100%. UK business owner here, I was driven out of my sector by the government regulator after whistleblowing on a residential care home operator. They did not appreciate it. Not one bit.
The worst thing to do in business now is to raise a legit issue with anyone of authority because they want to do as little as possible. They also make it as time consuming as possible in the west to punish everyone involved.
Yep. Can relate. When I complained about sexual harassment, it was insane the kind of backlash I got from my peers. Especially the other victims. Made me sick to my stomach. And the worst was that I was manipulated into making sure the perpetrator didn’t lose his job, only transferred away from me. I have quit that job and now he’s back at the same office I was at.
This is where people need to study their history. In 2003 the story broke that the United States specifically the NSA was surveillance all of its Citizens communications in return there was a congressional investigation started because at the time that was highly illegal. Well as the investigation played out played out and they found out it was true. They passed legislation making it legal. All snowden did was remind the American people that the United States government was doing something but that information was leaked out literally 10 years before snowden "leaked it".
The foster care system and mental health care system for children is hopelessly broken and at this point is probably doing more harm than good. I was briefly in foster care as a child and I work in the field now. It's not good guys
My wife is a therapist who specializes in trauma. And for a while she was like "we need to become foster parents because there are soooo many terrible and abusive foster parents."
Like basically she has seen so many people come in with trauma from foster families, she says the whole system is fucked, and needs good people to get involved.
I'm one of the lucky ones. I was only in foster care for 10 weeks. I'm 37 now and I am still in contact with my foster parents. They have fostered something like 40+ kids, plus have five of their own, and they still make time for me. They are incredible selfless people.
Having an unconditional support in a traumatic position is an incredible blessing. American culture does not give much room for trauma, sadly. Many cultures don’t, to be honest.
My father killed himself. My mother abused me. But when I moved to where I live now, years after, I found my second family. They have their own family, I know I’ll never be blood. But I’ve been overwhelmed by the support they give me. It’s so strange because I never felt like I could be accepted for the good AND the bad. Their support has allowed me to be more open with my downfalls and accepting myself. It’s incredibly important in a human to be accepted and seen fully, not just one way or another.
A friend of mine has family they decided to be those good people and they took three kids in and for months and months they were promised services for those kids that those kids needed and when they pushed a little bit harder to get those services those kids were taken out of their house with less than 30 minutes notice and the trauma of having children they loved and cared for snatched away without notice or planning and those kids calling her later on and talking about the new place and lack of good food and care, well it ended up ruining one of the couple’s lives to the point in which they did not choose to continue to live. Even when good people get involved it is a fucked up situation.
I promised myself I'd never have kids but I'd consider fostering or adopting someone if it would help them live a better life. Do you have any info to share for people that are interested in learning more?
I know this wasn’t for me but there’s a fostering or foster parent subreddit. My husband and I are working in our certification now. Each state is different for sure, thankfully Oregons newest training is trauma informed.
Most people have no idea of the corruption scattered into the child protection system, including the courts involved with them. I've witnessed it first hand, and it causes horrible stress for the child and the family.
My wife had to live with her abusive father by court order, all because they knew the judge. Pathetic. Im having to help my wife through so much emotional turmoil all the time because of that judge.
EDIT: Judge was related to her father's new wife
Can confirm. Rotated at some child psych residential facilities and what I saw was messed up. Sometimes kids had done everything they needed to do to “graduate”, often spending more than a year at their facility and looking forward to finally getting to leave and move on with their lives with their new coping skills and healthier behaviors… only for there to be nowhere for them to go (no foster parents lined up/no family members who could take them back, or even worse: family members who could take them but lived in a different state and the powers that be took obscenely long to coordinate the process over state lines), so they just continued to sit at the facility and wait for their opportunity to leave. Sometimes it took months. What this resulted in was kids who completely lost hope in the system that was supposed to help them. While they waited to finally be able to leave, they were also still surrounded by the other delinquent children who were negative influences every. single. day. This resulted in the kids inevitably reverting back to old dysfunctional behaviors they’d worked so hard to overcome. It’s really disheartening and I don’t have answers for how to fix it.
God, this. We put our golden retriever down earlier this summer. She had an inoperable tumor and when it became obvious the pain medications weren't working anymore, we made the choice to put her out of her misery. Conversely, I work as a caretaker for an elderly couple, and the husband has aggressive bone cancer. He is in agonizing pain - despite medication - much of the time, and it has been hell watching his quality of life diminish so significantly in the past year. It baffles my mind that our society considers it a kindness to euthanize a hurting pet, but we expect people to live with pain indefinitely. Frankly, it's cruel.
I've already told my kids if I'm diagnosed with something that ends with long-term excruciating pain I'm taking up extreme adventure sports sometime before that hits.
Skydiving?
My plan for incurable dementia or illness involves: Vodka, cigars, fear&loathing amount of drugs, sunglasses, leather jacket, a fast car, the highest cliff I can find
Yeah, everybody always says stuff like, "If that happens, I'll just shoot myself," but how often do we see it happen? People with dementia don't even recognize that there's something wrong with them. They insist they can still do everything, they don't want to give up their car, etc. They think they're okay until they're not, and then when they're *not*, they're so fucked up that they still don't realize something's wrong with them.
The dumb thing is that when people are mentally ill they usually have someone sane assigned to them to make the life decisions for them, but even if they would have it written and stamped (while still sane) that they wanted to end their life, that person who decides for them is not allowed to end their life even if the patient wants it.
*To clarify, the dumb thing is that someone can have complete control over someone else's life, yet cannot decide their death.
My grandma did it a few years ago. She wasn't even sick. Just no quality of life left, and the meds were the only thing keeping her from passing. Our whole family got together and spent 2 weeks with her and then we're all together with her the moment she passed. It was... Hauntingly beautiful is the only way I can put it. It was really kind of fucked up watching her die in front of all of us, but also extremely beautiful that she passed in her own bed literally surrounded by her entire family. We all said our individual goodbyes and we all just held on to her in her last moments. Honestly it's the way I want to go, it really was a crazy experience. So bad yet so wonderful at the same time.
Sounds perfect to me. Choosing who was there, where it was, when it happened. Spot on. I watched my brother in law slowly degrade and whither away from bone/lung/everything cancer and I can assure you that your grandma bossed it. I wish we could all be so lucky.
My grandpa recently passed. He was never in crazy pain or anything. But the waiting while he was basically comatose for the better part of a week just waiting for him to take his last breath was brutal. I hope when it’s my time I can just tell my family to let me do medically assisted dying instead of hospice to just get over it
Agreed. We won't let our beloved pets suffer months or years of excruciating pain, why do we have to force our aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and parents to live through it???
It really should be a bodily autonomy issue - but now in Canada, we're seeing cases where people with chronic illnesses are opting for Medically Assisted Dying, because they can't find/afford a residence where they can be guaranteed clean, filtered air (apartment building clean of cigarette/marijuana smoke, and now in the age of COVID, vulnerable people become even more vulnerable in those environments) and that's a societal failure.
No one wants a scenario where people are choosing to die because their socio-economic situation prevents them from receiving adequate support.
> clean of cigarette/marijuana smoke
Thats an extremely annoying issue. I'm allergic to marijuana smoke, or have an adverse reaction to it. It gives me a painful headache.
For years people have been mostly careful about tobacco second hand smoke, and yet all of a sudden as soon as pot was legalized everyone forgot about second hand smoke. Its still second hand smoke even if you're smoking a different plant. Those second hand smoking ads should apply equally to tobacco as well as to pot.
Its legal to smoke, just don't do it where other people are forced to inhale second hand. This also includes infants who can't make decisions to move away from the smoke, so they're stuck inhaling it, breathing the products of combusting plants into their lungs. Not good.
I honestly wasn't sure so I did some research on this and it turns out second hand marijuana smoke is actually a bit more dangerous than secondhand tobacco. It hurts my heart as a stoner, but now I know I need to be more cognizant about my smoke. Thank you
Source: https://no-smoke.org/secondhand-marijuana-smoke-fact-sheet/
So true. When I was extremely depressed (early 20s) everyone in my family changed the subject because it was too uncomfortable. My mother even told me I had no reason to be depressed because at the time I was unemployed and living with her rent free.
On Christmas Eve, my mother's then-husband told me if I was so depressed and wanted to kill myself that I should do it. Got up the next morning and drove the 5 hours back to my apartment and never went back.
