It brings me some comfort seeing how clear and easy to understand language is being used against these angry people.
They are being forced to explain their behaviour instead of arguing the specifics of words. It's subtle but effective in my opion.
I am really enjoying this.
I have the ability to make others feel safe and comfortable to be their themselves. It's always a shock to me how comfortable some people get around me. I'm still waiting for someone to make me feel the same way.
I'm a person of colour who has a white step parent and has grown up in Canada in a fairly mixed area.
My family history would have started in India but my parents were born in South America and migrated up to North America (both Canada and the US) where my sister and I were born. I grew up "white." My voice, appearance and behaviour are "white." I was born and raised Canadian. I'm far from proud of this country where I have spent my life but I will identify myself as a Canadian. My family history had been thoroughly white washed and erased.
I say all this because for all this history I have behind me, it means nothing to most people.
The majority of Indian people here will look at me one way until I speak and then promptly ignore me because I'm not "Indian."
West Indian people want to be my best friend until they find out I've never visited any West Indian country. Then I'll be treated as an idiot for not embracing a culture I have no real knowledge of and have not been immersed in.
Then there are the white people... No matter how white I act, I will never be "white" enough. I'll always be the colour of my skin. I could look, act and behave as awful as a white cop and still not be on the same level.
In fact, I have a "friend" who is a cop. He's not really my friend, more of an acquaintance I've known for 10+ years through another more decent friend. This guy is just fucking awful and every molecule in his body is racist and vile. He looks at me, arms full of tattoos and tells me I'd be a perfect "UC." Undercover Cop. My only value to him is to be used to incriminate fellow people of colour. I'm just not a person or anything close to equal. Always something less.
I've never really had a place where I felt I belonged while growing up. Hated for being me from multiple angles for reasons beyond my control while doing nothing harmful to anyone. There are good people out there who treat me as a person first but they are few and far between.
Another quick story, I once had a Dutch guy in Australia tell me that his last name Hoffmeister means "House Master." You know, from the times when they used to own slaves. Thanks for telling me that to my face, you absolute weirdo.
I used to work in the trades. I was surrounded by straight-acting men. There's nothing more gay than a group of straight-acting men.
Unfortunately it's the creepy, repressed kind of gay that would make a tolerate person's skin crawl.
I feel awful for their wives and children.
A long time ago I came across a game that was part of a 1mb challenge. It's called A New Zero. I played it quite a lot, just flying around and dive bombing boats was entertaining enough for me.
I was impressed with 1mb but 13kb and 96kb is pretty amazing. I really enjoy seeing stuff like this.
Omegaverse works are most frequently focused on male-male couples composed of an Alpha and an Omega,[6] though heterosexual Omegaverse works have been produced,[11] and by 2013, about 10% on Archive of Our Own were labeled male/female.[8]
The origin of the Omegaverse is typically attributed to the fandom surrounding the American television series Supernatural, as a fusion between werewolves and the male pregnancy subgenre of erotic fan fiction.
I read that wiki page and I can't help but come to the conclusion that primarily gay werewolf fanfic is being used to promote fascism?
I prefer my absurdist and surrealist humour to be works of fiction D:
“This is exactly why women should not be police, military, or Secret Service. Her one job was to jump in front and take a bullet for Trump, but instead she cowered behind him.” wrote Jake Shields, a former MMA fighter, above the picture on X. The post has been viewed 5.8 million times.
A potato whose job was to be be punched in the head repetitively by sweaty, muscely dudes while he aggressively cuddles them back suddenly knows the job of a woman in a completely different field of work. So much so that he feels the need to explain her job to her. The job she already did which was all caught on video. Hmm...
Even if she or any other agent took a bullet for Herr Trump, this woman would still receive all the hate and blame. It's quite clear to me that these types of "men" just want women to be slaves or corpses.
How many of these "men" would put themselves in the path of a bullet for another person? Do they even have the energy or motivation to leave the screen behind to go take a bullet for someone else? Actions speak louder than words and all these dudes just keep yelling. I wonder how much all this hot air get accounted for in our current climate crisis models used by scientists.
