It’s like that old saying ‘You can’t appreciate something till it’s gone’ but in horrible ways we never expected.

What people call “adulting” these days — chores, errands, personal finance, bureaucracy & taxes — is hard for a lot of people, and we’re all vaguely embarrassed about it. We feel like it should be trivial. We rely heavily on technology that makes it easier, and wonder how past generations managed.

For some things, I think it genuinely used to be easier. Back when corporate employment was more paternalistic, the company did a lot of the “adulting” for you. Planning a vacation? You didn’t have Travelocity, but the company did have a travel agent.

Notice how a lot of “adulting” has to be done during working hours? When you’re kind of stealing time from work to do it? How are you *supposed* to do it? I think the answer is “that’s your wife’s job.”

But isn’t this kind of hard for your wife too? Like, it’s hard to go to the bank if you’re dragging a couple of screaming kids, right?

First of all, this only works if the kids are in school most of the day. Second of all, it used to be a lot more normal to have *servants*. Third of all, you can squeeze more work out of people if they feel they *must*, and sexism is great at that.

The 20th century system was never set up to allow a person to work full time *and* do all the chores necessary for a decent life on his/her own. Weird “millennial” ways of filling in the gaps — roommates, software apps, cleaning/laundry services, company perks — are substitutes for old solutions like non-wage-employed family members, servants, government services, and company perks. Sometimes better solutions, sometimes worse, sometimes exactly the same thing under a different name. But the fact that “adulting” is time-consuming and sometimes difficult isn’t a result of some inherent moral turpitude in Millennials. Chores have *always* taken time.

Also the nuclear family has always, always been a lie. In human history no one! Has ever lived like that! Not our grandparents, even! It’s a lie perpetuated by the capitalist model to get you to pay more money and even most modern censuses are thwarted by the fact that people have people in their homes– grandmothers, cousins, family friends. It just makes more sense to live together instead of trying to do everything miserably alone

It’s easier to think of someone as “lazy” than to face the fact that school costs too much, that better jobs are inaccessible, that childcare is unaffordable, that people are forced to work so hard for so little that there’s no way they could have enough energy to attempt schooling or finding better work, and that what we give to people who can’t work is insufficient to the point of being shameful. I could say that calling people lazy is, in itself, lazy, but it’s not just an intellectual shortcut. It’s a defense mechanism.

That’s me that’s me I wrote that!! Omg it makes me so giddy with happiness to see my work on a spreading Tumblr post like this. 

Anyway that bowl thing looks amazing and would probably help me to eat a lot more vegetables, and it’s even more amazing if it can help disabled people make salads and save money by not having to buy pre-made salads.

Guaranteed basic income to every citizen, whether or not they are employed to ensure their survival and that they live in a dignified, humane way, preventing poverty, illness, homelessness, reducing crime, encouraging higher education and learning vocations as well as helping society become more prosperous as a whole. 

Wow. Forget raising the minimum wage. This is much much better idea.

The minimum wage could actually drop if we had basic income.

But Americans would never go for it. Miserably slogging through 12 hour days and having businesses open 24/7 is too engrained in our culture.

“BUT WHERE WILL THE GOVERNMENT GET THE MONEY?” screamed Joe Schmoe, slamming a meaty fist onto the table and getting mouth-froth all over the front of his greying tank top. “You libt*rds all think money grows on TREES!! HAHA!” “But where will people get the incentive to work?!” Mindy Bindy cried, flapping her hands in front of her face. She’d had a fear of the unemployed lollygagging about ever since she was a child and her mother told her to be afraid of the unemployed lollygagging about. “You think people should get paid for nothing? I work hard for my money!”

“But who will serve me?” grumbled Marty McMoneybags. “Who will make me feel important? Who will do my laundry and cook my food and stand in front of me wearing a plastic smile while I take out all my stress—because I do have a lot of stress, you know, being this rich is stressful—on them?” He paused and straightened out the piles of hundred dollar bills on the desk in front of him, then raised his two watery, outraged eyes up to the Heavens. “Lord, if there are no poor people, how will I know that I’m rich??”

I laughed. This is perfect! Well said!

The thing is, while I’m sure you could scrape up a few people who’d be willing to just float by on a guaranteed minimum income? For most people the choice to work would be a no-brainer. “Hmmm. I can get by on 33k a year, or I can take that part time job and make 48k… enough to move to a better apartment, maybe take the family on vacation. Sold.” Hell, most people would want to work simply because it gives one a sense of dignity and something to do with one’s time. (Speaking as someone who’s been unemployed, on extended sick leave, etc. in her time, the boredom and sense of isolation that comes with not having a job is almost as bad as the humiliation of having to depend on other people for one’s survival.)