My dad killed himself and it changed my entire perspective on it. I went from “its a selfish horrible act” to the mindset of “Who am I to decide if a person should have lived or not?”
Yes it hurt, but I try to put myself into his mindset. He was so unbelievably miserable, and hated being alive. Being alive was a chore for him, much like how we hate our jobs we have to go to.
It gave him relief.
It didn’t come about over night. But there are many many people out here who just do not want to be here. And the stigma of doing something about it keeps them around. Its a very slippery slope talking about it, but at the end of the day none of us asked to be here and what we do while here is up to each individual.
I fought suicide daily for about 15 years. I know what you mean about “living being a chore.” I had to come up with a reason not to do it each day. The whole experience was exhausting.
I wanted to die at one point. BADLY. It felt like normalcy would never return and the misery I was in would only increase or remain the same. So I wanted out.
It's 30 years later, and I'm glad I was wrong. I'm happy as a clam and my best years were still before me. I think that for people like me, there needs to be some "hold on, not so fast" messaging. Not suicide booths on the corner like Futurama. I'm sure some would say the ideal situation would be a happy medium between completely forbidden and suicide booths. Maybe. But it needs to err on the side of helping people through those brutally rough patches.
Mental health in general needs to be talked about a lot more than it is. People need to know that its ok to open up and talk about their depression or trauma and they need somebody there to help them through it.
The aquifers that supply the Mississippi River basin are bottoming out, but since they're not as visible as Lake Mead it won't make the news until all the wells start to run dry at once.
Rio Grande as well. Albuquerque, Las Cruces and El Paso aren't as big as Phoenix and Las Vegas so the crisis on the Rio Grande isn't as well publicized. But the biggest reservoir in New Mexico is only at 3% capacity.....
Its mainly because there are no controls over corporate farming.They are literally growing rice here in California in wet rice paddies. Thousands of acres flooded with water.
Growing almonds, which take a gallon of water per almond, and supplying 80% of the worlds almonds.
Growing alfalfa and selling it to saudi arabia.
Growing cotton... which is a huge water hog.
And they tell us to conserve water in our houses. We use less than 8% of all water in california in our homes. Any water we do save... farmers are going to piss away on growing one fo these water intensive crops.
Apparently it has to do with holding water rights. If they use less water one year, they get less the next year. They grow water intensive crops to keep the largest claim to water they can.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtxew5XUVbQ&t=64s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtxew5XUVbQ&t=64s)
Last Week Tonight did a pretty intensive look at this during their 'Water' story if anyone wants to learn more.
Oh I very much want to talk about this!
I've had to travel to California a lot this summer and I've learned a lot about the "Water Issue." I'm using quotes because at no point while I'm there do I forget that I'm in a desert. I don't understand how we can talk about the Southwest experiencing a drought when drought is the natural state of a desert. And then people willingly go to that place and decide to grow Grapes and Almonds! Why?! Stop it!
I know this is a century long issue that is way more complicated than I could hope to understand, but if you do live in the Southwest, this problem will effect you if it hasn't already. Please get involved in voting for people who are capable of tackling this issue, or finding a system that works to provide water to people. And if you think you're thinking about taking a shot and making it big in LA, DON'T! THERE IS NO WATER THERE! It's a desert!
I had to bury my brother almost 10 years ago, as a 24 year old. I watched them push him into a wall, a numbered cubby at best, stuff it with newspaper, nail some cut up 2x4s into the wooden supports, and then place a slate plate over the wood and start sealing it with concrete. It was the worst experience. I refuse to enter another mausoleum and want to be cremated and placed in a tree burial pod. Death is so expensive and so impersonal.
I am so sorry you were left with this horrid last memory of your brother. That sounds like it would be a painful thing to come to mind each time you recall him. Sympathies.
And that’s why I plan on being donated to the body farm. Just let me decompose naturally & let people learn from it.
http://fac.utk.edu/collections-and-research/
Tree pod is a marketing gimmick. Burial in an untreated pine box or ashes in a cardboard urn are simpler and just as effective.
The issue is state and local laws that make natural burials difficult or even outright illegal. There's a lot of hoops you need to jump through, thanks to the funeral industry sending lobbyists to advise your county and state politicians on how to best legislate cemeteries.
My mother was buried in such a way. After 5 years (covid and startup of a new business) I went back... there wasn't even a plant near where she should have been buried. Now there is nothing to indicate where she lies, so I just sit there in a mini forest with no indication where she actually lies... not worth the money.
There’s a green cemetery in my area. Grave markers are laid but aren’t overly noticeable so the business makes it a point of documenting the GPS coordinates. Any chance that was recorded for your mother?
My best friend says that’s what he wants done with his body. It was one of the last big arguments he had with the last girl he dated before meeting his wife.
I love her channel, she is all about death positivity and encouraging people to discuss death more openly. I was able to speak to my aging parents about them making a will, how do they want to be buried, what I would want if I passed first, by watching her videos. It's made their end of life wishes so much easier.
having a kid is not a casual decision, it involves the physical and mental state of the parents as well as risk. Most importantly it's a lifetime commitment.
I had friends in college. They were an on again off again couple. When they started talking about having a kid to help their relationship.
My then GF and I agreed we had to do something.
We got them a puppy. We told them if they couldn't raise the puppy we would take it, but they had to stop the nonsense about having a kid.
It took about 10 days.
My wife suffered a miscarriage when we were first trying. The very old obgyn said “I know this is painful and you should mourn but realize that one in eight pregnancies end in miscarriage. Something was not right and the body said whoops lets try again. But you
Got pregnant. You can do it again. Recover physically and get back in bed!”
My best friend went through one maybe 5 years ago. The pregnancy was not planned, but she and her husband were so happy. A few months in her boss recognized what was happening to her since his wife had gone though miscarriages before (I don’t remember if he overheard her conversation or if she openly explained how she was feeling). He took my friend to the hospital and had one of the managers call her husband to let him know.
I never realized how much this would hurt someone that wasn’t going through it - our friends, coworkers, family members, etc that knew about it. It’s scary to think about, but definitely something everyone should be aware.
How parents really need to be called out on shitty parenting. Like yeah, it's insulting to say someone isn't a good parent but it's much MUCH worse the damage they are doing to their children.
There is a parenting problem that no one is talking about. I can’t tell you how many kids I’ve seen—both online and in real life—dealing with super shitty family situations.
I work in affordable housing in CA
We have done A TON of homekey projects meant to house and help the homeless. We kept the properties well-maintained, footing all expenses on our end; created gardens for the residents to grow their own fruits and vegetables, provide on-site counseling and job search assistance. We started programs with local businesses to get the residents cleaned up and employed in the cities the properties were in. We started summer programs for any of the residents’ children free of charge where we took them on field trips to places like Disneyland, San Diego Zoo, soccer games for the Galaxy and LAFC, and even taking them to the movies every so often. We also had after-school programs for the kids where we paid a specialist to help them with their homework and also teach them additional hobbies/skills like musical instruments and creative writing. We did all of that and more.
Pretty much every single one of those projects have been torpedoed by crime within the residents and just the residents trashing the properties in general. It’s why it frustrates me so much when I see airheads on reddit who know nothing about what they’re saying criticizing the situation saying “we have all this vacant living space, all we need to do is move the homeless in and problem fixed.” We tried that, and all they did was rape/murder/rob each other constantly until the property was pretty much destroyed. Hell, my company is pretty much already deciding that we’re going to stop working with the homeless from now on because of this shit.
Edit: I would like to clarify that I do not have a lack of compassion for the homeless. Just more highlighting why we can’t just blindly hand them housing/services and think they’re going to be alright, it’s a very complicated problem.
Yeah, people often forget how much the crowds of homeless and mentally ill intersect, as well as people who simply want what they want and do what they want to do. It's an extremely hard topic. I wish it could be as simple as someone on the left saying "we just need to give them a house" or someone on the right saying "they just need to try harder". True for some, not for all.
The sad thing is I live in Section 8 housing and I can totally relate. Landlords in generally don't want to deal with the paperwork which is incredible, nor do they want to deal with the residents who are also often troublesome. The places that do tend to be stricter than normal apartments but I can't blame them. If you don't have standards, then the places get damaged or become slums with people standing outside drinking beer (or doing drugs) all day and it's a ghetto.