I've always been quite minimalistic so saving money has been very easy for me. After getting fired from my last job over speaking out against the abusive management, I haven't returned to any work. I've also moved back home with my parents to not only save money but also take care of them as they get older and work on a relationship that never really was a relationship in the past (I found out in adulthood that I'm ADHD/Autistic).
It's been some time since I had been abruptly fired from my job and the lawyers regarding that situation have come and gone from my life. Now I'm limbo. I have enough saved money for at least a year, maybe two. My parents have been gently pushing me to find work.
I just don't want to work. Not anymore. All that's left are jobs at soulless corporations which suck all individuality, creativity and happiness out of you. I don't want to deal with people anymore. I barely want to leave the house knowing I have to share the roads with angry people aggressively driving their murder trucks.
I'm not very motivated to find a job at the never ending end of the world. I'm not sure how I can explain this to my parents who act as if the future is stable even when the news they consume everyday tells a story of a world unravelling.
The only thing I could do which would bring meaning to my current life situation is to join a group that focused on meaningful change for the future. Unfortunately, I live in a rural town that designed itself to have soulless suburbs and populated it with old folks who are completely out of touch with reality.
I don't understand what is meant by raw data in the context of this article.
This seems less like a scientific study and more like a black board brainstorming session. The list that was shown seems to read as a disorganized list of thoughts, the type you'd find in a brain storming session.
It seems to me that this court mandated facilitator for men who batter was merely trying to share their experiences and insight for why men abuse women.
I didn't read in this article any claims that this was a scientific study. Should this person's experiences be any less valid?
To me it reads as a person attempting to understand why men want to commit violence and abuse against women. It also didn't read as if it promoted abuse against women but rather promoted publicly addressing and dealing with abuse through public education.
I get that gender related violence is an awkward, uncomfortable topic but this article can be one step of many in understanding and dealing with abuse.
Had this person framed this article as a scientific study, I would definitely doubt it's message and validity as that would be intentionally deceptive.
There was also the reality that many tech companies’ leading executives, Bezos included, had reached middle age. Mortality’s inevitable creep was closing in. It seemed unfair — cruel, even — that people who had acquired all that the material realm had to offer might be forced to face a fate so pedestrian as old age and, eventually, death.
Mid-life crises (criseses?) have always been a strange curiosity to me. When I was younger, there seemed to be much more talk about the inevitable mid-life crisis. Typically this crisis was male centred. It often involved men buying expensive new toys such as cars, trucks, motor bikes, boats or doing things such as cheating or chasing younger women. I can't recall any talk of feminine mid-life crises or any stereotypical responses. Even if there was a typical feminine mid-life crisis response, it seemed to my young perspective that it was heavily overshadowed by the masculine mid-life crisis and it's response.
It now seems that the mid-life crisis response has evolved to include health and "peak" physical appearance as promoted by social media influencers. I guess this seems like the logical next step. When I was younger, I began to notice a trend in all this behaviour. Many of these men fear death. They are afraid of their aging bodies. They are afraid that other people will notice their aging bodies. They fear they will no longer be respected by other men. They are absolute cowards created by their own insecurities.
Dealing with aging in an aging body is something everyone has to deal with at some point, it's a completely normal process of life. We humans have the misfortune of excess free time to think and dwell on our aging bodies. For some people, this can scare them into a vicious hunt for the mythical fountain of youth. And if a man can't find the fountain of youth, then they will chase youthfulness through dangerous hobbies, material possessions, young women and physical fitness. Adrenaline, wealth, status and virility. Combine these things together and you have a vehicle of destruction that leaves behind a hot mess for everyone else to deal with while also influencing and shaping the minds of young boys and men to continue the cycle.
The most bizarre thing about the masculine mid-life crisis is how painfully gay it all actually is. The wealth, the stuff, the young women, the physical appearance, it's all for other men. It's a giant performance and they want to be paid in the currency of respect because respect is the secret currency of masculinity. Masculinity is for the male gaze and masculinity has no room for the unmasculine. It's seriously gay.
