#even the united states doesn't do that.

[frecht]

i need to give this map of mine the mercator treatment

[mokeonn]

I think that the 2010's media landscape of Buzzfeed articles about plotholes in disney movies, Cinemasins critiques, and Watchmojo Top Ten scenes in movies that make no sense has truely ruined a lot of media. People are afraid that their work will be torn down if they dare leave a single thing up in the air, if they dare ask their audience to suspend their disbelief.

All too often nowadays I see stories (especially fantasy), take the time to explain how every small aspect of the world works and how it all logically makes sense. The constant time stopped to explain why an event happened, how this object works, or why this is important to the characters. It's just really not needed and it honestly makes a lot of stories worse.

I am of the opinion that the best stories truly just drop you into their world and explain nothing. They just take you through the story of this world and you just have to accept it and continue on. "When he became king, the land became barren." I don't want the story to stop and explain why this is, or how it happened, I want us to move on so we can just assume that the king has such rancid vibes that everything died.

[arctic-hands]

I've had more than one anarchist I associate with be surprised to learn I'm actually not an anarchist. But like. I'm a huge proponent of the Welfare State, and you kind of need a state for that

[fantasy-costco]

Uhh I understand this is a heavy subject so you don't n3ed to answer

I asked because I'm just wondering if teachers like actually care. About their students. Like do they care I'd they wanna kill th3mselves because of how much stress they're under

In my experience, absolutely. I work with college students, usually freshman, and even though I don't work with them as much a their professors do I definitely care about them and want what's best for them and if they were in a mental health crisis I would do whatever I could to help. The same is true for all the professors in my department, you just don't dedicate your life to teaching without getting attached to your students.

I'm working on a history masters right now so a lot of my classmates are high school teachers and they love their kids, too. Even more than professors, I think, because their students need more support than college students do.

Teachers generally don't get to design their own lesson plans-- if you're in middle or high school, chances are your teacher hates the lesson plans just as much as you do. What they can do is offer support. I've seen students get reduced workloads because they were going through health problems (mental or physical) and I've known teachers to keep a secret stash of mental health resources in their classrooms in case they notice a student struggling.

Not all teachers are perfect and I can not promise you that your teachers are like mine or like my colleagues, but in my experience the kinds of people who go into teaching often do it because they care deeply about their students.

Also, speaking as someone who works in education, school is never more important than your own health. If you need to let your grades drop for a bit to give yourself room to breath, then do that. I'd recommend talking to your teachers and/or guidance counselor about it but even if you can't bring yourself to do that please remember that you are more important than any number on a report card.

[eleanorfenyx]

it’s 8.45 in the morning, I haven’t slept all night (I have insomnia it’s okay, it’s normal, just unpleasant lol), and I’m irrationally upset that a 1984 Mandopop/disco album that I fell in love with over the summer is nowhere to be found anymore except on QQ vip, but I can’t seem to register for an account without getting stopped by an error message that my phone number is deemed unsafe 😭 I just want my happy music back

[niroke]

Remember to vote!!

[aethernightmare]

My old $1000/mo studio apartment is being sold (by the new building owners) for $350,000.

And this is why I can’t afford to live on my own lmao.

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

if I've learned anything from grad school it's to check your sources, and this has proven invaluable in the dozens of instances when I've had an MBA-type try to tell me something about finances or leadership. Case in point:

Firefox serves me clickbaity articles through Pocket, which is fine because I like Firefox. But sometimes an article makes me curious. I'm pretty anal about my finances, and I wondered if this article was, as I suspected, total horseshit, or could potentially benefit me and help me get my spending under control. So let's check the article in question.

It mostly seems like common sense. "...track expenses and income for at least a month before setting a budget...How much money do I have or earn? How much do I want to save?" Basic shit like that. But then I get to this section:

This sounds fucking made up to me. And thankfully, they've provided a source to their claim that "research has repeatedly shown" that writing things down changes behavior. First mistake. What research is this?

Forbes, naturally, my #1 source for absolute dogshit fart-sniffing financial schlock. Forbes is the type of website that guy from high school who constantly posts on linkedin trawls daily for little articles like this that make him feel better about refusing to pay for a decent package for his employees' healthcare (I'm from the United States, a barbaric, conflict-ridden country in the throes of civil unrest, so obsessed with violence that its warlords prioritize weapons over universal medical coverage. I digress). Forbes constantly posts shit like this, and I constantly spend my time at leadership seminars debunking poor consultants who get paid to read these claims credulously. Look at this highlighted text. Does it make sense to you that simply writing your financial goals down would result in a 10x increase in your income? Because if it does, let me make you an offer on this sick ass bridge.

