BougieBirdie @ Bougie_Birdie @lemmy.blahaj.zone

Sometimes I make video games

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2 yr. ago

The Canadian government estimates there are 235,000 Canadians who experience homelessness. A 2020 study suggests that there are 1.3 million unoccupied homes in Canada

Something tells me a 0.2% population decline (approximately 80,000 people, although they estimate 670,000 homes won't have to be built) isn't going to be a magic bullet solution.

edit: My math was off by an order of magnitude, which means the real numbers are more outlandish 🙃

Would I then run afoul if I branched out and had computer accessories, like laptop bags?

That's a big mood. I honestly mean that. I don't want to presume to know your situation, but from one human being to another I can tell you I've been there too. I low-key hope to get hit by a bus so I don't have to put up with life anymore.

It's a feeling that seems to come and go, and it can ratchet itself up to a feverish intensity. But every time I've been pushed to the brink so far, I've chosen life. When you stare death in the eye, you suddenly want to see one more sunrise.

If you're having these thoughts with any kind of intensity or regularity, or you've started to put a plan together to end your life, then you owe it to yourself to attempt an intervention. Most people point to therapy, and if it's available to you it's worth a shot. And if therapy is unavailable or untenable, reading about psychology and non-pharmaceutical treatments for depression did wonders for my outlook.

The world is better with you in it. I'm rooting for you.

You don't have to be broken to be weird, it feels problematic to conflate the two.

But to take your point, I agree that you attract people based on the vibe that you're putting out. If you don't like who you're attracting, then you can work on yourself and your vibe will improve too.

Well then you have my sympathies. That must be an exhausting way to live.

Just to inject a little hope, plenty of weird, poor people have girlfriends. I don't know anybody weirder than me, and my wife doesn't mind.

You can't 'make' someone have a relationship with you though. That's illegal and reprehensible, but I'm sure you didn't mean it that way

Frugal tip: You can get a lot more life out of green onions by setting them in a jar of water. Trim what you need from the ends, and the plant will grow probably 3-4 times before you need to replace it.

It's the line of best fit, not the line of good fit

When I was younger, I'd try to power through. Now that I'm older, I recognize that my day is always better when I try to get some sleep.

When I was younger, not sleeping was the result of bad choices. Lately it's because of insomnia. I don't know if that makes any difference, but I guess it's worth noting.

PSA: 24 hours of sleep deprivation is similar to having a BAC (Blood Alcohol Count) of 0.10%. That's over the legal limit in most places. If you have to go to work, don't drive.

I love factorio, I have over a hundred hours in it.

I still haven't launched a rocket yet

Instant noodles, peanut butter, and sriracha. Crack an egg in near the end.

It's actually pretty close to pad thai, but screams of struggle meal

No problem, can you tell I'm procrastinating? ;)

Gosh, that's actually a big question and not one that I'm sure anybody could come to a definitive, absolute answer.

Ultimately, I think it depends on an individual's ethics. Some people believe there's nothing wrong with hunting because it's just predation happening in the ecosystem. Some people avoid certain ingredients or produce like palm oil or avocados because of the ecological harm. For some people, it's eating only locally sourced food to minimize the impact of emissions from the global supply chain.

For many people, it's a murky line between doing what's right and doing what's achievable. And as people get pushed to their limits they might not be able to afford the luxury of choosing what's good.

For my part, I'm trying to do the best I can. Our grocery budget is quite frugal and we're getting squeezed. Eating vegetarian is often a financial necessity. My wife craves meat, and I'm not going to argue with her body's natural impulse. So if there's a bargain or leftovers, we won't pass up an opportunity.

The sad thing is, I live in a first world country and I know people who are way less food secure than I am.

Another one that kills me is eggs. I pay a little more for the free-range eggs from a factory farm, but I'm still buying from a factory farm. I have no illusions that the conditions of a factory chicken are good, but at the least they're not battery-caged, so they must be suffering less. But if we were buying from a local farmer, they'd either be too expensive or not able to keep up with demand. We'd be kind of hard pressed to meet our nutritional needs without eggs, so I have to live with the fact that I'm supporting a factory farm

I'm going to stop procrastinating tomorrow.

