#society sees all of us as crazy and the medical system thinks we should all be 'cured' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

verse50 · 4 years

Text

Word for the Year: Compassion

It’s been one year to the day I last traveled interstate and was in a crowded building full of unmasked people. It’s surreal, typing that. Back then I didn’t have time to think about the creeping change as my medical career shifted into quantum overdrive. This put my writing on a distant shelf, one I quietly observed and engaged with only briefly for twelve long months.

Although I was mostly disengaged, the fans were not. During this time I discovered readers were interacting with certain older stories. Reblogs, comments, messages, hearts- it just would not quit. The same ones, again and again without fail. After awhile I noticed a pattern. These were stories with no lurid scenes or explicit dialogue. They were mostly stories of “no.” A Dom hears her safeword and stops the scene, gives her water, cuddles, and soothing conversation before a hot bath (Aftercare). A couple gears up for fun impact play but when she starts to cry he stops and asks what’s wrong? All the problems start tumbling out as he listens, puts up the toys, showers her, then whispers “I’ll take care of you” as she falls asleep (Presence). Fans were going crazy for these stories and I wondered why.

It’s because the characters were compassionate to each other.

We all know that a safeword is sacrosanct and must be listened to without delay, then followed up with appropriate aftercare. But what is the trigger for that? A rule, a written contract? Those can be broken and ignored, especially in the heat of the moment. What is the internal trigger to stop, listen, and change behavior? It’s compassion. And for it to become a reflexive response, it must be honed, practiced, and centered at the core of the moral compass. We might encounter compassion as a child when a caregiver soothes our scraped knee or when we stop to for a hurt puppy in the ditch but in relationships? Compassion is never edgey enough to be at the top of the “must have” list. This past year taught me that we are starved for compassion. Why?

We are beset on every side by a lack of compassion eroding our intimate relationships, our family networks, careers, financial and social systems, governance, academia, and healthcare. Lack of compassion tells us to ignore problems and forge ahead as if nothing is wrong, as if American-born Black mothers aren’t dying at a higher rate than other developed countries and insulin prices aren’t soaring. Lack of compassion prevents Black communities from accessing capital for infrastructure improvements. Lack of compassion prohibits undocumented meatpackers from being Covid vaccinated (an epidemiological nightmare). Lack of compassion helps banks harvest $11 billion in overdraft fees from low monthly deposit accounts, making the owners vulnerable to account closings and subsequent predatory check cashing services. Lack of compassion divides migrant families, reduces healthcare access in private prisons, and traumatizes abuse victims who in turn victimize others. Lack of compassion makes critical infrastructure vulnerable to weather and utility breakdowns. When we look closely, lack of compassion blinds us to problem origins, ignores warning signs, disregards emotional response, and (once the problem is too big to ignore), discounts it as if it weren’t really there at all.

For too long now, lack of compassion has been sold to us as strength and resilience when the opposite is actually true. Lack of compassion is an illusion of functionality that breaks down under the slightest test. It is the hallmark of pushing responsibility under the rug, passing the buck, and ignoring your intimate partner’s concerns because they are too much work. It comes across as dominant when it's just opportunist. It appears competent when it actually can’t produce. At the end of the day, lack of compassion wants a reward for doing the absolute minimum.

Compassion, on the other hand, actually does the work. Compassion sees a problem, listens to the concerns, and develops solutions. Compassion discovered insulin and the polio vaccine. Compassion is World Central Kitchen employing restaurants and feeding vulnerable populations on every continent. Compassion is grassroots disaster relief for a storm-battered state. Compassion helps us recover from trauma. Compassion draws a line in the sand, listens to that “no”, and immediately changes behavior. It creates boundaries. Why is this so important?

Compassion is the most vital element to creating a functional society. It forms bonds and solves problems. Above all, it protects us from the most dangerous tendencies of our own humanity. Unmitigated, humans will run amok in selfishness, high on dopamine from their own power. Educated compassion, ingrained via authority figure examples, will veer us away from the precipice of collective annihilation. It prevents us from seeing any human as “other”, or less than- a root of abuse and eventual genocide.

You will see compassion marketed as “soft”, good for children and sick people, animals, and non-profit spreadsheets. In general, it is valued outside private sector discussions, especially finance or infrastructure. You will see it mentioned as a trauma recovery tool, but not a trauma prevention tool. Why? Compassion literally creates innovation, design, better practices, clear communication, and addresses problems in the early, manageable stage before millions of dollars are spent on fixing something spiraling out of control. I am telling you, lack of compassion is the core of so. many. issues. If Halliburton had compassion for the environment and the lives of oil rig workers, they would not have ignored the unstable cement in the Deepwater Horizon wells.

All of these compounding issues make us feel trapped in a web that doesn’t care, doesn’t listen, and never notices when we voice a concern. Those stories the fans love? They gravitate to them because finally, here is a window into the sunlight, a place where I am treated as a human being should be. I can speak. I will be seen and listened to. Behavior will change appropriately. I won’t be pushed to the limits of my endurance or be forced to lash out in self-defense.

The deepest intimate desire is not always an orgasm or kink. It is compassion. This is what people need, what they are crying out for in the rest of society. The same values that bond us intimately are the ones we want patterned in the world around us. This should be our focus after the stress of last year- how do we heal? How do we help each other survive?

Remember, compassion always does the work when nothing else will.

This is the annual Word for the Year published originally on Patreon.

#verse50 original #compassion #inspirational #motivation #values

76 notes · View notes

elwingflight · 5 years

Text

Coronavirus: Information & Guidelines

What you can do now, and what to prepare for

There seems to be a lack of what-to-do suggestions on tumblr beyond handwashing, so I thought I’d put something together. I’ve never actually encouraged people to reblog something of mine before, but this might be the time. To be clear: I am not personally a public health expert of any kind. Both my parents are (epidemiology/global health degrees, worked for CDC) and I’ve run this by them. My information is coming from disease researchers on twitter and official public health guidelines online. Sources at the end of the post. This is mostly directed at people in countries where COVID-19 has been reported (I’m in the U.S.), but is not *yet* widespread in the community. Written Mar. 1st 2020, last updated 3/9 (shorter, helpful twitter thread here, helpful NPR article here)

General Info

Firstly, a lot of politicians are *still* trying to sugarcoat things, but it should be clear by now that the new coronavirus is spreading widely and will continue to do so. Because of the incubation period, and in the U.S. at least the delay in testing, the number of cases is almost certainly going to increase rapidly in the near future no matter what we do now. Official government sources are helpful, but its also good to look at what experts on viral epidemics who aren’t directly government-affiliated are saying. Their agenda is purely informing the public in the most constructive way possible, without politics getting in the way.

Two key points- COVID-19 can have a long incubation period (the time from when you catch the virus to when you start showing symptoms) and most people don’t get severe symptoms. Some are entirely asymptomatic, but most people get typical flu-like symptoms. Specifically, the early symptoms to watch out for are a fever and dry cough (meaning, a stuffy nose is probably just a regular cold). Its possible but unlikely to transmit the virus while asymptomatic, most transmission happens when you have heavier symptoms.

The most vulnerable people are the elderly (~ over 60) and those with preexisting health conditions (i.e. cardiovascular disease, respiratory condition, diabetes), or a simultaneous infection with something else (NOT kids in particular!) So far the mortality rate has been about 1-2% (compared to 0.1% for the general winter flu - yes, this really is worse). However, that might be an overestimate, both because people with mild cases aren’t getting tested (the denominator should be bigger), and because the early situation in Wuhan, where a lot of our numbers come from, was especially bad in regards to availability of healthcare.