Thankfully, Forbes also makes the mistake of citing their sources. Let's check to see where this hyperlink goes:

SidSavara. I've never heard of this site, but the About section tells me that Sid is "a technology leader who empowers teams to grow into their best selves. He is a life-long learner enjoys developing software, leading teams in delivering mission critical projects, playing guitar and watching football and basketball."

That doesn't mean anything. What are his LinkedIn credentials? With the caveat that anyone can lie on Linkedin, Mr. Savara appears to be a Software Engineer. Which is fine! I'm glad software engineers exist! But Sid's got nothing in his professional history which suggests he knows shit about finance. So I'm already pretty skeptical of his website, which is increasingly looking like a personal fart-huffing blog.

The article itself repeats the credulous claim made in the Forbes story earlier, but this time, provides no link for the 3% story. Mr. Savara is smarter than his colleages at Forbes, it's much wiser to just make shit up.

HOWEVER. I am not the first person to have followed this rabbit hole. Because at the very top of this article, there is a disclaimer.

Uh oh!

Sid's been called out before, and in the follow up to this article, he reveals the truth.

You can guess where this is going.

So to go back to the VERY beginning of this post, both Pocket/Good Housekeeping and Forbes failed to do even the most basic of research, taking the wild claim that writing down your budget may increase your income by 10x on good faith and the word of a(n admittedly honest about his shortcomings) software engineer.

Why did I spend 30 minutes to make a tumblr post about this? Mostly to show off how smart I am, but also to remind folks of just how flimsy any claim on the internet can be. Click those links, follow those sources, and when the sources stop linking, ask why.

[chaoskirin]

I'm not gonna tell you how to vote, BUT...

Here are some truths about the upcoming United States election.

Either Trump or Biden will win.

Our political system is designed around ensuring that either the Democrat or the Republican win. There is no "but if everyone rallies around a third party candidate..." argument, because...

Grassroots campaigns can't work. There are areas of the country that don't have internet or television. Congress just allowed the Affordable Connectivity Program to lapse, denying internet to even more people. There is literally no way for some candidates to get their message to huge parts of the country.

The Republican and Democrat candidates are backed by huge donor machines that enable them to tour a campaign trail. Independent candidates do not have this luxury.

Our country still uses a First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system, which is specifically designed to support only two candidates.

Our country uses an electoral (all or none) system, which is why you hear that voting for a third party candidate "takes votes away" from one of the major party candidates. For example, if Trump gets 48,999 votes, Biden gets 50,000 votes, and a third party candidate gets one single vote, Biden takes all the electoral votes in the state. All of them.

I really hope you make your peace with this now. Please, vote how you want, but with one candidate saying he will essentially outlaw transgender people, I can't imagine NOT voting for the only other candidate who can possibly win. Right now the polls are 50/50, which is absolutely insane to me.

In my experience, it's usually younger people who talk about either voting their conscience, or not voting at all to "send a message." I assure you, not voting doesn't send a message to the candidate who loses. Your message is only received by the millions of Americans who will suffer as a result.

I don't want to argue. I have no desire to fight with anyone over this anymore. And if you want to ask me "so I have to choose between two killers?" as a gotcha, then I'm sorry to say... The answer is yes. Those are the choices we've been given. And because the United States is no longer a true democratic republic, there's not a whole lot we can do to change that right now.

[deadpresidents]

"What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 millions people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women's pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn't carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America's founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn't paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen."

-- "How Far Would He Go", TIME Magazine's interviews with Donald Trump, April 30, 2024.

I know we're saturated in coverage of Trump and it's easy (and probably better for our mental health) to usually ignore most of the articles when we see them, especially since he's so full of shit and infuriating. But it's also important to recognize that he is going to be the Republican nominee for President and he could absolutely be elected in November, and if you thought his first term was scary and dangerous, you need to understand that in a second term he's going to have people around him that are better prepared and VERY willing to do the crazy shit that he wants to do to this country. They aren't even hiding the fact that they are seeking vengeance against political opponents whom they feel have wronged them, and are ready to fundamentally dismantle the democratic foundations that are barely holding this country together after nearly 250 years.

