Initiateofthevoid
It's not clear to me who or what is directly responsible for this, but do you really think the American Agency for Making Sure Planes Don't Crash isn't involved when an American Plane Crashes... just because it happened somewhere else?
Let's try our own bait and switch:
I'm watching a science fiction show and suddenly they start focusing on American history instead.
So I'm offended by the bait and switch, or whatever you call it.
Is that valid?
The answer is still no, it's not valid to equate a movie to, oh... systematic oppression. If you didn't like the movie, you didn't like the movie.
Has it all been futile? Have I wasted ten years fighting the same fascists my grandfather fought in WW2?
You didn't waste your time any more than he wasted his. Plenty of people died fighting without seeing victory on the horizon. If WW2 had ended differently, it still wouldn't have been a waste of time fighting Nazis. You can't always win, but you can always fight.
Martial law would be devastating but no matter how well-funded they are, the American defense industry is bloated, mismanaged, and full of flawed humans. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, even Ukraine - all prove that defeat is far from guaranteed against what appears to be an unstoppable force.
But to tell the truth, I am struggling to figure out how to fight at this stage. Messaging, communication, organization - these appear sparse and unreliable right now, drowned out in the sea of disinformation. What will bring us together? Do we need heros to rally around? Martyrs to avenge? Slogans to shout? Organizations to unite? Platforms to coordinate? All of the above?
Three things are true:
- People seek attention, and often lie to get it.
- Seeking attention is not unique to GenZ. People screamed for attention in Pompeii and Ancient Greece, leaving graffiti on the walls and yelling arguments at strangers
- Many symptoms of neurodivergence appear at first glance to be typical to the human condition. This is not a coincidence - neurodivergents are human, and therefore face many of the same problems that neurotypical humans do.
_
The reason autism and other disorders are evaluated as a spectrum is because the human condition itself is a spectrum of experience. We are not simple creatures.
The reason people are diagnosed with a disorder is often because they have landed somewhere on the spectrum of human experience that involves an abnormal level of difficulty when faced with "normal" challenges.
Simple or routine tasks, time management, emotional regulation, conversation - humans universally face normal challenges in these areas at times, but neurodivergent individuals face greater challenges at higher frequencies, to the point where it can be classified as a "symptom" because it directly interferes with their life in a way that is not statistically normal - it produces unhealthy levels of stress or emotional instability, impairs social and professional engagements, interferes with their ability to reason or achieve their own desires, etc. etc.
These symptoms can often be managed or treated. Just as often, they can only be coped with.
In short, "invisible" symptoms, masking, misdiagnosis, and societal misunderstandings all contribute to this very common idea that the average neurodivergent is just an attention seeker.
Is it likely that you have come across someone who has incorrectly self-diagnosed? Absolutely. People will lie on the internet. People will lie to your face. People will lie to themselves.
But it is also incredibly likely that you have come across people with severe symptoms that you had absolutely no understanding of. People who have been driven to the brink of suicide because they couldn't manage their own mind, people who can convince you they are okay but can't convince themselves.
It's a goddamn spectrum, and people who can't function at all belong on it just as much as people who can mask, treat, or cope with their symptoms enough to blend in. You don't get to write off their existence just because their struggles aren't obvious to you.
Yet another unnecessary accelerationist in a world where the brakelines were cut years ago and the bus has been speeding up all on its own.
"I can fend for myself" is the extremely naive thought that cut those brakes. No human is an island, and everyone is connected to everyone, past and present.
And "good, they should suffer because they deserve it" is the extremely evil thought that placed the brick on the accelerator. It's the same thought that drives decisions like defunding healthcare.
So, congrats on being a part of the problem. Enjoy cheering for the suffering of humanity.
Since at least Reagan, we’ve gutted those services to those who need it. Just wish it wasn’t these assholes filling that void.
They're not filling that void. Their broad antagonism towards all things healthcare and science makes that painfully clear. A vague idea about "wellness" on a "farm" that is really just forced labor is not healthcare reform, it's a threat of violence.
I mean, being a manufacturing-based economy certainly didn’t keep oligarchs at bay in the early 1900’s US. On the flip side, a coder or a banker can strike just as well as a machinist.
It certainly did work against the oligarchs. Most of our labor laws, OSHA, etc were written in the blood of workers of the early 1900s. Blair mountain, steel workers, mass unionization... the oligarchs learned a lot of painful lessons that lead to massive quality of life improvements across the country.
Blue collar workers have to show up or nothing gets done. Their work happens in a physical location that can be picketed, and they all need to live close enough to that location to show up for work. The money of their employers is literally in the hands of blue collar workers on the job. Materials and bodies need to move in and out every single day or no money can be made that day.
The information, service, and gig economy does not run on the same principles. An Ubereats driver has never even seen his "employer" and the only real qualification is a drivers license. Coders can be fired or replaced with H1B's or overseas contractors, and they often work remotely or in local satellite offices that the C-suite sees once a year. Physical bank locations are not headquarters or vaults - they're sales floors for offering loans and credit cards.
None of these people can physically stop their employer from making money, and so they have much less power in the employer-employee relationship than traditional labor forces had until now.
People managed
A lot of them died young...
You can still live your life
You can't live your life without healthcare if you die young. What are you even trying to say here?
Reveddit seems to be a useful workaround but of course you'll see all the removed content as well
You don't get to use your identity as a defense against being called an asshole. Anyone can be a bigot. You talk about people who you claim to identify with like they're deviant, lesser, and worthy of oppression. It's not about fucking pronouns and you know it. You openly admit you want these people to suffer.
You're a bigoted asshole and don't belong in any community that relies on inclusion. Goodbye.
They also intentionally frame a really bad thing as a "good" thing. The situation here is not that the "rich" run the economy - it's that everyone else is being priced out of the economy by wage stagnation and rising costs of living.
The alternate headline here is "wealth inequality surges, 90% of Americans now account for only 50% of consumer spending"
Or
"1 in 10 Americans spending as much as the other 9 combined, while 3 of them live paycheck to paycheck"
People earning 6 digits a year are still one bad accident or diagnosis away from losing their jobs and living in poverty. They're not the root problem or the solution to the economy, and this article is trying to paint them as both.
Instead we need to acknowledge that the people "earning" 8-10 digits per year are extracting and hoarding that money away from the 90% of Americans who would otherwise be spending it in ways that would actually improve the economy.