Imagine the age gap relationship posts that we’d see in the LOTR universe.

Sometime between now and 2271!

Glad you’re still with us.

Yeah, 70 is too young.

I think most people imagine themselves living until 90-100. Sadly there aren’t any guarantees in life.

This isn’t uncommon now, and it’s sad. Social media algorithms pushing doom and gloom for clicks are scaring people out of living their lives.

The whole thing feels very similar to how Fox News scares old people for viewers, except maybe less intentional.

I see this all the time on social media, and it’s frustrating. I don’t want to dampen anyone’s passion for combating climate change (because I agree!), but it’s like a feedback loop for rhetoric that gets more and more extreme.

Something that starts out as:

“There was a wildfire in _____. This could be part of a larger trend related to climate change.”

Turns into:

“This fire was caused directly by climate change.”

Turns into:

“The world is on fire! Take shelter!”

Turns into:

“Don’t plan for the future. Don’t have children. Move somewhere cold and start prepping for the apocalypse.”

You can literally watch this same process happen with every issue that gets traction on social media or cable news. Then one side looks at the most extreme comments from the other side and easily dismisses the whole thing.

He’s not wrong. Groupthink elevates the most extreme rhetoric, and when people hear that, they disregard the totally valid argument as a whole.

If one person is saying “Hey, this could be bad for our coral reefs, polar bear populations, may cause more hurricanes over time, etc.” they’re going to be completely drowned out by the person saying “THIS IS THE END OF MODERN SOCIETY!” (paraphrased from an upvoted comment under this post)

North Korea, which test fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) last week, condemned the NCG on Monday for “openly discussing the use of nukes”

That’s rich coming from NK. As if they don’t threaten this on a quarterly basis.

Can you imagine your purpose in life being “the guy who makes sure people’s scarves are good enough”?

I think it would add some much needed levity to the public conversation if we started referring to people as “Tumtums”

Now the real question is: what are you going to edit this title to to make the commenters sound crazy?

This is why we can’t have nice things.