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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 17th, 2023

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  • Seems kind of extreme to suggest such a drastic scenario. The possibilities are more numerous than either he’s 100% fine or dead (which, btw, you are the one “putting that into the universe). I wouldn’t guess that’s what people were thinking… rather that perhaps he was in ill health, had lost interest or had other projects that were taking priority, perhaps due to practical financial considerations. Thankfully Ernest has posted an update answering this question, and he says while he has been hindered by some health circumstances recently, things are basically on track.





  • There’s a point for some people where you live with your parents because they can’t really take care of themselves, you don’t have kids and are free to move… uh, speaking from personal experience. My dad is losing it and my mom is close to that, and I just ended a relationship recently so it makes sense I’d live with them and help them in the interim. It’s not exactly a new relationship magnet though.

    As far as your situation, you’ll know when the time is right to move out imo. The standards of “move out and have your own house at 18” is outdated due to realistic modern economics. It would be when you meet someone and want to move in with them and taking them to your parents would seems absurd. You’re educated, you have a job, you’re expressive, you’re doing fine.





  • Sometimes they get tens of thousands, like if they convince the person to invest in a fraudulent investment scheme. Also, it’s not fulltime work with one person… maybe an hour or a few a day per victim, and they do several at once. Reply to one person, reply to another one while waiting to hear back, reply to another… and sometimes the people doing the ‘work’ are merely employees working for a wage or percentage! If they’re in a country with a different scale of currency like China, Brazil or Moldova, 10,000 USD would go a lot farther than in the US.

    Anyway, it’s not theoretical. Check out this Wired article for instance, or one on ProPublica. They’re basically the same as the “I’m a lonely doctor in the military in Africa” romance scams that have been going around social media for years, somewhat descendants of the famous Nigerian Prince scams.


  • It definitely sounds like a ‘pig butchering’ scam. They find someone lonely, give them a sob story, proclaim a special bond, talk to them for months, then start asking for money or pumping an investment scheme. Most likely, he would never come to your country, but rather will start saying “i need <thousands of dollars> to travel there…”


  • The video length was pretty limiting, though. Instagram at the time started doing 15 second videos. The six seconds lent itself to goofy comedy and not much more.

    It seems like they should have sold it. Or just jammed in a bunch of ads… maybe an option to remove ads with a paid membership. Simply killing it doesn’t make any money other than to avoid losing more, and they’d already invested a fair bit which you can’t recoup by just closing something. Of course, Google does that all the time I guess.