This is an emotional, difficult situation. Don’t panic. The world didn’t end in 1918, and its not going to end now. But it is very serious, and we need to be thinking about it rationally, not pretending everything is just going to be okay, or uselessly pointing blame. Take care of your mental health, and check in with each other. Epidemics test our generosity and selflessness. Those qualities are needed right now, but don’t neglect yourself either.

What You Can Do Now

There is stuff everyone can do both to prevent yourself from getting infected, and to prepare if you do. ***The big picture to keep in mind is that the biggest risk of epidemics is that they overwhelm our system, especially our healthcare system. What I mean by this is that our society is built to deal with a certain volume of things happening at once- people buying groceries, getting sick, etc. If we suddenly all rush to do something, we overburden these systems and they won’t be there for the people who need them most. Therefore our goal is to slow down the spread of disease, buying time and lowering the overall burden on these systems. This is called “flattening the curve”. It looks like this, and I cannot stress how important this is.***

A very helpful thread on preparedness

Staying Healthy

Like similar viruses (think colds and flu), COVID-19 is mostly transmitted from person to person, usually by close contact but sometimes from an infected surface. More here.

Wash your hands. Everyone has heard this one- 20 seconds, soap all over your hands, wash the soap off. If you can’t wash your hands use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer (at least 60% alcohol). But handwashing is absolutely better. Also- cough into your elbow/shoulder, not your hand, and avoid shaking hands- try elbow bumps or maybe a polite nod instead! If you’re handwashing so much that you’re hands are threatening to crack and bleed though, consider washing more strategically or using hand sanitizer instead.

In combination with hand-washing- stop touching your face, especially while out! This takes practice, everyone does it all the time without thinking. A good practice is to avoid touching your face while out, then wash your hands thoroughly as soon as you get home.

Similarly, avoid touching surfaces as much as possible! Particularly bad are door handles, elevator buttons, that kind of thing. The virus can probably (based on studies of related viruses) last a while on these. Regular gloves can help a bit. Use a tissue then throw it away, use your elbow, etc.

Do Not buy face masks! There’s mixed evidence on whether they’re at all helpful when used by the general public to prevent catching a virus, but actual medical professionals who need them are facing shortages (that’s probably part of why so many healthcare workers got sick in Wuhan), so our buying them up is really bad. The only times you should be wearing them is if you yourself are sick (they do help then!) or if you’re looking after a sick person. Seek instruction in that case in how to use them properly. (Thread on why buying those fancy masks is not good).

If COVID-19 is in your community, try to stay 6 feet from people, which basically means going places as little as possible. See below.

Planning Ahead

Its also a good idea to prepare in case you need to self-quarantine. Self-quarantine is necessary if you’ve potentially been exposed to COVID-19, or if you’re sick but not enough to need to go to the hospital. Follow local guidelines- if there’s lots of transmission in your area, nonessential workers will probably be advised to stay home as much as possible.

If you’re able, get medication now. Don’t go crazy and buy out the drug store, just a reasonable amount. Try to get at least a month’s worth of any prescription medications. This can be hard at least in the U.S. - your doctor may well be able to prescribe more, but insurance companies and drug stores can be terrible. I’ve found trying a different drugstore can sometimes help. Try your best. They may also be reluctant to prescribe more to avoid causing shortages. Idk what the right answer is here.

Don’t go crazy and buy out the store, but start getting a little extra shelf-stable or frozen food. Even some root vegetables that will last a few weeks. You want enough for 2 weeks in case of self-quarantine, but you do NOT want to empty out stores. Panic buying is definitely a stress on the system. Just add a few extra things each time you shop. Don’t forget about pets. You can always eat the food and replenish it over time.

Make a plan with your family/community. If someone gets sick or needs to self-quarantine, is there a corner of the house they can stay in? Who can take care of them? etc. I haven’t focused on plans for schools/religious communities/workplaces etc but those are very important too! This is one place where keeping an eye on local and national news is important. In the U.S., for example, school systems are planning ways to make food available to kids if they’re not going to school.

If COVID-19 is starting to spread in your community, think about how else you can be a good community member. Cancelling nonessential doctor’s appointments, surgeries etc may be very important, for example. If schools are closed, can you help out neighbors with childcare? Do you have a cleaner who may need to be payed in advance if there’s a quarantine?

If You Might Be Sick/Need to Quarantine

See likely symptoms above. Remember, normal colds still exist, and if you go to the doctor for every one of those you will overwhelm the system.

Don’t just go to a hospital! Call ahead to your doctor/clinic/hospital and get instructions on what to do. Getting healthcare workers sick is something we really want to avoid. That said, DO get tested as soon as possible, and act as if you are contagious. The health coverage situation is the U.S. is not yet clear (and ofc its not something the current admin is eager to clarify). Hopefully testing will be covered financially by the government, but I can’t promise that at this time.

In the meantime, stay home and quarantined if you show any symptoms of illness if you possibly, possibly can. This is especially difficult in the U.S. if you don’t have sick leave/childcare, but please. Do your utmost.

Look after yourself. Skype/google hangouts/etc is great for keeping connected. Have some chocolate/chicken broth/other sick foods ready.

The Big Picture

Coronavirus/COVID-19 has not been declared a pandemic yet, but it probably will be before long. This is almost certainly going to get worse before it gets better. We don’t yet know if warmer weather will slow its spread, and a vaccine will probably take about 1-1.5 years to be developed and tested. As I mentioned before, the best thing we can do to keep the world working, minimize mortality, etc is to slow the spread as much as we can, and minimize the strain on the system. Hospitals are going to be overwhelmed. There aren’t infinite unoccupied beds or ventilators, or people to operate them, and supply chains could get disrupted. Thinking about these things is scary, and it will take time to adjust to what’s happening. Start that process now, and help everyone you know reach the point where they’re able to act, not panic. Another reassuring thing- if we slow the spread of COVID-19, in addition to fewer total people getting sick, you will soon have people who are recovered and almost certainly immune. These people will be invaluable as helpers in their communities.

Now that the practical stuff is out of the way, I want to say from a U.S. perspective that yes, our lack of social welfare other countries take for granted is going to hurt us. Lack of access to childcare, no guaranteed paid sick leave, and of course expensive healthcare are massive problems that will make it much harder to limit disease transmission. Help each other in any way you can, and vote for candidates that support implementing these policies! And of course, watch out for propaganda of all kinds, whether its using the virus as an excuse for racism, calls to delay elections, etc. So far my biggest concern is a lack of willingness to admit how serious this is, but we can do this. Lets put extra pressure on politicians to be honest and change policies to actually help people. But, yes, lets also stay united. We need each other now (just, you know, 6 feet apart).

A few sources

In general, the Guardian is a great, free, reliable source of news. In the U.S., NPR (website as well as radio) is another great source. The Washington Post and Seattle Times have made their coronavirus-related coverage open access, not sure about other national newspapers.

twitter thread from World Health Organization (WHO)

U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 homepage (not being updated in some ways it should be, like total # of tests)

A reality check from some non-Governmental experts (basically, what governments don’t want to say yet, which is that this virus is going to spread, and the goal now is to infect as few people as possible, as slowly as possible. Read this.)

Why you should act now, not when things get bad in your area (we’re always operating on outdated information)

If you want the latest technical info, The Lancet (major medical journal group) has all of their content compiled here, open access.

I can do my best to answer questions (i.e. ask my dad) but those or other reliable, readily find-able sources should have you pretty well covered. Do let me know if anything on here is wrong or needs to be updated! Stay safe, stay positive, we can do this.

