officialcreature

[officialcreature]

Literally saw this immediately after posting my rant

It's so annoying that the problem is capitalism because everyone is so beaten into worshipping capitalism and fearing anything else that they don't care even when they agree something is caused by capitalism.

"Cost efficiency" and profit are responsible for:

- Shift to subscription based payment for everything

- "You need the app"

- Everything breaks faster because of planned obsolescence and it's just cheaper to use cheaper parts to build stuff

- Bad/automated customer service

- etc etc etc ec-fucking-cetera

And you can explain how seeking ever greater profit is responsible and people will agree and then just not care.

The worst part is all these things were small decisions. It was one person's job to come up with a way to cut costs in order to ever increase profit and they suggested that a piece in the washing machine could be made with plastic instead of metal. It saved the company $1 on every machine made. It wouldn't be the end of the world for anyone. How could anyone be mad, it's really not a big deal?

But the thing is that one person exists in every business and has been having to come up with that idea every year for decades and it accumulates. Now everything is made shitty, the service provided is shittier, the ways in which they make your experience worse are ever growing, but it's the only way they could keep increasing profits and no one ever suggested to make it suddenly drastically worse, so you can't blame one person.

Even if you could, you could never get to speak to that person because the only person you can speak to is the person with limited English skills they gave the customer service job to and you only speak to after you go through a long automated system (which you gave information that the person then still asks for). You can't be mad at that person either though, because none of this is their fault, they're just trying to make ends meet, they're just as much a victim of the horrible system that placed you two in this exact spot and it would be fucked up to yell at them. So all you can do is suffer through it unable to ever hold anyone accountable because you can't get a hold of them and only the financial elite are truly to blame and you can't touch them.

Then when you try to say no to anything when you get the chance, when you try to complain about one of these tiny changes that add up to make everything worse, you're over reacting. No one wants to fight that fight, and you're the problem for making everyone think about it and making things harder. What's the company gonna do, everyone else is doing it and you need to stay competitive?

So long story short, every time someone suggests making something slightly worse for profit, no matter how tiny the change, that person should be publicly executed. They should do a national broadcast on live TV at 9pm EST so everyone can tune it. It should also be hosted on every streaming service, YouTube, Twitch, etc. and everyone should love it.

[officialcreature]

It's so annoying that the problem is capitalism because everyone is so beaten into worshipping capitalism and fearing anything else that they don't care even when they agree something is caused by capitalism.

"Cost efficiency" and profit are responsible for:

- Shift to subscription based payment for everything

- "You need the app"

- Everything breaks faster because of planned obsolescence and it's just cheaper to use cheaper parts to build stuff

- Bad/automated customer service

- etc etc etc ec-fucking-cetera

And you can explain how seeking ever greater profit is responsible and people will agree and then just not care.

The worst part is all these things were small decisions. It was one person's job to come up with a way to cut costs in order to ever increase profit and they suggested that a piece in the washing machine could be made with plastic instead of metal. It saved the company $1 on every machine made. It wouldn't be the end of the world for anyone. How could anyone be mad, it's really not a big deal?

But the thing is that one person exists in every business and has been having to come up with that idea every year for decades and it accumulates. Now everything is made shitty, the service provided is shittier, the ways in which they make your experience worse are ever growing, but it's the only way they could keep increasing profits and no one ever suggested to make it suddenly drastically worse, so you can't blame one person.

Even if you could, you could never get to speak to that person because the only person you can speak to is the person with limited English skills they gave the customer service job to and you only speak to after you go through a long automated system (which you gave information that the person then still asks for). You can't be mad at that person either though, because none of this is their fault, they're just trying to make ends meet, they're just as much a victim of the horrible system that placed you two in this exact spot and it would be fucked up to yell at them. So all you can do is suffer through it unable to ever hold anyone accountable because you can't get a hold of them and only the financial elite are truly to blame and you can't touch them.

