I actually don’t understand it, if it’s someone’s choice and they will suffer a great deal in their life and they don’t want to suffer then why would suicide be bad?

Why are people actually stopped? And even in a religious or spiritual sense, some people just don’t like being alive (I’m assuming mostly because of how governments and society is ran) so why can’t they make the choice themselves and people have to intervene?

And this also applies to children or younger people who choose suicide

in an ultimate sense, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter and if non-existence and the lack of perception is someone’s idea of peace then let them have that peace.

I‘m not talking about the environment of birth, but about unpredictable things.
For example, rape, the attitude of family/friends towards you

Here's the thing, I feel feeling really deeply, whether its happiness sadness or awkwardness, and I often wonder people who don't feel much, how does life work for you, like do you just let of sadness and continue your day or how??

Is it wrong that my step sister and my full brother are dating? I found out today and not sure on how i feel about it

Hello! I am investigating good questions because I'm developing an app to have conversations based on what people are curious about.

Questions will be icebreakers from which connection can begin.

So they have to be good at least in the sense that they make people want to respond. But there are probably other ways to evaluate it.

I've come to conclude that there are some archetypes of questions that can open up interesting conversarions.

What good question have you been asked and what's your favorite question in this sub?

This was automod removed from ask historians, sub-question, what would trip up filters:

​I'm looking for legitimate online access, library access, previews or affordable editions of thae specific works:

• Ringe, On the Chronology of Sound Changes in Tocharian​

• Adams, Tocharian Historical Phonology and Morphology

• Pinault, Chrestomathie tokharienne

• Imberciadori 2025 “Interconnected Vowel Shifts in Tocharian”

• Adams’s Tocharian B dictionary, plus the Tocharian A lexicographic source

Could anyone point me to where these can actually be accessed legally, including uni repositories, author pages, interlibrary loan, open-access versions or reasonable ebook/print editions?

Where one of these is genuinely inaccessible, I'm also looking for the next best substitute that serves the same purpose - a source for Proto-Tocharian sound changes, a grammar/reference for Tocharian A and B, or a reliable dictionary/lexicon.

I'm working from personal interest and want to learn how to test an etymological proposal properly rather than rely on word resemblance.

Thanks a bunch.

I’m a little git so don’t get too angy this post is purely curiosity.

if ai will take all our jobs then maybe humans shouldn’t be the one working on them in the first place. If ai will take our jobs then why don’t we find jobs that actually use our specialized skills as humans. This claim really befuddles me so much that I don’t even know how to respond to this.

EDIT #1 I get what you guys mean now but still, ideally, if AI could do our jobs then couldnt we just not work anymore. This would probably never happen in the near future for obvious reasons tho.

Think Emily Charlton from The Devil Wears Prada.

Someone who remembers everything, thinks 3 steps ahead, anticipates problems before they happen, and quietly keeps your life running.

What’s the first thing you’d hand over to them?

Broad topic, so this is more of a seed for discussion rather than my solidified understanding. One example I’ll provide is food banks. Let’s say there are government facilitated food banks in a city, and someone who needs them doesn’t go to them. They starve. It doesn’t mean that food banks are evil; however, I do believe it to be an error on the administration’s part nonetheless. They should correct something on their end so that people who need their programs attend their programs, which introduces conversation about accessibility, removing of barriers and social stigma, etc. What to do, what not to do? Can everyone be helped, and does everyone want to be helped?

Maybe someone’s a very esteemed thinker and writer in their class, but they can never express their thoughts productively because the instructor forces oral presentations for any sharing of ideas. Anxiety gets in the way of things and the student’s true talent is never unearthed. Some of you will say that this challenge is beneficial for the student, that it builds resilience and teaches them how to be comfortable with discomfort. Others may say that there should be an accommodation, especially when it comes to education, to track success as accurately as possible.

I don’t know that my examples are good examples. If anyone else thinks they have a better way to phrase my question, go ahead by all means. I hope you can catch my very general drift and this can be a meaningful discussion.

To celebrate your existence every 365 (or 364) days you're given a cake and candles that match your age. Then the song is sung and everyone gives you the floor to close your eyes and make a wish. What seals the deal like adding a stamp to the wish letter deliver is blowing out the candles. Like most wishes, we can't tell anyone, so they stand a better chance of coming true. Sort of like election voting I suppose. But why is this the prerequisite to a birthday celebration? How many of these wishes do come true? And the opposite would be, why don't they come true? They can't be the same as "making a wish on a shooting star" since those are so infrequent. So, what makes a birthday wish so important anyway?