Just look at what Trump says about the people who he incited to attack the United States Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and halt the peaceful transfer of power that has happened every four years since 1789:

"Trump has sought to recast an insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. 'I call them the J-6 patriots,' he say. When I ask whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, 'Yes, absolutely.' As Trump faces dozens of felony charges, including for election interference, conspiracy to defraud the United States, willful retention of national-security secrets, and falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments, he has tried to turn legal peril into a badge of honor."

Oh, and please note that Trump -- a former President of the United States and possible future President of the United States -- said on the record in these interviews with TIME: "There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country and that can't be allowed either." We are at a point where political leaders are outright saying that in this country again, and it's because of Donald Trump.

So, take the time to recognize that Trump is straight-up telling us the country we're going to be living in if he wins again in November. And understand that your vote matters -- and WHO you vote for matters -- because, as I've been saying for years now, ELECTIONS HAVE FUCKING CONSEQUENCES.

[sunbentshadows]

Been mulling over the news today. But not about Biden, nor Harris. Not the breathless coverage of media-spinning-this-as-another-losing-move-for-Democrats.

I've been thinking about the right-wing in this country. The Republicans. You know, the group the coverage SHOULD be about. Especially as they've fallen into a fascistic cult of personality and vindictive cruelty-as-politics.

What is the Republican platform now? It used to be fiscal conservatism and 'business-interests' (at least on the surface), deregulation, less governmental power. Now it's, well. Trump. Sure. But what are they fighting for? "Get their guy in the White House"?

Well yes. But no. The Republicans are desperately trying to hold power. The power to dismantle the rights of every person in the country who isn't a white-male-Christian-business interest. One of Their Guys.

Why? Why so much now?

Because they're fucking UNPOPULAR. The country doesn't support them! If the entire country voted, the right wing would not meaningfully exist in the US political sphere.

Think about that for a second. REALLY internalize it: If everyone in the US voted, period, full stop. The right would be gone. The Republican party, as it is, now, would be a fucking joke.

So of COURSE they're swinging towards fascism. In a two-party system, a political party's only meaningful directive is survival of the power of their party. The very existence of Project 2025 is proof - it is the last, dying fucking breath a party that has TWO options to stay alive: Fascism and minority-rule, or change.

And they're sure not picking fucking change.

That is what we're up against.

If I could ask ONE thing of any person in the US who desperately wants to keep their human rights, who understands a loss in this election is likely the end of US-democracy as we know it - it would be to point the narrative towards the utterly vile platform of the right wing. Talk about it to everyone. Don't normalize it! Don't EVER say "That's just what Republicans do so it's normal". That's what they want.

If we win the branches of government - if we could make it 10% easier to vote. 5% easier to vote. That could swing elections and politics for a generation. We can even dream bigger: Ranked choice. Mandatory ballots. National holiday voting day.

And Republican strategists know this!! They're so terrified of it they're willing to dismantle the fundamental tenets of the United States of America to prevent it!

PART of why I'm so frustrated with the constant circling-on-Democratic-candidate is because it entirely misses the point. The choice is between a party trying to enshrine minority-Christian-Theocratic-rule in the country for generations - or, you know.

A middlingly-charismatic Democrat.

And, judgement-free - if you had a MOMENT of weighing the 'good' of those things, that's the fucking problem. These things are not remotely equal. The coverage of this political moment is like the coverage of climate change, and it gets into EVERYONE'S head - "The world is ending. But are hot summers REALLY that bad? Experts weigh in!"

The breathless both-sidesing of the current political moment is so appallingly, atrociously irresponsible I hardly have words for how fucking livid I am.

Vote.

[long-live-astronerd-ghost-king]

DPXDC prompt. Dead on main. Singer! Phantom x Red Hood!Jason

Laws are easily changed if businessmen smell money.

Paulina and Sam suggest Danny to try to become a singer in order to change society's opinion about ghosts a little. In the end, the otherworldly sound of his voice can at least be used for the benefit of Realms.

And it seems like the Everlasting Trio is really liked by the public. At first they just release a few songs (Exams kill, Battle with myself, What an Autopsy Won't Show, Among the stars). But a mysterious atmosphere mixed with understandable teenage problems begins to take over teens playlists. Their fans want more and more.