Then when you try to say no to anything when you get the chance, when you try to complain about one of these tiny changes that add up to make everything worse, you're over reacting. No one wants to fight that fight, and you're the problem for making everyone think about it and making things harder. What's the company gonna do, everyone else is doing it and you need to stay competitive?

So long story short, every time someone suggests making something slightly worse for profit, no matter how tiny the change, that person should be publicly executed. They should do a national broadcast on live TV at 9pm EST so everyone can tune it. It should also be hosted on every streaming service, YouTube, Twitch, etc. and everyone should love it.

[officialcreature]

Wild how other people know of and perceive us. Like there is this guy I chatted with on Grindr for a min, but nothing ever really came from it

2 months later come across vids he uploaded of himself jerking on some porn site

Year later see his face as one of the therapists at a local practice

5-6 years later see him in the self-checkout at Walmart (with who I'm assuming was a boyfriend?)

Literally what an interesting number of ways to know a stranger

[officialcreature]

I never quite get these things because I can't tell if the person really doesn't know or what? Like they shut it down because they view many legal entries as ones that should be illegal and they would love to limit legal migration even more too.

Are they right? No. But I don't think it really makes sense to pretend and play dumb as to why they do it either? So I can't tell if these people are really naive to the point they don't know why Trump would make legal migration harder, or they are just pretending they don't so they can pretend to be shocked?

Either way isn't helpful to anyone

[officialcreature]

Saw a vid like "You can tell when a skinny person used to be fat because they'll hide their chin and cover their stomachs and hunch over" and I was like, what? I'm fat as hell and I don't do any of that shit. And then I remembered the general disposition of people who tend to prioritize weight loss

[officialcreature]

[officialcreature]

The tik tokification of 'bad words' like sex/seggs suicide/unalive pedohile/PDFile grape/rape only originally censored because of moderation rules but now in colloquial (online) speech is going to send me to an early grave

[officialcreature]

The cost is insane, there's 110% mark up there, but some of the reasons these things always seem so high for anyone curious is:

- the incredibly convoluted system of medical charges means this cost will be negotiated with insurance companies that will pay a fraction of it

- many people who don't have insurance qualify for free or reduced price due to hospitals often being non-profits (and those who don't probably won't pay it leading to the hospitals eating the cost)

- Hospitals have a HUGE amount of overhead they need to cover, and unfortunately if they charge $20 for a bandaid everyone realizes the upcharge on that, but how much should a dose of anti-venom cost, unknown and so it's where hospitals will put a lot of their upcharge

Some of the anti-venom specific reasons:

- Anti-venom isn't in high demand, but all hospitals need to stock it. So if only a few thousand people need it every year, then the cost of production, distribution, storage, and expired product will need to be put on a small number of patients. If insulin was only used by a few thousand people a year the costs would be way higher (though they're of course already way too high)

- Rattlesnakes inject a lot of lower intensity venom compared to some snakes that inject a small amount of highly toxic venom, so more doses are needed for rattlesnake bites

- Due to a weird situation with poor manufacturing from the usual rattlesnake venom manufacturer in the US, they were shut down and the anti-venom now used, while higher quality (the old one used to cause horse allergies for example), wasn't actually made for rattlesnakes, so it also takes even more doses for that reason

Honestly I'm surprised the charge for a few days in a pediatric ICU was as low as it was.

Tl;dr

Prescription drugs are just where hospitals charge for a lot of their overhead, but almost no one would ever pay anywhere close to full price. Plus lack of demand and weird things with rattlesnake venom specifically make it expensive to produce/use

[officialcreature]

Also great that we elected an anti-choice president and senator in my state. Now we get more babies to families that will struggle to support them, all while cutting school funding!

While the election results were depressing I'd been saying since the day he was elected that if Biden ran again Trump would beat him. When he was running I said Trump would beat him. When he dropped out I said it was Democrats only chance, but still they'll probably lose and the reasons are 99% their fault.

