I’m so sick and god damned tired of corporations and governments making sweeping decisions with no evidence base to back them up. I work in a field where there is no option for remote work, but I think it’s pretty clear at this point that most non-service industries can be just as effective via remote options. All of this is just about control and it’s so stupid.

The sad thing about UBI in places like the US is they further systematic change needs to happen prior to UBI being implemented.

If you have UBI added on to our current capitalist hellscape (since UBI rates will be publicly known) landlords and corporations will just hike prices to make life cost just as much as UBI—therefore forcing people to work for any scrap above that. So essentially UBI will be fed back into corporations/the elite, who will also continue to make profit on the labor the lower class does to afford anything above basic necessities.

I think the loophole is going to stay in place. The hemp lobby has exploded since 2018, and has done a lot to keep the loopholes from closing in even very Red states. In the real world money is what talks, and I think there’s too much money at this point to put the genie back in the bottle.

But that’s my two cents. I could be wrong. Hope I’m not.

It’s like building the NY subway system—you’re constantly adding on new bypasses and trying to maintenance old tunnels in order to account for new features/population. It ultimately ends up working most of the time and the daily commuters get to move from Point A to Point B with minimal interruption, but if you viewed the subway as a whole it’s a cobbled mess with lots of redundancy. Some of the architects who are currently around don’t even know where the oldest tunnels go, or why they’re there.

Wanted to give a take on it that didn’t focus on the obvious “language” aspect. I could be 100% wrong on this—I’m sort of basing it off of comments I’ve seen here or there. I know very few folks who work in tech and I work in healthcare.

Numbers like this are always bonkers to me. Like, how have we allowed this to happen?

It’s a fucking social media site. I know surgeons who work 80-100 hour weeks and make 1.5M a year—and even that seems obscene to me. But they’re academic subspecialty surgeons who are quite literally saving lives daily by personally performing heart transplants. How the fuck do we think as a society that a smug ass CEO’s “effort” is worth 200x that?

Society is so backwards and fucked.

The vibe has gotten much more negative, to the point that I don’t really want to post anymore. I came here in early June with the Reddit API stuff, and was shocked at how communal it was. It actually got me to start posting again (I hadn’t posted on Reddit since the early to mid 20-teens because it had gotten so toxic).

My last three posts (nothing inflammatory) have gotten flamed. Someone actually hunted me down based on my post history and I had to take the time deleting most of my old posts.

So from my perspective it’s not just you. I’m back to being a lurker.

You can’t buy a shed for that price where I live. An apartment of that size would be $2500+ per month.

I don’t want this to be the future but it’s better than a future where no one can buy anything at all.

I’ve tried to go back to Reddit here or there, and I literally can’t do it. I only visit it for very select communities that don’t exist here.

The post frequency isn’t the same here, but the quality of the posts and the comments is so much higher. I’ve said this before, but current Lemmy reminds me of Reddit in the early 2010’s before it got shitty. One of the great things about early Reddit was that it was more mature, people tended to assume good intentions more often, and it promoted logical dialogue. That has VERY MUCH been lost in Reddit’s current incarnation.

This has to be purposefully not getting media coverage so as to not incite panic/public support, right? When I saw the first ruling posted by Gov Abbott it seemed almost like a secessionist rant, but it’s NO WHERE to be seen in MSM

I’ve been saying this for a while, and that’s why I think a complex problem like this needs a more complex solution than UBI.

Essentially I think successful UBI would need to be something like UBS instead (Universal Basic Support). Instead of only being money it needs to consist of free services. That way it’s harder for third parties to leech it away.

So instead of “Here’s $1000 a month, do whatever you want” it would need to be more like “You can get free healthcare here, free electricity through this company, free food rations from this grocery store.” Then if you want things above UBS you need to have some source of income.

Yep. Been saying for a while that it feels like old Reddit.

I wonder if it’s a nerd-level thing. Reddit devolved as it turned into another social media outlet instead of a niche internet techie place.

We’ve been due for a recession since 2020–the drastic pullback for several months at the onset of COVID was hardly a “recession,” more like a blip. I’ve finally stopped saying it’s imminently going to happen, which maybe means it’s going to happen now.

Having mega corporations design space networks for you sounds like a great idea until they decide to lock you out and hold your government hostage. Or sell intel… Or sell access to other actors….

Just admit it—the corporations run the world at this point.

This is so true. I try to explain this to my wife and she doesn’t understand.

If I’m on my phone I’m either:

1. Answering endless Teams chats or emails (I get work messages well outside of normal business hours because of my job—it’s annoying but I’ve also gotten used to it because we basically do everything async)
2. Doom scrolling

I hate social media. I’ve hated Reddit since API. Lemmy is great but I’ll go days sometimes with the same home page. So I basically cycle through the same 3 sites endlessly. I got a Steam Deck to try and help with this, but when I hop on it my wife thinks I’m “playing video games so should be working on something.” I’ve tried to explain that using a Steam Deck is the equivalent of her scrolling social media, but alas.

So yeah. Basically nothing to do these days. I think the most frustrating part to me is how most content seems to be geared towards making me angry. I never remember it being like that.

