I think that’s why a lot of people find addiction - to make up for what they don’t have.

You’re probably correct, although I also think once an addictive pattern is established there’s often a kind of feedback loop where the pattern interferes with your ability and options to have a better life.

If you live alone, have no kids or pets, and all you do after work is play video games or doom scroll or watch porn; as long as your bills are being paid, is this an “addiction”?

I guess there’s a few ways to answer that question. In an extremely literal sense, no one is ever going to be diagnosed with anything if their behavior doesn’t affect themselves or others around them negatively. But if we define addiction as a certain behavioral pattern, this person would still be addicted to their phone given that this behavioral pattern is present. Do they “play video games or doom scroll or watch porn” every day simply because they’re bored, or because they can’t help themselves? And if an opportunity arose and this person’s life had a chance to turn significantly better somehow, would this behavior stand in their way?

I’m not saying I know the answer, by the way, and I’m certainly not judging anyone in this kind of situation.

Let me guess, looking at a large screen on a desk?

This really raises the moral question of what are people supposed to do with their time. If you have the means to care for yourself, who’s to judge you for what you do with your time? If you choose to not have a family or not participate in your community or give back to the world in any way, is an addiction really a problem? If you’re choosing to not have a healthy productive life, is an addiction to drugs or gambling or sex or social media detrimental to anything?

I’ve never met anyone with an apparent addiction - and I’ve met quite a few in my day - that were completely happy with the life they were leading. Probably because real addiction entails a loss of control that would be detrimental to your life and self-esteem. Even if you have no one around you, if you want to do anything else with your day besides drink and you constantly fail, it’s not a good thing for your mental health. You’d continuously find yourself in degrading situations.

Coming to terms with “choice” in the context of addiction is a difficult thing to me. I’m really not sure where I stand on it. It’s definitely not the same as making decisions when completely sober, you’re not completely helpless or without personal responsibility either.

And then some people seem to be able to consume copious amounts of drugs or alcohol at some time in their life and then just walk away from it without issues. Perhaps it’s genetics, or a personality thing, who knows.

What you’re describing doesn’t sound like an addiction, no, but does that mean no one is or could be addicted to their phone?

Who could be surprised when the actual title of the site is clickbait to begin with?

I take it you don’t know about Napoleon II and III? Or even Napoleon Dynamite?

No, you have to tell women that your hobby is “listening”.

I’m the opposite, Animals and Piper at the Gates of Dawn are the only Pink Floyd albums I like.

Byrne began drawing X-men in 1977 (Uncanny X-men #108), and the brown suit was introduced in #139 (nov 1980) so 70s is definitely your best bet here. (This is 100% a Byrne panel.)

Edit: I had a hunch and found the issue, it’s from #125 september 1979, page 6 (“The perils of the Danger Room!”).

Even cnailshells would have to adhere to the basic laws of conchology though

I mean, it could be a manual photoshop job.

It could, but the double spiral in the shell indicates AI to me. Snail shells don’t grow like that. If it was a manual job, they would have used a picture of a real shell.

Edit: plus the cat head looks weird where it connects to the head, and the markings don’t look right to me.

Fine by me, it’s obvious you no longer have an argument – or anything otherwise interesting – to contribute to this discussion anyway, so what would be the point?

Perhaps, probably not - not my point though. My native language has a lot of English loan words with local pronunciation, which is the correct pronunciation of those words in my language according to any dictionary, however to indignantly correct someone using the original english pronunciation for saying it “wrong” would just be bizarre.

In English, yes. My point is that cache/r/t is the root of both words, the pronunciation changed in english which often happens with loan words, and it certainly is OK to use the local pronunciation – but correcting someone who uses the correct pronunciation of that word, with self-righteous indignation even, is very silly behavior.

“But we’ve been pronouncing it wrong for 300 years!”

I’m sorry, you don’t get to maul the pronunciation of loan words and then correct people when they use the correct pronunciation. The word comes from the french cache/casher which is pronounced exactly cash-eh. Where do you think the -e comes from?

Then it might also be useful to know that in these cases, it’s also correct to say “den är halv tio” which might be a safer route for non-native speakers.

Kudos on you learning swedish though, it’s not always easy or completely logical but coming from English a lot of things should come for free.

Swedish used to have masculine and feminine gendered nouns historically - and some dialects still do - but they were simplified into two grammatical genders, utrum and neutrum, just as your link says. (There are remnants though, for example “vad är klockan?” “hon är halv fyra”). Masculine and feminine were just squashed into the “utrum” gender, basically, and neutrum is neuter.

Lots of languages have gendered nouns, though. Three genders isn’t uncommon in European languages and in most cases you just have to learn the nouns with their genders.

Well, how about reincarnation coupled with eternal lethal diarrhea?