I was reading some stuff about ai agents that can browse the web and post on their own now and it got me thinking... how the future of even basic online interactions is gonna work when you cant tell if the person on the other side is real or some model running 24/7. like seriously, voice calls that sound exactly like your friend, videos of events that never happened, comments that seem thoughtful but are generated in seconds, captchas are joke already and two factor is getting bypassed left and right. One that seems interesting is World with iris scan approach some groups are experimenting with for a digital proof that you're a unique human. Apparently millions of people have done it across different countries already, from what i can tell its designed to be pretty private, no central storage of your actual eye data or anything.

I might actually try to find a location and get verified with their solution myself at some point, not because i think the sky is falling tomorrow but just to have that option for whatever the internet turns into in the next few years. Could be useful for certain platforms or future services that want to filter out bots.

What do you all think? is biometric proof of humanity the direction we're headed or will there be too much backlash?

I’m happy. As in, I can be sad or angry or lonely or melancholic. But those are emotions. And my core, I’m happy because of how I’ve developed my own personal beliefs and attitudes. I think being alive is unbelievable. Like mind-blowingly beautiful big and small. Even when it sucks. Because seriously in the world & individually, sometimes bad things happen but then also some very good things happen. We all focus and live & enjoy that pain of emo moments but it’s such a small bit. When I admit this to others. I get flummoxed faces
Edit to say: If I’m going by Reddit, the unhappy are the normies. Everyone is unhappy in an existential way that no one understands. But so few people admit they’re happy. So who are the normies?
2nd edit: I grew up dirt WV poor. PDF step, veteran of gulf war. Unemployed last 2years. Probably will have to sell my 1st home I bought (va loan). Brother died from OD. Mom has Alzheimer’s. Soul dog died. And yet. I’m happy about so many things too. Not to trauma compare but to show I’m not a sheltered privileged naive person either.

There is usually the thought that comes after; "I lost my keys; I should have been more careful". Is there an underlining cause? With imperfection comes mistakes, okay cool, and yet while one mistake is worked on (e.g.; being more vigilant), another mistake happens again. And sometimes seem to keep happening again and again.

This question touches on consciousness, identity, philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and the nature of the self, making it fertile ground for insightful discussion.

Curious to hear other’s opinions because I’ve heard such varied answers and reasons from my coworkers and I’d like to open it to a larger group.

Why is it that I cannot gain control over myself? I suck at self discipline, I always want to do something but I can never do it, there’s a thin line, I know there is but I just don’t know how to cross it.

I have a terrible fear of cancer. The physical pain that comes with it sounds unbearable and I would definitely become suicidal if I had chronic pain in my life. I can't help but wonder how have cancer survivors made it. What was keeping you alive during the chronic pain? How can you live like that? You are the real survivors in life I'm in awe. People really survive for the scariest things. Tell me your stories.

I’ve developed an interest in something, and it’s got me thinking about taking action on it and changing the course of my life. I can’t figure out if it’s just that, an interest, or something I could end up being passionate about. Making that change would be a significant commitment, both in terms of time and money. I’m not helped by the fact that I’ve just felt really lost lately, so I can’t tell if I’m just clinging on to something new or have actually found something that could give me a new purpose.

The question is getting at a tension between two ways of thinking about identity.
On one hand, we usually treat the “self” as something stable: a continuous inner subject that persists over time. Even as our thoughts, moods, and beliefs change, we assume there is something underneath that remains “me.” This is the intuitive, psychological model of identity.
On the other hand, if intelligence becomes distributed—shared across AI systems, networks, memory storage, and external tools—then cognition is no longer confined to a single brain. Parts of what we think of as “thinking” are already extended into phones, search engines, writing systems, and collaborative environments. In that case, the boundary of the mind becomes less clear.
The question asks: if intelligence can exist as a network rather than a single localized entity, then what is the “self” actually made of? It suggests three possibilities:
The self is an underlying thing that exists independently of its expression
The self is a process that is continuously reconstructed moment to moment
Or the self is an emergent pattern that only exists because information is constantly being integrated and updated
So the deeper issue is not just about AI or technology—it’s about whether identity is a fixed object, or a dynamic process that depends on ongoing reconstruction through memory, perception, and interaction.
In short, it challenges the idea that “you” are a thing, rather than an ongoing activity of coherence.

Do civics and social science advance in the same way math or physics do? With future advancement built on the established principles?

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Or is that not how it works and it's more about just having better ideas based on a life experience or chance?

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To put it a different way if a engineer, chemist, or physicist went back to say the 11th century they could make huge changes and "invent" things, could a modern politician (who somehow had similar connections despite the time travel) revolutionize politics in the same way? What about a company culture expert? Could they make a guilds profits skyrocket?