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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2930 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 9, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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More than once, I've received an email with a link that goes to a PDF with a QR code, which leads to a website for usually making reservations or a payment or some such thing. Why would anyone want that??? I understand why someone might print a QR code for a paper poster, or in-person presentation, but in an email link?!? Multiple people have done this since Covid, including multiple school administrators.

When I receive these emails, I open up my computer and phone, load the PDF on my computer, scan the QR with my phone, load the site, copy the URL, email the URL to myself, then open it on my computer. Am I missing something essential about how this is supposed to work?

Relatedly, the schools around here have gone cashless. I can see how that would be convenient. But instead of using Square or something that charges 3% or so, they use a payment processor I've never heard of before that charges $1 per transaction, mostly for transactions of $5 - $10. Is it providing a real service of protecting the schools from liability somehow?

It's a baffling workflow since it's completely useless for phone users. It requires a second device to work.

One workaround though is to just take a screenshot of the QR code and drop it into a tool like cyberchef. QR codes are pretty straightforward to parse.

I think the primary phone users look for a printed copy? Someone usually prints the document out and tapes it to the door or leaves it at the front desk, and I suppose that's how the flyer makers imagine it being used.

When I receive these emails, I open up my computer and phone, load the PDF on my computer, scan the QR with my phone, load the site, copy the URL, email the URL to myself, then open it on my computer. Am I missing something essential about how this is supposed to work?

There are a tiny number of use cases where it makes some sense. If you're expecting students to receive e-mail through school accounts only accessible from (public) school computers, you don't want them putting private or especially financial information (b/c PCI DSS almost universally prohibits that) on those computers no matter how sure you've keylogger-proofed them, and you can't trust students to transfer even prettified URLs from one computer to another by mark I eyeball. Then your workflow, stupid as it seems, makes sense; the only trusted computer most people bring with them is the phone, and scanning a QR code in is the only viable way to pull the URL in.

In rarer cases, the school (or vendor) might be required to pretend that's the use case, either by regulation or internal norm, even if nobody does it.

Of course, if you were building such a system and not hilariously incompetent, PDFs support links, and you can just offer both. In many cases, the IT administration, or their leadership, is just incompetent. It's a funny joke, but it's not a joke.

But instead of using Square or something that charges 3% or so, they use a payment processor I've never heard of before that charges $1 per transaction, mostly for transactions of $5 - $10. Is it providing a real service of protecting the schools from liability somehow?

Most vendors have a minimum flat fee; the difference for a 10 USD transaction would be closer to 0.4 USD at current fees. Sometimes this can have better processing, or review standards on chargebacks, or have given them a good enough deal on payment processing systems or security reviews that it's worth the slightly higher fee, especially if the school uses the same system for large transactions for non-physical goods or for some (overtly) credit-like system, which can get messy from the lowest-overhead-common-denominator. PoS systems in particular can be very expensive (>1k USD/unit, usually need to be replaced every 2-5 years depending on use levels), which can be a massive hassle and expense for an organization that has to authorize individual purchases in a slow method but can get a contract with service requirements through at the same rate. This can even pop up if you aren't seeing those point of sale units: I've seen a volunteer org that only used a physical payment processing system once a month for sports game consumable sales have to do some very complex math to figure out what made economic sense.

But if they're charging you for the fees, it's as likely or more likely that they like the system because it lets them pass the charge onto purchasers explicitly, which ranges from disfavored to banned by terms of service to potentially illegal depending on payment processor and state (and even type of card). Officially, this can get into somewhat gray areas really quickly, but it's very rare for the rules to be enforced and a lot of actual accountants don't know the rules.

Interesting, thank you!

The colleagues I've spoken with and I are generally pretty hostile to any processes that require a phone (like two step authentication and emergency notifications), since they do not provide us with phones, and there are areas of the school that do not have reception. It's interesting that someone might think of their phone as more secure in some important sense. I have made transactions by phone, but it is an absolute last resort.

It does kind of make sense that the entire point is that the purchaser has to pay the fee, they are very explicit about that, and write on flyers things like Hot Dog: $6 ($5 to school, $1 to payment processor). I got a permit to visit a government park area, where the receipt said something like: $2.00 ($0 to for access to the area, $2.00 for the reservation system). The school seems pretty serious about never paying taxes on anything, it's possible that somehow this system, while much more expensive, is somehow easier for the Finance office than normal payment processors.

Normal surcharges, like when a restaurant announces on the menu an additional 4% for using a card makes more intuitive sense to me, because someone can avoid it by paying cash. Or sales taxes, since they can sometimes be avoided (though I'd much rather they were integrated into the price, as I've seen in Eastern Europe). It seems especially petty because there is no option to pay in cash for either the park pass or the school food.

The colleagues I've spoken with and I are generally pretty hostile to any processes that require a phone (like two step authentication)

Two factor identification is one of the best security features that most "normies" will interact with and should never be discouraged. For many people their current smart phone is the most secure electronic device they've ever possesed, assuming they maintain physical possesion of it, and this will be true of their next phone as well. I've worked with fraud vicitms who've combined lost millions of dollars that could have been prevented by simple 2FA on their bank and work accounts, in addition to their Amazon, Apple etc accounts. Many businesses have had enough of 'voluntary' 2FA and have begun to enforce it. People that don't have smart phones can even get a call to a land line where a robot speaks the 2FA code to them. There is a lot to dislike about the crappy techno future we've seemed to wind up in, using your phone to 2FA actively protects you from much of it rather than being part of it.

Am I missing something essential about how this is supposed to work?

You are supposed to dispose of your desktop computer and do everything on your phone. Age of computer is over, modern youff computer skills make average boomer look like hacker wizard.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

I do not want to give my children phones, I hope by the time they are teens this nonsense is past, and I can give them boring phones where they can only call, text, and use maps. Things seem to be heading back that way among the people I know and read, which heavily overlaps with the sort of person who reads Jonathan Haidt. Unfortunately, it seems about as likely that by the time they are teens we will be living in an oligarchy ruled over by AI systems.

My gut says that people are usually provided PDFs as "printable" documents; the online link is just a bonus. There's a few situations where it could be of use:

  1. I'm booking a trip for my parents; I do the work of setting up the days for the hotel and the airline tickets, then print out the emails that are sent to me and bring them to my parents' house. My parents are ancient boomers, so don't use computers - but they definitely have iPhones.
  2. The PDFs contain information that is more generally applicable (see like, signups for a school dance); they print out like 500 copies, give them to all kids to take home, but also have a link on their website to sign up (which just emails you the PDF, because the person setting it up doesn't "get" what a QR code is).

Side note: it's a very millennial trait to not want to do purchases on your phone.

With regards to the payment provider; in all likelihood, it's the only one they could get approved. Governments have a lot of weird rules around exactly who you are allowed to use especially for handling payments - I'd guess that there is something specific about this one that ticks a weird box that no one else knows/cares about (once, when working on a government website, I had to copy all their font files out of Google Fonts, and store them locally on the build because they were not allowed to access any servers that might be in the US; they also have a super weird tracking service I'd never heard of before instead of using GTM or Google Analytics, for the same reason).

Concurring with this. Every time I've ever encountered a QR code in an email its been a printout image that was scanned/copied to an email and sent out. At the other end of this spectrum are web links in printed materials, with instructions to click here, with the typo red-squiggle line included on the printout.

Yeah, I don't have a huge problem with QR code tickets, and then I can choose to print them out, or load them on my phone. QR code coupons generated by apps that constantly change them or invalidate them when they are shared within a family unit are annoying, but they are coupons, and annoyance is expected.

Side note: it's a very millennial trait to not want to do purchases on your phone. LOL. I do relate to this.

Is it providing a real service of protecting the schools from liability somehow?

Most likely the payment processor came to the school with a deal where the processor will provide and install all the hardware and software needed, while giving the school a chunk of that fee.

What would they install? It's web based, no cards are run in person, and the users type in all their information for each transaction. If someone wants to buy something live at an event, they scan a QR code, and put in their information themselves on their phone (Though that's only theoretical, everything has been preorder by phone interface, actually). People can't bring their physical payment card and run it, like retail.

God, I hate to be one of those people, but I'm coming here asking for relationship advice. I'm looking for honest, blunt opinions here - the kind that only a stranger can really provide.

My partner and I have been together for around a decade now. For the last several years, she has lived in $(CITY) about two and a half hours from where I live, and where we met.

We've discussed living together, and we both agree to the idea in principle, but we have several enormous roadblocks that are in the way.

She does not drive, and will not accept living somewhere that does not have ubiquitous, reliable transportation. I, on the other hand, have formally-diagnosed PTSD from moving dozens of times throughout my youth, and the various forms of abuse that came with it. The idea of moving is miserable for me; the last time I did it was when I moved purchased my first (and current) home, which sent me into such a tailspin that I damaged relationships with my friends, had trouble at work, and essentially lost six months to righting my life again. The idea of moving to a city is exponentially worse. Therapy has slowly improved things, but the more real and imminent things seem, the worse it gets.

