Trusting the wrong person over myself, and letting what had been a decent working friendship turn into an abusive long-term relationship in which I was exploited for work and money, berated for and demanded to change fundamental things about myself, alienated from friends and family my partner didn’t like, had every past trauma, mental-health struggle, and vulnerability I’d trustingly shared with this person weaponized against me, and was routinely gaslit to such a degree that I had to start secretly recording our conversations on my phone just to make sure I wasn’t actually misremembering everything later when this person inevitably insisted the talk had gone completely differently.
Even knowing I was being so abused, I had let so much of my life get wrapped up with this person and was so downtrodden in heart and soul that I found myself remaining dependent on the situation and unable to even think about getting out of it. I felt trapped, but unable to do anything except continue to go with it and pretend everything was just fine. This strategy was, of course, unsustainable; it all eventually blew up to the point where my abuser finally got sick of me, whereupon I was dumped, kicked out, and left unhoused and couch-surfing.
It took me a great deal of time to pick up the scraps and rebuild my life, thankfully with the help of some amazing friends and family who were happy to have me back and helped pull me up onto my feet again. After rebuilding my own independence from scratch and taking a long while to work on myself and my own mental and physical health, I eventually began dating again. I met the most wonderful person, and we’ve now been happily and healthy married for years. My shitty ex is long in the past, and I’m content to leave things that way.
Ugh i have been there. You know it’s a red flag now when someone goes ‘tell me one time when that happened’ and you have to start recording conversations as a part of relationship homework.
Well, for money then, definitely have them travel to a time and place with a hyper inflated currency, and then bring it back in time to have tons of money. I think this might technically be a form of arbitrage.
Hmm… assassination would be pretty easy, but idk who
If I live in 90% of the US, something like $150k would buy me a very comfortable life. If I was in the major cities, I would say $300k would be enough for me to not worry about finances.
It’s not like rural areas are back in a pre-currency feudal era. You still have costs. 150k is very comfortable but you can easily spend it living out in the country, especially if you want to bootstrap a homestead, hobby farm, or just generally make good use of land.
American culture, and I’m generalising, there are a million sub cultures obviously… Emphasises the individual. The American dream of you working hard to get some payoff, is an example. As such there is a lot of cultural pressure to not correct people when you are in conversation, it’s more polite and acceptable to play along. Their stupid ideas, their problem.
And that’s where Americans (again I’m generalising) are weakest here. Because stupid ideas are everybody’s problem. Because once people go off-the-deep-end there is no easy way of getting them back. And a large amount of people involved in conspiracy fantasy is legitimising it.
So no Americans are not more prone to conspiracy fantasy, but American culture does permit fast growth of ideas. MLMs are another example of this. You can use cultural taboos and cultural elements to sell bullshit.
Not just because your friends are there and you’re getting exercise, but also because most professional sports teams are selfish, for profit companies that don’t care about you even when you give them money.
I’m sure it’s not much compared to what many here experienced, but it took me a long time to properly recover from this.
A couple years back on Christmas Eve, a few of my then friends, or at least acquaintances ripped apart my friend group. Doxxed me (I’m told) and slandered me for days. Basically out of nowhere from my perspective. No fights that I can recall were had shortly before and I was still having friendly conversations with the perpetrators that same day. I tried asking the “leaders” what I might’ve been accused of and I never got a single answer. Not even a “you should know”. Just a message from my girlfriend telling me I should go offline for a while and beyond that, radio silence for a solid day.
Some time later my girlfriend told me one of them had been trying for weeks to convince her I was toxic. Manipulative. Untrustworthy. We’re engaged now, somehow. She brings way more to the table than I do, but I do my best to make her days more interesting and I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I hope I bring her a similar comfort. I also got back in contact with a few of those old friends a year later.
But for a whole year and out of nowhere, I had to cut contact with essentially everyone I talked to online. And let’s not kid ourselves, I’m an introverted nerd somewhere on the spectrum, that was basically my whole social circle. I’m told their… whatever this all was for ended up imploding, but I learned that day how easy it is to get exploited and mislead by those we trust.
Salary? No. Stipend, yes. Give me enough to comfortably live on and pursue interests and hobbies with no requirement for work. That’s the closest money would get to making me happy.
Buy the thinnest adhesive weather stripping you can find, and stick a patch in the appropriate place between the door and latch area. That’s the zone that makes the KERCHUNK.
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT AN ENGINEER, JUST A RECKLESS IDIOT. I AM NOT LIABLE IF YOU GIVE YOURSELF BALL CANCER WHILE HEATING UP YOUR LEAN CUISINES.
No, Americans are just as prone as the other anglo countries, there’s just more of them. If we start delving into other languages, then things immediately go downhill. For example, I speak Arabic and I would say that at least 80% believe in at least 1 batshit crazy conspiracy theory. Why? It’s because the vast majority of Arabs consume their information from Facebook and a good chunk of that information comes from state owned propaganda outlets. Just a 2 minute scroll on my father’s Facebook, I saw the following conspiracies:
Israel is created by the kufar to sin against allah
India is on the brink of becoming majority muslim
Incest, pedophilia, and zoophilia are common in the West because they don’t have islamic morals
Russia is fighting NATO and winning
Hamas is beating Israel so bad that Israel is on the brink of collapse
Eating Pork will slowly turn your heart inside out
Universal basic income and universal healthcare so I (and everybody else) don’t have to worry about a job, being able to work, retirement, disability, and employers will have to offer meaning, increased quality of life, and actual respect to attract employees.
These social safety nets would be a huge win for worker’s rights too. If you can tell a job to go fuck itself on the spot, they can’t operate without treating people right.
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