venting cw?

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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justice-turtle:

brin-bellway:

justice-turtle:

i’m not actually awake enough to go Deep with this so i’ll attempt to keep it brief

so the barnes and noble thing where they fired all their full time employees recently. obviously, terrible thing, sympathies, fuck capitalism, etc, but like.

for me specifically, that’s like “welp, another timeline shot”. cos if i had not quit my job there due to snow and crazybrains, one of me in the multiverse was still working there and probably full time or managerial at that point, so like… that one of me was fired along with the rest of them, and is probably now struggling to make rent or whatever.

and like. the thing i’m trying to say is. that’s capitalism. you can’t trust anybody, you can have a few good years or a lot of good years and then get fucked over just the same. you have to give your life to people you can’t trust.

and i’m so *bad* at not trusting. and that’s why i’m so bad at capitalism. actively not trusting takes a lot of spoons and fucks me the hell up. my default state is trust, and in a lot of timelines that’s killed me already, and it’s going to get me in a fair number of the rest.

and i hate that. i don’t know what to do with it, trying to be less trusting is… it’s different than trying to be less empathetic? it’s not “if i do that it will make me a Bad Person”. it’s that i *forget*. i don’t have a… a dimmer switch for trust. it’s all or nothing. and that just utterly does not work for capitalism and i *hate* it :-(

>>that one of me was fired along with the rest of them, and is probably now struggling to make rent or whatever.

[…]

you can’t trust anybody, you can have a few good years or a lot of good years and then get fucked over just the same<<

Hmm. I’m having a hard time verbalising my thoughts here…like, there’s generally only so much that somebody can fuck you over financially if you’ve had some good years to prepare in. But I guess the ability (or lack of) to go “I should use these good years to prepare for the inevitable fucking-over attempt” is in fact the problem (or a large part of it, anyway)?

(It seems like costs of living vary a *lot* from one set of circumstances to another, and figures that seem unrealistically high to one person can seem unrealistically low to another. But in the circumstances that *I’m* familiar with, a full-time minimum-wage job is enough money to support two pretty-careful people or 1.5 moderately-careful people. So if one *doesn’t* have dependents (but does have roommates for the bulk discounts), for every year one can hold on to a full-time job, one can live for 6 – 12 months after getting laid off. Longer, if one manages to obtain a job that pays more than minimum wage.)

(I guess it’s a variant of the idea of fuck-you money, one that focuses on the possibility of *them* telling *you* to fuck off rather than the other way around. “Fuck-me money”?)

—

I was just talking to Mom earlier today about how I’m not sure I’m ever going to be *able* to trust that an income won’t just disappear one day, that even in the better possible scenarios for a decade from now where I’ve gotten some cushy job in an accounting firm or something, I’ll probably still be living on the 2028-dollars equivalent of $1k – $1.5k/month and agonising over every expenditure and squirrelling away every spare cent for the winter.

Which is the opposite of the psychological issues you usually hear about poor people developing (and which you have yourself, right?), where they feel like there’s no point in saving because *savings* always disappear no matter what you do. I think this is because those people tend to have spent an extended and/or formative time as living-paycheck-to-paycheck!poor, whereas I spent mine as living-primarily-off-of-dwindling-savings!poor. Different kinds of poverty lead to different adaptations.

*nods* Yeah, basically. There’s the paycheck-to-paycheck versus dwindling-savings thing, there’s the fact that I just plain tend to be a little more interested in buying shinies than you do (as demonstrated on Flight Rising), and… like, the trust thing from my OP, it’s not just that it’s exhausting and takes spoons I need to work. It’s that… *tries to word*… It’s almost a cognitive dissonance thing. The whole way I’m wired around trust is either/or. Working for The Man while simultaneously distrusting The Man is a fundamental skill of late-capitalism millennial life, and it – it fritzes me out. It’s not something I can maintain for more than a few months. It’s – you know more about thought experiments than I do, there probably is one about this, but it’s like trying to actively believe two contradictory thoughts at once, “Black is black” and “Black is not black” or something (I don’t know, I’m not terribly coherent), *all the time*. If I… if I let myself notice that my employer is not trustworthy, that they’re a capitalist entity and therefore going to fuck me over as soon as it suits them to do so, I can’t… I go straight to “well fuck them first” and I quit. I can’t seem to do a headspace where they’re going to fuck me over but I can stay and work till then. :-(