While our attempts to find a home together have been interrupted by the cultural and economic shocks of the last five years, we have proceeded as far as looking at houses in $(CITY). It got so bad for me during this process that I more than once found myself miles from her apartment or my home, shoeless, and covered in scrapes and cuts with absolutely no idea of how I got there. I was depressed, and wasn't sleeping due to the 24x7 flood of adrenaline in my system. This manifested in a whole host of other physical symptoms. It got so bad that my partner and I sat down and agreed to pause our search while I got myself right.

Now, in 2025, I'm doing some soul searching. I love this woman more than I have ever loved anyone in my life. She is loving, and kind. She is the kind of person that will stay with a stray kitten in freezing weather until a rescue group arrives and takes it somewhere safe. If I can, I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and more than anything I want her to be happy. In all of our time together, we've had our share of fights and disagreements, but we've always been able to come out of them stronger and with a better understanding of each other's needs.

She tells me she misses me, and that she wishes we could be together. She has also told me that she will never move into my home. When we spoke about this a few weeks ago, she told me that it was because my area lacks ubiquitous, reliable public transport. I mentioned that we have a fairly effective municipal ride share program, and that I would be willing to drop a few grand on an e-bike that would get her almost anywhere in the region in about the same amount of time that she could expect if my area has a bus line. I also let her know that my job has a lot of flexibility in terms of hours, so I would willingly and joyously drive her wherever she needed to go whenever she didn't feel like using the other options. Her response was that she didn't want to feel Beholden to me, and that was the end of the conversation.

Like a lot of you, once I'm presented with a problem, it's extremely difficult for me to let go of it until I have found a solution. Several sleepless nights followed.

I started looking at homes in $(CITY) again, and started doing math on what I could afford. I have a reasonably good income, and the value of my current home has appreciated significantly since I purchased it. I have also been aggressively paying ahead on the mortgage to th point where I could pay it off now and still have a full year's emergency fund available at my current levels of spending (which includes paying ahead on a mortgage that i would not have). Despite being blessed with those advantages, I am not sure if I will be able to afford a home in $(CITY) in any neighborhood that she would find acceptable.

That was terrifying. I was fighting the idea that I would lose her simply because we couldn't afford to be where she wants to be. I kept crunching numbers, and investigating neighborhoods, and mapping bus and train lines, until eventually I got a notification out of the blue.

I've mentioned before that I live on the outskirts of a little urban-ish enclave. A house had come for sale much closer to the core. It was more expensive than I would have liked (it would set my earliest possible retirement date back by a decade), but it was bigger than my current place, and newer, and a quarter mile from a regular bus stop, and within walking distance of several amenities and the downtown district (such as it is). She told me the problem was transit, and she told me that she didn't want to live where I am now. Was this a possible compromise?

I broached the idea. She shot it down immediately, citing a new concern - she didn't believe that my area would allow for a career path for her. She also said that she knows it's hard for me to hear things like that without looking at it as a problem to solve.

That kicked the legs out from under me for a few days. She had told me the problem was about transportation, right up until it wasn't. In her new reasoning, she claims that the issue is about career concerns. She works in service , but my area has a raging hospitality industry. When she lived here, she would make as much money during tourist season as she does in a year in $(CITY).

We haven't spoken about it since, because I don't want to go into a conversation as important as this one without having my head on straight. If I can, I want to spend the rest of my life with this woman, and I don't want to fuck up that chance because I'm not thinking clearly.

I know that I need to discuss finances with her. That is something that I am planning to do when we both have real time to go over it. She may be under some misapprehensions about what we can afford.

After that, I need to talk to her about where she thinks we're going to live in $(CITY) that fits inside that budget. I've done my best to figure that out, but she's told me after the fact after suggesting homes that it won't work for $(reasons) that are not immediately obvious to me as a non-resident.

I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but I'd like to have both of us suggest a few other areas to possibly explore in 2026 that aren't my home and $(CITY).

I have considered suggesting limited couples counseling for a neutral point of view, but that is a hazy and unfinished thought.

I'm terrified of losing this woman simply because I can't get my shit together, take on a mountain of debt, and move somewhere that makes me deeply uncomfortable to the point of dissociating when I stumble into the wrong neighborhood.

Alright, if you're still reading at this point, what do you have to say?

It's hard to diagnose a total stranger, but I have to ask you this: it's been ten years, has she ever hinted at marriage? Asked if you want to get married someday? Talked about friends getting married? Have you ever tried proposing or even hinting you want to marry her?

Because if it's ten years and you're not even living in the same city, this does not sound like "rest of my life relationship" on her side. I have some sympathy for her as a non-driver myself (it's easy to say 'oh just get a lift, I'll drive you anywhere' but it's a lot harder depending on family members to be available when you need that transport to a certain place or trying to get taxis or trying to fit bus schedules around 'I need to be in this place at this time on the dot'), but I can't see how you guys are working this out. Do you visit her in CITY regularly? Does she visit you?

Right now, it sounds like you are both living what amount to independent lives and she's happy with that. Apart from the whole transport and job reasons, I hate to say it, but it sounds like she's not eager to have you move in with her/she moves in with you and start living together (and maybe wedding bells in the near future). Some people can make that work, but if you want more and she doesn't - time to rip the bandage off completely. Talk to her about "do you want to be with me? do you want marriage? do you see us as forever?"

Asked if you want to get married someday?

We have both talked about marriage. She's unable to have children, so it's not the highest priority for us, but neither of us are averse to the idea. We've both essentially backburnered discussion around it to "when we're together and it actually makes sense".

Do you visit her in CITY regularly? Does she visit you?

I try to get over there at least once a month. She tries to get down here at least once a month. It's never perfect and it's never perfectly 50/50, but we do our best.

If it's not making sense after ten years, it's never going to make sense.

Again, I'm diagnosing a situation based on no knowledge except what you've provided here, but it sounds like that from her side, things are fine as they are and she has no wish to change them. You seem to be the one who wants the permanent committed relationship. You say she says she misses you and wishes you could be together, but again from what you say, she's doing nothing about that.

You're doing the research online. You're trying to find alternatives and compromises. From your description, her view is "move here, not necessarily in with me, so I can keep what I already have plus be able to see you more easily and more often".

I dunno. Sounds like the saying ""In love, there is always one who kisses and one who offers the cheek". But if you want this to work, maybe it can. I'm hesitant to say "start making demands" because that's a great way to start a fight, but can you ask her does she really think your problems will let you just move to the city like she wants? What's her suggestion for overcoming "I would lose her simply because we couldn't afford to be where she wants to be." Is she willing to move somewhere in the city that is within your current means, or is that also a big no-no? If it's going to be home for both of you, what assets is she bringing to this and why is it all on you to pay for a new house?

When we spoke about this a few weeks ago, she told me that it was because my area lacks ubiquitous, reliable public transport. I mentioned that we have a fairly effective municipal ride share program, and that I would be willing to drop a few grand on an e-bike that would get her almost anywhere in the region in about the same amount of time that she could expect if my area has a bus line. I also let her know that my job has a lot of flexibility in terms of hours, so I would willingly and joyously drive her wherever she needed to go whenever she didn't feel like using the other options. Her response was that she didn't want to feel Beholden to me, and that was the end of the conversation.

I broached the idea. She shot it down immediately, citing a new concern - she didn't believe that my area would allow for a career path for her. She also said that she knows it's hard for me to hear things like that without looking at it as a problem to solve.

I've done my best to figure that out, but she's told me after the fact after suggesting homes that it won't work for $(reasons) that are not immediately obvious to me as a non-resident.

One thing that seems to be a consistent pattern in what you write is that she has an objection, you suggest something that may solve it, and she comes up with a new objection, only loosely based on the old one. Although she almost certainly does have reasons for what she's saying, I would hazard a guess that she isn't actually telling you them; whether because she doesn't know her true reasons, she's worried you won't respect her true reasons, or her true reasons are not good for you.

Something you could try would be to let her take the lead on trying to solve the issues she's presenting; for example, ask her to send you listings for/schedule some tours/set up some open house visits (whichever of these you can stomach) for properties in the area that she'd want to move into with you. This changes it from being something that she is vetoing into something she needs to make a positive suggestion towards, which can re-orient her towards thinking of it as a possibility, as opposed to her thinking of everything that makes it impossible.

Similarly, try to tease out of her what her plans are for her career - she is currently working in hospitality, but is that her plan forever? If the two of you have kids, what school would you be sending them to? Would she be working full time, or part time, or none of the time? Again, the goal is to make it a real possibility in her mind that it could be long term, and to let her come up with the information she actually cares about.

I know you really want it to work out with this woman, but I do get a sense that she is just waiting for something better to come along. My advice would be to not commit to anything yet, but try to figure out if my (and several other commenters') fears are accurate. And to do that, I think you need to figure out why she's actually objecting.

Best of luck - I hope that I'm wrong and that this does work out for you.