#coronavirus #covid19 #covid-19 #healthcare #actually important shit

150 notes · View notes

casbelieves · 4 years

Text

Still Breathing: Chapter 1 Preview

Destiel. Highschool!au turned Dean & Cas meeting again as adults in later chapters.

MA/Explicit; WIP; 97k words.; 24 Chapters. ANGST & SMUT.

I promise there will be a happy ending...

I abandoned this fic in 2016, but have since decided to finish it. New chapter coming out on 10/27/2020.

Read it here.

Castiel has only ever wanted a roof over his head and a meal three times a day, which is apparently hard to find. You’d think the system would at least make sure the families he's placed with can feed him, but foster care really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Yes, there are the do-gooders, and then there are some nasty families.

Once again, for the umpteenth time, Castiel finds himself being moved into another home that will probably either be too big or too small, with another family that will most likely hate him, and this time, it's in a little coastal town just a few minutes from San Francisco.

The neighborhood looks nice, but he isn't told anything that could actually be beneficial in estimating how things are going to be this time around. He could care less about what the houses look like; what he really wants to know is what happens once you get behind closed doors.

His social worker, Naomi, drives him down a manicured street that's lined with beautiful Colonial and Victorian homes. The neighborhood is probably one of the nicest he’s ever been in, let alone lived in, and he imagines the type of life he might have here.

The family probably goes on a vacation to Mexico every summer. Maybe the kids wear matching shirts to keep track of one another in crowded places. In all honesty, he doubts that this time will be any different than the last. He hasn’t even been with a foster parent for a while. For the last five months he’s been in a hospital. Well, more specifically, the mental ward located inside a hospital, but that’s not important, really. Everyone goes a little crazy from time to time, and he obviously isn’t an exception. It's not like he was locked up in a padded room or anything like that, either. It's just that he had to deal with some things first before entering society again.

Naomi pulls over and parks in front of a generously sized Victorian. The houses surrounding it are much smaller as it towers over the two homes on either side of its corner lot.

“Behave,” Naomi hisses in his ear. She straightens her blazer with flat palms, glaring angrily at him. “We don’t want a repeat of the past.”

“No promises,” He groans, sliding out of the car and slamming the door behind him. He enjoys the exasperated sigh Naomi makes as she walks away.

Lazily following a few feet behind her, Castiel gazes up at the Victorian as he falls beneath its massive shadow. He feels the energy from the cheery house pulling him towards it, like a positive force sucking in his negative energy. They reach the door and instantly Naomi's perfectly manicured fingers are smoothing out Castiel's shirt and adjusting his hair while he stands passively still. She checks her watch twice before ringing the bell. A couple answers the door; they don’t exactly match the picture he had in his head.

“Hello. I’m Ellen and this is my husband Bobby. You must be Castiel,” The woman smiles warmly. The man, Bobby, grunts and waves them in. “Come in!”

The couple wears nearly matching flannel shirts and worn blue jeans; the only difference between their outfits is Bobby’s slightly stained trucker’s hat that advertises an auto shop. They seem nice enough, but that’s how it always starts off. First, they're nice, making you believe they care, but the ugly truth almost always comes out. He’s had one or two truly exceptional foster parents; as for the rest, they can go straight to Hell.

Castiel takes a few steps into the foyer. Ellen gives him a small, encouraging smile. When he doesn’t smile back, she exchanges a glance with Bobby and leads them into the living room. They sit on a sturdy couch.

“He’s a runner; I just thought you should know that,” Naomi pats his knee, and he shifts away in disgust, as if her touch held some unknown contagion. “But Castiel always does excellent in his studies and he never fails to follow orders.”

He tunes her out, tired of hearing the speech about his nervous habits and medications and takes in his new surroundings. From the outside, he'd gotten the impression that the place would be furnished with old wallpaper and fainting couches, the occasional kerosene lamp sitting idly on a coffee table. Surprisingly, it feels much more laid-back. All the furniture is practical, and the walls are lined with photos of children. A few kids walk down the hall. One or two pop their heads in to see what's going on, but they don’t stick around.

A girl walks in and takes a seat beside him – far too close for his comfort. She smiles and leans back, looking him over. He wonders if she is another foster kid, or if she is adopted. She’s pretty, with green eyes and pink lips, and a sort of all-knowing twinkle in her eye.

He looks over at his social worker, wishing she’d disappear. She keeps looking at him like he’s going to steal something. For Christ’s sake, he’s going to live here, why the hell would he steal anything?

As if Naomi could read his thoughts, she stands and says her goodbyes before briskly walking out to her car. She’s probably off to move another miserable kid to another new home.

Castiel jumps at the touch of a warm hand on his shoulder and flips around to face whoever touched him. Ellen retracts her hand slowly and smiles at him in apology without saying a word.

“Sorry bud, I didn’t mean to scare you. Come on now, let’s give you a tour of the place,” Ellen moves forward and into the kitchen. “This is the kitchen. We have a chore list for all the kids; we'll add your name on next week. Usually we have each kid do at least one thing every day. That way you don’t get too lazy.”

She shows him all three floors, which means climbing quite a few stairs, and finally they reach his room on the third floor. It has a big bay window that looks out onto the street. One full bed is situated against a wall along with a side table. Across the room is a small wood dresser.

“You can move the furniture around if you want; you aren’t sharing a room. Normally, when we have a full house, each kid has a roommate. You got lucky.”

He tries his best to smile, “Thank you, Mrs. Singer.”

“Call me Ellen, please. Let me know if you need anything. Dinner is in an hour or so. I’m going to send a few kids up to help you out.”

With that said, she leaves. He likes her. It’s been awhile since he’s liked any of them. His last foster parent, Alastair, was a cruel man with wandering hands and a twisted mind. But in the past few years, Castiel has gotten used to handsy foster parents. That doesn’t mean he likes it; it just means that he's used to it. There's no point in trying to fight something that will never change.

Thinking back, he wasn’t always like this. There may have been a time when he would have fought back and stood up for himself, but not anymore. He isn’t that strong. He only prays for that kind of strength now.

“Need any help?”

The floors creak as the girl from the living room walks in.

He shakes his hea,. “I’m good. I don’t really have much stuff.”

“I’m Jo. Ellen is my mom.”

He lifts his suitcase onto his bed and opens it, “Is she your real mom?”

Jo nods and takes a seat at the end of the other bed. Castiel can feel her eyeballing his suitcase – his only suitcase. He looks her over from the corner of his eye. She doesn’t exactly look like a foster kid, that’s true. She looks normal, happy.

“That all you have?”

He shrugs. He can’t change the fact that he only has a few pairs of jeans, five t-shirts, and one photograph to his name. Jo stands and begins taking the clothes out of his suitcase and placing them in the dresser.

Jo closes the dresser and leans against it, “What’s your story?”

“Same old, same old. You've probably heard it all.”

“We haven’t had someone new in a year or so. All the kids we have here are either adopted or are in the process of being adopted by my mom and Bobby.”

“What grade are you?”

“I’m a senior this year. You?”

Castiel smiles slightly, “I’m going into eleventh.”

“You’ll love Pacific High,” Jo beams back and shifts her weight awkwardly when he doesn’t return the expression of enthusiasm. “C’mon, it’s time to eat. Mom doesn’t like it when the food gets cold.”

*****

Continue reading here.

16 notes · View notes

13dead-ends · 4 years

Text

Blood Bound

Henry Cavill x Named OC

Summary: In a world where vampires are a part of everyday life, Nina uses her blood to her advantage.

Word Count: 1910 (future chapters will be longer)

Warnings: 18+ in future chapters, but only swearing, and mentions of blood for this chapter. Nothing gory though.

