I have a pretty old gmail address that’s fmlast@gmail, and several years ago there was a lady with fmlast12@gmail who kept leaving the numbers off. It wasn’t that bad though, and for one or two important things I replied to help.
Next you should pretend I wrote that first reply of yours where you linked to a random Australian video about the previous elderly president and then said they were in a cult. How would you critique me?
Yeah, and this is especially so in the important voting bloc of white middle class people --the ones who probably own their home (with mortgage obviously) and are still making ends meet. The good ones are horrified to see what's going on in the world, and the troubled ones may still think they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires with the whole master race thing going for them, but other than inflation their day to day life has not changed.
I'm a white dude living in the swing state of Pennsyltucky, in a very white republican suburb a good distance from the city. My town is growing and some good companies have large offices here (access to infrastructure plus the tax benefit of being in the next county over), so it's attracted residents from just about every ethnic background. But to get an accurate mental image, you have to sprinkle that diverse mix over a base layer of 80% white people, lol.
Just mentally going through our family, close friends, social acquaintances, and various local parents we run into (I have a kid in elementary school, and we're active in the school district), it is almost all white families living in single-family homes or sometimes townhouses. Many are two-income families, some are one-income families (working professionals in a reasonable COL area, not exactly CEOs). I know everybody has their own problems including the ones they don't share with me, but for most of these people life just looks normal. If you followed me around all day and could not see the awful news on the screen when I sat down at my PC, you would be hard pressed to tell which decade we are in. You would need a clue like peeking at my phone model or seeing an old covid mask on a shelf.
There ARE exceptions. People who are not white have absolutely been fucked with by ICE. Thank goodness the best Mexican restaurant in town got raided so that my fellow whites aren't tempted by amazing food from non-white sources. And I do know of one white family where both parents are civilians that work for the government. Both remotely, before Trump 2. They are amazing people raising three great kids (the kindest people we know are usually single child) and they got all kinds of unnecessary stress and fuckery in their real lives thanks to all the chaos and ill considered return-to-office mandates.
Here we find the conservative doubling down by immediately repeating that no, they do in fact know that you are, but plead: "what, then, am I? Tell me!"
Oh what a lovely surprise! They have just tripled down in the very same sentence! You see, part of their hive's rules is that all outsiders must be treated as cooperating members of a single enemy conspiracy.
One of the most consistent features of conservative “politics” is their ability to get lots of ordinary people to vote against their own interests.
Sure it was nice when the rank and file weren’t cheering on the New American Gestapo (good band name?) but the money > humans goals behind the policies were the same. The bigotry and tribalism and other-ing have always been tools in their propaganda machine. We’re witnessing those chickens coming home to roost.
Who could have known it would be a bad idea to systematically poison american culture so that a handful of old white dudes could hang on to the dream of dying as billionaires instead of pleb-ass run of the mill multimillionaires?
Well don’t forget that Walmart itself is literally government subsidized when the people employed there still need food stamps or other welfare programs.
I think most of us believe decisions should be data driven, but in some edge cases gut instinct is valuable.
What you call gut instinct, I call the output of an immensely complex yet efficient organic neural network that has been trained on years to decades of relevant experience.
If business leaders think AI is so great, they need to get in on this shit while they can still afford it!
I’ve said this a few times. The developed world was built around growth, and most of the developed world has a total fertility rate problem. And here are the US conservatives, dumbest of the dumb, doing everything they can to drive people out of the country.
Though I’ll also add one thing that HAS changed without me having to stop being decent to others or critical of myself (in a healthy way): Whether it’s something at work or at some, I have learned to blunt that urge to get somebody’s approval to do something before I do it. It’s a mix of some earned confidence, and of wanting to own my decisions, all in the context of teaching myself to be decisive and act rather than analyze and discuss with others while never doing anything.
And that last bit isn’t my inevitable turn back into the productivity-obsessed conservative asshole I was raised to be. It is self care after a lifetime of raw dogging ADHD. So the first part about being decisive and trusting my judgment is very true, but the second part about just doing anything is probably even moreso in my case. It includes getting things done that I desperately want to do for my personal life and well being. I have built so much shit this summer with my own two hands that my body has gun as much benefit as my mind.
Finding joy in the quiet time doing the mundane work I CARE about (lots of yard work, construction, and taking care of my animals) is some of the most important meditative-type time that I spend, I have learned.
It makes work more bearable to more enjoyable when I can find a similar mental state, listening to the same music, etc.
8 years of college here. Three degrees! Also well over 2 decades of industry experience.
And I have good news. In 20 years you will probably still have impostor syndrome because you will probably still be a decent person who is willing to question themselves and isn't an arrogant jerk. :>
I think many people (USians in particular) need to have it described to them this simply.
It’s just assumed in so many situations that somebody’s right to enjoy their legally-acquired property supercedes any concerns about the life or suffering of others living in the same system.
It's interesting, and by interesting I mean horrifying, that these outspoken hateful religious leaders assume that just because gay people give in to the homosexual desires everybody obviously has, they will also give in to the pedophilia that everybody obviously has.
Again, that sounds good on paper. In reality, I turn into an on-ramp and I’m approaching a line of cars going 75 mph. There happens to be a sign that says they should be limiting themselves to 55 mph.
If I merge at 75mph, the state of the roadway is essentially unchanged. If I merge at 55mph, I am introducing a new risk that was not there previously.
That's easy to agree with in isolation, but many times on the main roads near me the normal flow of traffic in the slow lane can be 20 over. Driving at or below the speed limit would create a significantly more dangerous situation than cruising along at the same speed as the nearest several cars.
Yeah, you'd be operating in a more legal way, and the faster drivers around you should be able to safely deal with it, but that doesn't mean the risk isn't there.
I have some great news for you. Look at what took effect yesterday in my state! Using a mobile device, including at a red light, is now a primary offense (you'll get pulled over for just that).
This just applies to PA, but it's a pretty big state with a population between Sweden and the Netherlands, so it's not nothing!
Oh I absolutely do, neurospicy stranger! I have the kind that comes with crushing Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria too.
I've tried some non-Ritalin brands of slow release methylphenidate, plus tried some slow release adderall, but right now just taking two immediate-release adderall is doing the trick.
You should SEE the amount of shit I've built this summer. I even contribute at work sometimes, lol.
That’s pretty good, for how bad it is.
I have a pretty old gmail address that’s fmlast@gmail, and several years ago there was a lady with fmlast12@gmail who kept leaving the numbers off. It wasn’t that bad though, and for one or two important things I replied to help.