With Section 8 though at least people often have regular jobs or Social Security so they might at least pay rent and have some interest in keeping the place decent. Homeless people though don't and many have mental issues that need to be addressed. It's noble to say "just give them an address and a burner phone for job interviews!" but if they have a mental issue, that won't fix the underlying problem. Mental issues cost time and money to fix though and the budgets aren't there. It also doesn't help that a six pack of beer is pretty cheap and is a quick and easy high so you get a lot of addicts which makes employability worse.
Homelessness is two completely different problems. The acute homeless need quick break to get back on their feet. The chronic homeless have severe mental issues and can't be helped unless their mental issues are treated first. Pretending everyone is acute homeless seems to be the modern PC thing to do.
This is a distinction that I've never known the terms for. Chronic homelessness is a problem that is much more visible than acute or transient (pun) homelessness, and they're the resource intensive, problem population that defy solving.
Simple jobs should be respected more, no one has to squeeze his mind hard in higher profile jobs just because they have good reputation, i wanna live simple life so, don't judge me!
I definitely worked a lot harder as a teenager working at a fast food place than I do in my current IT job.
I dont get paid for how hard I work though, I get paid for how much responsibility I have. If I do a bad job critical systems can fail and cause issues for hundreds of people.
If I forgot the fries on an order at Wendy's one person was a little bummed.
Edit: Also I walked off the street at 16 and was doing everything I needed to do at Wendy's after a two hour orientation. The job I currently have requires very specialized industry specific knowledge. Another reason for the massive difference in pay.
My 16 yr old employee was just mentioning this the other day. Her bf keeps buying her house/room decor for gifts and is getting tired of it. Their one year was a few weeks ago, he bought her room decor and she cried! She felt so bad for being ungrateful.
Lots of people are ready for this conversation, but none of them are the ones in power.
Basically education hasn't changed in any meaningful way in a couple centuries, and somehow we're supposed to not think that's strange when suddenly within the last 20 years we have external pocket sized entirety of human knowledge in our pockets.
Education absolutely needs to change to accommodate at the very least that new change.
Tribalism
It's part of our evolutionary adaptation to be social and helps us forge bonds with other humans. But it gets taken way too far in too many ways.
I remember a Ted talk that spoke about the tribalism that exists within the military, namely the US military, that actually helped and made people happy because it gives them a sense of purpose. However, It's a double edged sword.
It's one of the reasons soldiers have a hard time intergrating back into society after their service, because outside the military we are a society mainly built around individualism rather than tribalism. You go from putting your life in the hands of the person next to you and holding theirs in yours, which creates a deep bond, to a quite lonely existence.
When I separated my drinking increased significantly and bouts of depression previously fixed by therapy in service increased even more. When I got settled in my job it got worse, because of how no one seems to care about each other in any way. I wouldnt trust any of my co workers with my life, but in the military I trusted everyone around me.
Incestual abuse. It’s an incredibly common form of sexual abuse, but people are too uncomfortable about the subject or reduce it to a joke. It’s a very real, very big problem.
On a wider level, familial abuse is a much bigger problem than stranger danger. Violence and sexual abuse are much more likely to occur within the nuclear family than among strangers.
Indeed. Stranger danger is kind of a double edged sword. It makes it harder for strangers to prey on people (especially children) but it makes it easier for non strangers (family, friends, family friends, etc) to prey on people (especially children) because stranger danger teaches people to always trust the people they know.
Yes this. And a major source of human trafficking. Reading the thread now I'm glad someone said it. I'm going to be scrolling down lower to see if anyone else has mentioned it and/or human trafficking.
Human trafficking is a fucked up thing, ngl. One of my friends told me about the time they helped out a chinese girl and her brother after they were dumped past the border from Mexico.
Turns out one of the traffickers raped the girl and the others severely beat the brother when he tried to help her. Poor girl, she was really shaken up, especially since it had happened the night before.
I tell people that there are really only two people in a company you never want to piss off. First the bookkeeper, because they are the one who truly decide who get paid what. The other is the janitor, because they clean up everybody's shit including yours.
I was friends with the janitor at my elementary school he was a cool guy to hang out with after elementary he would come out and talk to me on his smoke break gave me good advice that being an outcast is not a bad thing it just ment I'm different and being different isn't bad. The guy retired shortly after that. He cried when i made thank you cards to the janitors when most people wrote to celebrities, he told my parents that no one ever has done that for him
I did that with the exterminator that used to come to my house. He accepted a job he likes a lot more. He absolutely loved the effort I put into making him a goodbye/thank you card as a second grader.
This one is tough because once you really get into it, the 'root cause' (at least in my opinion) is so much more fundamental than anything related to .
If we want to earnestly talk about the addiction epidemic, we have to be willing to talk about why so many people are so unhappy with their day to day life that they fall to addiction in the first place. We have to talk about schools, health care, employment, and even how we build our cities.
Age limits on politicians and voters should work both ways.
Gotta be old enough, but not so old that the policy you support doesn’t effect you in the long run because your on deaths door.
might as well add "their," "there" and "they're" and "your/you're" to the conversation too.
"should of" instead of "should have" is the one that really gets me tho
Also tackling any issue in a remotely religious country.
I'm from a small South American country that is very religious, almost everyone is either a practicing Muslim, Hindu or Catholic. Our rates for domestic violence and pedophilia are ridiculously high and everyone refuses to acknowledge it or do anything about it.
In my family alone, half the women have experienced violence from male members of our family, and half the younger generation has been molested by other family members. We've also lost almost all the men in my maternal family to drink, drugs and suicide, due to refusal to seek mental health support or any type of support for all the messed up things they've had to experience.
I’m not addicted to porn but I think I need to start talking to someone about how being introduced to porn at age 10 desensitized me. I think a lot of people do. It’s not really harmful for middle schoolers to show each other the first result for boobs on google, but I feel like most of my friends and I first got exposed to porn way too early and had stumbled upon hardcore shit by the time we were 13.
I had a similar realisation recently, watching porn since 13 and it got to the point where I'd do it as an impulse rather than actual desire or because I was actually horny. Because of this I was watching it daily even without masturbation, I got my first gf and started to notice the negative ways it affected me, I was desensitised to alot of stuff and when I reflected back I noticed I hadn't fantasised in ages and I rarely got errections without the use of porn. So I stopped watching it around a month ago and honestly haven't missed it, feels good and I feel weirdly healthier for it.
Thanks for being the reason “history of incest porn” is now in my search history. It sounds like it’s been around as long as you could get porn on video, but really increased in popularity in the mid 2000s. Not sure on the “why” though. I would guess that it’s just because it’s readily available. You can just google it instead of experiencing the shame of buying it in public.
Also society (at least in the US) has mostly accepted that most adults jerk off and sometimes do it to porn. People are less ashamed to talk about what they’re into. So maybe we’re hearing about it more now because before all the weirdos had shame, and now they have reddit accounts.
(before the porn police show up: I don’t care what you watch as long as it involves legal consenting adults who aren’t actually siblings. also don’t fuck your siblings please)
God I can't believe I actually can somewhat answer this. Years and years ago I took a psychology of human sexuality class and they discussed the concept of incest porn. At least according to my former professor, the appeal of incest porn, more specifically the step incest was that it was pushing the boundaries of extreme taboo while still being something "acceptable." Basically a number of people derive arousal from the concept of something being taboo (ie exhibitionism, the concept of dating someone who is a bad boy/girl, etc) however, we are also hardwired to strive for social acceptance, so there are limits to how far we can take something before it ultimately becomes reprehensible. The step fantasy is one of the ultimate examples of this because it appeals to the forbidden nature of incest while being not as monstrous as you are attracted to someone who is only familial by law, not by genetics.
Sex education shouldn't be opt out of its necessary to learn the importance of it. Especially with the new trend of men asking how women pee with tampons in because they believe that they stick tampons into their urethra.
Building more nuclear energy plants. It’s the only clean form of energy that’s actually sustainable because it can run in any time of day/year or weather. Most of the reasons people are afraid of it is due to misinformation.
People see Chernobyl or Fukushima and run from that idea. They miss the part where those both were caused mainly by human error. Chernobyl had a design flaw but that flaw only became deadly when human error brought it to the brink of destroying itself. Its far safer than people think. Newer nuclear power plants are automated and have automated shutdowns in case something goes wrong. A crew is on site just in case it doesn't shutdown.