#fuck everything #i dont know that this is surmountable #because i do know that i always fundamentally *want* to trust people and think the best of them #(in topics for a separate post its so infuriating that these characteristics are always mentioned as making me a Good Person) #(i did not choose them and if i could choose i would not have them) #(its just brain wiring like my ability to feel awe) #(fucking brains can i just have a robot body now and reprogram myself) #:P

Tags:

#now that I’m thinking about this here is another conversational thread I was in for which the last comment was not mine #(note: thread is from March-April 2018) #I actually *do* have a spare copy of this but it would be weird to have to go digging around in my tumblr-utils output just to #finish reading this thread #no other such threads come *immediately* to mind but there probably are some #if I come across any while formatting the WordPress archive and they haven’t rotted yet I will reblog those too #adventures in human capitalism #venting cw? #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #The Great Tumblr Apocalypse #The Last Tumblr Apocalypse #I’m going to tag these reblogs #conversational aglets

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

justice-turtle:

i’m not actually awake enough to go Deep with this so i’ll attempt to keep it brief

so the barnes and noble thing where they fired all their full time employees recently. obviously, terrible thing, sympathies, fuck capitalism, etc, but like.

for me specifically, that’s like “welp, another timeline shot”. cos if i had not quit my job there due to snow and crazybrains, one of me in the multiverse was still working there and probably full time or managerial at that point, so like… that one of me was fired along with the rest of them, and is probably now struggling to make rent or whatever.

and like. the thing i’m trying to say is. that’s capitalism. you can’t trust anybody, you can have a few good years or a lot of good years and then get fucked over just the same. you have to give your life to people you can’t trust.

and i’m so *bad* at not trusting. and that’s why i’m so bad at capitalism. actively not trusting takes a lot of spoons and fucks me the hell up. my default state is trust, and in a lot of timelines that’s killed me already, and it’s going to get me in a fair number of the rest.

and i hate that. i don’t know what to do with it, trying to be less trusting is… it’s different than trying to be less empathetic? it’s not “if i do that it will make me a Bad Person”. it’s that i *forget*. i don’t have a… a dimmer switch for trust. it’s all or nothing. and that just utterly does not work for capitalism and i *hate* it :-(

>>that one of me was fired along with the rest of them, and is probably now struggling to make rent or whatever.

[…]

you can’t trust anybody, you can have a few good years or a lot of good years and then get fucked over just the same<<

Hmm. I’m having a hard time verbalising my thoughts here…like, there’s generally only so much that somebody can fuck you over financially if you’ve had some good years to prepare in. But I guess the ability (or lack of) to go “I should use these good years to prepare for the inevitable fucking-over attempt” is in fact the problem (or a large part of it, anyway)?

(It seems like costs of living vary a *lot* from one set of circumstances to another, and figures that seem unrealistically high to one person can seem unrealistically low to another. But in the circumstances that *I’m* familiar with, a full-time minimum-wage job is enough money to support two pretty-careful people or 1.5 moderately-careful people. So if one *doesn’t* have dependents (but does have roommates for the bulk discounts), for every year one can hold on to a full-time job, one can live for 6 – 12 months after getting laid off. Longer, if one manages to obtain a job that pays more than minimum wage.)

(I guess it’s a variant of the idea of fuck-you money, one that focuses on the possibility of *them* telling *you* to fuck off rather than the other way around. “Fuck-me money”?)

—

I was just talking to Mom earlier today about how I’m not sure I’m ever going to be *able* to trust that an income won’t just disappear one day, that even in the better possible scenarios for a decade from now where I’ve gotten some cushy job in an accounting firm or something, I’ll probably still be living on the 2028-dollars equivalent of $1k – $1.5k/month and agonising over every expenditure and squirrelling away every spare cent for the winter.

Which is the opposite of the psychological issues you usually hear about poor people developing (and which you have yourself, right?), where they feel like there’s no point in saving because *savings* always disappear no matter what you do. I think this is because those people tend to have spent an extended and/or formative time as living-paycheck-to-paycheck!poor, whereas I spent mine as living-primarily-off-of-dwindling-savings!poor. Different kinds of poverty lead to different adaptations.

