My ten year old phone has a battery that still lasts the day on a charge. I'm only looking to upgrade because it doesn't get security updates any more. My bank app doesn't work any more because of this.

That's planned obsolescence.

Nah, the only reason any of my friends get a new phone is when their old phone breaks too. Hyperconsumerism is not normal.

Hey, it's 80% of reported violent crime. We're just better at it and don't get caught, obvs.

It's not shoplifting, its an employee discount.

I have wasted so much fucking time in games trying to climb ladders that were just decor.

There's no law saying guys can't wear sundresses too

It's also wild to me that I've been told multiple times by experienced outdoorsmen that the most dangerous animal you can encounter in the woods is another human, but that's entirely forgotten as soon as the culture war revs up.

Similar thing happened to my partner over a decade ago. He was working security at a casino, and a poker player keeled over at the table.

The ambulance wouldn't take the body, said they had to contact a private funeral home. The funeral home said they needed a coroner's permission, and the body wound up laying on the floor for several hours while it got sorted out.

They didn't shut down. They didn't even stop using the poker table he died at, people were still happily drinking and gambling with an uncovered body on the floor next to them.

Its fucked up.

It's probably staffed by Nurse Practitioners. They do a lot of stuff that used to be handled by doctors, even my primary care provider is a NP and not a Dr.

Don't we all

Sorta. I was raised with this bullshit, so I can see the distortion of reality. I'm still unpacking all this in therapy myself, because it's a whole worldview.

First off, they're woefully uneducated about history. My high school in Oklahoma briefly touched on the Civil Rights Movement and tried to pass it off as something that was over and done. Rosa Parks got arrested, the white people were shocked that this could happen, they had a sit-in party at a milkshake stand (they didn't talk about any of the pushback that got), MLK did his speech and now everything is fine for black people, no more institutional racism, literally being taught in schools. Now, combine that with your own needs not being met, and the talking heads/politicans say that you're not getting the aid you need because it's going towards making hurt feelings better. There's only so much money in the coffers, and you gotta be really hard up if you're white, but it's easy to get if you're black.

There's also a heavy religious framing about ancestral guilt. Like, if God can make life suck for everybody because Eve ate an apple, and libs are trying to play god, it follows to reason they'd want to make your life suck for the sins of your great-great-great grandparents. It's never outright stated, but if you listen to enough sermons, the puzzle fills in. Like, again, they think the civil rights movement fixed everything, so they think white people have atoned for their transgressions, but the pastor says libs are in consort with satan and can't forgive like jesus, so that's why they want white people to suffer.

Edit: I want to make it clear that I do not personally believe any of that, it's just what I was taught as a kid.

Fed is best.

If you can breastfeed, that's fantastic! But don't be ashamed if you're struggling to produce milk, it's quite common and you shouldn't avoid formula out of fear. It's far worse for a baby to go hungry!

I think this is Black heart

So, I grew up in the kind of poverty where the free lunch at school was sometimes the only meal I'd get each day.

My church hated it. They didn't offer help with food, but they thought that the free lunches was keeping people from being desperate enough to fall for their shenanigans. Me passing out in Monday's first period from hunger was a good thing, because they say suffering brings you closer to god. Fasting was a good thing, if you're hungry enough you develop a sort of lightheaded swimmy euphoria that was said to be the holy spirit filling you with god's love.

It's why they were against all forms of safety net, it was seen as a sign of disbelief in god's ability to provide. If god wants you to die homeless on the street, who are we to argue with him?

Feels good to be on an instance with Anubis

I'm in the middle of pulling a chat friend out of his programming. His only real problem was being raised in Texas by a Good Ol Boy single father, and once he got out from under his dad's wing, he started to realize that what he was taught simply isn't lining up with reality.

He started out as an incel, but now he's in therapy and has a girlfriend.

I think of it less as 'converting' and more just holding his hand while he figures out that his dad's advice was complete horseshit. It takes forever, and not everybody has the spoons to pull it off, but I do, so I will.

It is a moral imperative to break unjust laws.

Mr (small) Hands

Aluminum is the poster child for recycling, really. It takes more energy to extract it from the ore than it is to recycle it.