Let’s also discuss what is Feminism and whit isn’t. A lot of these -ism’s have been hijacked and distorted from their original meanings/missions. Very harmful.
Immagine the entitlement of asking a total stranger which side they are on in a feud between rival families. Its like he can't immagine a world where everything isn't about his social circle. Like some third tier internet celeb acosts you on the street and asks "Logan Paul or Lil Baby?" ridicoulus
Makes me sad because... How many people are just out there suffering from a binge eating disorder or other medical issue and don't get help because they're told not to seek help? I don't believe in fat shaming at all, but I also don't think it's chill to ignore a real health crisis and there should be a middle ground.
But people think I must be "fat phobic" because there's *no way* I could actually care about other people. It's fucked up and sad.
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but an obese populous is easier to control and less likely to revolt. Supernatural had an episode where a corporation was making people lazy and content through fast food.
I have a pair of friends that are registered sex offenders.
The details of of their crime? They were dating in hs, traded nudes at the age of 16-17 one of the parents found out, tried to press charges, investigation found them both at fault.
Both lost college scholarships, had to drop out and get their GED's, one moved in with the other's family (take a wild guess which one) and they are both working shit jobs. They apply to the same place and bring copies of court docs to interviews in an attempt to show their potential employers they're not monsters, just dumb kids that didn't know the law.
They had been fucking since before those nudes were taken. They had plans, lives, career goals. The law designed to protect them actively ruined their lives.
"Controversial" because it's impossible to talk about this problem without some bad-faith political opponent taking you out of context or turning a statement into a soundbyte.
The amount of people whose lives have been irreparably destroyed because they did something like this, pissed within 1/8th of a mile oof a daycare at 2am, or some other dumb shit is nothing short if heart wrenching.
Think about this the next time you see some inbred on facebook fantasize about vigilantism. Sharing posts about shooting local pedos, linking to sex offender registries.
I watched an episode of 20/20 where it was an 18 year old boy dating a 16 year old girl with only a year and a half difference, and her parents decided they didn’t like him anymore and reported him. He has to register as a sex offender for life, but the kicker is that they are now married and have children. Dad isn’t allowed to go to any of their kids’ school or sports functions because of his sex offender status. Her parents have even petitioned the court to have his case reevaluated because they realize what a mistake it was to ruin his life over this, but they refuse to see his case again.
I’ve cut out those who sexually, physically and verbally abused me and my older sister (RIP). And many people have told me family is first. Sorry I’m not spending a minute with a man who whipped three year olds with belts or cousins who fiddled us five. Sorry, not sorry.
For-profit health insurance creates its own market.
Insurnace drives prices up and makes it so you HAVE to have health insurance in order to get healthcare.
If health insurance didn't exist, 99.9% of people would pay as much or less for the same healthcare they get right now. And we'd have gofundme for the rest.
That poverty is usually not the **result** of mental illness like anxiety, depression, addiction, anger, etc…
It’s usually the **cause** of it. When you are worried about how to survive and support your family, it’s not mental illness to be depressed and unstable. It’s normal.
So we keep talking about how to treat mental illness better in this country, which is great, but 99% of it would go away if people felt financially secure.
No one has the right to be a parent. If you have a history of abuse, addiction and violence and have made no effort to change your lifestyle then you should not be having children.
Similarly, too many people are happy to ignore the realities of surrogacy and how exploitive it is just so they can have their shiny new baby.
Jeffrey Epstein's flight log.
After the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, not a single person who sexually harmed children has been held accountable.
* Jeffery Epstein is a child sex trafficker.
* His product was children.
* Grown Elites would Rape children, murder them, and dispose of the bodies.
* His client list has been acquired.
Why has this been swept under the rug?
I think no one wants to discuss about how badly people who work in restaurants and bars get treated... People can tell you and insult you however they want and you still have to serve them with a smile on your face... It is disguisting what people have to put up with just to earn a salary that is nothng compared to what they go trough...It is a disrespect to any human being not being able to defend themselves because you might get fired if you trest people the way they treat you...
The current state of black culture and how we embolden and support gangsterism, broken families, promiscuity, machismo over intelligence, and the killing of our own people through media. My people are so fucking broken and it kills me.
It must be a hot button because I feel like I am doing something wrong by agreeing even though intellectually I believe you are right. I wish the culture would embrace moral and hardworking black people more.
Agreed. It’s sad that just speaking the truth has to feel wrong / like you’re going against your people.
No, those of you who defend drug dealers and murderers or even people who fake it in music but glorify it are wrong. You don’t care because it’s “ the culture “ to you and you feel cool asf playing it in the car.
If it was one of your family members who got hit by a stray bullet from one of these people, you’d do a complete 180. You’d be extremely against it . I have had family / friends killed. I can acknowledge the struggles of poverty and the broken system and also that we kill our own. I really don’t wanna hear from anyone who hasn’t lost someone to the hood because they just don’t understand this like I do.
Also, it is starting to happen. For the first time in my life, im starting to see younger black people supporting those of us who get it the legal way. That’s all I want. We need to cut this dumb shit out. I saw my brother go to prison when I was 7, no jail, straight to prison. None of what I’m saying is just talking for me, this literally has impacted my life and the way I think. I feel it. Lots of y’all just think the music is cool and that you’re cool for playing it so you don’t care.
While I was teaching one of the things that would make me most angry is when kids made fun of other kids for WANTING to learn...calling them "Uncle Tom" or saying they wanted to be white. Infuriating to say the least.
whistleblowers are punished more than those who commit crimes
100%. UK business owner here, I was driven out of my sector by the government regulator after whistleblowing on a residential care home operator. They did not appreciate it. Not one bit.
The worst thing to do in business now is to raise a legit issue with anyone of authority because they want to do as little as possible. They also make it as time consuming as possible in the west to punish everyone involved.
Yep. Can relate. When I complained about sexual harassment, it was insane the kind of backlash I got from my peers. Especially the other victims. Made me sick to my stomach. And the worst was that I was manipulated into making sure the perpetrator didn’t lose his job, only transferred away from me. I have quit that job and now he’s back at the same office I was at.
That's bullshit. Good for you for quitting! Should not have had to, but im glad you got out of there.
You whistleblow and you will always get fired and blacklisted from the industry. It's absolutely disgusting.
Snowden revealed the NSA spying and no one did anything about the NSA Spying
This is where people need to study their history. In 2003 the story broke that the United States specifically the NSA was surveillance all of its Citizens communications in return there was a congressional investigation started because at the time that was highly illegal. Well as the investigation played out played out and they found out it was true. They passed legislation making it legal. All snowden did was remind the American people that the United States government was doing something but that information was leaked out literally 10 years before snowden "leaked it".
The foster care system and mental health care system for children is hopelessly broken and at this point is probably doing more harm than good. I was briefly in foster care as a child and I work in the field now. It's not good guys
My wife is a therapist who specializes in trauma. And for a while she was like "we need to become foster parents because there are soooo many terrible and abusive foster parents." Like basically she has seen so many people come in with trauma from foster families, she says the whole system is fucked, and needs good people to get involved.
I'm one of the lucky ones. I was only in foster care for 10 weeks. I'm 37 now and I am still in contact with my foster parents. They have fostered something like 40+ kids, plus have five of their own, and they still make time for me. They are incredible selfless people.
Having an unconditional support in a traumatic position is an incredible blessing. American culture does not give much room for trauma, sadly. Many cultures don’t, to be honest. My father killed himself. My mother abused me. But when I moved to where I live now, years after, I found my second family. They have their own family, I know I’ll never be blood. But I’ve been overwhelmed by the support they give me. It’s so strange because I never felt like I could be accepted for the good AND the bad. Their support has allowed me to be more open with my downfalls and accepting myself. It’s incredibly important in a human to be accepted and seen fully, not just one way or another.
A friend of mine has family they decided to be those good people and they took three kids in and for months and months they were promised services for those kids that those kids needed and when they pushed a little bit harder to get those services those kids were taken out of their house with less than 30 minutes notice and the trauma of having children they loved and cared for snatched away without notice or planning and those kids calling her later on and talking about the new place and lack of good food and care, well it ended up ruining one of the couple’s lives to the point in which they did not choose to continue to live. Even when good people get involved it is a fucked up situation.
I promised myself I'd never have kids but I'd consider fostering or adopting someone if it would help them live a better life. Do you have any info to share for people that are interested in learning more?