So, when under the pressure of the public and profit-hungry bigwigs all bans on the presence of ecto creatures in the United States are lifted, the Trio goes on their first Tour.

~~~~~

Jason stumbles upon Phantom's songs completely by accident. It was painful to hear them for the first time but at the same time it was as if he could breathe again because he had found someone similar. Someone who understands, and who doesn't judge him for coming back wrong. Jason listens to his voice on repeat and the rage seems to recede and subside. There is sadness of loss and fear in the songs but most of them end bringing some hope and this thought gives Red Hood more strength not to break down for another day. and then another, and another..And one day, the green eyes in the mirror do not scare Jason but shows him that he belonging to something more. Todd can't explain it more precisely, but it was as if the waters of Lazarus inside him had calmed down and he was no longer enemies with them. He even jokes with Tim that he is finally rest in peace and ready to live a full undead life when his brother (God, his lil brother whom he wanted to hurt recently because of his own stupidity), asks him about his strange behavior.

~~~~~

Jason forgets how to breathe again. His favorite band, and most importantly his favorite vocalist, is coming to Gotham with a concert. For many years now, none of the nonresidents have dared to take such a risk, but it seems like Phantom has absolutely no instinct for self-preservation. Well, as a true fan, Red Hood will do his best so that none of the gothamites spoil the Trio's impression of their first concert here. Danny is beside himself with excitement. Their concert in the hometown of the Red Hood was approved. Of course, there is no chance that he would be able to meet such a busy vigilante but Phantom continues to dream. If he'll fly a little over the city instead of sleeping after rehearsals, maybe he'll get an autograph from at least one member of the bat clan.

~~~~~ Phantom: Thank you very much Mr. Nightwing sir. Just sign it for.. Nightwing: For a Phantom, right? Huh, I recognized you, my brother has poster in his room. Nice hairstyle by the way. Danny*urgently*: Which one of them?

Nightwing: Jeez, and I thought it was just a stage image. Ghosts are kinda creepy. Terribly persistent, to be precise. And yeah, Jason, he absolutely not against you as a vigilante. You can safely ask Phantom to sign your helmet, I promise. Man was so happy when find out you're listening to his songs, you have no idea.

Jason *holds out a hand*. Nightwing: What? Jason: If you dared to meet Phantom before me, then where is my autograph? Nightwing: Em..oops? I gave him mine if it helps.

Jason: *sounds of an angry lazarus demon*.

[transxfiles]

lost phineas and ferb episode where perry is called to investigate what dr doofenshmirtz is up to because carl the intern got ahold of some intel that doof has been seen speaking to lawyers and looking up the endangered species act at internet cafes and as major monogram says, "something fishy is going on"

meanwhile phineas and ferb's subplot of "i know what we're gonna do today!" is that isabella needs her environmentalist fireside girls badge so they start researching which species are in urgent need of help in the tri-state area so that they can use new cloning and gene therapy technologies to bring at-risk animals back from extinction

(yes there is a c-plot where buford and baljeet argue the ethics of this idea, i don't have time to explain it all for you rn)

we cut back to🎵doofenshmirtz evil incorporated🎵where we see perry carefully maneuvering around doofenshmirtz's lab scared he might fall into a trap but he hasn't set off a single booby trap and it's clear something is off

he runs into doofenshmirtz and goes to kick him in the gut action movie style but doof steps back one overly confident and says, "nuh uh uh, you see perry the platypus, you are TRAPPED! by the danville section of the endangered species act of 1973!"

doof goes on to explain his tragic backstory: "you see, perry the platypus, when i was a child my parents did not show up for my own birth! but you know that already, yadda yadda yadda they did not love me and then they loved roger more, ANYways i was raised by ocelots! i had a lovely foster mother who took me in and made me one of the pride, and so you see, perry the platypus, i am still legally considered an ocelot. did you know that there are only 50 recorded ocelots still alive in the continental united states? very sad for me as a member of a near-extinct species. it would be immoral for you to hurt someone critically endangered... in fact, you have made many attempts on my life this summer"

[montage of doof's security camera footage of their battles]

"which is why i have decided to bring you... TO COURT!" we cut back to phineas and ferb's back yard where they've decided to start cloning ocelots in their kiddie pool

candace storms outside enraged and says, "phineas and ferb are you cloning ocelots in my duckie momo kiddie pool!?"

ferb's one line of the episode is "well, i guess it's more of a kitty pool, now"

candace storms away saying, "i'm going to tell mom!" and isabella turns to phineas and says, "oh, does your mom have experience in wildlife conservation?"

we cut back to the doof and perry plotline where the two are now in the danville hall of justice and we learn that doof has spent his monthly alimony check on a defense lawyer and perry turns and sees the lawyer and then vanessa helping her organize her briefcase and perry chitters at her and vanessa shrugs and says, "i'm thinking about going into legal defense. sorry perry."

