Currently playing MGSV on PC. I never got into the metal gear franchise because I wasn’t willing to keep up with the play stations. But it’s a surprisingly good game. A little fan-service here and there (cough, Quiet) but the gameplay is solid. I like how they tie achievements with in-game rewards, things like rescuing a certain prisoner unlocks a new type of weapon or something. It’s a good motivation to complete all the optional parts of the missions. And the missions are replayable, which gives you plenty of opportunity to get the best ratings and rewards.

Whether humanity will survive really is an open question. Despite all the rhetoric and protests and promises the annual CO2 emissions have continued to increase steadily. It’s wishful thinking to imagine that we are going to do anything about this before the consequences of our choices force our collective hand. Any report or scientific paper that includes a phrase like ‘there is still time’ is just not accepting the reality of the situation. A year ago James Hansen published Global Warming in the Pipeline where he wrote “Equilibrium global warming for today’s GHG amount is 10°C”. A 4–7 degree rise over 5000 years ended the last ice age, Ocean levels rose 400 feet. A 10 degree rise in a century or so would be way too fast for most species to adapt. It would inundate the majority of our most populated cities. I could go on, but I get depressed writing about this.

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Maybe a relationship will just come to you and maybe it won’t. A lot of the advice you get in these kind of threads is like ‘just be yourself’ or ‘don’t be desperate’ or ‘be comfortable on your own’ or whatever. None of that ever worked for me. I was never able to just be myself or be on my own without feeling lonely and desperate and that made me seem weird and off-putting to potential partners. Honestly it took recognizing my mental issues, getting serious about finding a solution to them, and working on them for a while before I was able to act like a normal human around someone I was attracted to. In the end what worked for me was a combination of Buddhist meditation and some kind of therapy. But everyone is different. YMMV.

On the other hand maybe you are perfectly comfortable in yourself, are handsome and charming, and have no trouble talking with women, but you just met some women with issues of their own. If so, just try to get out more and meet more people. In that case it’s a numbers game and eventually you’ll find the right one.

Ok, I’ll be that guy. Yes, the kid actually did win all these matches. Though it’s not clear whether the old guys were masters, grandmasters, or just old.