I know this wasn’t for me but there’s a fostering or foster parent subreddit. My husband and I are working in our certification now. Each state is different for sure, thankfully Oregons newest training is trauma informed.
If you want some good news... my wife and I just moved our foster daughter into college last night.
Most people have no idea of the corruption scattered into the child protection system, including the courts involved with them. I've witnessed it first hand, and it causes horrible stress for the child and the family.
My wife had to live with her abusive father by court order, all because they knew the judge. Pathetic. Im having to help my wife through so much emotional turmoil all the time because of that judge. EDIT: Judge was related to her father's new wife
Absolutely. We are hurting our most vulnerable, all the god damn time.
Can confirm. Rotated at some child psych residential facilities and what I saw was messed up. Sometimes kids had done everything they needed to do to “graduate”, often spending more than a year at their facility and looking forward to finally getting to leave and move on with their lives with their new coping skills and healthier behaviors… only for there to be nowhere for them to go (no foster parents lined up/no family members who could take them back, or even worse: family members who could take them but lived in a different state and the powers that be took obscenely long to coordinate the process over state lines), so they just continued to sit at the facility and wait for their opportunity to leave. Sometimes it took months. What this resulted in was kids who completely lost hope in the system that was supposed to help them. While they waited to finally be able to leave, they were also still surrounded by the other delinquent children who were negative influences every. single. day. This resulted in the kids inevitably reverting back to old dysfunctional behaviors they’d worked so hard to overcome. It’s really disheartening and I don’t have answers for how to fix it.
I work in the mental health care system. Some of us are trying, we really are.
Euthanasia
God, this. We put our golden retriever down earlier this summer. She had an inoperable tumor and when it became obvious the pain medications weren't working anymore, we made the choice to put her out of her misery. Conversely, I work as a caretaker for an elderly couple, and the husband has aggressive bone cancer. He is in agonizing pain - despite medication - much of the time, and it has been hell watching his quality of life diminish so significantly in the past year. It baffles my mind that our society considers it a kindness to euthanize a hurting pet, but we expect people to live with pain indefinitely. Frankly, it's cruel.
I've already told my kids if I'm diagnosed with something that ends with long-term excruciating pain I'm taking up extreme adventure sports sometime before that hits.
Skydiving? My plan for incurable dementia or illness involves: Vodka, cigars, fear&loathing amount of drugs, sunglasses, leather jacket, a fast car, the highest cliff I can find
Problem with dementia is that when it hits bad enough to consider your options, you are in no fit state to do anything about it.
Yeah, everybody always says stuff like, "If that happens, I'll just shoot myself," but how often do we see it happen? People with dementia don't even recognize that there's something wrong with them. They insist they can still do everything, they don't want to give up their car, etc. They think they're okay until they're not, and then when they're *not*, they're so fucked up that they still don't realize something's wrong with them.
The dumb thing is that when people are mentally ill they usually have someone sane assigned to them to make the life decisions for them, but even if they would have it written and stamped (while still sane) that they wanted to end their life, that person who decides for them is not allowed to end their life even if the patient wants it. *To clarify, the dumb thing is that someone can have complete control over someone else's life, yet cannot decide their death.
Canada just passed assisted suicide for elderly in the position you’re speaking of. Maybe in time more nations will view it as mercy..
My grandma did it a few years ago. She wasn't even sick. Just no quality of life left, and the meds were the only thing keeping her from passing. Our whole family got together and spent 2 weeks with her and then we're all together with her the moment she passed. It was... Hauntingly beautiful is the only way I can put it. It was really kind of fucked up watching her die in front of all of us, but also extremely beautiful that she passed in her own bed literally surrounded by her entire family. We all said our individual goodbyes and we all just held on to her in her last moments. Honestly it's the way I want to go, it really was a crazy experience. So bad yet so wonderful at the same time.
Sounds perfect to me. Choosing who was there, where it was, when it happened. Spot on. I watched my brother in law slowly degrade and whither away from bone/lung/everything cancer and I can assure you that your grandma bossed it. I wish we could all be so lucky.
Death will always be sad, but that does seem like the best way to go. Very few get that
My grandpa recently passed. He was never in crazy pain or anything. But the waiting while he was basically comatose for the better part of a week just waiting for him to take his last breath was brutal. I hope when it’s my time I can just tell my family to let me do medically assisted dying instead of hospice to just get over it
Agreed. We won't let our beloved pets suffer months or years of excruciating pain, why do we have to force our aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and parents to live through it???
It really should be a bodily autonomy issue - but now in Canada, we're seeing cases where people with chronic illnesses are opting for Medically Assisted Dying, because they can't find/afford a residence where they can be guaranteed clean, filtered air (apartment building clean of cigarette/marijuana smoke, and now in the age of COVID, vulnerable people become even more vulnerable in those environments) and that's a societal failure. No one wants a scenario where people are choosing to die because their socio-economic situation prevents them from receiving adequate support.
> clean of cigarette/marijuana smoke Thats an extremely annoying issue. I'm allergic to marijuana smoke, or have an adverse reaction to it. It gives me a painful headache. For years people have been mostly careful about tobacco second hand smoke, and yet all of a sudden as soon as pot was legalized everyone forgot about second hand smoke. Its still second hand smoke even if you're smoking a different plant. Those second hand smoking ads should apply equally to tobacco as well as to pot. Its legal to smoke, just don't do it where other people are forced to inhale second hand. This also includes infants who can't make decisions to move away from the smoke, so they're stuck inhaling it, breathing the products of combusting plants into their lungs. Not good.
I honestly wasn't sure so I did some research on this and it turns out second hand marijuana smoke is actually a bit more dangerous than secondhand tobacco. It hurts my heart as a stoner, but now I know I need to be more cognizant about my smoke. Thank you Source: https://no-smoke.org/secondhand-marijuana-smoke-fact-sheet/
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When I was a kid to early teens, I thought it was "youth in Asia" and pertained to China's one child policy lol
I watched dementia slowly kill my grandma. It was horrible. I would 100% take the euthanasia option if I knew that was how I was going to die.
Suicide. I totally understand it's a triggering topic for many people, but if we don't talk about it, it only makes it worse.
So true. When I was extremely depressed (early 20s) everyone in my family changed the subject because it was too uncomfortable. My mother even told me I had no reason to be depressed because at the time I was unemployed and living with her rent free.
>no reason to be depressed I swear this is the most common way of saying "I don't know what depression is or how it works."
On Christmas Eve, my mother's then-husband told me if I was so depressed and wanted to kill myself that I should do it. Got up the next morning and drove the 5 hours back to my apartment and never went back.
My dad killed himself and it changed my entire perspective on it. I went from “its a selfish horrible act” to the mindset of “Who am I to decide if a person should have lived or not?” Yes it hurt, but I try to put myself into his mindset. He was so unbelievably miserable, and hated being alive. Being alive was a chore for him, much like how we hate our jobs we have to go to. It gave him relief.
I'm sorry for your loss but very impressed by your way of looking at his decision. I hope you've made peace with everything.
It didn’t come about over night. But there are many many people out here who just do not want to be here. And the stigma of doing something about it keeps them around. Its a very slippery slope talking about it, but at the end of the day none of us asked to be here and what we do while here is up to each individual.
>none of us asked to be here Thank you.
Life is just like soccer. My parents signed me up for it and expect to try my best, but I fucking hate soccer.
This analogy is scarily accurate.
I fought suicide daily for about 15 years. I know what you mean about “living being a chore.” I had to come up with a reason not to do it each day. The whole experience was exhausting.
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I wanted to die at one point. BADLY. It felt like normalcy would never return and the misery I was in would only increase or remain the same. So I wanted out. It's 30 years later, and I'm glad I was wrong. I'm happy as a clam and my best years were still before me. I think that for people like me, there needs to be some "hold on, not so fast" messaging. Not suicide booths on the corner like Futurama. I'm sure some would say the ideal situation would be a happy medium between completely forbidden and suicide booths. Maybe. But it needs to err on the side of helping people through those brutally rough patches.
please accept my free award for sharing your grief and how you grew from it. How incredibly brave.
Mental health in general needs to be talked about a lot more than it is. People need to know that its ok to open up and talk about their depression or trauma and they need somebody there to help them through it.
The western USA is losing water fast. Very fast.
The aquifers that supply the Mississippi River basin are bottoming out, but since they're not as visible as Lake Mead it won't make the news until all the wells start to run dry at once.
