Burning plastics at less than 1200°C releases dioxin... AKA Agent Orange.

That we know of so far... Release the Epstein files, Krasnov.

His analogy is spot on. I thought NZ had more spine...

"The Egg" is an interesting thought experiment and encourages empathy with others (much needed), however in my opinion it doesn't make sense as a religious belief in a few ways.

Primarily, what's the point? If "our" soul/spirit/essence doesn't remember our past lives, we aren't able to evolve humanity with the aggregated experiences and wisdom. The benefit implied by the story would be a grizzled singular soul with the experience of every human who ever existed... But to what end? Are we a training program for an advanced AI model created for the benefit of another dimension?

What about proto-humans such as neanderthals? Hominids and every mammal in preceding evolutionary chain? If anything, the egg would refer to the collective lives of every living creature to have ever existed. Even single-celled organisms? Alien life forms?

Third, you & I exist now, in parallel. I can't be you while also being me, unless the royal "we" is not a singular entity but rather a multi-threaded process feeding something one layer up. This might go back to the AI modeling concept, and perhaps "simulation theory".

If we are a simulation to train or experiment via advanced civic AI model, we individually are expendable iterations. Data points in a massive soup of existence, itself being one of a multitude of similar simulations.

Do what you can to improve the existence you reside in and those sharing it with you.

May I suggest a monthly gallery post instead? While I appreciate your commitment to your hobby art, it is littering the feed - on Reddit too, but more so here due to the low volume of non--your-drawings posts.

I can circumstantially pretend to be outgoing and enjoyable for short interactions with strangers or people with little impact on my life. Phone calls and virtual work meetings for 1 hr or less are OK, but you bet your ass I'm walking away from my desk immediately afterwards to decompress.

The kicker is I question whether I'm actually introverted. I've always had an incredibly difficult time making friends, even as a kid. The isolation is absolutely soul crushing sometimes. I crave and thrive on very close friendships... Even 1-2 is enough, which in our society is conducive to dating -- and I eventually met an extroverted ray of sunshine who I'm still with. I still don't feel like I belong around her friends, though, all these years later. Social anxiety is a bitch.

A strange observation: I've found myself far more comfortable with people from a certain region, about 3 hrs from where I grew up, but had no exposure to as a child. Interactions with them tend to be relatively effortless and enjoyable (is this what extroversion is like?).

In summary, I very much despise the way I am, but most people are on a significantly different social wavelength than I. The energy required to match those foreign wavelengths is measured in gigawatts... except for my wife and a few prior long term girlfriends.

I plan on someday experimenting with psilocybin as a therapeutic tool to better understand and potentially (partially?) mitigate some of my social puzzle and trauma believed to be a source of "introversion".

Perhaps this resonates with you or someone else reading this.

Discord is OK for real-time chat or VC, but is awful for forum-like discussions. Comment-specific context is lost in the single-threaded noise and search is borderline useless. The true forum-designed format of Lemmy, Reddit, and predecessors is far and away better. In my opinion Twitter - the legacy, ubiquity and tech - would be a better forum than Discord. That was hard to type and I need to quickly bleach my fingers.

I'm going to suggest possibly irresponsible advice, but step 1 - you need to solve your depression and porn addiction, and ASAP. For that you could try therapy, and/or psilocybin or DMT... Not a heroic dose, but enough to get introspective from an altered POV. Therapy is the obvious long-term recommendation, but the psychedelic route may get you there faster, and you might learn a few things, such as your social obstructions or root causes.

Second, you need a close friend, at least one, preferably one who is also your desired romantic demographic. Maybe not someone who you'd normally "go for", but who you'd be happy spending time with - platonically, romantically, whatever it does not matter. The goal is to ground yourself with empathy for that person, and they for you too.