A/N: This is my first original post. Go easy on me! Anyways, if you have any questions about this crazy universe I barely established, message me anytime! It was roughly edited, so sorry if there are mistakes. Please enjoy! :)

I sat with all the girls, and a few guys, we were all here for the same thing. An interview, the same interview. To become a blood donor for one of the most prestigious companies in the blood business. Positive, the leading company in providing human blood to vampires, located in Los Angeles. They did it from labs, taking bags from donors, to providing humans to clients. I was one of those humans. This company had a tedious process of selecting people for the job. They only wanted the best and most reliable. It’s probably why they are doing so well. They make their clients happy.

Vampires ‘came out’ to society in the 80s. They felt it was safe to make humans aware of their existence after inventing an artificial blood. As people grew more accepting of them, companies like Positive were born in the early 2000s. Someone had the idea of safely giving blood and began to regulate. Women were the main donors and men were the main clientele, though it was open everyone. While there are companies who don’t do well, the good ones are held to a high standard and new laws are being put into place every day to help regulate it. They good ones still get their far share of protesters still, but they’re becoming less frequent.

I had been at one of those not so good companies, I just didn’t know it until a month ago. I had one regular client. It was a very basic arrangement, not like those “sugar daddy” type arrangements, that a lot of women donors had. We met up, he fed, and there was money in my bank account by the end of the day. He was a businessman, Wall Street type. Never had a problem until he went too far one session. I woke up in the hospital with an email from my company already ‘letting me go.’ I got fucked over when I tried to sue too. I was terminated before the incident could be reported or some bullshit. Another way men have taken advantage of a mainly women-based system. Now I was scrambling to find a new job. I didn’t think Positive would even interview me, let alone give me a second one.

“Nina Locke?” I jumped at my name and stood. The woman who called my name was in a crisp pencil skirt and held the large door open for me.

“So, we’ll ask you some questions in here.” She led me down the hallway to a small office, with an almost empty desk. Another woman professionally dressed sat on one side. She stood and held out her hand.

“Hi, I’m Sarah Jenkins, head of the donor program here at Positive.” I shook her hand. “This is my assistant Kari” The first women, Kari, sat down and we followed suit. “So, this isn’t your first company?” I shook my head.

“Yes, I was with one for about a year and a half.”

“You put on your application that you choose to leave, but we called, and they said you were let go.” I chewed on my lip before answering.

“There was an incident with my last client. He went to the company first. They let me go before I had the chance to report anything.” I took a breath.

“One thing that I want you to know is that at this company we do things a little differently.” She slid over the thick folder on the desk to me. She opened it to a page titled Donor’s Resources and Benefits. “We want our clients to have the best donors, and to do that donors have to be treated as the highest priority. Happy donors, happy clients.” I blinked at her. I never thought I’d hear a company like this say that. It was always all about the clients. “You’re all human beings and will be treated like it. No matter the client.” One thing about this company, many celebrities used their services. It upped the stakes if something were to go wrong. “We want to be sure you’re being well-treated at all times.”

“Wow, this isn’t like any company I’ve worked for.” Was all I could say. After these last few weeks of therapy and lawyers hearing this almost made me choke up.

“I promise, as long as I’m in charge. I’ll take care of you and every donor here.”

“It almost feels like you’re just trying to convince me to stay.” I blurted. My eyes went wide, but Sarah laughed.

“You’re one of our favorite applicants, and you have experience. We are ready to hire you,” My jaw dropped.

“Really? That’s really good to hear.” Sarah smiled, shutting the folder.

“We would like to have lawyers present to discuss and sign your contract. I suggest looking over all of these papers with your lawyer beforehand, as well.” I nodded, taking the heavy stack in my hands. “Call us to schedule a meeting, myself, as well as Kari will be there. If you would like to bring your own witness, you may do that.” I felt myself grinning.

“Okay, thank you so much.”

I had just got back from the meeting with Positive. I was officially under contract. My best friend Irene came with to be a witness, but she was just curious to see inside of the company. We were roommates, so she was right behind me when I stepped inside. The setting sun shone brightly through our windows. While I went to my room, I heard Irene popping open a bottle of wine to celebrate.

“What shall we order for takeout, Nina?” She yelled. “It’s your day, you get to pick.” I threw my bag, still stuffed with papers, on my bed.

“How about Sushi?”

“Yes, ma’am! Look at the menu!” I plopped on my bed, thankful to be out of the Cali heat. Only another month until fall, and Halloween. I pulled up our favorite sushi place and picked some rolls.

“Come on, let’s have a toast.” I rolled my eyes as I struggled to pick up a large roll with my chopsticks.

“Stop being cheesy, I just got a new job, that’s all.”

A better paying, better clientele, job. Plus, they give a shit about their employees!” I huffed but lifted my wine. “To Nina, who is moving up in the world! A bizarre world, but she’s killing it anyway.” After getting too full and too wine drunk, we went to bed. I went to sleep, feeling better than I had in weeks.

In the morning, I woke up with a small headache, but I could sleep in, so it didn’t matter. I rolled over, planning to do just that. Then my phone screen lit up. I grabbed it from my bedside table. It was an email from Kari.

Nina, I hope you are having a wonderful day so far,

I looked at my phone, it was already 11:30.

I wanted to let you know that there are already donors requesting you!

I almost forgot I had let Kari put my profile out after everything was signed and notarized. She offered to wait too, but I was excited to get started again.

Their files are at the office. Come by any time before five today and I can take you on a tour and show you the files. Have a wonderful day!

Kari

I stared at my phone, surprised someone had already seen my file, let alone requested me. I chewed on my lip as I thought of the possible clients I could get. While yes, celebrities did use this company a lot, that doesn’t mean I’ll be donating to one. Lots of rich one percenters used it too. I cringed as the image of an old white guy popped unto my brain. I shook my head. I should go check out the files, the curiosity outweighed the nerves.

“Nina, where are you going?” I had gotten dressed and stepped out, Irene was rubbing her head, hair messy, and her eyes were blood shot.

“Some clients have already requested me. I’m going to look over their files.” Her jaw dropped, and she followed me out to the kitchen. I put the kettle on and started coffee for Irene. I started emailing Kari back, telling her when I’d be there.

“Damn, you’re so popular.” I shrugged.

“It’s my type.” After the interview I had asked Kari and Sarah why they wanted me so bad and they told me a lot of vampires enjoyed my blood type. I was AB-negative, a rare and apparently popular type. “At least that’s what Sarah was saying.”

“Who knew, vampires have preferences.” Irene sat at the table, slumping, and rubbing her temples. I shrugged, sending the email. “Hey aren’t you hungover?” I laughed and went to the bathroom.

“My head hurts, yeah.” I called out. I looked in the mirror and I had baggy eyes. I sighed. It was just a tour and some paperwork.

“God, how much did I drink?” I heard Irene mutter. I smiled and cleaned myself up a bit and went back out to make my tea. It wasn’t long before I was stepping into my new place of employment, Kari meeting me at the front desk.

“Hello! How are you?” She just began walking toward the elevator as she spoke.

“Great. How about you?”

“I’m wonderful thank you for asking.” She pressed the up button. “We’ll start right away with the tour. Then I’ll show you your office, the files are on your desk there.”

“An office?” The doors opened and we stepped in. There were lots of buttons, I forgot how many floors this place is, but it was a lot.

“Yeah, every donor gets one. It’s a nice place to keep paperwork and an easy meet up spot for you and your clients.” I she hit a button. “I’ll take you to the labs first, you are allowed to donate blood this way anytime you like, as long as the medical staff clear you, it’s just like donating blood to the Red Cross. We…” She continued with her spiel and took me to all the different floors and told where to go for certain things. It was a lot, but I felt comfortable enough to ask her question, which she almost always had an answer too. We ended on the donor floor, with private offices, a cafeteria, and a gym. I really had it made.