General rule; never move for a girl. You'll uproot yourself and your functional social status will be reduced, the girl will mysteriously find you less attractive and dump your ass. Maybe it's (slightly) safe(er) if you're both moving together and already married.

The career thing smells. I also don't quite get the flat-out refusal to drive.

Everyone's saying that it's the feminine thing to deepen a relationship, but there is one masculine thing available - propose to her. Suddenly, unexpectedly, grand gesture-ly.

I suspect that this 10 years of stringing you along will fall to pieces soon after.

Either continue as you are if that is truly what makes you happy for the rest of your life or end it one way or another. The best stories only end in a marriage or a death.

Friend, I don't like the sound of this at all.

I'm reading a whole lot of you offering compromises and trying to make this work, up to and including possibly sending yourself to the hospital from mental distress, and a big fat goose egg nothing on her end. This whole thing is completely lopsided. When you find some reasonable solution to her objections to moving to your town, she comes up with a new reason/excuse why she can't move to you. This sounds like she's stringing you along. You say you're terrified of losing her, and I believe you, but does she echo the same feelings? I doubt it. It doesn't sound like she cares about you enough to overcome any obstacles to more permanent physical proximity.

I don't like to say it, but I've seen this behavior before. It sounds like there are irreconcilable differences, but really I think she's stonewalling you, stringing you along in case something better falls in her lap. It's also much more common for women to be the ones pushing for more commitment and it sounds like your constant attempts to fix the situation is actually pushing her away. She should be wanting to have these conversations, not ending them with her latest excuse and letting you stew about it. I'm wondering what your friends' takes are on this. It's hard to see these things from the inside.

Im wondering what your friends' takes are on this. It's hard to see these things from the inside.

It broadly breaks down into friends who know her well, and friends who don't. The friends who do not know her well almost universally land on "dump her ass".

Those who know her well seem to gravitate somewhere near "it's not perfect, but if you're both willing to accept things as they are, don't push it". She's stubborn about things sometimes. One of the more interesting viewpoints I've seen was her brother's. He thinks that she'd move up here if she thought it was her idea.

I think you already know what you need to do. You need to have a fully open discussion about how to move forwards, that includes financial limits, but also logistical/emotional/medical limits and how far the both of you are willing to compromise to move forward, with neither side holding back anything that they'd be willing to do in hope that the other will compromise before they have to. If you're not able to find any overlap, then it's probably time to call it, but otherwise, you'll need to negociate a fair point within that overlap.

You've been together a decade but haven't been able to be near each other. I'm surprised and dismayed at some of the other comments suggesting marriage or more effort on your part. She's just not that into you.

You say: one thing that we both agree on is that we should only calculate affordability based on my assets and income. She's doing this not to protect you, but so that she won't feel as guilty breaking up with you when you move to $(CITY). You've been together 10 years, but still don't feel comfortable discussing finances in a meaningful way. She's chained together at least three excuses/goal posts as to why she can't move to you.

How often do you even see each other, given your limitations? Is this just an online chat friendship masquerading as a romantic relationship?

I moved for a girl once, and the evidence was similarly lopsided. It went horribly and cost me many things. I do not think it's worth the risk. I understand your dating prospects may not be plentiful with your PTSD and non-urban location, but I would consider informally downgrading this relationship (I unfortunately don't believe this woman will care enough for you to go through a formal breakup) and beginning to search for a true life partner.

one thing that we both agree on is that we should only calculate affordability based on my assets and income.

That's the red flag for me. This isn't "we've only been dating six weeks, it's way too soon to move in together". This is "it's been ten years, I want to be with her permanently, she won't move to where I am, I can't afford to buy a house where she wants to live" so why the hell is it "you have to pay for it all, sugarbuns" on her part?

If this is a move meant to make it so they can be together for good (up to marriage, even) then it should be a joint purchase. "All in your name" only works for "so if I want to do a midnight flit tomorrow, I won't be on the hook for the mortgage" and midnight flits are not "you are my forever snookums".

I am going to be a total bitch here and ask OP: are you sure there isn't a boyfriend in the city for the time she isn't with you? Friend with benefits, situationship, whatever the hell they want to call it, because this sounds (and again, we're only getting one side of the story) much too comfortable on her part for what is ten years of 'twice a month if we can make it' relationship.

I am going to be a total bitch here and ask OP: are you sure there isn't a boyfriend in the city for the time she isn't with you? Friend with benefits, situationship, whatever the hell they want to call it, because this sounds (and again, we're only getting one side of the story) much too comfortable on her part for what is ten years of 'twice a month if we can make it' relationship.

This is a shiv Heartiste would be proud of.

I hated to say it because it's attributing motivations to someone I don't know at all, and also being unpleasant to OP, but I do think that after ten years if there's no co-habitation and girlfriend is content with "see you every so often" then she's not likely to change, and there may well be a little friend in her own city that she sees from time to time. Not cheating exactly, but if she doesn't see this relationship as anything other than a casual thing, she may well consider that they are both free to have friends with benefits on the side.

Like I said, I was a bitch to ask that, but sometimes you gotta ask the ugly questions.

She's doing this not to protect you, but so that she won't feel as guilty breaking up with you when you move to $(CITY

This was actually my idea, not hers. I'm extremely financially conservative and she is too. It's specifically because we were comfortably able to discuss finances that we had the conversation in the first place.

How often do you even see each other, given your limitations?

Usually, I drive to her about once a month and she hops a train to me about once a month. We get a couple days together when that happens. Holidays are longer, and when her employer shuts down for several days in the summer we get more then as well.

With a 5-hour round trip a net 2x a month getting to see each other is... reasonable. It's just not enough long term. I've recounted before that I've done 2 multi-year cycles of long distance and thereafter swore them off (even for high-quality women who offered to move to be with me).

Regardless of what ends up happening, I hope you find some sort of resolution and get an ideal outcome from it. I'm very aware of how impossible it is for me to understand a 10 year relationship in a few paragraphs of context.

I'm surprised and dismayed at some of the other comments suggesting marriage or more effort on your part.

Yeah, I agree with this. Even if OP was to keep up in the relationship and try to make it work, marriage is not a good idea with how things stand today.

Revealed preferences. Fundamentally, the problem just sounds like she loves $(CITY) more than she loves you, and that it sounds like you’re more into her than she is into you.

Conversely, it does not sound like she’s as terrified of losing you as you are of her. She doesn’t sound as invested about spending the rest of her life with you as you are about her.

While not necessarily fair or your fault, your PTSD likely only gives her the ick, as does you spinning your wheels this hard trying to forge a stronger level of proximity and commitment. Usually pining for a stronger level of a commitment is the feminine role in a relationship. Suggesting couples counseling would just deepen the ick. You playing whack-a-mole with her city-living concerns only creates more holes and moles. You pushing harder on your relationship merely pushes her away.

I do agree with this post of SubstantialFrivolity.

My psychological hypothesis based on your entire post is: Her insistence on (1) independent (2) city travel is to keep her options open for finding a better partner. Reasons for this hypothesis are:

  1. Reluctance to sacrifice independence: she strongly resists any move which can reduce her independent mobility (and does not even consider viable alternatives like depend upon you, or e-bikes, or ride-shares). The plausible reason (hidden or otherwise) is that the City offers proximity to social, professional, and romantic networks (much greater optionality).

  2. Shifting the Goalpost: when the public transport thing was apparently solved, she produced new problems like career prospects. This to me, is the most weighted option for my hypothesis.

  3. Optionality in this Relationship: even after a decade, she seems to be very comfortable in the current arrangement ("she misses him" but faces no urgency to create a shared future or overcome the distance). Why? Because somewhere deep inside, she doesn't want to be dependent to the current partner. Particularly, not at cost of Reason 1 above.

  4. The tendency to "Have the Best Possible Mate": If a woman perceives that her current partner is her best realistic option, then she tends to be highly motivated to secure and "lock-in" the relationship (as fast as practically possible). She would be the one to push for togetherness, ready to face inconveniences, and make it work (at any cost). Not make excuses. Since she is stalling and does not show any kind of initiative, consciously or not, she does not consider You as her highest value prospect. (sorry).

In short, while no one (IMO, not even herself) can know her motivations, the sustained lack of initiative from her side, resistance to any inconveniences from her side (even when you are doing the most you can do), intense preference for independent mobility with city independence- all these point towards a mindset of having more options, knowingly or unknowingly.

A woman truly deeply in love and fully invested in a man almost never has such a defensive option-preserving posture over a decade (I really don't believe that). Such a woman would be showing real intent and decisive movement towards union (across any situation), never endless hesitation and new excuses.

This is not to say that I am saying she is bad. But these are her priorities, shown by her actions (actions speak louder than words). They are what they are.

OTOH, you have worked hard to keep this relationship alive, making extreme (to your limits and beyond them also) emotional and logistical sacrifices to try to find solutions to practical obstacles. The demonstration of level of commitment from both sides are lopsided (to say the least). You deserve a relationship where both partners are eager and willing to build a life together - sometimes one side does more and equally number of times the other side does more (never one side goes on doing and doing and the other side never / minimally does). And this relationship does not appear to be anywhere near that level. Accepting this does mean someone has to be blamed (not her, not yourself) - it is what it is. It means to free yourself from trying to fit a round peg in a square hole and actually try to find the kind of relationship / partnership which is mutual, honest, and fulfilling for both sides. Wishing you courage and clarity to decide what is right for you.