We talk for our dog. We don’t have children, but our dog has full on conversations with us but it’s just my wife and I making his “voice.” It always goes along with the context and it seems to be what he would be saying. Our old dog and our current dog even have their own distinct intonation/dialect when saying things.

It’s to the point that sometimes we look at each other and go “huh, it’s weird when you think about the fact that he’s never actually really spoken before….”

Folie a deux?

My wife and I finally decided to take the leap and buy back in 2022. We had been waiting for years for the “market to correct” and finally just decided that we needed to stop waiting. Within months interest rates became unaffordable, and they’ve only gotten worse since then. We would not be able to reasonably afford our current home with current interest rates. It’s insane. The whole thing is rigged.

It’s really weird, but as I’ve aged spicy food has really begun to bother me. I absolutely LOVE how it tastes in my mouth—even the hottest levels of heat are enjoyable to me.

I’d say around the age of 25 it started bothering me some. Then it got worse as I approached 30. Now in my early 30s I can hardly eat anything that’s above “mild” without GI distress several hours later. I’m talking about a horrible burning sensation in my abdomen where it feels as though I can actually track the food moving through my GI tract. The next day I feel ill enough on the toilet that I have to make sure I don’t have plans for the first 1-2 hours of my day.

It’s super sad because I love spicy food, but it’s not worth the payback. I myself work in healthcare and I’ve searched and searched for something that can physiologically explain that phenomenon (getting worse over the years) and there’s not really anything explained in the literature. All I can think of is something to do with changes in GI flora.

So agree here.

I remember back when I was in high school some really old alumni came back for an award and gave a speech. He went on about how these were “the absolute best years of his life” and how we should enjoy them.

The kid next to me was like “That’s depressing as shit. That guys in his 80s, has a family, and this was the best thing he ever experienced? Sounds like his priorities have never been straight.”

Always stuck with me. Was really profound at the time.

Awesome comment, thanks for the detail.

To play a bit of Devil’s Advocate (from a bench-top scientific standpoint I come from immunology/microbiology background—so I know enough theory to be dangerous but don’t have your depth of evolutionary understanding) doesn’t a lot of this rely on cosmic timescales? I’m sure I could easily do a web search on this, but I think there are a lot of galaxy clusters that are much older than the Milky Way. That would give the potential for many multitudes of planets that have been around much longer than Earth, which gives a lot of time for intelligence to evolve and sustain. Now, if an intelligent civilization can ever survive for that long is a different question in and of itself.

I personally have wondered if the natural, sustainable, next step in any intelligent evolution is artificial forms of intelligence. Maybe biological intelligence is just the bootloader for less squishy forms of life? Immortal silicon life sort of renders the biological limits of space travel a lot less problematic. I know that comment exceeds the scientific into the philosophical, but it’s a thought I’ve had a lot lately.

And remember—you’re 200% more likely to be sued and lose in the setting of an AMA encounter

I mean, reading the Wikipedia article is seems like there’s a lot known about the killer and a pretty clear motive of him wanting to kill a bunch of people…

Audiobooks. So amazing to be able to “read” while you’re doing other things that are required of you.

I feel personally attacked

EDIT: You gotta pump those email numbers up

1. 8 Sleep Bed—it’s liquid cooled and heated based on your sleep stage. I know it’s expensive, but the sleep it’s given me has been unrivaled by anything else I’ve ever used to regulate my sleep. I work shifts so good sleep is priceless. You spend a third of your life asleep, so it’s worth an investment.
2. Hue lights for my entire home—privacy issues aside, it’s a game changing investment. We replaced the recessed lighting with recessed hue lighting fixtures as well. It’s insane how having multiple lighting settings and colors for times of the day/moods can change your entire mindset.
3. Home gym—if I were pressed for one component it would be the power cage and Olympic bar, but investing in a fully functional home gym has given me much more in return than what I’ve put into it (whether that be physical work building equipment or money).

So sorry you’re going through all of this. As an ER provider I feel so terrible for the patients I see with chronic gastrointestinal issues. I always try to do some things to broaden the differential (I’ve had some pretty clutch diagnoses of chronic mesenteric ischemia in cases like yours by doing a CTA instead of just a CT—usually on patients who have had multiple CT’s), but there’s only so much you can do with the resources available to us in the ED. I always place a GI referral, but I feel like most GI’s actually ignore the chronic stuff if scopes are negative. It really sucks knowing a lot of possible answers but not being the person who can test for them.

Hopefully Mayo helps. Almost sounds like you have some sort of GI motility issue—I wonder if your trigemial neuralgia is actually a more nuanced symptom of an underlying CNS/PNS unifying diagnosis.

Most posters are talking about what natural disasters they experience and less about preparedness, so I’m going to take the preparedness angle:

1. We have a go bag with medical supplies, very basic survival equipment, and non-perishable food.
2. We have enough non-perishable food at home for my wife and I for about 3 months
3. We have enough water for a week, and lifestraws to use local water supplies after that.
4. We have basic survival things like hand crank chargers/radios, solar batteries, thermal blankets, etc.
5. In the case of man made disaster (nuclear war) we have iodine pills.

