So a bit about me, I'm a very practical-oriented, some might say cheap person. I look at excessive luxury as a moral failing at any wealth level, either because you should be giving that money to charity, or because you should be saving it so you don't end up needing charity yourself someday.

However, finding a woman with a compatible mindset has always been a challenge, and it seems to be getting harder every year. I've been dating mostly online for a good while, and prior to the pandemic I pretty much never ran into a woman with a lot of luxuries in her life. Now it seems like almost every profile features a woman showing off a LV/YSL/Gucci purse that cost 4 figures or more. These luxury brand purchases are the hardest thing for me to relate to, because it's just the brand - it's purely to signal that you could afford to send some corporation your hard-earned money for virtually no reason. And you don't have to take my word for it, luxury goods are booming, especially among gen Y and Z.

Problem is, I'm finding it harder and harder to cut this massive chunk of the population out of my dating pool. I'm also attracted to the look of feminine accessories like jewelry and heels (isn't everyone?). And while I don't care if it's cheap accessories, there seems to be basically a 100% overlap between women who wear feminine accessories and those who like spending lots of money on brand names. I kinda hit rock bottom recently when I went on a date with a low-wage worker which made me excited that maybe I finally found someone down to earth enough, and then even she showed up with a $1200 purse (yes I looked it up).

So it's time to pause and seek alternative perspectives. I want to keep looking for the cheap-yet-feminine woman. But at the same time, I feel increasingly like I'm being an extremist. Is there some way I can understand the need for luxury brand purchases differently so I can find it more acceptable in a long term partner?

This seems insane to me. I live in a city where maybe 50-60% of people have cars, and most don't drive them that much. Yet every grocery store I'm aware of with the sole exception of the expensive Whole Foods has a fuel rewards points program. Reasons this should be controversial enough to enable a low-cost alternative:

1. Many people don't drive and therefore pay a little more for groceries because it includes a perk they don't use
2. It seems like a very ardent pro-fossil fuel move that you'd think would cause some sort of negative attention from environment activists.
3. The subsidy typically applies as an amount off per gallon, so you end up really subsidizing big vehicles with big gas tanks. Again, really makes some customers subsidize others and you'd think people (other than me) would be annoyed at this.

But yet, virtually every grocery store does this. Anyone know why? Does the fossil fuel industry somehow encourage this?

I have a vague idea to create a wiki for politics-related data. Basically, I'm annoyed with how low-effort, entirely un-researched content dominates modern politics. I think a big part of the problem is that modern political figures use social media platforms that are hostile to context and citing sources.

So my idea for a solution is to create a wiki where original research is not just allowed but encouraged. For example, you could have an article that's a breakdown of the relative costs to society of private vs public transportation, with calculations and sources and tables and whatnot. It wouldn't exactly be an argument, but all the data you'd need to make one. And like wikipedia, anyone can edit it, allowing otherwise massive research tasks to be broken up.

The problem is - who creates a wiki nowadays? It feels like getting such a site and community up and running would be hopeless in a landscape dominated by social media. Will this be a pointless waste of time? Is there a more modern way to do this? All thoughts welcome.