She opened up an office, it was empty except for a nice desk and a computer, plus a few files. “This is your place, you can set up a code for the lock,” She jiggled the handle. “that phone has all the extensions on it” I nodded. “Just call or email me if you choose anyone today, but please take your time. I’ll set up a meeting with them as soon as possible.”

“Thank you so much Kari. I’ll let you know.” She nodded with a smile and started to step out. “Kari, um,” She stopped. “I was wondering what they know about my last job.”

“Oh, we left all that information out of the file. It’s at your discretion.” I nodded and she left. I sat down and took the first file in my hands, pushing the other ones away. I closed my eyes and didn’t open them until the file was open. I almost had a heart attack. Henry Cavill was at the top of the page.

Shout out to one of my bestest friends and my first tag on the tag list! Love you girl :) @hellcaster901

#fanfic #fanfiction #henry cavill #henry cavill x oc #henry cavill fanfiction #june writes stuff

24 notes · View notes

pinelife3 · 4 years

Text

What’s this Pizzagate in the heart of nature?

The big tech story in Australia last month was Facebook’s decision to restrict people and organisations in Australia from sharing or viewing news content on Facebook. This was in response to the Morrison government’s proposed Media Bargaining legislation which is basically a Murdoch-serving law to try to get tech companies to pay media organisations for news content hosted/linked/displayed on their sites and, most galling of all, share details of their algorithms with Australian media orgs. The idea that Facebook would have to notify NewsCorp every time they want to tweak their algorithm is patently insane. So I admire Facebook’s petty, dramatic manoeuvre: “if the way we share news on the site is such a problem then fine, no more news for you”. After all the fuss, the Australian government agreed to amend the Media Bargaining legislation - evidently with terms more agreeable to Facebook, meaning news has been restored to Facebook down under.

One of the key responses I saw expressed in relation to Facebook’s initial news eradication was concern that disinformation would be able to spread more easily on the site - and that people wouldn’t be able to rebut disinformation with factual news articles.

So far as I can tell, the proliferation of disinformation online wouldn’t matter if people didn’t believe it. And most especially, if people didn’t want to believe it. After all, the web is full of persuasive writing and people who want to convince you of things - for whatever reason, conspiracy theories just seem to be very alluring. So rather than trying to protect people from their own stupidity by hiding disinformation... maybe we could look at why people are so credulous in the first place. Deep state? Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams? CIA Contra cocaine trafficking? The great replacement? Pizzagate?

I’m going to class conspiracy theorists into three categories of my own making:

I believe: well meaning, uninformed people who have been fooled or duped. The fraudulent 1998 Lancet paper by Andrew Wakefield which started the vaccines cause autism conspiracy was actually written to support a class action lawsuit. Wakefield knew the results in his paper were not true: in addition to his conflicts of interest, he had falsified data. The paper was eventually debunked and retracted but the conspiracy had its roots and has continued to grow. I think a lot of the people who believe that vaccines are dangerous are parents who are just worried about their kids - and also want to protect other kids from a threat they believe to be real. Why is one debunked article more persuasive to people than a million proving the efficacy of vaccines? It is literally beyond reason.

It suits me to believe: people motivated by self-interest who adopt a conspiracy theory to support their larger world view. Their self-interest could be anything from their own ego to gun rights. The conspiracies around the Sandy Hook Primary School shooting are interesting because you can see a clear motivation for people to subscribe to that theory rather than the truth. If you’re a keen gun-owner, arguining that the shooting was a hoax to generate anti-gun sentiment and thereby allow the Democrats to pass harsher gun restrictions is neat and comforting. No one could argue that the events of Sandy Hook weren’t inhumanly terrible - so the only option is to argue that they didn’t happen at all. Plus, in this worldview, no kids are getting hurt so you can sleep easy knowing you have seven semi-automatic weapons in the house.

I need to believe: the world is disorganised, scary, unknowable. Ocean deep, sky vast, dark impenetrable - and meanwhile our skin is so thin and delicate. So. Wouldn’t it be comforting to think that there’s a race of reptilian overlords that control the planet by whipping their tails against a complicated system of levers and pullies? That would explain a lot of the chaos in our world. Or maybe the problem is an elite coterie of Satan-worshipping cannibalistic pedophiles? If only we could defeat those accursed pedophiles then life would be peaceful. Luckily, Q and a septuagenarian reality TV host are here to save us.

Across these categories, there are two unifying features:

Rejection of widely accepted truth

Investment in the conspiracy

As a comparison with the conspiracists above, here’s my take on a conspiracy: I think it’s quite probable that Epstein didn’t kill himself. I think that some powerful, shadowy entity took him out to protect itself. But I’m not obsessed by this idea. It would not surprise or upset me if this was officially confirmed - similarly crazy shit happens all the time. I haven’t devoted my life to revealing this truth. I guess I fit into the “I Believe” category: all official information says that Epstein took his own life but my scepticism of the unusual circumstances around his death and Epstein’s powerful connections leads me to doubt the official information. The difference is I don’t do anything about it. I don’t really care if I’m right or not - I’m not that invested in the conspiracy.

And that’s why it seems ludicrous to me that Facebook should be tasked with combatting the conspiracy theories spiralling across our culture. Simply being exposed to bad information does not radicalise you, does not conjure an investment in the conspiracy. If a normal person reads something creatively wrong or misleading they discard it from their mind. If it hits a chord with them, they may adopt that opinion themselves - see: astrology, Armie Hammer as cannibal, tarot cards, essential oils as serious medical treatment, etc. But the evolution from agreeing with a thought to militaristically insisting that the rest of society also agree with it is an abnormal progression. That strange impulse runs deeper in people than their Facebook timeline.

Most people have fears for the planet or believe there are major issues plaguing humanity - and we never do anything about it because it would be mildly inconvenient or because it’s too hard to care about every issue under late capitalism:

"But sorting my recycling is boring”

“Yeah yeah fast fashion is problematic but H&M is just so affordable"

"Of course I hate R.Kelly! But ‘Ignition (Remix)’ is my jam”

“At least they have suicide nets in the Foxconn factories now”

“I only buy free range chicken thighs because I care about animal welfare”

“I retweeted that thing about anti-Black racism. Yay racism solved!”

There are probably lots of people who believe in conspiracy theories but are ultimately apathetic about doing anything: they can’t be bothered talking about vaccines and politics all the time, can’t be bothered going to a protest, can’t summon the interest to care much. So what’s interesting then is that across the three categories of conspiracy theory belief (I believe > It suits me to believe > I need to believe), what a person believes in, and perhaps even the reason for the belief, doesn’t create any impetus to enact real world change. On both the left and the right, the impulse to do something about an issue is rare. Do you think conspiracy theorists, like the left, have a problem with performative activism?

Imagine that you agree that Sandy Hook was a false flag, that ‘they’ hired crisis actors to publicly grieve as if their pretend children had been murdered... do you then get in your car and drive overnight to Sandy Hook and start harassing those crisis actors at the pretend funerals? What do you call someone like that? The hero of their own story.

Just wait!

In their worldview, QAnon are unironically trying to save us from pedophile cannibals. Given what conspiracists believe to be true, they are acting in good faith and doing the right thing. If you believed this shit, you’d be upset too. The fact that they’re doing something about it is kind of admirable: they don’t want our babies to get autism from the measles vaccine, they don’t want a deep state to manipulate our democratic governments. It’s existential for all of us - we just don’t agree on the threat.

youtube

Can you imagine how electric the riot at the Capitol Building must have felt for the people who led it. Brave, romantic, a grand gesture: it was like their Storming of Tuileries. Remember this day forever!