The most depressing outcome though? The levy for the school my partner works at failed 55% to 45%. The levy was an emergency levy that was to cover a $14 million yearly shortfall they've been running for two years. Without it they'll now be cutting almost everything they're not legally required to (sports, arts, bussing for high school, etc.) and cutting teachers leading to increased class sizes.

Luckily my partner's job is not on the chopping block at all, but it's just so depressing. Most of the school levies in my state failed. People really just don't have any sense of community anymore 😞

[officialcreature]

While the election results were depressing I'd been saying since the day he was elected that if Biden ran again Trump would beat him. When he was running I said Trump would beat him. When he dropped out I said it was Democrats only chance, but still they'll probably lose and the reasons are 99% their fault.

The most depressing outcome though? The levy for the school my partner works at failed 55% to 45%. The levy was an emergency levy that was to cover a $14 million yearly shortfall they've been running for two years. Without it they'll now be cutting almost everything they're not legally required to (sports, arts, bussing for high school, etc.) and cutting teachers leading to increased class sizes.

Luckily my partner's job is not on the chopping block at all, but it's just so depressing. Most of the school levies in my state failed. People really just don't have any sense of community anymore 😞

[officialcreature]

Gonna be fr grown adult queers should know better than to engage in crazy fear mongering telling other people it’s over and we’re all gonna be sent to camps and lose our rights and be criminalized and whatever like hey how about don’t tell a group of people with unbelievably high suicide rates that there’s no hope and life is over

[officialcreature]

I'm sorry but speech-language pathologists being under the teachers union in schools is so annoying 😫

Like unions are great, but SLPs are in such demand that basically every district in the country is hiring for them at all times. They could easily be pulling 20k+ more a year across the board, but they're tied to teacher pay scales.

My school placement isn't bad, I love working with the special education kids a ton, and summers off is honestly something that would specifically benefit me for sure, but the pay is atrocious. What do you mean I'll have a master's degree in one of the most in demand medical fields in the country and basically just spent a year working full time for no pay, then work for really reduced pay my first year in fellowship, then you're still only going to offer me like $52k/yr. The hospital will pay me like 75-80k starting. If I hated myself enough to work in skilled nursing maybe even 5-10k more than that!

Like I know someone who got a job at a pretty nice district in Florida and they were advised to send out letters to parents saying, "Hey, I know we're legally mandated to provide your child the amount of time in treatment that's outlined on their IEP, but we don't have anywhere near enough staff for that no matter how we try to hire. So that won't be happening. Sorry!"

And like that sucks, but the SLPs they do have are swamped not even meeting the minutes the kids are supposed to get, and they just can't hire more SLPs because they can't compete with medical, outpatient, etc. job salaries. It's probably one of the only times a union has a drastic lowering effect on worker pay

[officialcreature]

[officialcreature]

Honestly the "let people enjoy things, it's just for fun" is annoying, because some things people move past just being silly and doing it for fun. I'm thinking specifically about crystals, astrology, essential oils, things like that.

Crystals is like, they do look cool, but I've seen one too many bitches start really believing in it. Cause once you start for fun, you start getting videos suggested to you, and you meet people that are more into it, etc., and next thing you know you're sucked in. It's almost like how cults work where you think, "Well obviously I would never believe that," but it's a slow boil. You start with like, oh these are fun ➡️ Oh, well it's just fun to learn what they all supposedly do ➡️ Well I carry around this quarts cause it's supposed to be protective, but really I just like it ➡️ well I feel like I have been sleeping a bit better since I started putting amethyst under my pillow ➡️ god knows what. And the deeper you get the more you're getting fed stuff and meeting people that reinforce it. Next thing you know a small number of people are forgoing modern medicine for crystal therapy, and spending huge amounts of money on crystals in an attempt to fix problems rather than doing productive things (and not wasting their money).

Astrology though I personally can't stand. I think the thing that just always irks me most is when people associate any of my characteristics/actions/feelings/etc. to my sign. I (like everyone else) am a complex person with lots of history, experiences, beliefs, etc. and it feels very invalidating for you to just be ignoring all that and saying because I was born at a certain time I am a certain way. Like I may as well just not have a personality or experiences because nothing matters other than the day I was born?