And there is Bryan Johnson, a former venture capitalist, who is attempting to achieve his mantra, “Don’t Die,” through a longevity regime that involves a strict diet, going to bed at 8:30 pm, and tracking his nightly erections.
Seriously, what the fuck.
I'm still shaking my head in disbelief from all the penises rockets these dudes launched in their pointless giant dick measuring contest.
From my perspective, separating women from the respect currency of masculinity is one of many aspects that needs to be worked on by men to produce well rounded people. Otherwise we will all suffocate under masculinities endlessly growing ego.
I wouldn't mind if societies also made some compromises for me too. Currently it feels like I'm making all the compromises to fit in but made to feel like it's never enough.
Feels like I'm trying to fix an awful relationship by doing all the hard work myself. I'm tired.
After finally getting fed up, I went on a 10 month campaign against mamagement calling out all the sexism, racism, poor management and absolute disrespectful treatment of apprentices and contractors. I made it very clear that the work culture was awful in every way.
I got predictably fired but I secretly was working with corporate to deal with the the awful HR manager who was enabling this work culture.
Without going into much details, After my company fired me, I put in a complaint to the government labour board over a wrongful termination case. A month later after my submitting my case to the labour board, the HR manager was forced into early retirement. A month after that I settled out of court and got my severance plus a little extra to cover lawyer fees.
My coworkers knew, most got upset at me for challenging authority, some respectfully supported me at an arms length and even fewer people actually supported me.
What was undercover hate wasn't very hidden by the end of my time there. Although I doubt they fully knew how much I couldn't stand them. I still had to maintain the peace somehow.
Who care about consumer spending when I've been watching the current biosphere die off for my whole adult life?
I'm supposed to save for a future in a society that's pretty obviously collapsing as the biosphere deteriorates?
The only type of news I consistently paid attention to over my teenage and adult life was environmental news. These two questions strongly inspired me to do something in my life for myself instead of blindly following in other people's footsteps.
When I was in my mid 20's, I abandoned the idea of retirement. Took all my money out of stocks and retirement plans. Sold or donated the majority of what I owned and went off to explore and have experiences. I don't regret it but I'm still filled with so much sadness with how much damage and loss is happening all around us.
In my mid 20's, I blindly predicted that ecological collapse would happen when I would be in my 80's. That number has been dropping rapidly with more news coming out about the current state of the environment. Everything is casually happening faster than expected.
I've been enjoying the use or weird lately. I've had some strong personal opinions on language lately. A lot of it comes with a huge increase of new words that sort of seem abstract from it's meaning.
I think with how rapid information can spread to large groups of people, it's just too fast for my mind to keep up. All of a sudden I feel like I'm in a war with words and who knows which landmine of a word will get you in trouble. It causes me even more anxiety when someone comes at you with manipulative intentions in order to control the direction of the discussion.
I think weird works because it's an almost basic word. It's simple and descriptive. It's not a newer, more specific word that requires a deeper understanding of a broader topic. It's understood by more people. People with varying degrees of language knowledge including people whose native language is not English. It's easier for more people to understand.
It's a lot easier to understand someone is weird compared to someone being a fascist.
I'm completely disinterested in working for another faceless, soulless entity which only focuses on wealth accumulation. I'm also disinterested in meaningless jobs that do nothing to help make the world a better place for the people that come after me.
At this point, I believe that the only way forward is direct action against unjust hierarchy and those who enforce it. As each day passes, I become more firm in that belief.
If I ever come across people who share the same views as me, I would gladly join them. That would give me the meaning and purpose to move forward that a standard job could never provide.
Until money becomes an issue and I'm forced to work to survive, I'd much rather spend my time around my parents and closest friends.
I do recognize that I am super fortunate to be in such a position, the painful majority of the world must work just to barely exist. I feel awful everytime I have to participate in society and enable the misery machine.
I've noticed this year just how quiet it's been. I used to get woken up by all the bird calls, especially in the spring time. Now it's just low level background noise.
The dull and distant bird calls feels so empty, especially since it's been replaced by the continuous hum of air conditioning units and lawn mowers, the violent sounds of vehicle engines with the low rumble of rubber tires and other sources of human activity which never seems to end.