the rest of the doof and perry b-plot is spent in court and perry is about to ask for a public defense lawyer when carl runs into the room and explains that he's owca's official legal defense and perry looks at him like, "uhhh is that even allowed?"

it doesn't matter because apparently the judge is out sick today but because it's danville roger's the judge now because he's the mayor and everyone loves him.

the court case continues.

meanwhile phineas and ferb have successfully cloned multiple ocelots from the original ocelot dna they had on hand and isabella asks phineas if these clones will experience health problems like premature aging, phineas casually explains that ferb figured out the problem while they were experimenting with stem cell harvesting.

back in the courtroom, doof's ocelot foster mother has been brought to the stand along with an ocelot to english translator. doof gets emotional seeing her after so long. she says that he was one of her favorite child and he was as strong a hunter as anyone else in the family. it's incredibly sweet. the jury's in tears.

meanwhile, isabella has established connections with a group in texas who are going to release the ocelots back into their natural habitat and, using the cloned ocelots to prevent inbreeding, help establish an ocelot breeding program. the group explains that they are going to send a helicopter to retrieve the cloned ocelots from danville and bring them to texas soon.

isabella gets her fireside girls badge.

candace manages to get mom to see the backyard only after the ocelots have been helicoptered off to coastal texas, their primary habitat.

mom makes it into the backyard as phineas stares wistfully over the fence and says, "if you love something, you have to let it go." candace goes, "look mom look look look!" and points at the ducky momo kiddie pool, devoid of cloned ocelots, where baljeet and buford are now chilling out, having settled their philosophical debate about the ethics of animal cloning.

back in the courtroom drama, doof looks like he's about to win when an attendant walks into the courtroom and whispers something in roger's ear.

roger looks up, grinning, and says, "good news, everyone! my attendant here has just enlightened me that ocelots are no longer considered critically endangered!"

this settles the case, with perry being decreed not guilty and the entire affair being called off. the courtroom cheers, roger walks over to doof and personally congratulates him on his species' return from the brink of extinction.

doof shouts, "curse you endangered species classification system!" at the ceiling of the danville hall of justice.

perry arrives back home just in time for mom to say, "who wants pie?"

the end.

[ursie]

Brennan’s statement on Palestine :

[ ID: Statement from Brennan Lee Mulligan, on Instagram. It consists of three black squares with plain white text. The text reads as follows:

"I'm calling on my government officials to immediately demand a ceasefire and de-escalation in Gaza.

I applaud anyone and everyone calling for peace, with the understanding that real peace only exists if it deeply and honestly accounts for and fully ends violence in all its forms. Real peace addresses and corrects wrong-doing in the past and guards against it in the future. It goes hand in hand with justice and requires truth, restoration, reconciliation, reparation.

Peace cannot co-exist with collective punishment, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement. It cannot co-exist with blockades, embargoes, or with 2.2 million people, half of which are children, trapped with no hope of escape or political recourse. it cannot co-exist with murdered journalists, bombed hospitals, or years of protesters being shot and killed at the border. it cannot co-exist with illegal settlements, segregated roads, and the silent, imperial chill that settles over the gaps in the violence - the unspoken geopolitical consensus that a group of people need to unflinchingly accept permanent subjugation and occupation.

My hear breaks for every Israeli person who lost loved ones during the attacks of October 7th. It breaks for every Ukrainian person who has lost their loved ones. It breaks for every Congolese person who has lost their loved ones. I do not speak on behalf of Palestinians now because some lives are worth more than others. I speak on their behalf because I, and all Americans, have a responsibility to pressure our government because we are responsible for this. Some have said that this situation is complicated. The Unites States government clearly disagrees. It has definitively, categorically, militarily chosen a side, and I do not agree with that decision.