But for real, when I was in high school and my first attempt through college, I had a terrible problem with procrastination. Doing homework at the very last minute worked well enough in high school, but at the post-secondary and professional level it doesn't really cut it.

In my second and successful attempt at college, I made it a policy to just do all my homework right away. That meant working while I ate lunch, using free periods when they were available, and often staying after class. If I had time leftover by completing a lab early, I'd start on my homework then.

In all, it typically cost me an extra hour or two on my day. But in the end, I didn't have to take any homework home with me. It became routine that I was staying late most days, so it wasn't a big problem if I did end up late. There was also a very distinct separation between my work and home life, and I think that helped reinforce the behaviour.

This isn't always a super healthy attitude to take. I burned out pretty hard after graduation. I've since learned to relax, but I do struggle with procrastination frequently now.

Never procrastinating isn't achievable for some people. Nor do I think it should be. You can't always summon willpower from where there isn't will. If you struggle with neurodivergence or mental illness, then you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.

I believe to a certain extent it's healthy to procrastinate. Often, your brain is telling you that you need rest, and it does so through procrastination. However, you can't procrastinate yourself out of a problem, lest you end up with more severe problems.

If you want to find a healthy way to reduce your procrastination there are a lot of tips out there that might set you up for success. But if something isn't working for you, it's okay to be skeptical of it. There's an entire industry of pop psychology scientific-sounding crap out there. The behavioural sciences are a constantly evolving field, and what was touted as a solution twenty years ago may be out of touch with today's understanding.

Here's a few tips that have been helpful to me, and with less eulogizing:

Tip 1 - Minimize

• Think of the smallest part of the task you have to do
• Find a triggering event to remind you to do the task
• Do that smallest part
• Congratulate yourself

Example: I have a sink full of dirty dishes that need to be washed. Whenever I get up for a glass of water, I wash one dish and fist pump.

This one's great for building habits. The reasoning is that you have a reminder event to prompt you into action, and then you're giving a positive association to the task. It's also a good technique for large tasks made up of many small parts. Something is better than nothing, and often times I find that I take on more of the task because I've already gotten over the largest hurdle of starting.

Tip 2 - Randomize

• Make a list of the tasks you're avoiding doing
• Randomly select a task
• Do the task

Example: I have six tasks I'm avoiding, so I write out a list and roll a six-sided die to pick a task.

The reasoning is that when we're faced with too many options, we freeze up. It can take a surprising amount of mental energy to make a decision, so you're allowing a system to make the decision for you.

Cop out: if you roll the die and it lands on Wash the Dishes and you have a strong feeling that you would have preferred to have selected Take out Garbage, then go ahead and take out the garbage. We can use randomness as a crutch, but we're allowed to make our own luck too.

Tip 3 - Prioritize

• Accept that you're going to procrastinate, even if it's just a little bit
• Think of a task you could be doing that's more favourable than the one you're avoiding
• Do that task while you procrastinate

Example: I have to file my taxes and I'm dreading the paperwork. My floor also needs to be swept. I sweep the floor until I feel I'm ready to tackle my taxes.

This technique is mostly about minimizing the impact of procrastinating. Rather than procrastinating idly, you can procrastinate in a way that's a little productive. It's not really a solution to the problem of procrastination, but something is better than nothing.

If you're struggling with procrastination and as a result have difficulty forming healthy habits, I wholeheartedly recommend Tiny Habits for further reading. I've tried a lot of self-help with mixed results, and this one has been the most impactful by far.

I'm not vegan, I'm just trying to eat less meat, but I see this discourse pop up from time to time in vegan communities.

A similar argument is often made regarding what would happen to vegetarians if they learned that plants can feel pain. This is often posed as a hypothetical, but I've heard that some studies suggests plants and fungi especially may be aware of when they're being eaten. Whether or not that equates to pain, I don't think a consensus has been reached.

But for the sake of argument, let's say that plants do feel pain while you eat them. If your ethos is to reduce overall suffering in the food chain, then it's still logical to abstain from meat. Livestock living a vegetarian life eat a lot of plants.