It absolutely breaks my heart.
I've only had a year experience with growing crops but learned a lot about how important "living soil" is from having a bioactive terrarium.
Bioactive refers to making an active ecosystem with plants, insects and even microfauna. In mine I had plants, isopods (land shrimp) and springtails. The isopods break down fruits, veggies, poop and decaying matter like fallen leaves. The springtails eat fungi and mold that forms from constant moisture. The plants thrive off the nutritious bug poop.
Learning about this cycle was important to me understanding that creating a garden means creating a home for all the insect and microfauna first, the resulting crops were the tasty bonus.
Clover is amazing for ground cover. The roots will help losen soil. Along with underground insects, this helps create air pockets in the soil for all plant roots to breath. It helps prevent moisture loss, keeping enough moisture for roots to gather nutrients with less watering. The roots also act as a home for bacteria, fungi and anything considered microfauna really. The flowers attract pollinators which is so important for both crops and local pollinator populations. It may also bring nitrogen into the soil providing food for other plants or crops. I'm recalling most of this from memory so there may be outdated or slightly misremembered info but that was my take away from my initial research into healthy, living soil.
My first year of crops grew amazingly and I hope for more of that. This year I'm adding walking planks and a few large stones to my garden. Between the clover ground cover, stones and wood, that should give even more protection for my tiny insect\microfauna friends. I even went as far as to add a layer of fallen leaves over the soil to help protect it during the winter.
I can never look at "traditional" western farming practices the same again. Soil health is just not given the attention it truly needs.
I have mixed feelings on this because yes, information can be used to cause harm. That same information has also been crucial to me in understanding how abuse and manipulation have affected me. Without identifying the motive behind certain behaviours or actions, how am I supposed to know which boundaries to put up to protect myself? This is obviously very situational to me because in order for me to act on something, I need to understand the under layers of a topic in order to effectively change my views/habits/behaviour.
This article to me reads as an "Ah-Ha!" moment in understanding how to approach the topic of abuse to abusers. Unfortunately, that part wasn't expanded on enough and since the article is nearly 10 years old, I don't think I have the patience enough to see if there is any sort of follow-up regarding how to talk about abuse to abusers.
With the information I've learned about abusers and manipulators over the past years, I've been not only helping myself place proper boundaries, but encouraging the women in my life to protect their boundaries too by informing them of both actions and intent behind those actions from abusers.
My help is one sided though because there are a few men in my life that are on the border of being decent people, they just need light pushes away from toxic masculine influences. Too much can cause things to crumble. Understanding their intent behind their words has helped in avoiding unnecessary, name-calling backlash. It's an exhausting balancing act. I more often choose to not engage them because it's such a long, draining process.
I do wish there were more effective ways of educating the dangers and damage from such forms of masculinity. In my area, medical professionals throw Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Mindfulness at people and call it a day. I feel those methods are like placing a bandage over a problem without looking at the cause. Those methods seem to cause more anger, regret and frustration. It's such an overburdened mess. It seems the author is attempting to reframe his methods from "treating batterers" to "a consistent coordinated community response." Or at least advocating for a consistent coordinated community response in general. To approach this sensitive topic from another approach. I can agree this point could have been expanded upon.
Humans are too complex and there's so no one perfect way to teach other people. What works for one person would completely zone out another person. What can be useful by one person can be harmful by another. There's really no easy way to talk about uncomfortable topics and it sucks we have to resort to war tactics regarding such information.
I've found myself lately a lot more interested in games that don't focus heavily on graphics but instead allow other parts of the game to speak for itself. This allows for the imagination to fill in the gaps, as you mentioned.
I've been playing a lot or Caves of Qud recently. It's a rogue-like game with tile graphics and colourful text. Somehow this menu simulator game has drawn me into it's harsh and unforgiving world. The tile based graphics actually allows for an amazing amount of creative freedom both from the developer and player point of views. The developer has created this futuristic planet with mutants and cybernetics roaming the planet trying to survive. The player has the freedom to play as they like and create the most unique characters they can imagine. My current character has two hearts, a scorpion tail, a fanged beak, two dagger wielding claws and a habit for stabbing.