And astrology is, as everyone knows, set up to be so nebulous that anyone could honestly find plenty of true things about themselves in any sign, because we all are sometimes hard headed, or want approval, or are disorganized, or whatever. Also then they start throwing in sun, moon, mars, etc. signs and cups and shit, and it's like, well of course it could fit me. You've listed every human emotion or characteristic possible!

But it's another case of "It's just fun to read" ➡️ "ironically" saying thing like, "WOW how Libra of me" ➡️ "Well I realized I'm a Sagittarius moon, so that would explain why I like to..." ➡️ "I'll never be good at ____ I'm just too much of a Taurus." ➡️ "I would never date a Gemini. I've dated two in the past and it just did not work out." ➡️ Etc.

Like I think it's just human nature to read these things and be able to know it's just made up and that obviously you could apply it to anyone. But if you keep reading those things, the human brain loves to notice patterns and draw connections. So you end up just priming your brain to be ready to notice a "Leo trait" you might exhibit. Then you just start getting non-stop confirmation bias, because once you start thinking, "well maybe..." it can apply to anyone, so you can make anything a confirmation.

[officialcreature]

Luckily the trend has died down, but I hate when people talk about "the ick." Like 99% of the time they're just talking about how they felt grossed out looking at their friend/partner doing something normal.

I feel like a lot of it comes from the increasingly common perception of constantly being viewed/judging others. It just exists to reinforce constant self monitoring to adjust for any potential "viewer" and the idea that you need to be Instagram presentable 24/7 even in front of close family and friends.

Plus half the time they're some woman uploading a video of their boyfriend doing something normal, like walking over to them in a pool with drinks for them, and being like, "When you watch the way he walks in a pool and get the ick." It's insane you would upload a video of someone you claim to care about and talk about how their normal action made you judge them.

And I know they're meant to be light hearted, and it is totally normal to look at something and have a reaction to it. Plus, I feel like a lot of the time it's just a case of, "I've never really thought in depth about this thing before and it just looks kind of funny."

But, also like... keep it to yourself? Have I ever looked at my partner and been like, "Why does he do that like that. He looks weird doing that." Sure, and that fine, BUT I don't remind my partner I'm a constant observer in his life and that I have random judgmental thoughts sometimes. He deserves to feel comfortable and supported around me, and there is no reason I should be telling him random judgmental thoughts I had about him when the thing he's doing is in no way a bad thing to be doing. That's just asking for your partner to become increasingly self conscious around you. Even if you're just teasing or being funny, if you keep pointing out random judgements you're casting, they will start to notice even if you don't actually care or want them to feel judged.

Not to mention the other two common issues with it:

1. People being like, "adding that to my list of things that cause the ick," and then showing a list of like 400+ things. Like, you're actually kind of a bitch and you're going to ruin your life by being overly critical of others and not learning to check yourself.

2. The ones where it's just reinforcing gender binary like, "When he goes with you to get a pedicure and suddenly you have the ick." And like... you invited him to an activity you enjoy and he came with you and then suddenly you had negative feelings due to ingrained sexist societal norms, but your reaction to that seems to be that you think your feelings are fine and it's actually funny and normal to feel the ick about that and not question it.

Honestly that last part is the biggest point. It's normal to have these feelings, but the trend was/is about joking about being judgy, when in fact the reaction to having those thoughts should be, "Damn, I'll being randomly judgy lmao. Let me check myself there." It's normal to have a random judgemental reaction, and there's no need to beat yourself up, but you shouldn't be reinforcing that reaction. You should just casually be like, "Nah, actually it's cute to see my boyfriend walking over to me with drinks he got for us."

[officialcreature]

It's a actually so sad that basically every photo/video you see online, even from "normal" people, involves some combination of editing, makeup, and plastic surgery. Then one photo is chosen and out of 200. Like no matter how much you know that's true I think there's just no way to not get a little fucked up by it.