My take on survival stuff is to be prepared but not be a prepper. Some folks take this way too far. I feel everyone who builds a bunker and has a years worth of food is going to have someone fall flat on their house and it won’t matter anyway. That being said, I want to have enough to comfortably survive a week-month, and then after that things would be so fucked that all bets are off anyway.

My comment was mostly intended as a joke (like me being bullish is going to make the market move in the other direction), but I do think that what happened in 2020 was artificially can-kicked down the road by unprecedented government intervention in the market. So it’s less of a “severe as I’d like” scenario and more of a “curtailed by massive global intervention in the economy.” Maybe that staved it off forever and we will have a soft landing? Possible, but I don’t think so.

Think of your sleep as reading a series of engaging books, where each book represents a sleep cycle, including chapters of both deep sleep (SWS) and dream sleep (REM). When you finish a book (sleep cycle), you reach a satisfying conclusion to that story arc—this is akin to waking up after a full sleep cycle. You feel refreshed because you’ve concluded the narrative neatly, without interrupting a tense plot twist or leaving a storyline unresolved.

However, just finishing one book doesn’t mean you’ve completed the whole series. If you stop after one book each night, you’re missing out on the depth and development that comes from reading more of the series (accumulating more sleep cycles). Initially, you might feel okay because you’ve concluded a story (cycle) properly, avoiding the grogginess of waking up mid-chapter (mid-cycle). Yet, this approach doesn’t give you the full, enriching experience (or rest) your body and brain need over time.

As days go on, if you continue this pattern, you accumulate a ‘reading debt’—akin to sleep debt. You’ve missed out on the broader, deeper insights and the full narrative arc that only comes from reading (sleeping) the whole series or book. This debt reflects not fully recharging your brain and body, leaving you progressively more tired. While you might feel a temporary refreshment from completing a cycle, without the full, restorative rest of multiple cycles, you’re not truly at 100%—you’re running on the satisfaction of a finished story, not the full restoration that comes from a complete series.

Yeah, it’s gotten so bad that I don’t feel like posting here anymore. Honestly may leave

So yes and no. Some of this depends on what sort of “loop” you’re stuck in, which I can’t answer unless I have more details. The rest doesn’t depend as much on that.

On one hand, 21 is extremely young—which means you have an absurd amount of wiggle room and time to course correct, even if you’ve done some really dumb stuff.

On the other hand, time only starts to move faster and if you don’t commit to course correct at some point you’ll end up a lot older in a way tougher spot.

I think the answer here is some sort of average of extremes (like it is for most things in life). You shouldn’t worry about the future too much because you’re so young, but you should start taking action to course correct now so that the next 5-10 years are easier.

Yeah, everyone in this thread saying the phone bad is a Boomer cop out is oversimplifying the issue.

Yeah, there’s probably a component of taking the blame away from decreased quality of life by blaming it on phones—but you can’t neglect the effect that lack of social interaction has. I’m from the same era, and it’s overwhelming to think how much more complex everything has gotten.

Yeah, so the decision is actually counter to the evidence.

When my dog died almost a year ago to the day, it was one of the worst things my wife and I have ever gone through. I know that’s proof of my privilege—but I think it’s also proof of how much animals mean to us. They’re pure good. I work a lot of weird shifts; when I come home my wife may not be awake or present, but my dog was always there. It initiated intense, physical grief in both of us.

Lean on any friends or family you have. Post here. Don’t deny how bad you’re hurting, but look for another animal to help after you grieve. I feel like our pets represent different chapters in our life, and when one leaves us a new chapter opens. That chapter may come with a different pet for a different time of your life. We chose to use the closing of our chapter as a transition point—we had a few horrible months at first but ultimately kicked some bad habits we had been building for a while. But where you are right now is horrible, and as another human being I understand to an extent how badly you’re hurting.

Ever since I really quit drinking a big substitute for me has been elaborate baths. Epsom salts, LED light bulbs turned to all blue. It’s great.

Yes, I am a dude. I do not care.

You know it’s a been a bad day when you arrive to your shift and the Blakemore box is out…

Epsom salt bath with bath oils and some of that jazz lettuce while watching Star Trek

I think it definitely will. I’m at a large medical center and it’s always surprising what we’re able to do (that we consider to be basic) compared to rural places. Fingers crossed!

I hate to think about the human race becoming obsolete, but it makes sense if you think about it.

If you put in the work upfront it will make the back half easier. If you slack on the front end you’ll need to sprint to the finish.

Mainly came to this conclusion in school with academics, but started applying it to everything. It’s not perfect—you can absolutely work hard and still not get the results because of forces of nature (or oppressive systems). But in general I’ve found it’s a good rule to live by.

They’re Jet Alert 200 mg—but the pills are oblong so I break them into smaller doses based on how I’m feeling. Feeling really awake? Don’t take any. Slightly drowsy? A quarter of one (50mg). Normal level of drowsy? 100 mg. Etc.

There’s something about the going back to sleep that seems to have a stacking effect—you wake up feeling really well rested.