Tags:

#fun* fact: my parents ran out of money around the end of February (depending on how you count) #*not actually fun #it’s up to me and Brother to keep things running #(mostly Brother since he has more savings and more income) #((and the reason he has more savings is *because* he has more income)) #venting cw? #reply via reblog #adventures in human capitalism #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers

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~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

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How can Pokemon Go be so popular if so few phone models can run it?

Like, am I missing something, or are phones with enough RAM small-selection and rather expensive? I looked on Amazon for 2GB RAM smartphones, and I got four entries, three of which were ~$195 and one that was $280.

Though I’d prefer to use Amazon store credit, and an unlocked phone could be nice, I might end up buying another locked phone from PC Mobile. They’ll sell me a 2 GB model Amazon doesn’t carry for $104. The only problem I’ve ever had with my current PC Mobile lock was having to buy a very cheap flip-phone shell when I needed a temporary American cell phone last year, rather than putting an American SIM card in my pre-existing smartphone. Not only have I never wanted to buy a non-PC Canadian plan, I’ve never even bought a PC plan. It’s looking like my first smart-”phone” is going to live out its entire life without ever actually seeing a SIM card.

Also, apparently all smartphones are really tall now, so I’d need to replace my phone pouch too so a new phone will fit. I liked that pouch.

(I’m not just complaining. If anyone knows of an Amazon Canada listing that the search isn’t picking up, or some other decent method of obtaining a suitable phone (either cheaper or less locked than PC), or if Pokemon Go actually runs fine on 1 GB of RAM and Niantic was just being conservative with their list of specs, let me know. America-specific recommendations accepted if I can act on them during my day trip to Buffalo later this month and they’re unlocked, or possibly so cheap that their unlock fee is worth it: I don’t want to be tied to a carrier whose service area I don’t live in, in case I buy a plan someday. (But keep exchange rates in mind; from a CAD viewpoint, objects priced in USD are more expensive than they look.))

Tags:

#oh look an original post #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #and has been thinking of replacing the smaller one #nothing is *wrong* with it per se #it functions fine according to its original specifications #but I’m getting tired of juggling data around its tiny hard drive #(I’ve already had to uninstall multiple apps I wanted to keep because I simply didn’t have space) #(not *everything* can be transferred to the microSD) #and I would like to finally learn to speak Pokemon #but the thing that pushed me over into serious planning for replacement #was that Mom now has a thing she’d like to do that she needs a smartphone for #but it doesn’t really matter how *good* a smartphone #so I told her I’d buy a new one for me and hand my old one down to her #(neatly circumventing waste-not-want-not issues) #tag rambles

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~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

Goddammit, it’s a goddamn roleplay blog.

*headdesk*

(so you know how I mentioned a couple months ago that sometimes I poke around somnophilia stuff in hopes of finding a kindred spirit? saw a suspiciously Relatable post in the Tumblr somnophilia tag today (though the actual post was from March). I look at their about page: not much there, their name is Deleisthai and they’re a fluid demigirl and that’s about it. nothing relevant.

so I’m about to get up the nerve to message them and ask them about it when I see there’s a page labelled “Rules”, and I look at it and it’s a bunch of roleplaying rules. I had assumed the label “indie dirk strider” on their sidebar was a metaphorical comparison, but no, it’s literally a fucking Homestuck RP, and that post didn’t have the curly brackets that–judging from the blog’s front page–they use to indicate OOC.)

Tags:

#aaggghhh #I didn’t even know there still *were* RP Tumblrs #I thought they went out of fashion around 2013 #oh look an original post #sexuality and lack thereof

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

sinesalvatorem:

It’s really cloudy tonight so, while the clouds had a reddish tint, I didn’t see the moon :(

*nod* Fucking clouds.

The worst part is, in my case it might not have just been the clouds. When I finally got a glimpse of the moon at 12:20, about ten minutes before the last of the shadow left, I found it was much higher in the sky than I expected it to be. Specifically, it was high enough that the angle I had been using to check the sky out my window that evening would not have seen it. How long was it up that high? How long?

Fucking clouds. Fucking irregular-relative-to-day/night-cycle moonrises. Fucking sleep schedules.

(Also, I like that “tiny adventure club” tag you used. Looks like the space-less version (”tinyadventureclub”) is more active, though.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #commiseration #how come nobody ever took me out meteor-watching when I was a kid and went to bed at 2 – 3 AM #now it’s too late #(in multiple senses of ‘too late’) #lunar eclipse