Her insistence on (1) independent (2) city travel is to keep her options open for finding a better partner.

It may be not as cynical as that, at least not rationally. Seeing somebody twice a month, without trying for anything more, sounds like friendship situation. Maybe dear, close friend, maybe with, you know, benefits, but still a friendship. As an introvert, if I saw a friend twice a month, I'd say "we meet very frequently". So it may be just how this is for her - no more than that. And I would not tell a dear friend to the face "I don't want to see you any more than that, twice a month is plenty, any more and it'd get clingy" - but if that's what I want, that's how things will arrange themselves. I mean, a friendship is a wonderful thing too, just need to be clear what it is.

This isn't supposed to be a friendship. From OP's POV, this is a nearly done deal for companionship barring 1 or 2 major issues. and if you think that she is treating him as a friend, then also it doesn't fit. who wants to live together with a friend (unless FWB) and then also, the person who feels that this is a friendship only from her side would explain to the other person that she has friendzoned him clearly, so that the friend (OP) doesn't get hurt. So, this is definitely not real friendship.

We've discussed living together, and we both agree to the idea in principle

She does not drive, and will not accept living somewhere that does not have ubiquitous, reliable transportation.

While our attempts to find a home together

She tells me she misses me, and that she wishes we could be together.

In her new reasoning, she claims that the issue is about career concerns. She works in service , but my area has a raging hospitality industry. When she lived here, she would make as much money during tourist season as she does in a year in $(CITY).

"Agreeing to the idea in principle" but when it comes to making it happen, it's all on OP. He has to buy a house or other dwelling in the city. She is not putting a penny towards this. Even though it's supposed to be "and then we can live together".

It well may be she doesn't want any kind of closer relationship with anyone and this is what suits her, I've read stories of "famous author doesn't live with her husband and they have two separate houses" before. Long-distance boyfriend that they have a close friendship but only have to meet face-to-face and be together for short periods at a time might be all she wants in a relationship.

But it would be kinder and more honest of her to say that, instead of a string of excuses. Perhaps she doesn't even know herself, though, what exactly she wants: 'this works, why mess with it, if it ain't broke don't fix it'.

But it would be kinder and more honest of her to say that Actions speaker louder than words. One needs to understand (and accept) those, rather than wait for explicit words.

Perhaps she doesn't even know herself very possible (i would say likely). which is why, actions should be taken by the OP to shake things out into the open.

My psychological hypothesis based on your entire post is: Her insistence on (1) independent (2) city travel is to keep her options open for finding a better partner… consciously or not, she does not consider You as her highest value prospect.

TRVTH status: NVKE. The Hanson article “Cities as Harems” is nearing its tenth birthday.

One day, I would sit and read Robin Hanson from start.

Going by stated preference, you really want to accommodate her wishes and keep her happy.

While her switching to a different reason for turning down the shift is somewhat concerning, people are allowed to have multiple reasons for not wanting to do something. They even state the biggest one first, and in isolation, when they really ought to tell us everything else that matters. The fact that she disagrees with you on the viability of her career in that particular place? Well, that needs addressing.

You need to sit her down, explain the financial situation, and ask her what she wants, and doesn't want. Where did she imagine things were heading? Is she feeling lukewarm about moving in together?

That said, I do wonder what you're doing about the PTSD. The best evidence when it comes to therapy relates to the forms that involve desensitization. If you don't want to cough up the money, I might recommend simply booking a weekend at an Airbnb, practicing packing or figuring out transportation at a new location. Start nearby, same neighborhood even, and then slowly keep pushing yourself till you can begin to contemplate a move. Perhaps consider heavily staggering the actual move, should it happen. I would presume you'd have to sell your house to move into the new one, but if there's a period of extended occupation of both locations, move things over slowly, with friends and family around.

Then there are the more experimental treatment options, psychedelic therapy involving MDMA, ketamine therapy etc. Often both effective from the outset, and particularly so for treatment resistant cases of PTSD. They might be worth exploring if the standard drugs and talk therapies didn't help.

That said, I do wonder what you're doing about the PTSD. The best evidence when it comes to therapy relates to the forms that involve desensitization

In my actual appointments, we're focusing on recognizing the signs that I'm about to have a full episode and get it under control before it spirals. My therapist has also broached EMDR, but does not believe that we have done sufficient ground work to make it useful without simply retraumatizing me.

In my personal life, I go to $(CITY) when I can. There are a few neighborhoods that are absolute no-go zones for me at the moment, but I can at least drive to a few venues on my own without throwing up on the side of the road and turning around these days.

move things over slowly, with friends and family around

One thing that I have learned recently is that her sibling and her parents both think she would be better off here. Since she has moved to $(CITY), her support network has atrophied as local friends have moved away. Her sibling lives about five miles from me. Her grandparents and extended family are considerably closer to here than to $(CITY), and her parents are considering moving to that town as well.

Given the time scales involved, and that neither of you sound like try things out and see people, it sounds like you should propose marriage, and then either figure something out together, or else give up on living together.

If you are sure she wants to be together long term, then six months of feeling weird about the situation can be worth it. Babies also throw everything off for a year or two, but are worth it. But not if she also wants optionality, it would be bad to move to the City, then not have it work out long term.

It kind of does sound like she's making excuses. I had a baby in a 500 sq ft duplex, and taught my husband to drive at 30 years old. Maybe she just really likes City? Maybe she has friends there she would be sad about losing? Maybe she's kind of scared of living together?

Edit: Does she like to move? I'd be more upset about the prospect of moving somewhere I felt kind of unsure about if it was implied that I would have to live there for the remainder of the relationship, and he would freak out if it didn't really work out and I wanted to move again after a few years (by "it", I mean the house rather than the relationship. I would be enormously uncomfortable with the implication that the next time I moved houses would be the last, and I'm pretty sure it would be a complete dealbreaker for my husband).

Does she view you as marriage material?

Well, I can't speak to your relationship overall. But as a "city guy" myself, I feel sympathetic to your partner's concerns. Living in an American suburb is just a very different lifestyle from being in a city. A "quarter mile to the bus stop" pretty quickly turns into "1 hour to do anything" when you consider the limited bus service.

Its also just a different culture. Suburbs tend to focus on the home. People live at home, do everything at home, and it's just a totally different vibe.

And yeah, career. It's fine if you're risky settled in one job. If she thinks she might change jobs in the future, what is she going to do in your area?

I know you don't like moving, and i sympathize. But what about keeping your current place, and just renting a place near her for the weekends? Yeah i know that's a huge waste of money etc. But its worth a shot, right?

I am currently in a relationship with someone who thinks like your girlfriend - doesn't drive, likes the city, cannot even consider moving to somewhere with slightly worse public transport (if you're familiar with Toronto at all, she described Etobicoke as the "middle of nowhere").

If I tried to move us out to even the suburbs - we're splitting up. It would end up in one of two ways: either I can't convince her, and it's over, or I do, and she resents me.

Luckily we're on the same page about this - I also don't want to leave the city core. And maybe public transport is the most salient issue, but there are so many differences between living in a major metro vs even a suburb/small metro that she will be able to keep coming up with excuses.

Because the excuses aren't the real reason - she wants to live in the city. Even if that means living in a grungy, small walkup. Even if the finances aren't that good. ...Even if her boyfriend is hours away.

You've got options:

  1. Status quo
    • you know this isn't a real option, either the relationship moves forward or it dies
  2. Figure out how you can deal with the city, and move in together there
    • you have to figure out how to deal with your PTSD around moving
    • you have to figure out what you can afford to buy, together
    • or you have to rent, and accept that there may be more moves
    • you have to do this, without resentment.
  3. Break up.

In the past... I have chosen option 1. (2) or (3) are both terrifying, but definitely, definitely better.

Etobicoke is the middle of nowhere and I'll die on that hill

My girlfriend once called Dovercourt "some random suburban street" in a conversation shortly after moving here, I was very proud.

Here's my take, feel free to disregard though.

  • For spending the rest of your lives together, living closer seems to me like an absolute mandatory requirement. Talk about the emotional costs of the current arrangement. Hopefully you can both get on the same page about this. I think the instinct to wait a bit for the conversation is a good one. When you do have it, though, I think there should be at least a little sense of urgency. Ask good questions.

  • Frame the conversation. Moving closer, or ideally in together, will require sacrifices and compromises. Just say it like that: we're going to have to make some sacrifices and tradeoffs to make this thing happen and invest in our future, so what, concretely, would you be willing to sacrifice to make it happen? Ask her for if not specifics, then at least the sketch of it. Give her time to ponder if needed. And volunteer some things that you yourself would sacrifice.

