Energy has historically been much cheaper in the US than the rest of the world. I remember hearing somewhere that in cost per unit of gasoline the US is something like 30-40% cheaper than Europe. During this gasoline price spike and the last one, I did find a part of me hoping it would sustain so that lifestyles would adjust to be a bit less careless about fuel consumption.

What I've observed, living in a rural area of a rural state is that once gas prices get up to around $4 per gallon, people start making small changes to save fuel. If they have a gas gusling truck and a comparably more fuel efficient SUV they might drive the SUV more. Workplaces become more thoughtful about making their employees drive in unnecessarily. Car dealerships start advertising fuel efficiency rather than hauling capacity. People will think twice about extra trips out, or select closer trips.

Once the higher prices are sustained for a few months, I expect that super commuters will start recalculating if they can still afford their commute or need to change jobs. Folks in the market for a new vehicle may buy a more fuel efficient vehicle, and new lifestyles will bed in with a bit less driving for most people

Once the higher prices are sustained for a year or more is when I expect more noticable changes to take effect. Sales of fuel efficient vehicles will likely tick up, electric vehicle sales may also increase, solar panel installations will likely increase, and the most inefficient vehicles on the road will become a bit less common. This is the timeline I've observed and expect respectively for gas prices remaining around $4/gallon.

Now if they go really insane and get up to $6-8 per gallon average for over a year, that's when I'd expect a big uptick in people choosing to go car-free or car-lite, I'd expect to see a lot of new companies starting up to try to capitalize on the demand created by the fuel crisis, and I'd expect established companies to begin investing in more R&D into more financially risky and exotic solutions that can be expected to save energy

It's a deceptively simple math problem. You only have so much surface area to cover in solar panels and solar panels only produce so much energy per square meter. You can fit maybe at most a kilowatt of solar panels onto a vehicle if we're being generous, and those panels aren't going to have optimum placement for power generation, and solar panels don't generate their peak output for more than about an hour per day, so the rest of the time will be significantly less than that. Let's be generous and say 3 kilowatt hours is being generated by those panels in an 8 hour workday of being parked in the sun.

3 kilowatt hours is a lot of energy, but let's not forget that about 20% will be lost to battery and circuit inefficiency, so 2.6 kilowatts is ultimately useable. But here's where it really falls apart: electric cars are extremely energy-hungry because cars in general are super inefficient. You're literally moving a ton of plastic glass and steel around, accelerating and decelerating repeatedly, all to transport on average 1.2 humans. Electric cars consume about 150 watt hours per kilometer in their regulatory tests. Some are more efficient, some are less but no matter what it's a ton of energy. That generous estimate of 2.6kwh will give you a whole 17 kilometers of range.

In short, the solar panels on electric vehicles are for show. They exist to trick buyers into believing they're more efficient than they are, and probably they'll help ensure a parked car doesn't lose too much range just from sustaining itself while parked. Also private cars are an extremely inefficient method of transportation

Reading between the lines, this definitely sounds like a form of sex addiction that you're experiencing. Any kind of addiction is best tackled with professional help, and second best with the help of friends. I would strongly suggest in addition to seeking professional help, also talking to your friends saying "hey this is something I'm struggling with" and if they can be accountability buddies that's even better!

Any addictions I've kicked and lifestyle changes I've made have been most successful by slowly adjusting. Quitting cold turkey is the easiest way to fail. Unlike my changes which were kicking coffee/caffeine, and reducing screen time, yours is is a perfectly healthy process gone awry, so your goal may not be complete elimination, but just a reduction back to a healthy level. You seem reluctant to share your current baseline, and I won't push, but the easiest place to start is to say "I can wait another 20 minutes before I do that" and put it off a little, and just keep putting it off a little longer.

Maybe you might find doing a healthy habit every time you feel the urge to musturbate helps, such as doing 5 reps of a calisthenic exercise (excercise is also helpful in redirecting the blood that would otherwise be headed south!) or drinking some cold water (when I was quitting coffee I'd put my glass of cold water right next to my coffee. Every time I would reach for the coffee, I'd redirect my hand to the water and only go for the coffee if I still felt I needed it after the water, which most of the time I didn't!) or maybe you're just needing something to do with your hands and that's how you end up masturbating some of the time. In that case, have you tried investing in some kind of fidget toy? Maybe try keeping that in your lap so every time you find your hands going for something to fidget with you can move to the fidget box or whatever instead.