I think the rise of constantly better technology has inadvertently encouraged a focus on better graphics over other aspects of video games. While there are some absolutely beautiful games with higher hardware demand, I think as of late, I'm yearning for games that focus more on story or gameplay. Games where you can feel the developer's passion. Games with polish and attention to details in the most unexpected ways. Games that attempt to push boundaries within certain limitations (think hardware or graphic styles for example).
I think what I want is a game that feels like I'm reading a fiction book in a way. What I mean is that when you read a work of fiction, your imagination is filling in all that visual information. A game can provide you more than just text, but if it can balance graphics, gameplay and story, it can really transport and immerse your imagination into that world.
Can you specify where I distinctly put men in to two groups? Where I stated who is and is not a man? Otherwise I am having difficult time understanding where your conclusions are coming from.
I feel like my words are being misrepresented but I do not know what I am doing wrong in this situation to understand if I should defend or change myself.
I do not know what line I am drawing in the sand when I was talking about a type of person, especially one I've had too much experience dealing with personally.
There are many types of people and people are not as simple as an on/off switch.
It's much easier to understand that shorter, milder winters means you can make people be even more productive. Now winter can't slow down that road widening project.
I had the great displeasure of working in the trades as an electrical helper turned apprentice for roughly 6 years total. Being male in a male dominated environment was already pretty awful. Especially as a quiet and thin person who in other ways as well did not meet many masculine expectations and was heavily criticized because of that.
During 2020, the company began hiring more women and we ended up with a young woman electrical apprentice. Right away I noticed how many of the older workers would go up to talk to her and linger around her area for uncomfortable periods of time. It was pretty constant and she couldn't focus on her work.
After about a month of her working there, she asked me for help. I helped her like she was the same as any new apprentice that worked there. That may have been why she kept coming back to me with more questions. After that we became friends where I got to hear more stories from her. Like how she was told to her face that women belong in the offices and was that it was good she was working on a computer when the same person saw her again. Or how she and the only other woman in the apprenticeship classes were followed by large groups of guys after their classes finishes. Just a lot of uncomfortable stories of receiving way too much attention or having her abilities questioned.
I also witnessed two early 20s women who just looked absolutely uncomfortable being in the same building as all these older men who acted so gross towards them. Their body language seemed so closed off as if they could feel the stares while they walked to their work area. Trying to talk to some of the other younger guys about it got a whole lot of "yeah, but what can you do?" comments.
I tried to bring this issue, along with other issues about work culture to HR but all the HR manager did was accuse me of being wrong while telling me I wasn't doing enough to fix the problem. As a result, they did nothing other than say a bunch of empty words at the next company meeting and fired me several months later.
I quit the trades and cancelled my apprenticeship after that. How I was personally treated was enough for me alone to quit the trades. Knowing how women and people like me get treated by such a large group of people is still significant enough of a reason to me to quit the trades as well.
Any woman in the trades that is able to succeed while dealing with all that sexism, through treatment or pay, is far more resilient than I am. I don't envy the constant uphill battle of bullshit any woman has to deal with while in the trades.
No car.
I'm "content" where I am now. I understand you want to help in some way but sometimes listening to someone vent helps more than any advice anyone can give.
People like to talk. People like being heard. People like being understood. Being too proactive can easily get in the way of listening sometimes.
I guess that's my personal view coming through. I hate labels and prefer to use broader terms.
Usually when I use men with quotations, I'm refering to the type of men that consume hate content. The type of content that promotes the appearance of male dominance and excessive masculinity that looks extremely gay to the outside observer. The word men that is being forcefully twisted into matching this new and ugly meaning.
I've had to deal with these types of people in work settings my whole life and my patience ran out after the covid lockdowns. As a response, I've discarded as many labels as possible and have chosen to refer myself as something broader and less precise.
Unless I am speaking to a medical professional, I am no longer a male or man. I prefer to be known as a person. Simply a person. When I meet someone, I treated them as a person, free of labels so that they can show me who they are. I do that because that's how I want to be treated.