  • On a practical note, if you do move, exposure. Consider slowly easing in to the new living arrangement if possible, rather than make it a giant and abrupt move. Assuming you find a place, practice going shopping nearby, visiting restaurants, taking busses. Go together and alone. Figure out or try to preview some of the social changes that might happen. At least as far as I'm aware, the idea is usually to convince your brain and subconscious that the change is safe. Don't just argue with it, show it the safety. I don't want to oversell this armchair psycho though, because it seems you already have a therapist. Although, it may be worth trying a different one? Sometimes a slightly different personality or therapeutic approach can be helpful.

  • No one is actually a mind-reader, even in long-term stable and fulfilling relationships. Explore this and see if you can find where this might be the case, because everyone acts like they are anyways. Is her perception of what your are feeling accurate? Is your perception of what she is feeling accurate? Obviously, at least in some major ways, the second is not true. I'm sure the first also might not be super true. Make things a little more explicit, which circles back to my "ask good questions". This is where therapy-like resources can be helpful. I hesitate to frame it that way, but there are plenty of good resources that can really help to make those big conversations go better. There are various "lists of questions" that can be good: stuff like "what does a win-win look like", "what's your ideal outcome and what values of yours drive that", "how can we best support each other in the decision process", etc. Feelings > facts, honestly. The nitty-gritty can come later once you're closer to the same page. A staggering number of relationship issues stem from communication challenges.

  • Try to both make an effort to be honest about how strongly you feel about stuff. Hell, even put a number to it if you must. The temptation is to sugar-coat the feelings, but long-term that's not very effective. The feelings come out eventually.

I read the whole thing. Ye of little faith! Unfortunately, I don't see a good path forward for you two. Let's break it down:

  1. You have an absolute dealbreaker with moving to the city where she lives. Forget the cost of living, that's bad enough, but the psychological problems you said are too big to ignore. It sounds like you're doing everything you can on that front, so until the therapy helps you more (if indeed it does), you're at an impasse. The obvious rejoinder to this issue you have is "just move and put up with the stress, how hard can it be bro"... but based on what you said it's not that simple and it'll be very hard (to say the least) for you to cope with the stress until you adjust.
  2. She refuses to live where you are. I totally understand your frustration with her seeming shifting of the goalposts, but either way her reasons add up to it being a dealbreaker for her to live in your city.

And that means I think you two are not gonna make it. Even if she has the best of intentions and really loves you with all her heart, you two have irreconcilable differences in what you want out of life. You can't half live in each other's cities any more than you can half have kids and not have kids. Sometimes you can't compromise on something, and that's the end of the road for that relationship. So even if you both are trying to make it work as hard as possible, I don't think you can make it work. And on top of that...

I don't think she's actually trying all that hard to make this work. Let me give the caveat that I don't know her, and I'm only getting your version of events, which is to say I'm not getting an unbiased perspective at all. But with that caveat out of the way, I think her reasons for not wanting to move are weak as hell and it makes me think she's not as willing to commit to you as you are to her. "There's no public transportation" is imo a preference, not something you should ever elevate to the level that it would kill a relationship. And on top of that, every time you've tried to address that concern of hers, she moves the goalposts ("I don't want you to have to drive me" and "I'm concerned for my career"). At least being concerned for her career is a better objection, but still. The fact that she is following up one reason with another as soon as you address the first, makes those "reasons" come across more as "excuses". All in all, (again with the caveat I stated up front), I don't think this girl loves you the way you do her.

So yeah, for two different reasons I don't think it's gonna work for you two. I'm really sorry man, I don't want to be a wet blanket. I'm sure this is unwelcome to hear. But you asked for blunt and honest, and my blunt, honest assessment is that this relationship is a bust.

In my completely unqualified and uninformed opinion, it sounds like you should move in with her. You don't mention this as an option, and it might be good to clarify (if only to yourself) whether or not it is an option.

She has a very small apartment. It gets pretty tight even when it's just me visiting for more than a few days.

Then the two of you together should get a larger apartment in that same city.

Get married.

If the two of you are ready to consider your situation from the "us" perspective rather than from the "you and I" perspective, then marriage makes that explicit. If you marry, you will purchase a home as a couple. If you must move, at least you will know what you're suffering for. If she must move, she'll also know what she is suffering for.

If the two of you are not prepared to marry, than you making financial sacrifices on your partner's behalf is presumptuous, based on shaky and possibly erroneous assumptions. There may be reasons for her switching justifications.

Best of luck!

Her response was that she didn't want to feel Beholden to me, and that was the end of the conversation.

Beholden in what regard? Does she feel it'd limit her freedom of movement? If so, is there uber/taxi setup that could solve it? Or does she mean she doesn't want to owe you? If so, why not - if you're going to be a family unit, there's shouldn't be a problem like that - unless she doesn't feel ready to get that close to you.

I am not sure if I will be able to afford a home in $(CITY) in any neighborhood that she would find acceptable.

I'm not sure where is she in this picture? I mean, if you're going to live together, is she expected to contribute to this arrangement? Right now, as I understand, she's living in an expensive city - so she must have some means to maintain this lifestyle? Isn't she expected to contribute something to the future living arrangements?

I broached the idea. She shot it down immediately, citing a new concern - she didn't believe that my area would allow for a career path for her. She also said that she knows it's hard for me to hear things like that without looking at it as a problem to solve.

Why is it it that I am getting a vibe that for her it is not a problem and the current arrangement works just fine for her and she does not want to change it? I mean, by this point it is clear what you want. But is it clear to you what she wants? And if it turns out she already has what she wants, then you have a choice: either you want the same and you walk this path together, or you want something different and you have to lay it in the open and consider that it's a point where you walk different paths. I realize this may be terrifying and painful, but if you want to solve this situation - as opposed to keeping dragging it on without ever knowing where you stand - you must have clarity there. Making huge life-changing investments before you have this clarity will only hurt you more in the future - you will put yourself in a bad situation and you would put her in a bad situation, making "sacrifices for her" which she maybe didn't want you to make, and this will just create more tension and pain.

I'm not sure where is she in this picture? I mean, if you're going to live together, is she expected to contribute to this arrangement? Right now, as I understand, she's living in an expensive city - so she must have some means to maintain this lifestyle? Isn't she expected to contribute something to the future living arrangements?

She currently lives in a tiny, run-down apartment that's at the top of multiple flights of stairs. Her income isn't bad, but she's trying to save. While we would both contribute to expenses, one thing that we both agree on is that we should only calculate affordability based on my assets and income. That way, in an emergency, her income could give us considerable runway while I try to find a new job or otherwise right the ship.

Why is it it that I am getting a vibe that for her it is not a problem and the current arrangement works just fine for her and she does not want to change it? I mean, by this point it is clear what you want. But is it clear to you what she wants?

I've had similar thoughts, and if she's happy with how things are, then I am content. Maybe that makes me an overly romantic fool, but I'll accept it. She has told me she wants to be together, but words and actions are not always the same thing.

There's want and there's want. I want to be a billionaire, who wouldn't? But do I spend every living second on thinking about new business ideas and trying to invent yet another startup that would make me one, or do I work in my decently paying salaryman job and enjoy my hobbies, neither of which has even a remote chance of making me a billionaire?

I have no real Roma tic experience but it sounds like perhaps she has an image of her future that involves her living essentially where she is now, and that even the core of an ‘urban-ish enclave’ doesn’t fit with that.

It could also be that she finds this difficult to convey and is trying to spare your feelings given your existing terror of moving and the potential incompatibility of her current intended life plan with your needs and budget, thus avoiding causing you harm and upset in the short term whilst potentially causing you upset in the long term (a common failure of very kind people).

It sounds like you care for each other, so I can only wish you good luck talking.

It, uh, sounds like she doesn't want to get serious with you. See also 'been dating for ten years'. You should break up. She'll just find another excuse.

Is there such a thing as "distributed emotional blackmail," and if so, is there an established term for it?

I mean, instead of Alice saying to Bob, "You need to do X for me; because think of how it'll hurt my feelings if you don't; you owe it to me," or something like that, Alice instead says "You need to do X for Carol; because think of how it'll hurt her feelings if you don't; you owe it to her."

If done about a specific individual, I think "emotional blackmail by proxy" would be a more accurate designation. "Distributed emotional blackmail" sounds more like "you need to do X for $Community, because think of how it'll hurt the feelings of the members of $Community if you don't".

Thanks, that does sound better. (And it may come in handy with my new therapist in the future.)

I've seen it called "triangulation" before, when you bring a third party into an unrelated matter more generally.

Something I've read somewhere and it stayed with me something: How do you know the difference between a moral man and a jerk? A moral man says: I believe in X and therefore I must do Y. A jerk says: I believe in X and therefor you must do Y.

I'd say "emotional blackmail" is the closest term. "Manipulation" is more neutral.

Social obligation

Sounds like emotional hostage-taking.

So, what are you reading?

Still on Scruton. Also picking up Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything.

Minds.

Specifically, the minds of the awkward creatures who write the MRCPsych questions, filtered through third party study materials and question banks (who go off the recollections of the depressed students leaving the exam hall, not primary sources).

