IonAddis

IonAddis, 7 days ago

The pug owns the saloon.

IonAddis, 8 days ago

The wording of that title is something.

IonAddis, 2 days ago

My eyes can’t make sense of those tiny wings.

IonAddis, 7 days ago

What an awful woman.

It turns my stomach that this kid was doing exactly what I did 20+ years ago to get out of my situation (reach out to the school for counseling and help and affirmation) and the mom is going scorched earth because her right to get her own way “as a parent” trumps, in her mind, the actual health of the kid.

I mean, the kid apparently already has PTSD they were being treated for.

Thing is, kids with PTSD from a young age usually get it from their home life, you know?

And mommy dearest’s behavior going nuclear on the school for respecting the student’s wishes with name/pronouns pretty loudly suggests why PTSD might have already popped up.

I loathe authoritarian parents. They have the sheer gall to have children, and instead of treating them like people, like real human beings that they have an actual responsibility towards, they treat them like dolls made to prop up their own egos. And if their living doll does something they don’t like, no matter how trivial, their response is to try to break it. Awful, awful people.

IonAddis, 15 days ago

Because it’s very difficult to get things you need to live solely through barter. Many trades are very niche, and an economy that uses money allows those trades to continue being viable parts of society.

Like, think of plumbing. If everything goes well, you don’t need a plumber. But when you do…you really need it. Now imagine being the plumber who wants some bread and eggs but the farmer has no problems currently that needs the plumber’s skills. Plumber can’t eat, leaves profession, there’s now no plumber when the pipes do break.

Obviously, the next thought here might be, “Well, why doesn’t the plumber say if they get eggs and bread now, they’ll come and fix your toilet later if needed?” But that sort of re-invents credit, right? “I’ll trade 3 future plumbing problems for 3 boxes of eggs now.” If you have that, why not money?

So basically, money is very useful. It can be traded for many things you otherwise wouldn’t be able to get if you were only able to offer as barter a specific item that might be rejected by the other person you want to barter with. Money is a “universal” trade good, and it’s also easy to store (you don’t have to have lots of physical room to store your Universal Trade Good).

The BEHAVIOR of people surrounding this very useful thing can absolutely be suspect, depending on the person (greedy sociopaths hoarding wealth)–but that’s a human thing, not because money is innately a bad thing. It’s a social problem, not a technology problem. You could totally have a greedy hoarder storing up a non-money trade item too…see people and toilet paper/sanitizer during Covid.

IonAddis, 3 months ago

It legitimately surprised me back when Russia first attacked Ukraine how parts of the internet suddenly reverted in tone to how the early 2000s internet used to be. The posts pushing subtle division in random message forums just stopped for a few days.

Really made me realize how pervasive the social engineering of English speakers by outside agencies has become online. I think about it much more, using that brief cessation as a touchstone. Like, my memories of forums being saner weren’t false, heh.

IonAddis, 1 month ago

The typical American household would need to spend $445 more a month to purchase the same goods and services as a year ago, a report from Moody’s found.

IonAddis, 4 months ago

The nice thing about being a regular person is that very few people have any reason to care.

One crazy ex (or, hopefully ex) and one’s tune changes quick.

Or sometimes you’re born into a shit family, and THEY stalk you when you try to get away.