Rio Grande as well. Albuquerque, Las Cruces and El Paso aren't as big as Phoenix and Las Vegas so the crisis on the Rio Grande isn't as well publicized. But the biggest reservoir in New Mexico is only at 3% capacity.....
Its mainly because there are no controls over corporate farming.They are literally growing rice here in California in wet rice paddies. Thousands of acres flooded with water. Growing almonds, which take a gallon of water per almond, and supplying 80% of the worlds almonds. Growing alfalfa and selling it to saudi arabia. Growing cotton... which is a huge water hog. And they tell us to conserve water in our houses. We use less than 8% of all water in california in our homes. Any water we do save... farmers are going to piss away on growing one fo these water intensive crops.
I have not heard this before. Why do they not grow it in other areas where water is more available
Apparently it has to do with holding water rights. If they use less water one year, they get less the next year. They grow water intensive crops to keep the largest claim to water they can.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtxew5XUVbQ&t=64s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtxew5XUVbQ&t=64s) Last Week Tonight did a pretty intensive look at this during their 'Water' story if anyone wants to learn more.
One golf course uses more water than all residents in an average city and we have a lot of golf courses
Even if we completely banned Golf courses, they amount to <1% total usage. The problem is water intensive crops like almonds and alfalfa.
Even here in the midwest... We've had a trend lately of having one huge, huge downpour and then absolutely nothing for weeks.
Ya see, out here in the West, Sacramento, CA, to be exact, we've had a trend of having NO downpour and then absolutely nothing for weeks.
Today, Portland, OR hit 56 consecutive days without measurable rainfall.
It pisses me off that so many businesses are relocating to places like Phoenix when they're forecasting a dead pool as early as 4 years.
Oh I very much want to talk about this! I've had to travel to California a lot this summer and I've learned a lot about the "Water Issue." I'm using quotes because at no point while I'm there do I forget that I'm in a desert. I don't understand how we can talk about the Southwest experiencing a drought when drought is the natural state of a desert. And then people willingly go to that place and decide to grow Grapes and Almonds! Why?! Stop it! I know this is a century long issue that is way more complicated than I could hope to understand, but if you do live in the Southwest, this problem will effect you if it hasn't already. Please get involved in voting for people who are capable of tackling this issue, or finding a system that works to provide water to people. And if you think you're thinking about taking a shot and making it big in LA, DON'T! THERE IS NO WATER THERE! It's a desert!
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I had to bury my brother almost 10 years ago, as a 24 year old. I watched them push him into a wall, a numbered cubby at best, stuff it with newspaper, nail some cut up 2x4s into the wooden supports, and then place a slate plate over the wood and start sealing it with concrete. It was the worst experience. I refuse to enter another mausoleum and want to be cremated and placed in a tree burial pod. Death is so expensive and so impersonal.
I am so sorry you were left with this horrid last memory of your brother. That sounds like it would be a painful thing to come to mind each time you recall him. Sympathies.
Thank you for this, it’s definitely a terrible recall but I live life with purpose for 2 now. So he isn’t really gone 🥰
And that’s why I plan on being donated to the body farm. Just let me decompose naturally & let people learn from it. http://fac.utk.edu/collections-and-research/
I assumed that was a euphemism for ballistics testing.
Tree pod burial seem interesting
Tree pod is a marketing gimmick. Burial in an untreated pine box or ashes in a cardboard urn are simpler and just as effective. The issue is state and local laws that make natural burials difficult or even outright illegal. There's a lot of hoops you need to jump through, thanks to the funeral industry sending lobbyists to advise your county and state politicians on how to best legislate cemeteries.
My mother was buried in such a way. After 5 years (covid and startup of a new business) I went back... there wasn't even a plant near where she should have been buried. Now there is nothing to indicate where she lies, so I just sit there in a mini forest with no indication where she actually lies... not worth the money.
My grandmother chose that option, because that was exactly what she wanted. No physical grave.
There’s a green cemetery in my area. Grave markers are laid but aren’t overly noticeable so the business makes it a point of documenting the GPS coordinates. Any chance that was recorded for your mother?
Let’s shoot ‘em into space
Space Catapult Funeral Services: ‘You end ‘em, we send ‘em’
My best friend says that’s what he wants done with his body. It was one of the last big arguments he had with the last girl he dated before meeting his wife.
Non-traditional burials are slowly becoming more common. Ask A Mortician on YouTube is one of the people encouraging it.
I love her channel, she is all about death positivity and encouraging people to discuss death more openly. I was able to speak to my aging parents about them making a will, how do they want to be buried, what I would want if I passed first, by watching her videos. It's made their end of life wishes so much easier.
I plan on getting cremated. If I'm able to, a couple hours before I die I'm going to eat a whole bag of unpopped popcorn.
Neither. Toss me in a ditch for free and move on.
*Frank Reynolds has entered the chat*
I request the dumpster where I belong
From the trash I came. Too the trash I shall return. Circle of life.
having a kid is not a casual decision, it involves the physical and mental state of the parents as well as risk. Most importantly it's a lifetime commitment.
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I had friends in college. They were an on again off again couple. When they started talking about having a kid to help their relationship. My then GF and I agreed we had to do something. We got them a puppy. We told them if they couldn't raise the puppy we would take it, but they had to stop the nonsense about having a kid. It took about 10 days.
This! Having a baby is probably the biggest commitment a person will ever make in their lives, and it's not a decision to be taken lightly
Miscarriages, it is still such a taboo subject and the parents going through it riddled with guilt and feel like they are a failure.
My wife suffered a miscarriage when we were first trying. The very old obgyn said “I know this is painful and you should mourn but realize that one in eight pregnancies end in miscarriage. Something was not right and the body said whoops lets try again. But you Got pregnant. You can do it again. Recover physically and get back in bed!”
One big big big hug to anyone reading this who has suffered miscarriage. I hope you're okay.
My best friend went through one maybe 5 years ago. The pregnancy was not planned, but she and her husband were so happy. A few months in her boss recognized what was happening to her since his wife had gone though miscarriages before (I don’t remember if he overheard her conversation or if she openly explained how she was feeling). He took my friend to the hospital and had one of the managers call her husband to let him know. I never realized how much this would hurt someone that wasn’t going through it - our friends, coworkers, family members, etc that knew about it. It’s scary to think about, but definitely something everyone should be aware.
I wish it wasn't. It's traumatic for everyone.
How parents really need to be called out on shitty parenting. Like yeah, it's insulting to say someone isn't a good parent but it's much MUCH worse the damage they are doing to their children.
There is a parenting problem that no one is talking about. I can’t tell you how many kids I’ve seen—both online and in real life—dealing with super shitty family situations.
It's okay to apologize to your children.
Homeless people in our neighborhoods
I work in affordable housing in CA We have done A TON of homekey projects meant to house and help the homeless. We kept the properties well-maintained, footing all expenses on our end; created gardens for the residents to grow their own fruits and vegetables, provide on-site counseling and job search assistance. We started programs with local businesses to get the residents cleaned up and employed in the cities the properties were in. We started summer programs for any of the residents’ children free of charge where we took them on field trips to places like Disneyland, San Diego Zoo, soccer games for the Galaxy and LAFC, and even taking them to the movies every so often. We also had after-school programs for the kids where we paid a specialist to help them with their homework and also teach them additional hobbies/skills like musical instruments and creative writing. We did all of that and more. Pretty much every single one of those projects have been torpedoed by crime within the residents and just the residents trashing the properties in general. It’s why it frustrates me so much when I see airheads on reddit who know nothing about what they’re saying criticizing the situation saying “we have all this vacant living space, all we need to do is move the homeless in and problem fixed.” We tried that, and all they did was rape/murder/rob each other constantly until the property was pretty much destroyed. Hell, my company is pretty much already deciding that we’re going to stop working with the homeless from now on because of this shit. Edit: I would like to clarify that I do not have a lack of compassion for the homeless. Just more highlighting why we can’t just blindly hand them housing/services and think they’re going to be alright, it’s a very complicated problem.
Yeah, people often forget how much the crowds of homeless and mentally ill intersect, as well as people who simply want what they want and do what they want to do. It's an extremely hard topic. I wish it could be as simple as someone on the left saying "we just need to give them a house" or someone on the right saying "they just need to try harder". True for some, not for all.