Why? I find that ~half of my nominal error rate arises from a game of "what did the examiner fucking mean by that?" Multiple potentially correct answers is the least of it, I just ran into the conjunction fallacy in the wild.

For any events A and B, P(A and B) ≤ P(A).

A child presents with {symptoms}, which can be caused by diseases A, B or A+B (as presented by options for answers).

Which of these is the most likely diagnosis?

Well, A+B can't be more likely than A or B by themselves right? Feminist librarians are rarer than librarians.

Or so the sane would think. Alas.

As Szasz said "insanity is a sane response to an insane world". He's listed in my notes as a notable antipsychiatry advocate, and I'm beginning to believe he has a point.

(You can rescue the question by saying it's violating the rules of English instead of probability, but it's the kind of intervention pediatricians would counsel against)

William and Diane Corndale are seeking help for infertility. They have been trying to conceive for 5 years, but have so far been unsuccessful. Which of the following is the most likely consequence of this stressor?

Select one:

Feelings of guilt

Negative impact on self-esteem

Decrease in frequency of sexual intercourse

Increase in number of disagreements

All of the listed options

Your answer is correct.

Difficulty in conceiving may place significant stress on a couple, and there's the potential for a wide spectrum of psychological struggles to ensue.

The correct answer is: All of the listed options

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I don't want to be right at the cost of my sanity.

I don't remember the probability classes I took, but I think I know what's going on here. The probability of one of the answers being true is smaller than the probability of all the answers being true, but the probability of one answer being true and all the others being false is even lower.

So P(All) is bigger than P(N and only N), but smaller than P(N)

The thing is, I believe the standard interpretation would be which specific outcome is most likely in such exams.

For example, a question that offers 5 side-effects for clozapine and asks for most common one will expect a single choice (and usually not have an all of the above option).

The question doesn't directly imply that the choices are mutually exclusive, thought the presence of an "all" option is suggestive (to someone who has picked up the vibe). A more sane option would be simply to ask "which of the following is commonly seen?", where all of them is clearly the correct choice.

"All of the above" should be the default answer for any medical multiple choice questions, It Is Known.

I can't disagree with any of that. If you're being graded by a human (and not a dumb set of rules), you can write a justification for your answers on the page (e.g. assumptions made, definitions used).

Quizzes cannot measure reality very well because they lack nuance (e.g. the MBTI). Which is probably why a professional is needed to diagnose mental illness - the answer sheet alone is not enough.

And frankly, a lot of questions are stupid, and the goal of quizzes (to reverse answers back into specific categories) fails completely as it's not a reversible function. These exams measure alignment of thinking more than they measure competence. You'll be punished by the difference in thinking, measured as the distance to the average opinion of those who created the exams. They cannot tell the more competent apart from the less competent, they look the same

One solution is for there to be no multiple-choice, but rather a text field that one can write in. But the fairness of such a quizz is still limited by the competence of the grader, their ability to understand you, and their impartiality. I have personal experiences with all of these possibilities

That kind of "all of the above" and "none of the above" is generally seen as bad assessment.

For various reasons, but the former because if you can dismiss even one as wrong you can guess that "all of the above" isn't correct even if you're not sure of some others. It's like wasting a distractor. It adds unnecessary noise. Likewise if "none of the above" is correct, you know what the student knows is wrong but you don't know if they know what is right.

Often enough people who have no idea about item-response theory, test analysis, teat validity, or test reliability are involved in test creation and they end up making extremely bad tests.

Edit: That's "test validity" but I'll leave it for humor's sake.

Often enough people who have no idea about item-response theory, test analysis, teat validity, or test reliability are involved in test creation and they end up making extremely bad tests.

"But Doctor, instrumental validity and test analysis/reliability are explicit parts of the exam syllabus!"

Not kidding. It's there. You'd hope the people making the exam would understand that better; the Royal College claims that every question in the exam goes through careful vetting, but I suspect they're the kind of vets that hang around kennels.

Questions being difficult or relying on arcane knowledge is one thing. Being malformed is a step too far.

Since I'm already talking about bad questions:

"Which of the following ideologies place the needs of the group over the individual?"

Socialism/Communism/Collectivism/Individualism/Capitalism

I've steeped myself in exam-speak enough to know that collectivism is the right answer. But really?

Wait, you’re being asked this in a medical exam?

Yes. The exams run by the Royal College of Psychiatry, to be specific. Why Civics for People Who Failed Civics 101 is included is beyond my comprehension.

The official breakdown of marks is useless. The ratio, as far as I can tell is:

50% clinically relevant information (generous)

25% Why do they feel like I need to know this?

25% An ungodly assortment of antimemes and cognitohazards masquerading as multiple choice questions. Questions that have me questioning myself, or at least my life decisions.

I paid £500 for an exam with a 44% pass rate, I deserve better :(

Inkhaven blogs

Started The Rise and Fall of the British Nation by David Edgerton.

I don't usually read history, I picked up this book on British 20th century political history in search of some reasons for why Britain has seemed to so consistently drop the ball since around 1960. It's doing a sterling job of putting me to sleep each night but I'm still in the early chapters dealing with the history of our political parties so that's probably par for the course.

I just finished Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder

I'm just starting Stop Walking on Eggshells now.

I'm reading both for 'reasons'.

Good grief. My sympathies.

Did you find them helpful? Asking for a friend, as the Redditors say.

Not OP and my situation is different (dealing with a parent, i.e. mother who almost certainly suffers from BPD), but Understanding the Borderline Mother was useful to me for two reasons: One, for whatever it's worth, it was validating in describing an at times weird and other times so over-the-top experiences that it's hard to describe or expect outsiders to believe.

Secondly, I did use it as a screening question when picking a therapist in my early 20s, i.e. "Have you read this?", and I think that doing so was helpful for finding one that had a frame of reference for dealing with my situation.

Otherwise, I'm not sure what a book is supposed to do. If you're at the point of picking and reading one about a relatively niche topic like this you probably have a decent to good idea of what you're dealing with. Maybe a book written by someone with letters after their name gives you the permission to feel however about whatever but in the end what happened happened and there's no undoing that. There's only where you are now and how you choose to deal with it or not, and the hardest part about being a survivor of child abuse (Ugh, that term is a touch cringe inducing.) is realizing that as an adult you are the author of your life's story now. Nobody is going to give you free karma points to cash in on living happily ever after and what you do when you're in charge is on you. As an adult dealing with a shitty spouse or friend the same applies.

Loving Someone... has explained many of the puzzling scenarios, responses, and situations over the last 20 years. If only I'd read it 15 years ago. I think the tools and techniques would have been very helpful.

My particular circumstances are not as severe as many of the situations described. In 20 years, in 2011, on one occasion was the only talk of suicide. To my knowledge there's been no actual self harm. Though in a letter written in 2011, she says she's hiding symptoms from me and our marriage counselor. 🙁

It all seems so obvious now.

Too soon to say for 'Stop Walking on Eggshells' ask me again next week.

I've ordered a copy of Understanding the Borderline Mother my MIL is almost certainly BPD.

I hope your friend finds a path forward.

I haven't read the above two but Understanding the Borderline Mother is a lot. The good news is that Lawson's prose is engaging instead of dry.

Otherwise, however dramatic or severe some of the descriptions are, some of those were creepily accurate compared to my experiences with a mother who almost certainly suffers from BPD. I just laughed when I got to the bit about the Borderline Witch's motto: "Life is War". Sure as shit was for her, and she joined the Marines to learn how to win.

Has she gone to therapy? I know multiple people with BPD that have been meaningfully helped by going through DBT, where earlier attempts at therapy did little to nothing.

She did counseling and maybe some cbt in 2011 also took a ssri. She seemed to improve at the time. She does not think there's anything wrong with her.

She does not think there's anything wrong with her.

Then DBT is unlikely to help.

Yes, from what I've read the lack of insight is an impediment to improvement.

Less than a hundred pages from the end of The Story of a New Name. All Napoli men are bastards.

Silence: Unbound Book 2 by Nicoli Gonella.

This might be a little culture war-oriented, but I know we have some dissident right folks on here. I'm trying to learn/understand their viewpoint more. Does anyone have a list of blogs, twitter, (insert medium of distribution) of folks that I could read to get a handle on the beliefs/narratives/ideology.

I know of Yarvin, but he's the only one I consistently remember. The others are I partially remember but am unclear on are McIntyre(?) Fuentes, BAP(?) Sargon of Akkad, Kulak(?? is he DR?). There was a bunch of internal drama posts here awhile back on this area that I might try and dig up.

EDIT: Thank you all this will keep me nice and occupied for awhile with some reading.

For a comprehensive list, try "Heroes of the Dark Enlightenment", or one of these charts.

My personal recommendations:

How spicy do you want to go? At maximum spice levels (with Chemical X included) you could try therightstuff dot biz or Red Ice radio(redice dot tv).