I've had a better experience posting comments using broader language in that I received a lot less hate filled backlash. The downside is that I feel the need include a lot of nuance which can make posting comments feel like writing an article.
Broadness and specificity in language has always been a challenge for me. I do try to be as inclusive as possible in my language but I'm not always going to get it right. I can keep it in mind the next time I use men in quotations.
Yeah, I can see where that can be ambiguous. My intention was not to be divisive. That is definitely something I can keep in mind for the next time.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Not being able to till or use synthetic fertilisers makes it a lot harder to scale up production.
This is exactly why I believe we need to start relearning soil health care among many other things. This is why we need to bring food back locally into everyone's yard's and parks. This is why we need this knowledge now to help future generations.
It's hard to imagine another way of living life but we'll never know if we don't collectively try.
I've personally drawn a lot of inspiration from Australian indigenous peoples and their approach to land management which is why I feel so strongly about learning soil health.
The Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Tatarstan, the region’s highest religious authority, also backed Kamaev, advising his critics to “watch the podcast in its entirety.”
I've seen this tactic used before in a more personal setting. The only discord server I'm on had one person who continually posted hate content or content from people known for creating hate content.
Whenever I called out specific parts of a video that were clearly anti-femme hate, they would attempt to pivot the responsibility on to me by telling me I didn't watch enough the video entirely or that I need to watch more videos to understand why it's okay to hate.
In this particular case on the discord server, this tactic was used to hide the fact that they did not understand why anti-femme hate was necessary and needed to be spread. They could not put the concept into their own words to show they understood. Instead they expect you to digest more hate content in order to understand concepts that they themselves struggle to understand.
I can't help but see the same tactic being by the Spiritual Administration to shift responsibility back onto the people creating the justified backlash. The administration offers nothing in the form of transcripts, evidence or supporting arguments and instead expects you to waste your time and energy finding it yourself through a pile of more hate content.
I personally think that this tactic shows just how shallow hate can be. And while my experience with this tactic is limited to one instance on a discord server, I wouldn't be surprised if other people got a weird, crazy or completely unexpected results if they pressured the hate-supporter/spreader in to verbalizing in their own words the hate they are spreading.
Since hate and hypocrisy are so closely bound together, I assume it would be safe to bet money that if you asked them to watch a video or listen to a podcast that did not advocate for physical violence, the administration or people who watch hate content would not watch or listen to your suggestion. A game they will play that's as shallow as their hate.
I need to be involved locally and physically. My ADHD and impatience with the increasingly complicated technology we use today just doesn't vibe together anymore. A brutal lesson I learned after my trade school courses I was attending went to an online format.
Lemmy's userbase is just too small and my physical location is a bit too remote to organize anything. I have an alternate lemmy account at another server where I can connect with like-minded people online but that's as much as I can get out of Lemmy until it's userbase becomes significant.
I still search for events happening it the big city but time and distance is a factor I have to take in to consideration.
This game has caught my eye. The visual style alone is what really draws me in to the world.
There's something about the Half-Life-ish graphics and unique style that sort of hits a personal nostalgia for me. It has a wonderful combination of weird and abstract with a touch of familiarity. It also feels both vibrant and gritty at the same time. Something I didn't realize I was missing so much. Especially after playing Baldur's Gate 3 which has absolutely gorgeous but very busy graphics.
After I get over my Caves of Qud hyperfixation, I am definitely going to pick this game up.
I think I meant gardening instead of farming in my first comment. I'm drawing comparisons from the majority of my life in the suburbs. I have strong feelings about industrial farming that I'm not interested in going into at the moment.
I do believe it's important for us to learn how to rejuvenate our land as a step towards a sustainable future which is why I'm interested in learning and sharing such things. Food is quite important to our lives.
I generally lurk more than I post content or comment because I naturally tire from the vast majority of online and offline interactions with people. The exception being those people who share the same autism/adhd based experiences and perspectives that I do.
When I interact with fascists online, I already know it's a dead end to the conversation before it starts. That's why I begin an interaction with a fascist with the mindset of it being a chance for me to learn and understand their mindset instead of trying to change a person. I also have a 3 comment limit with a rough plan on how my comments will be used during this interaction.