You might alternatively come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as ethical consumption. An extreme position you might take is that the best way to reduce suffering is to remove yourself from the food chain. If you starve yourself, you'll be consuming less, your greenhouse emissions become zero, and you lessen your impact on social services and infrastructure that is often strained to the breaking point.

Obviously, the solution is not to just kill yourself. But advocating for more ethical consumption seems like a noble cause.

I mean, to be honest a lot of us prefer ads because we use an ad-blocker. I have mixed feelings about either option.

There is such a thing as a tasteful implementation of advertising, but it's very often overdone and a nuisance. So because so many of them are a nuisance, my general attitude is to block everything. If you want to support a particular cause or creator, you can allow filters in your ad-blocker so you only see ads on that website.

As far as paywalls go, it does resemble the traditional newspaper/magazine subscription model. In theory, I don't mind financially contributing to a service I use because it means the service continues to prosper. Practically, these fees are often overinflated and a disproportionate amount of the proceeds go to the executive class. Also unlike newspapers, you usually can't buy just one article, and instead you're locked into another subscription.

It's a shame when the enjoyable jobs aren't hiring

Now I'm not saying the gold standard of education is memes, but if you look up some memes on Trickle Down Economics then you'll probably find everything you need to know about it (it's totally bogus)

I'm not in the US. I'm also not an economist. But I follow current events. The economy is a funny thing, it's normally pretty slow to move unless it's crashing. Poor policy promotes a crash.

Historically, what we've seen is that when the government changes hands and flips between Democrat/Republican, the government starts working to change the policy of the previous administration.

Often what ends up happening is that the Democrats inherit a poor economy from Republican policy, then work on turning it around. Then the Republicans get in power and claim that the economy is strong under them - while ignoring that it was growing under the previous administration. Then they start slashing social services, promote regulatory capture, and ultimately end up tanking the economy just in time for the Democrats to take over again. Then they point to the damage they've done and say it's the Democrats' fault.

Anyway, TL;DR: nope

Hey OP, I've been diagnosed with a social anxiety disorder, and I just want to say your post resonated with me.

You don't have to talk to people if you don't want to. In day-to-day life you can avoid it. Sooner or later though, you will end up in a situation where you have to talk to someone, whether that's a doctor, emergency services, or you're stuck on the bus with someone chatty.

If you're happy as a clam not to talk to people, then power to you. Don't let anybody dictate how you should live your life - it's your life. However, if talking to people causes you distress, and the consequences of not talking to people also causes you distress, then in my humble opinion you owe it to yourself to challenge your beliefs.

I don't want to presume to know your situation, so I'll share some of mine. I've had some significant ups and downs. When I was down, I often lamented that I couldn't make friends, would never find a partner, and stewed in my thoughts for no real benefit. I've also had some ups - I enrolled in college, tried new things even though it scared me, and even did some public speaking.

Then the pandemic happened, and the overarching mood of isolation and fear really did a number on me. Before the pandemic, I would have tentatively said that I became a social butterfly. Now I'm back to stewing in myself a lot of the time. But I'm putting myself out there again, and I'm confident with time that I'll end up okay.

If you are experiencing distress about your situation, know that nothing is written in stone about your future. It's not always easy, and sometimes it takes longer than we'd like, but you can improve your mind so you don't feel distress.

I really resisted therapy for a long time. The idea of talking to a stranger was difficult enough, so baring my soul to a therapist was total anathema to me. But I did get some books recommended to me, and I learned about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Not only is CBT the gold standard of psychiatric care, but it's also possible to practice in a completely self-directed way. That was very attractive to me, and I've been noticing an improvement since I've started. If you'd like to know more, I can certainly share some resources with you.

Anyway, one last thing to leave with you - I've been thinking of my time on Lemmy as being "practising socializing." It's becoming easier and easier to talk to strangers online, and that carries over to meatspace too.

You're doing a good job, OP. Good luck out there

You know, that's not a bad idea. I only have to make one meal, but I get more variety in my food each day.

I bet it's easy to get going to, you only need a few friends / family / neighbours to get started