In wiring this, I have been wrestling with what I am sure many people like me wrestle with: There is a powerful narrative surrounding violence in the Middle East that asserts and ever-moving goalpost of self-education and study in order to even be qualified to have an opinion. As someone with a love of research, I have at times in my life fallen into the trap that I am not educated enough clever enough, or aware enough to have a worthwhile perspective, and that three more articles and two more lectures and one more book will do the trick. Unfortunately, democracy doesn't work that way - we, the citizens of any democracy, cannot possibly be experts on every aspect of the policies of our governments, and yet if we do not constantly weigh in an make our voices heard, the entire experiment falls apart. Not only do people constantly doubt themselves and the things they can see with their own two eyes, but old shortcuts for political action can fall apart as well: This specific issue exists along a raw, charged and unique faultline in American Politics. Nobody I grew up with has ever challenged me on my support for abortion rights, LGBT rights, Black Lives Matter, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, none of it. The people in my country who would despise me for those positions are, for all intents and purposes, strangers to me. But there are people who I've broken bread with and shared honest affection with who will see the words I've written here and incorrectly conclude that I do not wish for the security, dignity and happiness of them and their loved ones, and that breaks my fucking heart. Full-throatedly condemning the actions of the Israeli government while battling rampant anti-semitism at home is an urgent moral necessity, and doing so is made unnecessarily challenging for the average person to navigate by the pointed obfuscations of cynical opportunists, bigots, and demagogues on all sides of the political spectrum who see some advantage in sowing that incredibly dangerous confusion.

So, I'm calling my representatives. I'm having hard conversations with friends and family. I'm here, talking to you. I should have done it sooner. If you're Israeli and hurt by this statement, know that I want freedom, dignity, security and peace for you, and that every ounce of my political awareness believes whole-heartedly that the actions of your government are not only destroying innocent lives, but doing so to the detriment of you and your loved ones' safety. If you're American and feel lost and confused - I understand and empathize. This, the whole country, only works when we get involved. I am constantly haunted by the specter that maybe I missed some crucial piece of information on this, or any, important world event. I'll just have to make my peace with that self-doubt and trust my gut by going with Jewish Voice for Peace, Amnesty International, the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations, etc. And if you're Palestinian and reading this: I unreservedly support your right to life, to freedom, to happiness and human flourishing, to full enfranchisement and equal rights, to opportunity, prosperity and abundance, to the restoration of stolen property and land, and to a Free Palestine." End ID ]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

The vast majority of America's debt collection targets $500-2,000 credit card debts. It is a filthy business, operated by lawless firms who hire unskilled workers drawn from the same economic background as their targets, who routinely and grotesquely flout the law, but only when it comes to the people with the least ability to pay.

America has fairly robust laws to protect debtors from sleazy debt-collection practices, notably the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), which has been on the books since 1978. The FDCPA puts strict limits on the conduct of debt collectors, and offers real remedies to debtors when they are abused.

But for FDPCA provisions to be honored, they must be understood. The people who collect these debts are almost entirely untrained. The people they collected the debts from are likewise in the dark. The only specialized expertise debt-collection firms concern themselves with are a series of gotcha tricks and semi-automated legal shenanigans that let them take money they don't deserve from people who can't afford to pay it.

There's no better person to explain this dynamic than Patrick McKenzie, a finance and technology expert whose Bits About Money newsletter is absolutely essential reading. No one breaks down the internal operations of the finance sector like McKenzie. His latest edition, "Credit card debt collection," is a fantastic read:

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/the-waste-stream-of-consumer-finance/

McKenzie describes how a debt collector who mistook him for a different PJ McKenzie and tried to shake him down for a couple hundred bucks, and how this launched him into a life as a volunteer advocate for debtors who were less equipped to defend themselves from collectors than he was.

McKenzie's conclusion is that "paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States." If you stand on your rights (which requires that you know your rights), then you will quickly discover that debt collectors don't have – and can't get – the documentation needed to collect on whatever debts they think you owe (even if you really owe them).

The credit card companies are fully aware of this, and bank (literally) on the fact that "the vast majority of consumers, including those with the socioeconomic wherewithal to walk away from their debts, feel themselves morally bound and pay as agreed."

If you find yourself on the business end of a debt collector's harassment campaign, you can generally make it end simply by "carefully sending a series of letters invoking [your] rights under the FDCPA." The debt collector who receives these letters will have bought your debt at five cents on the dollar, and will simply write it off.

By contrast, the mere act of paying anything marks you out as substantially more likely to pay than nearly everyone else on their hit-list. Paying anything doesn't trigger forbearance, it invites a flood of harassing calls and letters, because you've demonstrated that you can be coerced into paying.