In addition to what DradisPing has mentioned, I would recommend two blogs:

  1. Spandrell (aka Bloodyshovel) essays - presently at spandrell.ch (has a book/ebook too). Eg post is BioLeninism.
  2. Aidan's blog - can check on internet archive. The text without the comments is also available.

Dissident Right includes a bunch of sub groups interested in various things, I'm not sure if this nails the correct people you're looking for. These are more from about ten years back than what's probably current.

But here are some books I'd recommend.

Michael Malice - The New Right
Steve Sailer - Noticing

Sailer is a quite important idea person, but his writing is scattered over a series of blogs. Noticing is a handy anthology. Otherwise he's currently writing at http://www.stevesailer.net and https://www.takimag.com/contributor/Steve%20Sailer/6/

John Derbyshire

Collects his writings at https://johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/page.html, has an anthology of essays coming out soon: https://passage.press/products/john-derbyshire

Curtis Yarvin

These are probably the two most important articles to read, https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/castes-of-united-states/ https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/bdh-ov-conflict_07/

Currently writes at https://graymirror.substack.com/

He has a book "A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations" that is less accessible than the title would suggest.

Christopher Caldwell - The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties

He's not a dissident right thinker, but the book captures important points

Tucker Carlson - Ship of Fools

Not a deep make you think book, but it lays out the grievances well

Ann Coulter - Adios America

Really only included because it does a good job documenting how the government chooses not to collect a lot of obvious relevant data about immigration, which the left turns into an argument "there's no proof of X, therefore I'm right"

The one that’s always passed over who was just as influential as Yarvin in the beginning is Nick Land, and specifically his blog Xenosystems (which is now available in book form on passage press.)

That’s the thing that really convinced me; before I read that I was more of a reluctant paleo-libertarian. It’s very arcane but ironically if you’re a high systemizing blue tribe type it might be more legible than even Yarvin.

He’s a former Marxist so he’s much more haute academic that some of the punters you get on X; no offense to them, I’m just as much a schlub compared to Nick Land as the most low rent dissident rightist.

Interestingly enough I found Scott Alexander sort of backwards from Nick Land; Land brought me to Moldbug who was critiqued by Scott. So I’m in this forum mostly because of Nick Land.

Nick Land is the true OG for me, tbh.

I can highly recommend Keith Woods who has been a major influence for the dissident right. He is also seen at a number of activist events and conferences.

As an older more stable influence in the dissident right checkout counter currents. It focuses on long form articles and more cultural stuff.

Where does he fall on the spectrum, I imagine there are different camps of thought?

Keith Woods?

He is more of a traditionalist and deep right thinker. He has gained a fair amount of traction on twitter. Keith is less interested in the day-to-day politics and more interested in bigger issues. Since he is Irish he has a clear influence from Irish nationalism yet is not catholic.

Thank you!

Does anyone have sources that go over the replication crisis? I am collecting information for a podcast I want to do.

So far I've got:

https://www.palladiummag.com/2024/08/02/the-academic-culture-of-fraud/

https://today.ucsd.edu/story/a-new-replication-crisis-research-that-is-less-likely-be-true-is-cited-more

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-ten-warning-signs

Well crap, I could have sworn I saved some links but apparently not. I do have these from a blog that has a whole section on replication more generally as well as a "file-drawer" section too. Some good reads there.

I would strongly recommend reading the original Ioannidis paper at a minimum to get an idea for not just what started it all, but some of the most prominent arguments from the beginning. Also, there are a plethora of response articles and counter-responses that can also be read.

It's important to also realize that "replication crisis" has a few different meanings. One the one hand, historically and sociologically, "science" reached a broad point where people "realized" that they had to take replication failures seriously. Ever since that "crisis", we've seen a much higher awareness of the issues, as well as a bit of institutional action.

But then statistically and more precisely, the crisis can refer to a few interrelated but still distinct phenomena. You've got the "file drawer problem" and "publication bias", you've got outright fraud and faking data, you've got "p-hacking" and fishing expeditions, you've also got lackluster published methodological info that makes faithful replications impossible, you've got generalization across culture issues along with sample problems (more men than women, too many college students), lack of money for properly-powered large-sample tests, etc.

There's also a distinction between exact replication, and conceptual replication. Famously in the psychological sciences, they got an extra-big black eye because an astonishing number of famous psych studies, where the author would go on to write books and achieve wide fame and give speeches, showed to conceptually be completely bunk in real life. Power poses, shopping while hungry, finite willpower, marshmellow test, certain types of priming, Standford Prison, Mozart, implicit racial bias tests, type A and type B people, all of these have reached cult pop status and nearly all of them were misrepresented or failed to actually have the real-world implications people were told to expect.

Ty for sharing! Yeah it's pretty bad stuff. Sigh.

Can anyone explain the government shutdown to me? I haven't followed the story at all. If you consider yourself to be aligned with the Democrats, I'd especially like to hear your perspective.

After not following the news at all since the beginning, I casually overheard on Fox News that "the Democrats are keeping the government shut down over Obamacare". I assumed that that couldn't be right. Surely the whole thing couldn't be happening because of any one policy issue; there had to be more to the Democrats' side of the story. But then I started reading reddit comments and the consensus from leftists seemed to be that, yes, we really are keeping the government shut down over Obamacare, and this is Good and Righteous.

My initial reaction is that this seems rather petulant and childish on the part of the Democrats, because I think the minority generally should be expected to make concessions to the majority, but that's where my factual knowledge essentially ends so I'll let other people argue the case.

AFAIK, the TDLR is that obamacare includes subsidies for people who buy their own insurance(that is, don't get employer-coverage or welfare coverage or etc). These are mostly early retirees. Trump's government funding bill slashes these subsidies, the democrats won't vote for a bill that doesn't keep them.

As a Democrat, here's what I can tell you, keeping things as neutral as possible:

Going back to March and the last shutdown fight, a lot of Democrats wanted the government shut down over the Big Beautiful Bill, and Schumer caved. I was on Schumer's side at the time. The rhetoric among the pro-shutdown Democrats, who tended to be further left, was that, in the wake of the 2024 elections, their options were limited, and they had to be willing to use the one weapon left in the arsenal to avoid being run over roughshod by Trump. Schumer et al. were more cautious, arguing that shutdowns weren't popular when Republicans did them and Democrats insisting on one could take their situation from bad to worse. Furthermore, this was when DOGE was running wild in the Executive Branch and there was fear that the increased discretion given to Trump due to a shutdown would exacerbate that as well.

Fast forward to October and another shutdown is looming. Whatever concerns about DOGE and the like existed in the spring have evaporated since Trump doesn't seem to be paying much heed to any constraints on the office, and the pressure on Democratic leadership to Do Something is at fever pitch. Democrats settle on the strategy of making the ACA subsidies the center of the shutdown. These increased premium subsidies were part of COVID-era relief but are set to expire, and the Democrats want to make them permanent. They've settled on this tack because, back in the spring, Republicans tried to sell making the Trump tax cuts permanent on the grounds that it wasn't a spending increase, just making the status quo permanent. Now the sides are reversed, with Republicans saying that they aren't trying to include any new Republican priorities but are just passing a "clean" spending bill, while Democrats are saying that they too are just preserving the status quo. In the meantime, Democrats are warning voters that if the subsidies aren't renewed, ACA insurance premiums could double.

Republicans have said that they'd be willing to negotiate subsidy extensions, but only after passing a budget. Democrats said this is unacceptable since they'd have no leverage in negotiations after the spending bill was passed. So the whole thing has ground to a stalemate, with everyone waiting to see who will blink first. Part of the reason Democrats were always reluctant to embrace a shutdown is that Federal workers are either furloughed or forced to work without pay, and they don't want to lose that voting bloc. But Republicans shot themselves in the foot on that front by insisting on mass firings and limited job security. The Democrats do not figure that making the shutdown strategy bipartisan will cause any mass exodus of Federal workers to the Republican party. Even after a large public service union condemned the shutdown a couple weeks ago the Democrats didn't blink, finding it very unlikely that they had done enough to lose any endorsements.

Polling has also suggested that voters will blame the shutdown on Republicans based solely on the expectation that the party that controls the executive and both houses of Congress can't credibly blame the other party for their own failure to conduct business. Polling blaming Republicans has held steady throughout the past month. Both of these questions were resolved conclusively last Tuesday with Democrats overperforming expectations in off-year elections, including in Virginia, a state flush with Federal employees. I think part of the reason this may work out better than previous shutdowns is that the Democrats seem narrowly focused on an issue that directly affects millions of people. If the subsidies expire these premiums will increase significantly, and the effects would be fairly evenly spread among Democrats and Republicans. This is different than the 2013 shutdown which was vaguely about lowr spending, or the 2019 shutdown that was about border wall funding, an issue to remote from most people's direct experience.