The first comment generally asks to clarify a specific point that they are making. The second comment depends on the response I get but usually ends up with me pointing out a flaw or contradiction from the fascist. The third is a closing thought and a reminder of how they failed to have a clear and understandable argument to continue the conversation.
I have a very broad and hard to explain understanding of how hate and emotions work. This comes from experiences and observations from my life. So this comment format sort of plays out predictably when the fascist inevitably responds after my final comment. That's where I find the most insight into their thoughts. That's where I find that missing bit of information that makes it click for me.
I rarely engage them unless they spark a morbid curiosity in me. It's better that way since it's much easier and mentally healthier to just let them pass by my screen than to weigh down my thoughts with pure negativity.
As with many travelers in Australia, we both had work/holiday visa's that allowed us to stay in Australia for 1-2 years. This wonderful comment was thrown at me within the first week of arriving at a hostel in Sydney.
Fortunately they left a month or two later but I still avoided them when they did still live there.
Amazing. Layers of ignorance for an already dumb thing to say.
I've had stocks in a couple forms over my lifetime and after a while, both times I have pulled all my money out.
The first time was shortly after the 2008 crash. All those reassuring words my investing manager person told me were simply sweet nothings. I decided that taking the hit of losing half my money was a life lesson and used the remaining half to go travel and live a life for myself. That investing manager later went on to have a covid party out of defiance for masking requirements, caught covid and died. Felt good knowing my stranger-danger alarms were working even if I didn't understand my decisions fully at the time.
The second time I simply put my money into a low risk, government stock option for a few years. After watching global leaders fumble the handling of a global pandemic, I lost faith my own government to have my best interest in mind. I pulled my money out again.
I personally feel super uncomfortable allowing other people to make money off my money that I am risking. Even if it is low risk. It make me feel exploited.
Ultimately, I decided I don't need my money to work for me because I don't even want to work. I hate the concept of money. To me, money just disconnects us from community and nature.
If you are curious to how I live, it's with very little. I spent a number of years of my life living out of a 34 liter sized backpack. Living minimally while making sure what I owned had meaning, purpose or intention transfered over to when I finally started settling into a certain location.
I've been to Gay pride parades, gay bars and gay clubs. The gayest experience I've had in my life was working in the trades with straight men doing everything they can to prove their masculinity at all costs.
These men will use women as mere possessive objects in order to prove to their masculinity towards other men. By oversexualizing all women while at the same time belittling all that their partner does. As if women were merely currency for respect among men.
They hated gays and trans people so much that they would spend an extremely uncomfortable amount of time telling you how much they were "disgusted" by these people.
They hated on any man who who did not possess physical masculine traits. Those traits that they hated? Not being muscular. Not being tall. Not being fat (what???). Having longer hair.
But the gayest thing these guys refused to do was stand up for themselves against unjust authority. They would spend the most all their free time explicitly telling you how much they hate their boss. How stupid their boss is. How much of an asshole their boss is. How they would kick their bosses ass. Just talk an absolute big game.
Then the boss would come around the corner and you'd never see a bunch of grown ass men tuck their dicks between their legs faster than these guys. Their voices raise up a couple pitches and suddenly they are acting as subservient as how they believe their wives should be.
It's in this unspoken idea of respect for Men in Authority that you see the "gayest" trait in these toxic men. But not in a good gay way. A toxic gay trait that comes from a deep place built on oppression and repression of ones self. Where respect from your fellow man at all costs is the most valuable thing they crave. Where respect from your boss holds even higher value. Where respect from men in higher positions is held at even higher value.
All they care about is to be noticed by other men. That's kinda gay dude.
The cost of all this effort to gain respect from exclusively other men is their dignity. And they are more than willing to give up their dignity to be noticed by men in positions of authority.
To these guys, questioning or standing up to authority is gay. Standing up for yourself is gay. Demanding to be treated with dignity is gay. They will be the first ones to kick you down for disrespecting authority.
I've walked into a club bathroom and saw two guys giving another guy a blowjob. That's still not as gay as watching "straight" acting men grovel at the feet of boss in any trades.
Ick...