But while learning FDCPA rules isn't overly difficult, it's also beyond the wherewithal of the most distressed debtors (and people falsely accused of being debtors). McKenzie recounts that many of the people he helped were living under chaotic circumstances that put seemingly simple things "like writing letters and counting to 30 days" beyond their needs.

This means that the people best able to defend themselves against illegal shakedowns are less likely to be targeted. Instead, debt collectors husband their resources so they can use them "to do abusive and frequently illegal shakedowns of the people the legislation was meant to benefit."

Here's how this debt market works. If you become delinquent in meeting your credit card payments ("delinquent" has a flexible meaning that varies with each issuer), then your debt will be sold to a collector. It is packaged in part of a large spreadsheet – a CSV file – and likely sold to one of 10 large firms that control 75% of the industry.

The "mom and pops" who have the other quarter of the industry might also get your debt, but it's more likely that they'll buy it as a kind of tailings from one of the big guys, who package up the debts they couldn't collect on and sell them at even deeper discounts.

The people who make the calls are often barely better off than the people they're calling. They're minimally trained and required to work at a breakneck pace. Employee turnover is 75-100% annually: imagine the worst call center job in the world, and then make it worse, and make "success" into a moral injury, and you've got the debt-collector rank-and-file.

To improve the yield on this awful process, debt collection companies start by purging these spreadsheets of likely duds: dead people, people with very low credit-scores, and people who appear on a list of debtors who know their rights and are likely to stand on them (that's right, merely insisting on your rights can ensure that the entire debt-collection industry leaves you alone, forever).

The FDPCA gives you rights: for example, you have the right to verify the debt and see the contract you signed when you took it on. The debt collector who calls you almost certainly does not have that contract and can't get it. Your original lender might, but they stopped caring about your debt the minute they sold it to a debt-collector. Their own IT systems are baling-wire-and-spit Rube Goldberg machines that glue together the wheezing computers of all the companies they've bought over the last 25 years. Retrieving your paperwork is a nontrivial task, and the lender doesn't have any reason to perform it.

Debt collectors are bottom feeders. They are buying delinquent debts at 5 cents on the dollar and hoping to recover 8 percent of them; at 7 percent, they're losing money. They aren't "large, nationally scaled, hypercompetent operators" – they're shoestring operations that can only be viable if they hire unskilled workers and fail to train them.

They are subject to automatic damages for illegal behavior, but they still break the law all the time. As McKenzie writes, a debt collector will "commit three federal torts in a few minutes of talking to a debtor then follow up with a confirmation of the same in writing." A statement like "if you don’t pay me I will sue you and then Immigration will take notice of that and yank your green card" makes the requisite three violations: a false threat of legal action, a false statement of affiliation with a federal agency, and "a false alleged consequence for debt nonpayment not provided for in law."

If you know this, you can likely end the process right there. If you don't, buckle in. The one area that debt collectors invest heavily in is the automation that allows them to engage in high-intensity harassment. They use "predictive dialers" to make multiple calls at once, only connecting the collector to the calls that pick up. They will call you repeatedly. They'll call your family, something they're legally prohibited from doing except to get your contact info, but they'll do it anyway, betting that you'll scrape up $250 to keep them from harassing your mother.

These dialing systems are far better organized than any of the company's record keeping about what you owe. A company may sell your debt on and fail to keep track of it, with the effect that multiple collectors will call you about the same debt, and even paying off one of them will not stop the other.

Talking to these people is a bad idea, because the one area where collectors get sophisticated training is in emptying your bank account. If you consent to a "payment plan," they will use your account and routing info to start whacking your bank account, and your bank will let them do it, because the one part of your conversation they reliably record is this payment plan rigamarole. Sending a check won't help – they'll use the account info on the front of your check to undertake "demand debits" from your account, and backstop it with that recorded call.

Any agreement on your part to get on a payment plan transforms the old, low-value debt you incurred with your credit card into a brand new, high value debt that you owe to the bill collector. There's a good chance they'll sell this debt to another collector and take the lump sum – and then the new collector will commence a fresh round of harassment.

McKenzie says you should never talk to a debt collector. Make them put everything in writing. They are almost certain to lie to you and violate your rights, and a written record will help you prove it later. What's more, debt collection agencies just don't have the capacity or competence to engage in written correspondence. Tell them to put it in writing and there's a good chance they'll just give up and move on, hunting softer targets.