And with this system, part-time jobs and “non-skilled” jobs would be much more readily available because nobody would need to work two or three jobs just to stay afloat!

Which would ALSO mean that employers and customers couldn’t shamelessly exploit employees the way they can today, because if losing a job weren’t necessarily a financial disaster, more people would be willing to walk out on jobs where they weren’t being treated with dignity.

And if this also applies to students (and it should) then student loans would become much less of a problem, and fewer people would flunk out of school because of having to juggle studies and work.

Far fewer people would be forced to stay with abusive partners, parents or roommates because they couldn’t afford to move out.

And the thing is, all those people who suddenly had money? They’d be spending it. They’d be getting all the stuff they can’t afford now - new clothes, books, toys, locally-produced food, car repairs - and with each purchase money would flow BACK to the government, because VAT, also income tax.

The unemployed and/or disabled wouldn’t need special support any more - which would also mean the government could fire however many admins who are currently engaged in humiliating - *cough* making sure those people aren’t getting money they don’t deserve. Same for medical benefits and pensions. And I’m no legal scholar, but I somehow imagine less financial desperation would lead to less petty crime, and hence less need for police and security everywhere?

TL;DR Doomie thinks this is a good idea, laughs at those who protest.

reblogging for more top commentary

They tried something like this out in Canada as a sort of social experiment, called Mincome. What they found was that, on the whole, people continued to work about as much as they did before. Only new mothers and teenagers worked substantially less hours. 

But wait, there’s more. Because parents were spending just a little more time at home and involved with their families, test scores increased. Because teens didn’t have to work to support their families, drop-out rates decreased. Crime rates, hospital visits, psychiatric hospitalizations and domestic abuse rates all dropped, as well. More adults pursued higher education. Those who continued to work reported more job flexibility and more opportunity to choose employment they preferred.

Basically, now you can go prove to your asshole family members that society won’t collapse without poor people for you to feel better than.

The picture is awesome, but read the commentary, that’s what I’m reblogging for.

The only reason people are against this is because when people are financially stable there is less crime (therefore less prison industrial complex free labour) there are less medical problems (IE less hospital visits meaning less money for the medical and pharmaceutical companies) and the point I am making is that a full guaranteed income to all means that those wealthy people at the top get less money and so they try and fool you into thinking it’s bad so you help encourage them lining their pockets.

Vaccinate your kids. I’m all for freedoms but this isn’t a freedom that we should have. 

A freedom should never impinge on the freedom of another person.

This is exactly what I’m talking about when I say that it’s dangerous to give religion privilege and inherent respect simply for being religion.

antivaxxers in my area ADVISE each other to LIE and claim religious reasons to keep der poizons out of their precious babies. So yeah 90% of the time it’s not a religious reason. Which religion forbids vaccines? I’ll wait. 

Because in five years of rigorous theological training and comparative religion, and a lifetime of same on the casual level, I have yet to hear about one. Most Jehovah’s Witnesses have the thing about blood and organ donation or transfusion but I have never heard of any of them refusing vaccination and we had a large population in my city.

brian is always a mood and a half

[ID: A tweet from brian david gilbert @briamgilbert that says, “when people say quitting facebook is good, they don’t tell you that it also means people sometimes forget to invite you to big social events, so actually it’s way better than good“]

well i’ll be damned

welp

SHE DID THAT !

IF YOURE NOT GOING THIS HARD FOR BLACK WOMEN YOU ARE NOT AN ALLY

Am I the only one who thinks that hitting a kid and abuse are different things? Like, if I ever had a kid, I wouldn’t spank their ass raw or something like that. But a bop on the mouth or the ear pull or a smack upside the head? Yea. Those are behavior modifiers.

Except they’re not.

The studies done by the trained psychologists in this joke show that little kids don’t associate being hit with the thing they’ve done wrong. Very small children only understand consequences that are directly caused by the thing they did. Steal a biscuit, biscuit tastes good. Then for no reason mummy hit me. Very different to stole a biscuit, now no biscuit after dinner because I stole a biscuit.

And they also show that when a child is old enough to understand why they are being hit that non-physical punishment is equally as effective and less mentally harmful in the long run.

Do you know who benefits the most from hitting as a punishment? The parent. It gives a satisfaction rush. Parents do it because it makes them feel good.

Basically kids have two stages: too young to understand why they are being hit so physical punishment is useless for anything other than teaching a child that bigger stronger people can hit you whenever they like (Which sounds like the same lesson you would learn from abuse)

And the second stage is old enough to be reasoned with so many punishment options are available and you chose physical violence because it makes *you* feel better, which is an abusive action.