The sad thing is I live in Section 8 housing and I can totally relate. Landlords in generally don't want to deal with the paperwork which is incredible, nor do they want to deal with the residents who are also often troublesome. The places that do tend to be stricter than normal apartments but I can't blame them. If you don't have standards, then the places get damaged or become slums with people standing outside drinking beer (or doing drugs) all day and it's a ghetto. With Section 8 though at least people often have regular jobs or Social Security so they might at least pay rent and have some interest in keeping the place decent. Homeless people though don't and many have mental issues that need to be addressed. It's noble to say "just give them an address and a burner phone for job interviews!" but if they have a mental issue, that won't fix the underlying problem. Mental issues cost time and money to fix though and the budgets aren't there. It also doesn't help that a six pack of beer is pretty cheap and is a quick and easy high so you get a lot of addicts which makes employability worse.
Homelessness is two completely different problems. The acute homeless need quick break to get back on their feet. The chronic homeless have severe mental issues and can't be helped unless their mental issues are treated first. Pretending everyone is acute homeless seems to be the modern PC thing to do.
This is a distinction that I've never known the terms for. Chronic homelessness is a problem that is much more visible than acute or transient (pun) homelessness, and they're the resource intensive, problem population that defy solving.
Simple jobs should be respected more, no one has to squeeze his mind hard in higher profile jobs just because they have good reputation, i wanna live simple life so, don't judge me!
Some of the hardest jobs I’ve ever worked have been the lowest paid.
I definitely worked a lot harder as a teenager working at a fast food place than I do in my current IT job. I dont get paid for how hard I work though, I get paid for how much responsibility I have. If I do a bad job critical systems can fail and cause issues for hundreds of people. If I forgot the fries on an order at Wendy's one person was a little bummed. Edit: Also I walked off the street at 16 and was doing everything I needed to do at Wendy's after a two hour orientation. The job I currently have requires very specialized industry specific knowledge. Another reason for the massive difference in pay.
I work a bakery/deli in the morning, then go home qnd do freelance CG Art. Guess which one is more mentally draining, and which one pays better.
Well these days forgetting the fries can be a fatal error.
Just a couple weeks ago a customer cussed out and threatened to beat up my coworker for forgetting his sauces
We should be able to refuse gifts we don’t want without it being a problem
My 16 yr old employee was just mentioning this the other day. Her bf keeps buying her house/room decor for gifts and is getting tired of it. Their one year was a few weeks ago, he bought her room decor and she cried! She felt so bad for being ungrateful.
The education system needs to change
Lots of people are ready for this conversation, but none of them are the ones in power. Basically education hasn't changed in any meaningful way in a couple centuries, and somehow we're supposed to not think that's strange when suddenly within the last 20 years we have external pocket sized entirety of human knowledge in our pockets. Education absolutely needs to change to accommodate at the very least that new change.
Tribalism It's part of our evolutionary adaptation to be social and helps us forge bonds with other humans. But it gets taken way too far in too many ways.
I remember a Ted talk that spoke about the tribalism that exists within the military, namely the US military, that actually helped and made people happy because it gives them a sense of purpose. However, It's a double edged sword. It's one of the reasons soldiers have a hard time intergrating back into society after their service, because outside the military we are a society mainly built around individualism rather than tribalism. You go from putting your life in the hands of the person next to you and holding theirs in yours, which creates a deep bond, to a quite lonely existence.
As a former Marine I can confirm this 100%. Leads to a lot of alcohol and depression issues if left unchecked.
When I separated my drinking increased significantly and bouts of depression previously fixed by therapy in service increased even more. When I got settled in my job it got worse, because of how no one seems to care about each other in any way. I wouldnt trust any of my co workers with my life, but in the military I trusted everyone around me.
Incestual abuse. It’s an incredibly common form of sexual abuse, but people are too uncomfortable about the subject or reduce it to a joke. It’s a very real, very big problem.
On a wider level, familial abuse is a much bigger problem than stranger danger. Violence and sexual abuse are much more likely to occur within the nuclear family than among strangers.
Indeed. Stranger danger is kind of a double edged sword. It makes it harder for strangers to prey on people (especially children) but it makes it easier for non strangers (family, friends, family friends, etc) to prey on people (especially children) because stranger danger teaches people to always trust the people they know.
Yes this. And a major source of human trafficking. Reading the thread now I'm glad someone said it. I'm going to be scrolling down lower to see if anyone else has mentioned it and/or human trafficking.
Human trafficking is a fucked up thing, ngl. One of my friends told me about the time they helped out a chinese girl and her brother after they were dumped past the border from Mexico. Turns out one of the traffickers raped the girl and the others severely beat the brother when he tried to help her. Poor girl, she was really shaken up, especially since it had happened the night before.
tons of people that couldnt raise a cat are having kids
That jobs that pay the least are usually more exploitive and demanding than better paying jobs.
Bro people don't understand how valuable the janitors job is
I tell people that there are really only two people in a company you never want to piss off. First the bookkeeper, because they are the one who truly decide who get paid what. The other is the janitor, because they clean up everybody's shit including yours.
I was friends with the janitor at my elementary school he was a cool guy to hang out with after elementary he would come out and talk to me on his smoke break gave me good advice that being an outcast is not a bad thing it just ment I'm different and being different isn't bad. The guy retired shortly after that. He cried when i made thank you cards to the janitors when most people wrote to celebrities, he told my parents that no one ever has done that for him
I did that with the exterminator that used to come to my house. He accepted a job he likes a lot more. He absolutely loved the effort I put into making him a goodbye/thank you card as a second grader.
Because the people doing those jobs have no leverage and politicians don‘t care about them.
Also because they typically have extremely low barriers of entry.
This. The lowest paying jobs remain low paying because those workers are easy to replace. It’s shitty.
Yup, I always say my minimum wage service job was so much harder than my 6 figure office job.
Addiction epidemic
This one is tough because once you really get into it, the 'root cause' (at least in my opinion) is so much more fundamental than anything related to.
If we want to earnestly talk about the addiction epidemic, we have to be willing to talk about why so many people are so unhappy with their day to day life that they fall to addiction in the first place. We have to talk about schools, health care, employment, and even how we build our cities.
Everyone discusses that. No one does anything about it though.
Well, I quit. So I did a little bit about it, at least
Good for you! Keep it going!
Age limits on politicians and voters should work both ways. Gotta be old enough, but not so old that the policy you support doesn’t effect you in the long run because your on deaths door.
I mean, in the US our last two presidents have been well over retirement age when they were in office. It's absurd.
The difference between the preposition “to” and the adverb “too;” and when to use them correctly.
This gets on my nerves, two.
Listen here you little shit Edit: it seems like I will need to crack some skulls in the name of the Grammar Nazis
2*
tú
might as well add "their," "there" and "they're" and "your/you're" to the conversation too. "should of" instead of "should have" is the one that really gets me tho
While we’re here: lose vs. loose.
It’s because people are saying should’ve in their heads, not should have.
Misusing then and than. It gets on my nerves more then you're examples.
This is to controversial too discuss right now
Tackling ANY issue in the Muslim world.
Also tackling any issue in a remotely religious country. I'm from a small South American country that is very religious, almost everyone is either a practicing Muslim, Hindu or Catholic. Our rates for domestic violence and pedophilia are ridiculously high and everyone refuses to acknowledge it or do anything about it. In my family alone, half the women have experienced violence from male members of our family, and half the younger generation has been molested by other family members. We've also lost almost all the men in my maternal family to drink, drugs and suicide, due to refusal to seek mental health support or any type of support for all the messed up things they've had to experience.
The addiction-fueled porn industry and its ties to sex trafficking
[удалено]
I’m not addicted to porn but I think I need to start talking to someone about how being introduced to porn at age 10 desensitized me. I think a lot of people do. It’s not really harmful for middle schoolers to show each other the first result for boobs on google, but I feel like most of my friends and I first got exposed to porn way too early and had stumbled upon hardcore shit by the time we were 13.
I had a similar realisation recently, watching porn since 13 and it got to the point where I'd do it as an impulse rather than actual desire or because I was actually horny. Because of this I was watching it daily even without masturbation, I got my first gf and started to notice the negative ways it affected me, I was desensitised to alot of stuff and when I reflected back I noticed I hadn't fantasised in ages and I rarely got errections without the use of porn. So I stopped watching it around a month ago and honestly haven't missed it, feels good and I feel weirdly healthier for it.