Modern conspiracists are actually similar to the sans-culottes in terms of being avid consumers of propaganda and inflammatory reporting. Disinformation and stirring rhetoric are not new - but shouldn’t people today be less clueless than 18th century peasants?

youtube

Why are there are so many people who believe things which are untrue? They exist on this planet with us but interpret it so differently. These questions really are existential: an ancient, echoing maw pointing to the heart of human nature. The struggle for a more perfect world, whispers about where the danger comes from at night, arguments about how to protect ourselves.

youtube

Has there ever been a society where people didn’t have differing views on how best to shape the world? It’s the central conflict of human existence: epic, older than language - and now we want Facebook to fix it?

#qanon #epstein #trump #anti-vaxxers #facebook #auspol #media bargaining code #pizzagate #sandy hook

3 notes · View notes

sebastianshaw · 4 years

Conversation

RP meme from "Chapter Two: Infesting the World" in The World of Darkness Ratkin Breedbook, Part 1 of 2

"What a lovely sound of broken glass!"

"Hide! Danger! Make yourself small!"

"Something about this guy isn’t right."

"His eyes look a little beady, and he seems to slouch a bit too much."

"Your fingers are bleeding."

"Hey, I got a bottle of Jack Daniels inside the truck, if you need it bad enough."

"You want to sleep here in the alley, that’s fine with me, but I’m supposed to drive you out of here."

"You want to sleep in the back or ride up front?"

"Make yourself comfortable. It’s gonna be a long drive."

"Even from the freeway, the city looks cold and unforgiving."

"Apparently, they love to go on about their delusions."

"Makes you sick, don’t it?"

"Five thousand years of human progress, and look at what they’ve got. Street gangs. Rampant crime. Pollution. Homeless dying on the street."

"That’s what humans do to the world. "

"Take a look up at the top of those skyscrapers. The people in those buildings wear nice clothes, trying to live so far above the people starving on the street."

"The rich folks think they’re safe up there. They’ve built up layers and layers of crap — technology, corporations, wealth and progress — that they think it’ll save them from all the madness around them."

" The humans now act like they own the world, and hunt down anything that threatens their superiority.

"It’s all bass ackwards; everything’s gone to hell."

"The solution seems pretty damn obvious."

"It would be so easy to tear it all down."

"Spread a little disease through ventilation system. . . take out the structural foundation with a little pyrotechnics. . .all that steel and concrete. . .it wouldn’t take much to reduce it to rubble."

"You know, every time I come to the big city, I think the same thing. You know what’s the biggest problem they got here? Overpopulation."

"It’s like something was keeping the world under control, and it’s just not there anymore."

"Too many damn people on the planet."

"Every time I see so many people walking down the street, I think, ‘What would happen if a few of them just. . .disappeared?"

"In the history of the world, would it really make much difference?"

" Too many damn people, that’s what’s wrong with the world. Kill ’em off, that’s what we should do. Damn straight."

"Kill ’em off, that’s what we should do. Damn straight"

"Hey, I got some cheeseburgers under the seat. You hungry?"

"I used be a vegetarian, but those burgers smell. . .um. . . kinda good.”

"The taste is foul."

" Let the driver do most of the talking."

"There isn’t much real wilderness left."

"Those bastards way out in Washington want to regulate everything."

"Phone lines, power lines, barbed wire, television aerials, television transmissions, radio waves — they just keep growing."

"Every aspect of our life is contained, regulated and controlled."

"We’re planning to mete out some country justice."

"I’d better be real polite."

" I’m not asking you to join up with what we’re doing."

" I signed on because I was angry about losing my lands, about losing my rights."

"Everyone’s looking for someone to blame. Some blame the government; some blame the bankers; some blame the Jews, or the blacks, or the environmentalists, or the United Nations."

" Me, I know it’s all just the signs of the Apocalypse."

" There’s no handle on the inside."

"This is all insane."

"He's in mortal danger."

"Suddenly, they don't taste so bad."

" I know it might seem like our family’s a little bit crazy, but you’ve got to widen your perspective a bit."

"Even the world you see outside that window is just part of a bigger picture."

"We’re waiting for reinforcements from another dimension." "There’s a world waiting outside the one you see, a reflection of everything that happens in this one."

"We can step out into a world that isn’t as messed up as this one."

"If you concentrate, you can start to see that other world."

" We’re gonna take a little short cut."

"Everyone’s getting pissed off."

"Don't look at me that way."

" Look, I know it’s all a bit much."

" You think we’re all insane, don’t you?"

"I had it a bit easier I guess."

"Yeah, I see that look on your face."

"You’ve heard the voices too, haven’t you?"

"Did they put you on medication?"

" I kinda like it."

"That’s how our family has stayed together for so long."

" I knew the End Times were coming."

" It’s enough to drive some people mad."

"I’m sure someone’s told you about the struggle, the battle between good and evil."

"After all, what exactly’s at stake?"

" I’m thinkin’ that maybe the “end of the world” will just mean the end of human civilization."

"For me, there’s nothing wrong with that."

"And once the humans have been exterminated, millions of our brothers and sisters are gonna swarm over the world."

" Pure chaos will overwhelm everything that remains."

"You’re family now, and we’ll take care of you."

"Might as well play along, since none of these people can be trusted anyway."

" You look like a mess."

"So much for romance."

"Are you about to tell me the reason you’re buried in this school bus with all these sacks of fertilizer and boxes of ammunition?"

"You can see where I’m going with this, right?"

" Do you know what happens if rats breed more children than their environment will support? They know that we know that when a colony is too big, they can either all die slowly of starvation and disease, or a few of us can die quickly. It’s only logical for us to turn against each other until the balance is restored. Mothers eat their weakest children, and the weakest of the swarm is destroyed for the benefit of all."

" There are too many humans on this planet for the Earth to support. They can all suffer slowly, through disease and starvation, or the weakest should be killed."

"Me? I just pray for the day when the human race dies out."

"Look at you! You’re so scared that your hands are twitching. I can almost feel your muscles tensing from where I’m sitting."

"You look skeptical."

"If you’re quiet enough, you can almost. . . hear. . .the

spirit world."

"Sit still and listen to the blood flowing through your veins."

"Ssssh! Ssssh! Calm down! It’s okay!"

"It takes some practice to get used to your nerves racing like that."

"See, if the stress and anger builds up in you too much, your reason can’t contain the rage building inside you."

" You can help reason win out over rage."

"No more damn lectures."

" No sane man would dare walk down that path, and probably, no one ever has."

" Stop acting like a damn housewife!"

" We need to find you a name."

"First we got to figure out what the hell you are."

" They hold all the clues about who you really are."

" There’s a few lucky ones, though, who never have to be alone."

"I got me a name, and I found it the old fashioned way; I stole it."

"I can tell you’re gonna be one of us, so this’ll be easy."

"Yeah, if a rat lives in filthy conditions with constant danger, he’s gonna act like a feral little beast."

"This is your crash space, and you better remember where it is."

"Around here, we’re all rather informal."

"We all see things differently, but it’s not like we’re going to eat each other because of it."

"I know this is all confusing; It’s because people have been lying to you for so long."

"Human history is built upon lies."

"Bastards. Deceivers. Killers."

"They like to keep it all shiny and new, just to fool themselves."

"Their whole society is built around the nicely packaged, the neatly contained, and the freshly scrubbed."

