omg thank you so much! (your UN is the best bc cinnamon is literally the best)

Ooh, nice spicy new name, I like it! And I'm really glad you're back! I was afraid I ran you off with that last message I sent lol. I'm not sure anymore what I said, but I remember it was probably too long (like heck I'm gonna look at it to find out; it was probably cringey too haha).

Don't worry though, I've been busy and had more distractions than usual pulling me away from Subeta lately too. It happens. I hope you're having a great new year so far!

Did I scare you away? Eep. Sorry for the profusion of words. Anyway, bet you're excited for Fireside coming up! You've clearly been ready for it since you joined! :D

Well, in the grand scheme of things, everything DOES appear to be completely pointless. But on the relatively minuscule scale of human existence, the quality of our daily lives subjectively matters to ourselves. And it improves our quality of life to have a car to drive instead of having to walk or take a bus. It feels better to have nice and useful things in general, rather than being destitute because one continually makes poor financial decisions such as trading away valuable possessions for fast food condiments. If nothing really mattered at all, even subjectively, it would be simpler and really more rational (less energy expenditure) to just kill oneself. Since Rick chooses to continue existing (there was that one close call, whew), I don't think that's the real message of the show.

It seems to be more like, yeah, we know everything's meaningless on a cosmic scale but since we do exist for a little while, and since we have the capacity for pain and pleasure, we might as well make that existence as painless and enjoyable as possible. That means basically weighing the pleasure potential of everything and assigning it a corresponding value (since nothing has inherent value anyway, we humans might as well assign our own arbitrary values). And a nice car has a lot more pleasure potential than a sauce packet...it will last a lot longer and provide more opportunities for greater pleasure. I suppose this is all an argument for hedonism then, which does seem to be where Rick's head is at (even though he must be pretty bad at it since he's rarely happy, poor guy). I never really thought about it too much before...I've never considered myself a hedonist, but it does make a lot of sense, and I probably am more of one than I realized. Even though I consider consequences, and thus don't throw all caution and ethics to the wind and just do whatever seems most fun in any given moment, that's still a decision based on weighing the potential pleasure gained from the action against the pain of the consequences. The struggle - Rick's struggle, everyone's struggle - comes from knowing how to properly assign that value. He can't seem to decide how to appraise his relationships with his family, or maybe even Szechuan sauce, although I'm not sure he was serious about how much value he places on that. It's easier to just get riggety riggety wrecked and not think about it - perhaps he assigns too high a value to that.

Anyway, since you asked, that's why I'd definitely rather have the car. And yes, I already know my way to r/iamverysmart...I'll show myself there, thanks. :P

Holy crap, she's a true Rick, knowing how to make the universe hers and whatnot. Unbelievable though, got damn. Now I sorta wish I'd tried to get ahold of some for investment purposes but I'm sure it would have been a frustrating and futile endeavor. I wonder if that guy is gonna feel stupid when they mass re-release the sauce this winter. Man, what a Jerry!