I used to hate chocolate as a kid and teenager. Turns out I hated Americanized chocolate like Hershey’s.

Religion being completely stupid and harmful. 2005-2016 me was 100% certain nothing good ever came out of religion, it was only useful for making corrupt shitheads powerful and keeping easily amazed idiots in line.

Took me a while to realize how religion can help integrate the community with its local/historical culture, something that’s easier to notice with minority religions. It is, after all, an instrument of power. Like any such instrument, it attracts people who should never have any sort of power, but that’s a wholly different discussion.

I used to think that there was hope for humanity. Now, in my late 50s, I’m realising we’re fucked.

We’ve always been fucked by the mega rich that own and control everything but, with more and more people trying to survive here every day, things are getting exponentially worse.

There is no indication at all that any of these rich fucks have any appreciation of the fact that we can’t grow indefinitely and we seem doomed to hit peak population (around the year 2100?) in Mad Max, rather than Star Trek, style.

I’m glad I won’t be here to see it, but sad that my grandchildren probably will.

I used to be a nationalist (not a nazi though), then an ancap. Now I am a socialist and have been so for about ten years now.

Eating animals. I used to be the Making-fun-of-vegans, I-will-never-be-vegan type of person until I realised that 1) I don’t have to eat animals to be healthy and 2) if there is no need to do it, killing animals for taste pleasure is fucking evil.

When I was in my late teens up to around 20 I still believed in God and religion. Looking back, largely to please my Mum.

My views changed because my brother was so dismissive about religion so I started to question it myself properly for the first time. I’d taken it for granted after being indoctrinated into Catholicism my whole life.

Once I started questioning and actually thinking about religion (rather than just accepting it as the dull background to my life) I moved fairly rapidly to become an atheist. I’ve never once doubted or regretted that change. I feel like it was a turning point in my life when I actually started looking around me and questioning everything, and developing as my own person.

Traffic enforcement and red light cameras. I used to be very opposed to them, but I’ve since come to appreciate the absurdity of America’s car central culture.

Additionally, traffic stops by police disproportionately effect minorities and lead to escalations and other issues, while taking away enforcement capacity from more important things.

I still don’t think the cameras should necessarily be run by private, for profit entities. Nor would I really want cameras that ticket you if you go 1 mph over. But in general I’m much less opposed to the idea than I used to be.

Capitalism and markets
Anticapitalist views became compelling to me from the analogy between the state’s governance and the governance of the firm. The contrast between the (officially) democratic nature of the state and the complete autocracy of private companies worried me. I was initially a market abolitionist when I become an anti-capitalist, but I found no sound explanation for how such an economy would work.

Now I am a pro-market anti-capitalist, an unusual position on the left

Was a hardcore Libertarian till I finally read theory and realized how much Propaganda i had soaked up to think that Socialism was bad and unfettered Capitalism was good. Cringe so hard thinking about it now that I am a full blown Socialist.

Bernie Sanders woke me from my Libertarian slumber.

I used to identify as Libertarianian. Resented taxes, overreaching, infiltrating my life, all about independence, don’t want to be interfered with.

Then I became homeless. Realized how the social services, ssi, Medicare are important. Sure there are lazy people, but also those who genuinely need help, who want to get back on their feet. Care a lot more now about wanting to live in a society that actually cares about the people in it.

I was (or at least I thought I was) Libertarian when I was younger. I liked the idea of being left alone to do what I wanted, at long as it didn’t hurt anyone else. I still feel that way, but I’m a Liberal now, so first and foremost I want to ensure that everyone has an equal start and that everyone is taken care of.

“cooking with love/ heart” means watching that damn pot get hot and when it says constantly stir, you damn well constantly stir.

half-assing steps doesn’t quite make it in terms of taste and texture.

in my kiddie head, it used to mean singing Disney princess song to the pot while randomly yeeting ingredients in.

mad respect to cooks and chefs now.

In a long run, from childhood to adulthood, I switched to communism hater to being communist myself. When I was a kid, I thought that Communism was a ideology for lazy and totalitarian people, I didn’t even knew what it was about.

I also was the kind of person who laughed with edgy/uncensored comedy, now my eyes roll everytime I hear or read any joke that targets socially oppressed groups.

I was raised Mormon, am now atheist. Regret every conversation I had in high school about gay marriage. And evolution.