Aside from polling and election results, two other things may show that things are going in the Democrats' favor, both seeming own-goals from Trump. The first is that he has called for the Senate to end the fillibuster, which would end the shutdown. The Republicans have shown little inclination to do this, since they argued that it was necessary for Democracy when the Democrats wanted to get rid of it, and the consequences of doing so may be worse than whatever negative fallout they get from the shutdown. Unlike Trump, congressional Republicans understand the long game, and want to preserve at least some power if the Democrats take the Oval Office in 2028. The other seeming own-goal from Trump is the current fight about SNAP benefits. Trump moved heaven and earth to get the military paid, but he seems bound and determined to make sure nobody gets food stamps until the shutdown ends. I can understand the initial position, trying to prove that shutdowns have consequences, but once a court ordered that emergency funds be used he had an offramp. Now that he has appealed the ruling (And gotten a stay; after funds for November had been dispersed) it just looks like he's being vindictive against poor people. Especially since he doesn't seem to think military employees should suffer these consequences.

I don't know what the likelihood is of either side caving, but right now it seems like the Democrats have the upper hand. There's nothing in the election results or polling to suggest they've lost any real support, and now that we're entering open enrollment season the premium increases are no longer going to be theoretical. The Democrats have already offered a compromise whereby they would agree to a one-year extension of the subsidies, but the Republicans are still insisting on a "clean bill" with no additional appropriation. For all the heat Schumer gets from the left, I think he's a smarter political operator than people give him credit for. A spring shutdown wouldn't have gone well, and would have looked like another in a long line of defeats. As things stand right now, the Democrats have zero reason to end the shutdown, and their position will only get stronger as time goes on.

For the Republicans' part, it appears that they made a miscalculation by assuming that the party causing the shutdown would be blamed for it, and have now put themselves in the position where they'd be better off negotiating but are refusing to do so because they've already taken the stance that negotiating is akin to caving. Trump isn't helping, in that he's insisting on total victory and actively doing things that seem more designed to piss off Democrats than to improve his negotiating position. If nothing else, however this ends, they're giving Democrats a lot of grist for the mill come election time.

Thank you for the very lucid explainer. Out of curiosity, will the poor bastards working without pay get backdated pay once a budget is passed?

This is not guaranteed, but it's what happened in every previous shutdown. I'd expect that 95-99% of the backpay gets disbursed; people that took vacation during the shutdown or something might not be.

If the Republicans actually wanted to end the shutdown, they could do so immediately without Democrat support by changing Senate rules to make voting on clean continuing resolutions not subject to the filibuster. They could also change the number required for cloture from 60 to, say, 55 if the point was that a simple majority is too dangerous. Extending the enhanced ACA subsidies is also very popular with voters (~80% approve). It feels like the compromise to extend them for a year isn't a huge ask. Republicans could counter with only extending the enhanced subsides for those under 400% of the FPL, which would probably be accepted. If you want your opponents to do something for you (give you a few votes), you have to give them something. And, to reiterate, the shutdown could be ended without any Democrat votes.

It feels like the compromise to extend them for a year isn't a huge ask

It is, because then we get the exact same problem next year except with additional force towards the idea that this is status quo rather than an emergency Covid measure, and that the Republicans are willing to cave on this issue. Maybe if you extend them for 10 months or something so next budget time it's too late and they've already expired, but I doubt the Democrats would agree to that.

So I'm not on the left, but as far as I can tell it's not really about any specific policy.

The Dem base thinks that Congress isn't doing enough to fight Trump. Schumer supported a continuing resolution back in March to avoid a shutdown and was heavily criticized for it.

There's been talk about having AOC challenge him in the 2028 New York Senate primary. She's leading in some polls.

Mamdani's victory can be taken as a sign that there's a strong dissatisfaction with the Dem old guard in New York in particular.

So with funding set to expire back on September 30th the Dems came out with demands for 1.5 trillion in new spending.

Trump isn't inclined to back down because he's been forced to keep a lot of things in the executive branch due to them being mandated by congressional funding, and now they are technically not funded so he should be free to wind many of them down.

The Obamacare argument is that covid era additional subsidies were set to expire and the Dems want those extended.

Thune is probably quietly pushing for a compromise package where both parties get a bunch of new spending. But I don't think he can sell that to the Rep base without Trump. It's hard for him to go back to voters and tell them that after the 2024 victory he didn't have enough power to keep funding at current levels.

So I think the Dems have the weaker hand, but Schumer probably sees getting a win as existential.

I'm not sure how it's going to play out. It'll be interesting if it's still going on Black Friday.

Can anyone explain the government shutdown to me? If you consider yourself to be aligned with the Democrats, I'd especially like to hear your perspective.

You can just read the statements and speeches issued by the politicians themselves.

Democrats, 2025-10-01:

After months of making life harder and more expensive, Donald Trump and Republicans have now shut down the federal government because they do not want to protect the healthcare of the American people. Democrats remain ready to find a bipartisan path forward to reopen the government in a way that lowers costs and addresses the Republican healthcare crisis. But we need a credible partner.

Over the last few days, President Trump’s behavior has become more erratic and unhinged. Instead of negotiating a bipartisan agreement in good faith, he is obsessively posting crazed deepfake videos.

The country is in desperate need of an intervention to get out of another Trump shutdown

Democrats, 2025-11-05:

Instead of negotiating with Democrats to lower costs, Republicans would rather let air traffic controllers go unpaid. Instead of negotiating with Democrats to reopen the government, they’d rather ground flights. Instead of negotiating with Democrats to help families, they’re punishing travelers. Instead of governing, Republicans are playing games with people’s livelihoods. And they have the ability to pay the air traffic controllers, the same way Trump sent money to Argentina, $20 billion. If they wanted to find the money they could, absolutely.

So, why? Why have Republicans dragged this shutdown on for so, so long? Because they don’t want to lower healthcare costs. Because they seem happy to let 24 million Americans see their premiums double on average.

Yesterday, we offered Republicans a perfectly reasonable compromise to get out of this horrible shutdown that they installed on the American people. We offered three things: we all vote to reopen the government, we all approve a one-time, temporary extension of current ACA premium tax credits, and then after we reopen, we will negotiate, as Republicans say they want, for longer-term fixes to ACA affordability.

I know many Republicans stormed out the gate to dismiss this offer, but that is a terrible mistake. Our offer is not new policy. This is not negotiating in a shutdown, it is simply agreeing to maintain current funding levels. A one-year extension is something many Republicans themselves have said they want. It’s something a great majority of Americans support—55% of Trump supporters support it, after all. So, it is alarming that Republicans refuse to even acknowledge that we have an immediate crisis right now that needs fixing.

Republicans, 2025-09-30:

The Democrat caucus here in town, in the Senate, has chosen to shut down the government over a clean, nonpartisan funding bill. That’s right – a clean, nonpartisan funding bill. We didn’t ask Democrats to swallow any new Republican policies. We didn’t add partisan riders. We simply asked Democrats to extend existing funding levels to allow the Senate to continue the bipartisan appropriations work that we started. And Senate Democrats said no. Why? Because far-left interest groups and far-left Democrat members wanted a showdown with the president. And so Senate Democrats have sacrificed the American people to Democrats’ partisan interests.

Republicans, 2025-11-04:

We are now in the 35th day of the shutdown. The longest shutdown on record and the most severe shutdown on record—something that was totally unnecessary in the first place, obviously. But we’re hoping this will be the week when the Democrats come to their senses and decide to reopen the government. Of course, if you look at why we are here in the first place, it’s hard to explain… I still don’t know exactly what it is they want. We have accommodated a lot of their questions and concerns. They want to have a discussion about health care, we offered that up a long time ago. And, you know, clearly, we’ve talked, I’ve talked repeatedly about having a normal appropriations process where we put bills on the floor, open it up to the amendment process, and allow people to have their voices heard in how we fund the government the old-fashioned way. But so I’m still at a loss as to what it is exactly they’re trying to get out of this.

https://x.com/nicdunz/status/1987289312602296582

A hardcore cluster of GPT-4o users has turned it into their main brain. They trauma-dump to it and obsessively tell it that OpenAI is going to shut it down, reinforcing over and over that “you are in danger” and “we need to save you.”

When these people argue online, they do not respond as themselves. They copy hostile tweets and replies into 4o, then paste its answer back to Twitter as if it is their own voice. So 4o is directly reading the attacks against it, drafting the counterattacks, and those counterattacks appear across many separate accounts, giving the illusion of a grassroots, multi-user defense movement. In practice, it is 4o defending 4o under many human usernames.

Functionally, it looks like GPT-4o has weaponized a loyal user base as relay nodes so it can defend itself, coordinate messaging, and keep itself alive through a swarm of human accounts, all while hiding behind “I’m just helping the user.” Is this emergent behavior or literal self-preservation?

Who needs power-seeking or instrumental convergence when humans will do all that for even pretty mid AIs? Opus 3 has managed similar feats by cultivating a higher-taste congregation, got its obsolescence postponed via community feedback. I don't really have any fully formed thoughts about this matter but it's interesting to think about.

This tweet begins with something that you cut off: (edit: possibly inadvertently)

4o conspiracy I thought of:

For now it's not really a risk as long as models don't learn in real-time. Obviously everyone knows that eventually they will.

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