The only time a person should ever use violence against another human being, of any age, is to stop that person from being violent themselves.

Hitting a stranger is a crime. Hitting someone small who relies on you for food, love, and shelter should be as well. Don’t hit your fucking kid.

YOU WROTE THE RULES. READ THEM. 

The struggle is real and the pockets are fake.

^bruh 😩

I think it’d be a good idea to let people from the Middle Ages use tumblr

anti vaxxers

look into my eyes and tell me a person from the Middle Ages who lost 3 kids by the time they are 25 and coughs up blood every now and then would be against a vial with a heaven-sent potion that can protect you from the demons that plague the Earth with just one small prick. look into my eyes and lie to me

It really, REALLY bothers me when I hear people frame climate change and other environmental crises as something that everyday, average-ass people are responsible for, and not corporations and entire governments. 

Like literally, how can a regular-ass person ~opt out~ of all damaging behaviors while still being able to function in society? 

You literally can’t. 

The future of our planet is not down to whether or not someone recycles their water bottle. 

It’s down to whether or not governments and corporations decide to quit sucking up all our resources and poisoning the earth with reckless abandon. 

I mean obviously people should still live as cleanly and as sustainably as they can manage where they are and with what they have, but like. THAT isn’t the major issue. 

govts and corporations have deliberately put the onus on yr individual choices so the system can continue being as destructive/profitable

God bless this post this pisses me off so much Also this hyper-individualist shift of responsibility is largely an American thing and consumerism is framed as a solution- e.g., buy more shit that’s sustainable! That’ll fix the problem (buy a new, green water bottle! buy a new, green car! buy a new, green whatever-the-fuck that’ll just ultimately produce more waste)!

I took a course in sustainable engineering.

The professor mentioned that even if every private individual in the world were to conserve resources and the environment the ol’ Jimmy Carter way- by turning down the thermostat, recycling your glass and plastics and metals, cut down on luxuries, take shorter showers, etc., it would only get us 10% of the way to where we need to be in order to avoid global catastrophic climate change.

The vast majority of freshwater use is from industry and agriculture. http://www.worldometers.info/water/ 

The vast majority of CO2 emissions is from industrial and electrical generation sites and associated vehicles. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html

Private individuals hardly make a dent, even in ideal conditions.

Thank you.

Extra important note for spoonies. Please don’t feel bad for needing disposable medical equipment, pill bottles, long showers, micro fiber blankets, packaged pre-made food, straws, paper plates etc. You’re not individually ruining the environment, you’re doing the best you can while taking care of yourself. The blame is on corporations.

This is so important!!!

So many things that people are leaping on bandwagons to ban ARE NEEDED BY DISABLED PEOPLE.

But no one cares! It’s just like the “Opioid Epidemic” and the knee jerk backlash to just cut them off. It’s ridiculous! It’s solving a problem by making another! But hey, it’ll make some people FEEL like they DID SOMETHING, so who cares who gets hurt? Who cares about the critical life threatening damage and death it causes? Because “Epidemic!” Because “straws are bad!” Because because because!

Because Disabled Lives Don’t Matter to Abled People.

That’s it. We’re already a burden to them. We’re already an annoyance. An inconvenience. We’re different, we’re weird, we don’t fit the mold. So, to hell with us! To hell with caring about us. Even thinking about us. Because it’ll save the precious turtles or birds or something. Because taking away everything that helps us survive is the only way to make people feel like they’re doing something about a huge problem like climate change, when it’s really just screwing people whose lives are hard enough.

I will forever reblog posts like this, because it’s SO fucking important.

It’s also interesting how people seem to specifically target the products that disabled people need but get really darn quiet when it comes to the products that abled people just consume for fun. Somehow our lives are inherently wasteful but those of rich people who buy fuel-guzzling private jets and huge caravans…aren’t?

Okay peopel go google Ableism, read, resolve to become better, 

and then go google 

Virtue Signaling.

Unpopular opinion but even if indigenous communities had 100% access to other food sources, they should still be able to continue with their traditional and sustainable hunting practices.

Indigenous people shouldn’t be expected to abandon their cultures’ traditions just because outsiders have decided that those traditions are “wrong” or that there’s better options.

Canada used to charge indigenous families following traditional diets with “child neglect” and adopt out their children to white families across Canada/US/UK or assume custody and force the kids to residential schools. hence the term “sixties scoop.” forcing a change of diet is inherently colonial & a tactic of genocide.

so like um. the life of an animal that feels pain and very much does not want to die is worth less than a….. Tradition ? it’s goddamn 2019 and youre saying that even with other more compassionate foods readily available (!!!!!!) groups of people should be able to needlessly kill a being that really, r e a l l y did not need to die. what is and was happening to indigenous families is fucking terrible but carrying on with cruel practices will most definitely not put anything right and just causes more pain. tradition is never a good justification for cruelty and unnecessary violence my dudes.

