hauntingspectre

One of my neighbors in my old city explained that playing video games is how he found out he had a seizure disorder, and since that incident in the 90s hadn't played a video game.

Normal humans who play video games might respond and say "damn, that sucks. If you ever decide to give them a try, here are resources so you can avoid games that might trigger that". G*mers say "haha fuck you and your rich and fulfilling family life, you're a loser who can't play video games".

And yes, I did supply him with some info about resources for games that don't cause seizures. He said thanks, and then we went back to watching our kids play, and to my knowledge he didn't play video games again.

I'm not so sure that they are, but in the American left, historically they've been the cause of a lot of splits. Like, we make fun of Trots for splitting, but recently, since the 60s on, white Maoists seem to have been the real driver of splits.

Still, the only Maoists I've dealt with IRL were the local ones, so it's entirely plausible I'm painting with an overly broad brush. I tend to discount most online tendency talk as just keyboard commando stuff. If you're busy typing out screeds about how the People's Front of Judea screwed you over by reserving the library meeting rooms for two straight months, so that your group couldn't book them, ya probably ain't gonna be leading a revolution anytime soon.

I was involved with DSA for a couple years, til 2017 "officially" (I'd moved away a few months before my dues ran out). It was a weird group: a clique of succdems, a clique of idpol obsessed Maoists, and like 4 folks who wanted to engage in "normal" direct action. It got better as the Bernie obsessives left, the Maoists tried to launch their own group and split from DSA, and more folks interested in direct action joined.

Eventually (surprise!) the Maoist group fell apart and narced to the cops on each other, the direct action types took over the DSA, and I occasionally join their actions, and the succdems ran for positions within the Democratic party. I've not renewed my membership, though, and don't plan on it.

And I'm still wary of self proclaimed Maoists since then. Just hearing the toughest talk from them for two years, to then find out they ratted each other out after some pretty mild police pressure.

Seriously, she and Notch are basically the same at this point: billionaires who've spent their "post getting wealth" lives punching down.

Imagine being able to do anything you want, and you choose to spend it being cruel to those beneath you.

The Just World fallacy is incredibly strong, particularly here in the US. It's extremely powerful, particularly as part of the basic Protestant belief package of the country.

As far as dealing with it, there's basically no way to go after it directly. You can stay friends, and try to move their opinions through discussion of individual events, but honestly the most effective tool against folks who believe in this is bad things happening to them in the course of their life. So, if they lose their job, they might be open to revisiting their beliefs.

It sucks, but it does fall under the "I can't teach you to care about other people" header.

These morons have advertised on podcasts for a couple years. They try to be self aware about the name, but it doesn't quite work WHEN YOU'RE THE PEOPLE WHO NAMED IT.

That's why community is the strongest survival tool, so that people can take on different roles and pool skills and aptitudes.

Good read.

Food & friends being the most important key to survival is something I've been telling folks for a while.

Guns are good, but you can't boil up a gun for dinner. Plus, there will be lots of guns available from weirdos who stocked up 20 guns and had no more food than was in their cabinets.

Also, I know whenever this conversation came up on the sub, there were comrades who didn't feel comfortable owning a gun due to mental health issues. Dehydrated/shelf stable food is cheaper and safer, so take that $ and invest it into food, supplies, vitamins, first aid kits, water treatment, nutritional supplements, etc. Rechargeable power supplies are also good, if you can afford them. An old fashioned clock radio, listening for updates, could become far more valuable than an iPhone.

A bike with a pannier radically increases your mobility and carrying capacity. Don't forget your pets! A dog is a hunting companion, source of warmth, a guard, etc. So throw an extra bag of food or two in your supplies.

Yeah, I honestly thought my friend was going to wind up dead (multiple car wrecks while nodding, at least one OD), but it's been one of the great pleasures of my life to see her get clean.

I'm glad it worked for you too!

For anybody looking to get off opioids, kratom can definitely help the withdrawal symptoms. It's the only thing I've seen help a friend of mine who tried several times.

There's a lot of kratom types and brands, apparently, so do some research first!

Edit: I ran this by her, she said to also research delivery methods (powder, cap, or disk(?)), and dosage, before starting.