"Those big square buildings above ground they like so much, they keep them shiny and bright, just to keep from thinking about all the rot and imperfection inside everything."

" Chaos works much faster than corruption."

"That seething rage that lies sleeping within you, that’s chaos."

"Maybe there’s hope, huh?"

“It’s addictive, though. Once you let a little chaos out, you’ll want more."

" If all the human cities go to hell, that doesn’t mean the end of the world."

"It’s a war we’re going to win."

"You better start training now.

"You’re talking about gratuitously ripping and tearing down

anything you feel like."

"You’re talking about messing with people’s shit."

"They’re so cute when they’re small."

#roleplay meme #roleplay memes #roleplay starters #rp meme #rp memes #rp starters #ratkin #world of darkness #my meme #my memes #my starters #out of shirt #okay to reblog

3 notes · View notes

alexsmitposts · 4 years

Photo

The Emergence of the Technetronic Society of Humankind The world community is being transformed. The current pandemic is only another phase of a metamorphosis set in motion decades ago. The intersection of our physical and digital lives is the battleground, where the last hopes of freedom are being bludgeoned to death. Few can see this because most people are already casualties the old world order sacrificed before the altar of liberty. Most of you reading this introduction will sense a bit of melodrama. But I assure you, anything I could type out here pales in comparison to the skullduggery that has beset humankind the last half-century. The war for planet Earth is upon us, but the battlefield is not some desert in Syria or a swamp somewhere in Latin America. The battlefield is real and virtual. It’s in the streets of Portland, Oregon, and the pages of Facebook. The Third World War is taking place in Walmart. It’s spreading to every back yard in Florida and every apartment complex in Bucharest. We’ve taken up arms against one another over every facet of life, not just whether or not to wear protective masks. Working-Class Struggle Redux Some of you already see this. You understand because you were finally forced to unfriend that high school buddy who Tweets or shares Facebook posters revealing humankind’s ignorance and meanness. We’re back to being tribal, devolution is upon us, and the end is written on the slum wall and the internet version. Wall Street is making a killing, billionaires are gnashing their teeth and wringing their hands, and the so-called little people are boiling in a kettle about to explode. Amazingly, my words here can be proven. Nobody can call “fake news” on this author. No sir. In 1970 the legendary (notorious for some) Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote a book entitled, “BETWEEN TWO AGES: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era.” The author, who was one of the five or six most influential political celebrities of the latter part of the 20th century, is well known for his aversion for first the Soviet Union, and then the Russian Federation. Brzezinski’s book was an is a “how-to” book on methods for using computers and communications technologies as a means of transforming society. Though the book reads like an analysis by a technology outsider, the work is part of a wide-spanning strategy we see coming to competition today. Let’s look at an excerpt from the first section of the book where the former counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson and President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor delineates post-industrial America’s course: “In the technetronic society scientific and technical knowledge, in addition to enhancing production capabilities, quickly spills over to affect almost all aspects of life directly. Accordingly, both the growing capacity for the instant calculation of the most complex interactions and the increasing availability of biochemical means of human control augment the potential scope of consciously chosen direction, and thereby also the pressures to direct, to choose, and to change.” I won’t tax the reader here, but I encourage you to read the book yourself so that what I am presenting will sink in. Brzezinski, in no uncertain terms, is describing the fundamental transformation of society beginning sometime shortly before 1970, when he collated the information within the pages of the book. Remember, he was LBJ’s advisor. The Rise of the Techno-Bourgeoisie He continues in this section to refer to the past ideologies of the industrial age which built and sustained America and other democracies, to insist upon a more “modern” or “advanced” central ideology. Brzezinski, who most detractors would describe as a dinosaur or archaic, was discussing cybernetics replacing humans when Bill Gates was still at Lakeside Prep School being bullied and writing his first computer programs. I mention Gates for a purpose that may be obvious to some readers. This citation from Between Two Ages will transport the reader to my line of thinking here. Brzezinski writes knowingly: “In the emerging new society questions relating to the obsolescence of skills, security, vacations, leisure, and profit-sharing dominate the relationship, and the psychic wellbeing of millions of relatively secure but potentially aimless lowermiddleclass bluecollar workers becomes a growing problem.” Please remember, this was published in 1970, years before Brzezinski would brag that he had helped cause the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan so that it could get its very own “Vietnam.” The man was a genius, an evil one, but a brilliant geo-policy strategist nonetheless. This book is not a reflection of Brzezinski’s powerful mind, however. This book is the revelation of a plan set in motion after Dwight Eisenhower left office. It’s a blueprint for the liberal world order to completely dominate the world. But before you label me, please consider how this “growing problem” is being used today. Who is Donald Trump? Aha! Now I have your full attention. What about the psychic wellbeing of aimless lower-middle-class Americans? Or, the psychic wellbeing of relatively secure Germans right before Adolph Hitler made them afraid of all the nations surrounding their country? Wait! Don’t go to that tangent, please focus on who got Donald Trump in the White House and how this came to pass. You see, Brzezinski and his colleagues created the conditions, the society, and the “path” we see taking shape today. Think about our symbols now, for instance. How did Google come to dominate the internet? Who stood behind? What does Google do? How about Facebook or Amazon, or any of the monumental successes we see controlling this technetronic society we now live in? Google lured the masses in with “free” and with slogans like “do no evil.” The competition was driven off, through massive investment. Now billions of people are analyzed and “computed” like Brzezinski revealed, to transform society, not to simply extract money via ads. Take the case of Facebook, it’s the same story. A huge swath of humanity is studied, spied upon, and manipulated while the puppetmasters tweak ideology, foment discord, and steer the crowd toward the desired endgame. Sounds crazy and dramatic, doesn’t it? But, wait for it. In 1972, Bill Gates served as a congressional page in the US House of Representatives. He was then a National Merit Scholar who went to Harvard for a brief time, where he met Steve Ballmer, who would lead Microsoft until 2014. Ballmer was an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble for two years, where he shared an office with Jeffrey R. Immelt, the onetime CEO of General Electric. I hope you are keeping up with me here, for these names figure prominently in the current situation. Immelt was the head of GE’s Medical Systems division (now known as GE Healthcare) as its president and CEO back in 1997. To make a very long story shorter, Brzezinski was closely tied to all the names I am mentioning either through roles at the Council of Foreign Relations, or via more intimate and secretive associations. Take into consideration GE and Immelt’s view on China from back in 2010 when he said; “’I worry about China. I am not sure that in the end, they want any of us to win.” Fast forward to 2015 and Brzezinski is pushing for Donald Trump to “outbid” everyone for the presidency. He tweeted this to his followers on Twitter: “What’s better: a billionaire outbidding everyone for the Presidency, or billionaires picking the candidates for the Presidency?” The answer to his feigned query is drop-dead simple – “It doesn’t matter, the same people control no matter what.” And the control processes were put in action once John F. Kennedy was out of the way. LBJ played his role to a “T”, Nixon got too big for his britches and had to go, Ford plated nincompoop in charge to put the plan on pause, and peanut farmer/Nuke sub commander Carter helped roll out the red carpet for our current technetronic society. But I’m getting ahead. The Immuno-Catalyst Let me retrace a step to the associations of Gates, Ballmer, and Immelt. And most importantly, the current healthcare/pandemic crisis some experts believe is an induced one. Remember Gates’ pal Immelt headed GE Healthcare, which entered an agreement with Gates back IBio to commercialize the iBioLaunch vaccine manufacturing platform. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded iBio Pharma, which has been in recent news because of President Trump grandstanding about a COVID breakthrough. The company is one of those focused on vaccines against the coronavirus. And if you’re getting lost in this maze of technocrats, now it’s time to interject another key player named Warren Buffett. Buffett, who for all intents and purposes owns IBM, is another link in what we should call the Brzezinski Plan for world domination. Remember, it was IBM that teleported Bill Gates out of brainiac obscurity back in 1980. It is not common knowledge, but the last Watson family head of IBM, Thomas J. Watson, Jr. served as US ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1981. It was the ideas and ideals along with the patriotism of the latter Watson, from which people like Brzezinski convoluted the notion of modern democracy. Thomas J. Watson Jr. was also central to the administrations of L.B.J., Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Moving forward, most people are unaware, that Warren Buffett is also the biggest contributor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (more than $30 billion). And in this, we see how the “system” of control gets its continuity. Finally, it was the Brzezinski plan that delivered us to the current sorry state of democracy. The former advisor to key presidents not only helped devise the plan to shift the world’s ideologies and social structure, but he also helped empower the super elites running the show, and the lower-middle class minions who would stoke the forest of orchestrated rebellion. When asked how he would deal with the super-rich, Brzezinski differentiated people like Warren Buffett and Gates from the rest, while at the same time feeding the mob that Trump now leads and the left learning hordes on the left hanging: “It would be increasingly helpful if there was a movement to publish, worldwide, lists of those who make, largely through speculation, enormous amounts of money almost instantly, and hide the fact from their social context.” A Government of Business Power So, a ruling elite was and is to be lifted, isolated, and protected using demonic intimidation from every vector. Today’s dog and pony show across western capitals have roots in Rockefeller’s and Brzezinski’s Trilateral Commission, established to help put in motion the tenets from the latter’s Between Two Ages manifesto. If I throw in the fact that the Trilateral Commission’s notable member list includes such notorious super-rich as Jeffrey Epstein here, I’ve no doubt the reader will be overwhelmed by the scope of this “plan” for turning the world upside down. Finally, the academic Noam Chomsky once criticized the commission’s goals as undemocratic saying the publication of the organization, The Crisis of Democracy reflects how modern democratic systems are not democracy at all, but systems controlled by elites. And the Rockefeller Foundation’s support of the various German eugenics programs and the connections to Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele and Auschwitz tarnish anyone and everyone associated with Rockefeller, and the ruling elite of this new “modern ideal” or technetronic society. In his 1980 book With No Apologies, Republican Senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater called the Trilateral Commission: “A skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power: political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical in the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved.” The Brzezinski Plan for new democracy is the liberal world order’s plan for humanity. It’s a process that’s been going on for decades, one centered around and dependent on the puppet President Donald Trump. You see, I believe it is Trump’s mission to utterly destroy the very social class of people he is supported by. It is the only idea that makes sense if you examine the loosed cannon idiocy of an otherwise shrewd businessman. What better way to bury the working class who have been bred, reared, and marginalized into mediocrity than to create a revolution against everything they stood for? The Confederate flag, the statues of heroes, the race issues resurfacing, riots, discord, snarling and biting at anyone and anything that is not TRUMP! Real Death, Real Fear, Real Monopolization For this Technetronic Era to culminate in a Utopia for the ruling classes, a pandemic was set loose, a very special kind of virus engineered (probably) for segmenting society. The hard-nosed working class would shun the femininity and weakness of mask-wearing, while the ultra-liberals at the other end of the spectrum would thrive on the morality of caring – and on winning against the callousness of right-wing discord. As I try to explain to those who ask, the situation today is a perfect storm of social upheaval engineered to bring in this new society. You see, both sides of the COVID argument are right – and wrong – at the same instant. This is as it was planned. Bill Gates and his monopoly on vaccines and the health community can hide in plain sight, while Trump’s and Biden’s handlers rake in hundreds of billions playing the dynamic markets. Watching it, at least from my perspective, is like watching the pressure in a boiler build up past the red danger gauge on the outside. In Hitler’s Shadow we find the depth of the US deep state and Brzezinski’s role in the planning for the new world without the Soviets (Russians) in the picture. There’s limited space for describing a CIA operation codenamed AERODYNAMIC which was the forerunner for transformative/revolutionary efforts in the CIS including Georgia, Ukraine, and now Belarus. The reader should understand that Brzezinski, and his father before him, were central figures in a movement to subdue and subdivide the Soviet bloc, and later Russia and her neighbors. No one reading this will know of a man named Mykola Lebed, who operated alongside Joseph Bandera and with the backing of the OSS and later the CIA. He immigrated to the United States because of his importance to the CIA and the deeps state, even though he was in league with the worst Nazis who ever breathed. Brzezinski broadened the scope of AERODYNAMIC, which was in league with former Nazi sympathizers to upend Stalin, and then later Soviet leadership. The history of it is all a deep well no single volume could encapsulate. Again, I have fallen too deep into the rabbit hole of the order, but the reader can observe via this CIA document bearing Brzezinski’s authorship how the plan for today was set in motion decades ago. Trump is destroying the Republican Party for good. Technocrat Bill Gates has monopolized immunization and will leverage it for this new Technetronic Society. The money and power behind this forceful transformation of our society are incalculable, mostly unseen, and probably unstoppable. Think about it, a plan to take over the world put in place decades ago, a plan hardly anyone notices because of its incremental, indomitable, and relentless nature. Sounds conspiratorial, doesn’t it? Well, conspiracies killed Caesar and overthrew the Czar. Conspiracies were the seeds of the American Revolution and the French one too. What? You think control is just a roll of the dice?

