I’m your neighbor from across the sea, in the north! Partially refunded sounds similar to what we have, but for adults too. Although whenever I hit a rocky patch and can’t afford even that, I can get it fully covered by filling a form each month.

I’m actually ass broke, really. The luck part is right, though. Happened to be born in a socialist democracy with good care and support for all.

And from the other side of that spectrum, I take the maximum prescribable in my country, 72mg, daily, and it’s been good for me. Though I’ve found that I seem to have a weirdly good tolerance or luck in regards to side effects of medications. I’ve only ever tried a few, out of so many, that caused anything undesirable at all.

Not sure if there are differences between methylphenidates though? Mine’s branded concerta.

Yeah, even a car wouldn’t have been the most horrible choice in comparison. And those are fun, while not as fun as a train where you can all partake instead of one having to drive. Unless it’s just the two of you, then a car would be a waste and also not very fun since the other’s focused on driving.

Unless they’re the sole recipient of a will (doesn’t seem very common), at least here those are almost always liquified and proceeds split according to the will. Doesn’t amount to much usually, though it might be different in countries that have very large and expensive cities.

Well, that really depends on the society. I don’t live in one that makes such assumptions. It feels a little bit entitled to assume something like that, but that could also just be cultural differences between developed and non-developed countries. The former have social security and safety nets, rendering an inheritance less important and much less prominent. Feels like the only inheritance worth even thinking about is if you have millions in excess of what you need for living, and in developed countries that is very much less prominent than in developing countries

Exactly my thoughts too. Life’s meant to be lived. Hoarding assets to save for an uncertain future is counterproductive even in terms of economy at large, if one’s inclined to think that way.

It creates expectations that don’t seem natural, and then leads to disappointments and bitterness when life does not go as planned, as it never will.

But then again, I get wanting to make things better for your children. But at least for me, it seems less prone to pure chance and circumstance if the efforts went into building a more sustainable, inclusive and supportive country to live in. And enjoy the ride while it lasts, since your pain and suffering will reflect on your children, want it or not. If things are tight and you get stressed from that, it’s always going to affect everyone around you, often negatively. If, instead, you could relieve that stress by not saving more than you need as a buffer here and now, or for something like a house (I.e not for some abstract future that might never come, for your children who might not live that far, but are here now, with you), that’s probably going to be much better for everyone. Smiles generate smiles and it’s not a zero-sum game. Life well lived is one with smiles, not one with fragile, ephemeral value of some sort stored away with sweat and blood.

But of course if there’s already too much to use realistically, why not do that then. But that’s an entirely different discussion altogether, if we ever should have something like that.

Edit: there’s a distinction I failed to emphasis enough, between a realistic and very worthwhile buffer of saved value for unexpected situations, which everyone should of course have, and saving for no reason at all, other than just having excess that isn’t needed for anything, to maybe if one’s very lucky pass on down the line.

Saving assets and value isn’t bad. But saving it for no practical reason other than inheritance, takes that value out of circulation and makes everyone in your economy worse off. If that’s important to you. But more importantly, it often means a life less well lived, and often one full of stress, tiredness and one with less time actually spend with your family and close ones in general. Which is enormously more negative in impact than any amount of money in excess, or lack thereof, could ever have when you finally die.

I never really considered an inheritance an option. Seems so off-worldly to me, even though I am by no means from a poor family, just lower middle class.

I think the entire concept of inheritance is something more prominent in developing countries like US or India, where there isn’t a well-established safety nets already in place by the government itself.

Of course we have inheritances too, I know a few who got something, but most of it gets taxed away upon receiving or vanishes covering the deceased’s debts, so I’ve never heard anyone I know get anything other than maybe a weekend vacation in the city next over or maybe a small chunk of student debt away.

Then again I’m not very well-off, and I do know there are the upper class families that have a long standing generational wealth passing over to the new generations. I guess it really depends on the circles one’s in.

But I still think it’s not as common here, at least I’ve never considered it to be normal, and I’ve known well people from upper middle class too.

Happy to elaborate, if I was unclear somewhere

My BMI is well on the obesity side, though I’m reasonably fit and more importantly, have built some muscle. I think last we checked it was around 35 or so, yet I do frequent 25km day off-road marches with ~25kg backpack just keep my body comfortable with the much less frequent, though much more enjoyable, longer hikes I try to fit in each year. Last I ran the (admittedly not all that useful) Cooper’s test, I got just past the 3km threshold.

All this, while technically being… *checks notes*… obese.

I’m 92kg and around 170cm, which I think gets close to 200lb and 5’7 in the land of the free units. Never felt better about my body and shape, although back in the day when I was doing my NCO school, I was in a much better shape. But about the same weight. Now I have some fluff on my dad belly. But I really find it sad that so many are scared of weight, when it’s the composition that matters.

I think speech like this is scaring people off of gaining a healthy amount of muscle, especially if they are longer in height than average. I’m short and I had to work a lot to get this weight and muscle. Someone tall wouldn’t have to work as much, and would not even be in as good a shape, but feel doubly worse because a lot of people just talk about all this in terms of weight.

All I’m saying is we should be critical of both using BMI in anything else than statistics where it’s at least helpful, and weight alone, which is even less helpful in any general sense. The kids will be too thin and frail in general, if they are scared of getting a healthy amount of strength, since that easily throws the scales off.

Yup, that seam/twist there on the foreground is almost a definitive giveaway

Edit: I mean I guess that especially a rich person could, for some reason, wear a weird ass scarf designed by someone who thinks in a very out-of-the-box way… but which is more likely?