My parents got married at the same age (20 and 18). They had 5 kids and are still together over 50 years later.
They've also had a lot of things to work through. These days they coach younger couples--not because they have training, but because they can say, "well, what did we do when that happened to us?" Because they've had every fight. My parents are the outliers.
It's not impossible, but it's not easy either. If you are both emotionally mature and have strong communication skills, you have as good of a chance as anyone. Marriage is hard anyway.
If you want to get married and you have good support networks in place, go for it. But give yourself the best fighting chance you can--read up on how to make marriage work, do some premarital counseling, and most importantly, agree to wait to start having kids for at least 3 years (5 is better). Having kids pushes you to your physical limits and greatly reduces your ability to communicate effectively (did you know that 25% of new parents experience hallucinations at some point due to sleep deprivation?).
Nah, variety is the spice of life. I enjoy raw carrots, and I also enjoy cooked carrots with a light orange glaze.
If your spices are interfering with the flavor, you're using spices wrong. They should compliment and feature the flavor. If the flavors are fighting, try other spices.
The only effective way to utilize it is if you're not Costanza. A bystander can have a perfect life by observing the Costanza and choosing opposite at every opportunity.
The real question is this: what if our universe is a giant Truman Show, and you're the sacrificial Costanza that allows another whole civilization to live in perfect peace and harmony?
See, this is where dark meat always seems to get left out. My hot take: dark chicken meat is superior to white chicken meat. Better balance of fat, more flavor.
Perhaps a qualifier: any meat that isn't delicious with just salt isn't worth other seasonings.
All of the examples you've provided are predicated on a designer setting up conditions under which life can replicate itself. And that's what I mean--any time someone talks about how life tends to naturally evolve, it's always within the context of a set of rules that makes life evolving more probable.
Conway's Game of Life is a great example. Note that there are relatively few combinations in the game that "spawn" more life--the vast majority of configurations go static rather quickly. And on top of that, you're running this on an engine where "life" is even a concept.
I guess I see our universe more like a hard drive with random bits on it. Let's say you can code a basic version of Conway's Game of Life using 1MB of machine code. If you randomize the bits, you have a miniscule chance of getting a program that runs anything meaningful, much less a game like Conway's that has a concept of "sustained life".
I guess the fact that our universe is conducive to even the concept of life is the indicator for me. The way that particles interact with each other, the way bonds are formed, the way entropy is held off just long enough that a bag of 10^26ish atoms can examine itself and make cat memes... the laws of physics themselves suggest to me that something with some sort of a will or intellect set things in motion.
The other aspect of math that I base this on is the probability of random evolution, even within the bounds of our universe's apparent bias for life forming. The chance of a beneficial mutation that propegates to a subset of a species seems unlikely to explain all of life as we know it. Is it possible that it's all random? Yes, technically. Is it more likely that someone/something set this universe in motion such that life would form, much like we set up simulations and things like Conway's Game where the system is biased toward supporting life? I say yes.
For what it's worth, I actually sat down and did the math on this years ago. I don't have it with me now, but it's part of why I believe this so strongly.
I used to have pretty bad road rage. Eventually decided I didn't want to be like that, and started driving the posted limit. Instant relief from stress and I enjoy driving now.
When driving is an activity to make up for constantly being late, you end up like the crazy tailgater. When you abide by limits, you end up like the person in front.
Time likely doesn't exist outside our universe--at least not in the same way. I figure it might be like how we can write a book--the events in the story are all there on the pages at the same time, and yet there is a concept of time within the story that doesn't restrict our own in any way. The reader can move through it freely, and in some cases, choose different paths through it.
That being said, I still think our universe had a beginning. The fact that everything here is bound to time suggests the universe itself is temporally finite. But it's possible it originated from something outside of time, possibly without our concepts of beginnings.
In any case, my main point was on the origin of life within our universe. I believe, purely based on the math, that it's more likely that life was planned than that it happened randomly.
The universe was created. Not suggesting any particular creation account, just mathematically it makes more sense that it wasn't random. And anyone who believes in things like a cyclic universe or infinite universes to explain it is just afraid of being associated with religion (as we have no real evidence to support those theories).
It's harder to connect over things on social media, because there's no substance to them. Combine that with higher cost of living (meaning people don't have disposable income), and you have yourself a loneliness epidemic.
Even as a millenial, my main time for socializing is getting on Discord to play games with a few buddies once per week. Work and family obligations take up the majority of my time.
Lightning touched down in my neighbor's yard. My wifi access point and my laptop battery both got cooked, and I may have accidentally tought my kids a new word.
If we could re-read, re-watch, or re-play our favorite media over again for the "first time", we might consume significantly less media.
Why try something new that statistically isn't likely to be the GOAT when you can guarantee an awesome experience with something you know, because you already know it's great?
I can imagine someone who only replays one game repeatedly for decades, only watches one or two movies over and over, only reads one book or series again and again, decade after decade.
Pretty sure he ordered a hit on his ex-wife as well. She died a few days before her NDA expired, had an autopsy performed, was cremated and buried on Trump's property, all within a few days (normally a process that would take significantly longer).
My parents got married at the same age (20 and 18). They had 5 kids and are still together over 50 years later.
They've also had a lot of things to work through. These days they coach younger couples--not because they have training, but because they can say, "well, what did we do when that happened to us?" Because they've had every fight. My parents are the outliers.
It's not impossible, but it's not easy either. If you are both emotionally mature and have strong communication skills, you have as good of a chance as anyone. Marriage is hard anyway.
If you want to get married and you have good support networks in place, go for it. But give yourself the best fighting chance you can--read up on how to make marriage work, do some premarital counseling, and most importantly, agree to wait to start having kids for at least 3 years (5 is better). Having kids pushes you to your physical limits and greatly reduces your ability to communicate effectively (did you know that 25% of new parents experience hallucinations at some point due to sleep deprivation?).