Arete314159

Intentionally malevolent.

GOOD.

Same. Ever been a vulnerable woman stuck in a car with a man who starts ranting that "nobody wants to date men who aren't rich anymore" and it turns out the driver is angry because the women that are trapped as riders won't go out with him?

Or how about, "Nice place...you live alone here?"

Absolutely would choose the robot.

Hi, I don't know what this is supposed to do, but I get pretty bad migraines and loading the page made me feel extremely strange almost immediately so I closed it.

I would check to make sure this can't trigger migraines or seizures. Maybe it's just me, but also, please double check.

It's a layered approach. There's not one silver bullet. But sending kids to school without clean air upgrades is criminal.

Long Covid is a spectrum. It's everything from silent damage to severe functional impairment. Each subsequent infection makes noticeable damage more likely.

Yeah, decluttering is torture.

I don't think the problem is the paper losses so far. The problem is the entire social contract...or I don't know what to call it -- governmental contract? Financial world contract? Is on fire.

What are some good European ETF providers? Do you have to be physically within Europe to use them, or can you use them as long as you have an EU passport?

I think too that one thing that's important is to decide beforehand -- what can I do? What would I be willing to do?

That is to say, some people really are willing to be activists. They will organize protests and boycotts and things like that.

Other people are in marginalized communities and are trying to get a feel for whether they should move to a different region or even a different country.

Some folks don't really have a plan but they want to stay informed. If at some point a magical line is crossed, they might suddenly say, "That's IT! I can't take it anymore! I have to DO SOMETHNG!" and that's when they'll become activists.

But some folks are realistically never going to lift a finger to help themselves or anybody else. They'll just bitch online and/or be stressed.

What I'm working on is figuring out in what ways I might, in the right situation, be moved to contribute. If things get really bad (and they will), what will I realistically be doing? I'm disabled, so I can't be out in the streets. If things get even worse, I might write about the niche public health / politics topics I've accidentally become an expert in. And if something happens where medicare and medicaid are shut off, well then all hospitals everywhere will basically be non-functional. This will be a crisis for all but most immediately for the chronically ill -- any of us at that point who are able to will be leaving the country ASAP.

In other words, I need to know enough to keep writing (which I would do anyways) and I need to know when things are hopeless enough that a person with a messed up spine should travel out of the country anyways. That is currently all I need to know because it's all that is actionable for me.

There is a massive temptation to doomscroll into infinity, but that merely serves the enemies of sanity. I know what happens next because I've read Sarah Kendzior and Hannah Arendt. It's not good. But I also know that one of the first things that happened during the anti-semitic purges in Nazi Germany was that a ton of Jews got appendicitis from stress. Sometimes the body wants to align with power so badly, it aligns even with evil power and against its own interests. We have to be very careful not to poison ourselves and make evil's job easier.

I have OCD and sadly one of the ways I've dealt with it is to drown it out by being on social media and, before that, just playing NPR nonstop all day. I basically chose a new, louder voice to drown out the other voices in my head.

Unfortunately, in this day and age it's like choosing between two different forms of torture. Social media is so toxic and fries the nervous system so much - it's awful. The news is awful. And being alone with OCD is awful. (And yes I've tried various treatments - so far, nothing's worked great. B12 shots did help a bit and so did prednisone accidentally, but I can't stay on that long term.)

If you're feeling sick in a building, you can't leave out mentioning mold. Mold will really destroy you.

Also ozone machines, when used properly and safely (no occupants), can sometimes help to speed up the offgassing process. If you're interested in doing this, please read up on it so you don't do it wrong or dangerously. It can also in some cases cause new, worse VOC's to form, so...user beware.