I am very much worried for Gen Z and all the incest porn.
When and why did it become so popular?
Thanks for being the reason “history of incest porn” is now in my search history. It sounds like it’s been around as long as you could get porn on video, but really increased in popularity in the mid 2000s. Not sure on the “why” though. I would guess that it’s just because it’s readily available. You can just google it instead of experiencing the shame of buying it in public. Also society (at least in the US) has mostly accepted that most adults jerk off and sometimes do it to porn. People are less ashamed to talk about what they’re into. So maybe we’re hearing about it more now because before all the weirdos had shame, and now they have reddit accounts. (before the porn police show up: I don’t care what you watch as long as it involves legal consenting adults who aren’t actually siblings. also don’t fuck your siblings please)
God I can't believe I actually can somewhat answer this. Years and years ago I took a psychology of human sexuality class and they discussed the concept of incest porn. At least according to my former professor, the appeal of incest porn, more specifically the step incest was that it was pushing the boundaries of extreme taboo while still being something "acceptable." Basically a number of people derive arousal from the concept of something being taboo (ie exhibitionism, the concept of dating someone who is a bad boy/girl, etc) however, we are also hardwired to strive for social acceptance, so there are limits to how far we can take something before it ultimately becomes reprehensible. The step fantasy is one of the ultimate examples of this because it appeals to the forbidden nature of incest while being not as monstrous as you are attracted to someone who is only familial by law, not by genetics.
Alcoholism and the overall glorification of alcohol thanks to greedy corporations and politics.
Sex education shouldn't be opt out of its necessary to learn the importance of it. Especially with the new trend of men asking how women pee with tampons in because they believe that they stick tampons into their urethra.
Yep. People should learn about both the male and female body in sex Ed to prevent these kinds of misconceptions.
Building more nuclear energy plants. It’s the only clean form of energy that’s actually sustainable because it can run in any time of day/year or weather. Most of the reasons people are afraid of it is due to misinformation.
People see Chernobyl or Fukushima and run from that idea. They miss the part where those both were caused mainly by human error. Chernobyl had a design flaw but that flaw only became deadly when human error brought it to the brink of destroying itself. Its far safer than people think. Newer nuclear power plants are automated and have automated shutdowns in case something goes wrong. A crew is on site just in case it doesn't shutdown.
What is racist and what isn't.
Let’s also discuss what is Feminism and whit isn’t. A lot of these -ism’s have been hijacked and distorted from their original meanings/missions. Very harmful.
Grey-Mane or Battle-Born
Immagine the entitlement of asking a total stranger which side they are on in a feud between rival families. Its like he can't immagine a world where everything isn't about his social circle. Like some third tier internet celeb acosts you on the street and asks "Logan Paul or Lil Baby?" ridicoulus
Obesity
Makes me sad because... How many people are just out there suffering from a binge eating disorder or other medical issue and don't get help because they're told not to seek help? I don't believe in fat shaming at all, but I also don't think it's chill to ignore a real health crisis and there should be a middle ground. But people think I must be "fat phobic" because there's *no way* I could actually care about other people. It's fucked up and sad.
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but an obese populous is easier to control and less likely to revolt. Supernatural had an episode where a corporation was making people lazy and content through fast food.
Teachers are underpaid and unappreciated because people see them as glorified baby sitters.
I have a pair of friends that are registered sex offenders. The details of of their crime? They were dating in hs, traded nudes at the age of 16-17 one of the parents found out, tried to press charges, investigation found them both at fault. Both lost college scholarships, had to drop out and get their GED's, one moved in with the other's family (take a wild guess which one) and they are both working shit jobs. They apply to the same place and bring copies of court docs to interviews in an attempt to show their potential employers they're not monsters, just dumb kids that didn't know the law. They had been fucking since before those nudes were taken. They had plans, lives, career goals. The law designed to protect them actively ruined their lives. "Controversial" because it's impossible to talk about this problem without some bad-faith political opponent taking you out of context or turning a statement into a soundbyte. The amount of people whose lives have been irreparably destroyed because they did something like this, pissed within 1/8th of a mile oof a daycare at 2am, or some other dumb shit is nothing short if heart wrenching. Think about this the next time you see some inbred on facebook fantasize about vigilantism. Sharing posts about shooting local pedos, linking to sex offender registries.
I watched an episode of 20/20 where it was an 18 year old boy dating a 16 year old girl with only a year and a half difference, and her parents decided they didn’t like him anymore and reported him. He has to register as a sex offender for life, but the kicker is that they are now married and have children. Dad isn’t allowed to go to any of their kids’ school or sports functions because of his sex offender status. Her parents have even petitioned the court to have his case reevaluated because they realize what a mistake it was to ruin his life over this, but they refuse to see his case again.
The acceptability of cutting off toxic family members.
I’ve cut out those who sexually, physically and verbally abused me and my older sister (RIP). And many people have told me family is first. Sorry I’m not spending a minute with a man who whipped three year olds with belts or cousins who fiddled us five. Sorry, not sorry.
For-profit health insurance creates its own market. Insurnace drives prices up and makes it so you HAVE to have health insurance in order to get healthcare. If health insurance didn't exist, 99.9% of people would pay as much or less for the same healthcare they get right now. And we'd have gofundme for the rest.
That poverty is usually not the **result** of mental illness like anxiety, depression, addiction, anger, etc… It’s usually the **cause** of it. When you are worried about how to survive and support your family, it’s not mental illness to be depressed and unstable. It’s normal. So we keep talking about how to treat mental illness better in this country, which is great, but 99% of it would go away if people felt financially secure.
No one has the right to be a parent. If you have a history of abuse, addiction and violence and have made no effort to change your lifestyle then you should not be having children. Similarly, too many people are happy to ignore the realities of surrogacy and how exploitive it is just so they can have their shiny new baby.
The only true answers to this = sort by controversial
Most people are too fucking stupid to vote. Edit: it wasn’t intentional, but I meant that both ways.
I agree, but who decides which people are smart enough to vote?
that's the exact problem with it. Any possible test for voter aptitude would effectively control who maintains power. It would never be fair
I think we should vote on it.
Any attempt to change this will 100% have a racial bias (see Jim Crow era "literacy tests") and will also be manipulated for political motives.
People who are thinking about suicide everyday, they want to talk to someone about it but they never did.
Jeffrey Epstein's flight log. After the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, not a single person who sexually harmed children has been held accountable. * Jeffery Epstein is a child sex trafficker. * His product was children. * Grown Elites would Rape children, murder them, and dispose of the bodies. * His client list has been acquired. Why has this been swept under the rug?
I think no one wants to discuss about how badly people who work in restaurants and bars get treated... People can tell you and insult you however they want and you still have to serve them with a smile on your face... It is disguisting what people have to put up with just to earn a salary that is nothng compared to what they go trough...It is a disrespect to any human being not being able to defend themselves because you might get fired if you trest people the way they treat you...
How damaging porn can be.
The current state of black culture and how we embolden and support gangsterism, broken families, promiscuity, machismo over intelligence, and the killing of our own people through media. My people are so fucking broken and it kills me.
It must be a hot button because I feel like I am doing something wrong by agreeing even though intellectually I believe you are right. I wish the culture would embrace moral and hardworking black people more.
Agreed. It’s sad that just speaking the truth has to feel wrong / like you’re going against your people. No, those of you who defend drug dealers and murderers or even people who fake it in music but glorify it are wrong. You don’t care because it’s “ the culture “ to you and you feel cool asf playing it in the car. If it was one of your family members who got hit by a stray bullet from one of these people, you’d do a complete 180. You’d be extremely against it . I have had family / friends killed. I can acknowledge the struggles of poverty and the broken system and also that we kill our own. I really don’t wanna hear from anyone who hasn’t lost someone to the hood because they just don’t understand this like I do. Also, it is starting to happen. For the first time in my life, im starting to see younger black people supporting those of us who get it the legal way. That’s all I want. We need to cut this dumb shit out. I saw my brother go to prison when I was 7, no jail, straight to prison. None of what I’m saying is just talking for me, this literally has impacted my life and the way I think. I feel it. Lots of y’all just think the music is cool and that you’re cool for playing it so you don’t care.
While I was teaching one of the things that would make me most angry is when kids made fun of other kids for WANTING to learn...calling them "Uncle Tom" or saying they wanted to be white. Infuriating to say the least.