It's all about slowly shifting your normal, the same way that habits are formed just in reverse. It's not going to feel like you're making a big change at any point but tracking progress can help. Keeping a daily log of how many times you masturbated, when and for how long can help to see the trend. I would also suggest including the consumption of sexual content in that log. Just like masturbation it is perfectly healthy and fine for adults to consume sexual content, but too much of anything is going to be bad for you, and you'll probably want to figure out your current baseline and goal for that as well.

Small steps can make a big impact in the long term. Just being able to set a small goal each day of "I'll wait a couple more hours before I do that" or "maybe I'll tackle cleaning today's dishes before I rub one out" can add up faster than you might think. When I was quitting coffee, reducing from 64oz per day down to about 12oz per day only took a few weeks of active effort and was relatively easy with these methods, but eliminating down to zero took actual commitment. Reducing my screentime also took a few weeks to adjust the habits and baseline so that now I reach for a book or go work on a project instead of playing a video game for 4 hours. I haven't pushed it to zero and that's not my goal, so I'm close to where I want, I just have to keep this new baseline for a while so that it sticks

Carp everywhere

Sounds like you need to make friends with some fishermen!

I literally only started caring about doing anything when when I decided I was trans. Kind of hard to start a hobby when you literally don’t enjoy doing anything at all.

Mental health can be a pain like that for sure! I'd still super encourage you to try something even if it's just going for your stupid daily walk for your stupid mental and physical health. Even if you do it just to spite me and prove me wrong!

Sounds like a good plan to go try stuff on with a friend though! Lean on your friends while you heal, that's what friends are for!

This is correct, baby wipes and similar are not flushable. The packaging does helpfully say in multiple places not to flush them

I'll just drop the urban dictionary link here. Basically it's excessively long masturbation sessions involving excessive quantities of porn. Needless to say, it's not very conducive to a healthy sex life

As others have said, the very first step should be therapy. 1 week after a hard breakup is not the time to be making major life decisions if you can avoid it. I know it sucks but you're going to need time to heal. The way you wrote this it sounds less like discovering yourself and more like a form of rebound.

Since it sounds like you're really grasping for something real to do right now, I'd suggest picking up a hobby, ideally something working with your hands/body in the real world like drawing or painting or sewing or running or biking or something

I also wonder if you need to spend more time figuring yourself out. Go to the mall and try on some clothing and see how it feels. Play with your hair a little. But mostly I'd suggest focusing more on a hobby for a few weeks and let your questions about yourself linger for a bit while you get through the roughest first part of the healing process

1 week after a breakup is again not the time to make life changing decisions. 1 week after a breakup is definitely the time to start therapy, poke at some new hobbies, go outside and move more and maybe go clothing shopping if you have the budget.

Also baby wipes are extremely effective for those with hairy bums, and unscented baby wipes are going to be way cheaper than camo styled tactical "man wipes" obviously it's more wasteful than a bidet, but if it works it works

Every body is different, but if you have trouble with appropriate butt cleanliness, it may take a combination of things to achieve cleanliness

All of my desk chairs across my house are 50+ year old office chairs. If your chair budget isn't massive look for old office chairs, especially from government surplus auctions and the like. Mine were all gotten for free when workplaces happened to be replacing some furniture, but I also regularly see local schools listing office chairs in surplus auctions

Your comment reads like a joke, but since you're saying it's a real question I'll bite:

For soft surfaces like carpet, couch cushions, etc. carpet shampoo can be very effective. Basically vaccuum, then squirt it on the surface, brush it with a carpet brush and let it air dry, then once it's dry vacuum again. For food stains, try to clean it up before it dries. As soon as it happens, wipe it up with a paper towel, wet the paper towel with water as needed, or better yet, avoid the risk altogether and don't eat at your computer. There's a surprisingly massive gain in quality of life by having an actual table to eat at in your home, even if your meals aren't particularly fancy or planned.

Hard surfaces will vary depending on the material, but it's hard to beat wiping (and scrubbing as needed) with bleach water. Smaller items like computer peripherals may be cleaned with either a damp paper towel or Clorox wipes, or for a really deep clean take it to the sink and scrub it with water and dish soap (just make sure there is no power sources for 48-72 hours and it fully dries before applying power again)

Edit to add: for really stuck on grime on items that can be submerged, soaking in hot water with a dash of vinegar can be very effective. Or if you need some chemical assistance throw some baking soda on it, pour some vinegar on said baking soda then scrub with hot vinegar water.

Yeah when I first saw the footage I assumed it was fake because it did not look like most plane crashes