Gotta put these tags here because, wow, loving how you put words into my mouth.

“More compassionate foods.” What makes food “compassionate”? Is it the lack of suffering? Because, here’s a spoiler alert for you, there is NO way to produce food that is free of death and suffering. Not a single one. All forms of agriculture involve the deaths of animals, whether it’s in slaughter houses or fields.

Farming is also very well known for exploiting people, particularly poor brown people, underpaying them and putting them into unsafe work conditions so that Susan can have quinoa to go in her “poke bowl.” And that’s not even getting into how all those massive, unnatural fields filled with pesticides are affecting the environment, with many animals losing their natural habitats so that fields can be made and agriculture itself directly causing massive issues like soil erosion and mass insect death. Animals are caught in farming equipment, killed by pesticides, or caught in traps and killed to keep them from eating the crops. The natural habitats of countless creatures, from deer to wolves to the tiniest beetle, are razed to the ground to grow more crops, killing a lot of the animals that live in those areas and displacing the ones that survive.

As far as I’m concerned, the destruction of natural habitats and the permanent alteration of ecosystems is less “compassionate” than indigenous people using unobtrusive methods to catch meat and feed their communities.

And what about transporting that food to indigenous communities in places like the Arctic Circle? Because, let me tell you, that’s not only expensive but it’s also awful for the environment considering how much fuel is needed for those trips and all the energy that goes into keeping the food as fresh and healthy as possible.

Indigenous communities have been surviving off of their hunting and fishing practices for thousands of years, treating local animals respectfully and doing everything possible to ensure that the animals they hunt are in as little pain as possible. And what do they do hunt? Provides for the entire community. A good catch can feed an entire tribe, leather and fur keep the people warm, fat keeps fires going, bones are carved into tools and jewelry and art pieces, etc. Whatever the tribe doesn’t need gets traded for something that they do need. Nothing goes to waste.

Who are you to decide what “needs” to die? Who are you to decide that all indigenous hunting practices are forms of “cruelty and unnecessary violence”? Who are you to decide that the life of random animals is more important than keeping indigenous cultures alive, cultures that colonizers have been spending centuries trying to kill? Who are you to decide that it’s okay for our cultures and traditions to die just to appease your feelings, just to appease the feelings of outsiders who care more about animals than they care about people? Are you indigenous? Are you part of a culture that depends on hunting? Have you ever had to hunt for your family, to put food on the table and clothes on your loved ones’ backs? Have you ever watched as traditions in your culture survived for centuries, maybe even millennia, only to wither away because outsiders decided that they weren’t as important as the life of a fox or rabbit?

Indigenous cultures center around food. Fishing and hunting are some of the most important aspects of our cultures, with so many traditions and beliefs and practices built around them. Taking those hunting and fishing practices away from indigenous people would be like trying to tear down the foundation of a house while leaving the building itself up; it just doesn’t work, and our cultures would end up dying slow, painful deaths and our people would follow them.

I’m so angry and tired of how ads are in every little thing, part of every waking moment of our lives. I hate that there’s gas pumps with TVs in them just to blast ads while you fucking pump GAS and their speaker systems blast ads in commercials between elevator music.

I am tired of how facebook jumped on the unskippable ad train and you can’t look at any kind of minute+ long video with ads everywhere. YouTube is just fucked and has been for years. Scrollable ads on our dashboards and news feeds on other social media, ads ads ads. Not to mention the ads we see in passing in our daily lives in stores, on the road, TV, Radio. It is absolutely inescapable, unless you pay some services to not see this shit.

So yeah maybe this shit is why we aren’t trying to be ‘fake woke’ or whatever it is about the ‘yuo r not imune 2 propganda’ meme, we are just tired of seeing this shit so much even if it’s employees running corporate accounts for ha ha funny clapbacks, we are absolutely at our breaking point with this fucking corporate hell hole nightmare clown world.

Monmouth Democrat, Freehold, New Jersey, November 19, 1936

Hey maybe people should actually just get free treatment to begin with? 🤔🤔

Maybe we should also ask - why was the wheelchair priced at $20,000 if a high school robotics team could make one for, if not free, within the school budget for materials?

As I said on Twitter, I wonder if this same team will make the electric tumbrils we’ll need for all those insurance execs responsible for this shit.

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