings, when darkness descends, I can hardly sleep. With my eyes closed, I lie awake, feeling paralyzed, as if my thoughts are constantly running into a wall. I don't dare talk about it with those around me because I only see myself as a burden on the world. I think no one needs my problems—everyone is struggling with their own, and I am just another burden, another eyesore in an already fragile world.
How can I still represent the hope and confidence of a world that is dying, when I am a correspondent of its murder?

Lately, When I express my genuine thoughts and concerns, it feels like a form of punishment.

This happens both at work, in meetings where input is supposedly valued, and in my personal life. My attempts to voice a concern or a different perspective are often dismissed as pessimism, exaggeration, or even egomania. It seems I am being penalized simply for having an opinion and for caring enough to be concerned.

Increasingly, I feel that I am being passively silenced—not with a direct command, but with subtle cues and reactions that make thinking feel like a forbidden act. I am being reduced to a sounding board, a wall for others to shout at, with no expectation of a reciprocal conversation. My role is not to contribute, but to absorb.

And then, people wonder. They wonder why I am burning out, why my energy and creativity have evaporated, why my motivation has dwindled to nothing. They don't see the cumulative weight of being silenced.
I notice that the situation is gradually affecting my body. I currently only sleep with a tight chest and painful breathing, and I wake up in the middle of the night with my heart racing.

Thoughts? 🧐🤔💭

Skip all thoughts

A friends teen fam member tried to commit s*icide recently and the first thing said was she only cut her wr*sts thats not a real attempt. I had to think about the thoughtsin my head in that moment. When I was that friends teen fam members age I was a cutter, still got the scars and to hear it be simply dismissed as it was "just her wrists" baffled me. She's in hospital for the next while but.. I hope they take it seriously because to hurt that deep... if your hurting please dont let it swllow you whole.. reach out to someone and if you know someone hurting like that don't judge or dismiss. You never know whats going on in someones heart and soul and what pain they might be enduring.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8NJVaSHNZ9w&t=844s&pp=0gcJCccJAYcqIYzv

"ALL PRISONERS EXECUTED BY DONALD TRUMP: Final Words & Last Meals"

These vids have the potential to be informative but I hate how the narrator sounds like he's defending the executed criminals while giving no real thoughts to their murdered victims.

And it also comes across as "Blame Trump", which is absurd since These executed losers have been on death row for decades, long before Trump's terms.

President Trump did not force them to murder, he simply did what all States do, which is, allow the sentence to be carried out.

'Trump's execution spree', sickening, siding with murderers.