One other thing debt collectors due is robo-sue their targets, bulk-filing boilerplate suits against debtors, real and imaginary. If you don't show up for court (which is what usually happens), they'll get a default judgment, and with it, the legal right to raid your bank account and your paycheck. That, in turn, is an asset that, once again, the debt collector can sell to an even scummier bottom-feeder, pocketing a lump sum.

McKenzie doesn't know what will fix this. But Michael Hudson, a renowned scholar of the debt practices of antiquity, has some ideas. Hudson has written eloquently and persuasively about the longstanding practice of jubilee, in which all debts were periodically wiped clean (say, whenever a new king took the throne, or once per generation):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/24/grandparents-optional-party/#jubilee

Hudson's core maxim is that "debt's that can't be paid won't be paid." The productive economy will have need for credit to secure the inputs to their processes. Farmers need to borrow every year for labor, seed and fertilizer. If all goes according to plan, the producer pays off the lender after the production is done and the goods are sold.

But even the most competent producer will eventually find themselves unable to pay. The best-prepared farmer can't save every harvest from blight, hailstorms or fire. When the producer can't pay the creditor, they go a little deeper into debt. That debt accumulates, getting worse with interest and with each bad beat.

Run this process long enough and the entire productive economy will be captive to lenders, who will be able to direct production for follies and fripperies. Farmers stop producing the food the people need so they can devote their land to ornamental flowers for creditors' tables. Left to themselves, credit markets produce hereditary castes of lenders and debtors, with lenders exercising ever-more power over debtors.

This is socially destabilizing; you can feel it in McKenzie's eloquent, barely controlled rage at the hopeless structural knot that produces the abusive and predatory debt industry. Hudson's claim is that the rulers of antiquity knew this – and that we forgot it. Jubilee was key to producing long term political stability. Take away Jubilee and civilizations collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/08/jubilant/#construire-des-passerelles

Debts that can't be paid won't be paid. Debt collectors know this. It's irrefutable. The point of debt markets isn't to ensure that debts are discharged – it's to ensure that every penny the hereditary debtor class has is transferred to the creditor class, at the hands of their fellow debtors.

In her 2021 Paris Review article "America's Dead Souls," Molly McGhee gives a haunting, wrenching account of the debts her parents incurred and the harassment they endured:

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/05/17/americas-dead-souls/

After I published on it, many readers wrote in disbelief, insisting that the debt collection practices McGhee described were illegal:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation

And they are illegal. But debt collection is a trade founded on lawlessness, and its core competence is to identify and target people who can't invoke the law in their own defense.

Going to Defcon this weekend? I’m giving a keynote, “An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse,” today (Aug 12) at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/#fair-debt-collection-practices-act

[decolonize-the-everything]

Found out Jasmine Sherman has ballot access in 48 states and ballot access was the only thing keeping me from loudly supporting them but lets fucking gooooooo!!!! That's enough states to stand a chance!!!

They are:

Queer

Black

Fat

Socialist

Pro Palestine, Pro-Sudan, Pro-DRC

Pro human rights

Pro-choice

Pro landback

Anti-capitalism

"you're dreaming! They won't have the Senate or Congress necessary to enact-"

Jasmine said they fully intend to use executive orders to immediately enforce age caps and term limits among other things.

In fact you can go their site and see that in most cases the policies are already written. And I don't mean a little blurb that says "I support gay people" in a section called 'lgbt' i mean they have the policies written. I mean Jasmine has already written the policy reform and posted them. You have policy questions? Read the policy.

Can't read? No problem, they also use audible for hoh users who would benefit from having the policies read aloud instead.

Also they said in a recent TikTok that with the supreme court ruling recently confirming that presidents are immune from the law as long as they're acting officially, Sherman could even utilize their new presidential power to guarantee housing and rights.

Would Kamala do that?

Sherman thinks presidents thus far have been fascists who abuse power for their own gain while under utilizing and pretending to be powerless when it doesn't suit them. They say that they fully intend to use that power to it's full capacity for the betterment of people in the US, especially now that they have the supreme court ruling to back then up. That the people have been abandoned for too long and need someone who actually wants what's materially best for them.

VOTE FOR JASMINE SHERMAN

Harris is NOT your only realistic option! Spread the word!