i find it so crazy how people are conditioned to shove down very real worries to appeal to normality.

Covid gives us brain damage. Brain damage is often subtle. It doesn't usually manifest as drooling in the corner. For instance, one of the most common signs of brain damage is fatigue.

I experience it all the time too. Hanging out with friends, all staring at their phones. Can't even have a conversation or wonder anything any more. The pull out their phone and ask grok the millisecond anything comes to question. Zero critical thinking.

Really hate that tech bros have commandeered their brains.

Capitalism late stage is draining everyone. Also the fascism.

revolution!

I get things are expensive and hard. I just don’t understand the debt. I grew up really poor. Never had anything. Family didn’t have debt though. Now I’m Lower lower middle class. I moved up over my parents. Still struggling. Still no savings at 39. But no debt.

How do people acquire so much debt? Is it college (I was too poor to consider it because it would be 100% financed through loans, which ain’t happening), credit cards? I’ve never had one. I always thought those were for rich people. Home loans? Medical? Like everyone I know is in debt and I don’t get it.

Poor, I get. Hunger, I get. Homelessness, I get. I just don’t understand debt.

My wife lost her job last year due to illness. Had to take a loan out against one of the cars. My income alone wasn't enough. Got behind on bills. Shit happens, man.

I see. I’m sorry

Wouldn't be suprised if the borderline criminalization of being a child outside starting 10-30 years ago played a role in this.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." wasn't normalizing toxicity, it was training us to be able to deal with assholes. I think the world has forgotten that.

but we also had regulations on the military industrial complex. Eisenhower was spot on.

I make my living off the evening news.

Just give me something, something I can use:

People love it when you lose, they love dirty laundry...

Well, I could've been an actor, but I wound up here;
I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear.

Come and whisper in my ear, give us dirty laundry!

Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down!

Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down!

Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down!

Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em all around...

We got the bubble-headed bleached-blonde, comes on at 5;
She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye.

It's interesting when people die, give us dirty laundry!

Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet?

You know, the boys in the newsroom got a running bet!

"Get the widow on the set," we need dirty laundry...

You don't really need to find out what's goin' on.

You don't really wanna know just how far it's gone.

Just leave well enough alone, keep your dirty laundry...

Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies...

We got our dirty little fingers in everybody's pie.

We love to cut you down to size, we love dirty laundry!

We can do "The Innuendo," we can dance and sing;
When it's said and done, we haven't told you a thing!

We all know that crap is king, give us dirty laundry.

-Don Henley, Dirty Laundry

but i'm hungwy for despots

i see them discarding us much more readily once they don't need us for their work anymore

Wrap it in a fun color of your choice. It'll protect the paint.

Every person alive right now has about a credit cards worth of plastic in their brain.

This. I'm not a cyclist but I am someone who walks frequently. People can't even wait to take a right turn while you're crossing the street at a stop light, they'll inch right up next to me to the point I can feel the heat from their radiator. If people are that inconsiderate to me at a fucking crosswalk, I don't trust them not to plow through a cyclist in a bike lane.

Social media is the largest drain on humanity. It's disgusting how addicted people are to short form videos, social media validation. It's engrained in the subconscious I see it daily. Nothing to do = grab the phone and find something. No brain power, no thoughts or drive to do anything productive or physical. These companies should be charged for a crime against humanity.

I use AI don't get me wrong but it's not some new person I can't live without. I have family members that truly feel chatgpt is the friend they never had, genuinly love it, and consider it closer than other family members. Fucking insane behavior. I mean really tell it things and trust it like with their data and such. Thank it, and have their egos boosted/built by its output.

Not the only one.

I think there's a number of causes, but the biggest one is pretty simple- the death of boredom.

You are stuck in an airport waiting for your flight. It leaves in an hour. What do you do?
You whip out your phone and fire up your favorite social media and scroll. And the hour disappears.
Or maybe you watch a movie. Or read the news. Or whatever- your digital mental babysitter will entertain you.

What you don't do, is be bored. Boredom is now totally optional, and by default it is suppressed and must be actively chosen.

This sounds like a good thing, but the reality is boredom is a time that's vital for our minds to process and dream and imagine. And we killed that.

So that time when someone might contemplate taking up a new hobby, contemplate a new project, contemplate building something cool? Gone.