2 notes · View notes

jonesgirl88 · 4 years

Text

A continuation of this post because @pro-choiceforanyone and I agree the other post was WAY too long and it needed a new post.

Sorry this has taken me so long to reply to; work has been crazy then the world decided to fall apart? What’s with that? Anyway, hope all is well with you! How’s school going? Are you out for summer now?

You broke down your last reply so I’ll attempt to reply in roughly the same manner:

Post One:

If we’re differing on the definition, then we need to go back and make sure we agree on a definition. Unfortunately, there’s no dictionary definition of “body autonomy”. Without an official definition, my version of “body autonomy” isn’t your version isn’t the person’s down the street and isn’t the person’s walking along bopping to Katy Perry. According to UC Santa Barbara, the doctrine of “body autonomy” derives from the 5th amendment* and 14th amendment; in which both declare the state cannot deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process. *to be completely fair, UCSB says ‘Constitution’, I narrowed it down to the 5th amendment so you didn’t have to read the whole thing. I decided it was the 5th amendment based on the wording of the paragraph. You’ve written your definition as “Body autonomy basically says that no one, other than the person himself, has a right to his or her body, and no one has the right to use someone else’s body without his or her full consent.” I’m okay using this definition as long as we’re both using the same definition. If we’re both cool with this definition, let’s move forward.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No I would not agree that body autonomy is a sliding scale.

You’ve said you’re first year uni, so I’m assuming you’re about 18, and I’m wondering what your real world experience is with...anything. Have you been around children? Have you been around children or adults with mental disabilities to the point they can be a harm to themselves? As someone who has taken care of children and worked with children, teens, and adults with mental disabilities, you sometimes have to stop them from doing something they want to do because it will harm them or make them/coerce them into doing something they don’t want to do because it’s good for them.

Your first example would be an act of abuse and is illegal, it is an violation of body autonomy. Technically the vegetable is the one violating body autonomy and the parents are the enabler.

Are you really suggesting making a kid eat their veggies and go to bed is abuse and illegal? That’s...that’s called “parenting”. Or at the very least “caring for the child’s well being”. YES! “Found mentally incompetent” was the wording I was looking for! Thank you!

If you are talking about parenting setting bed times or telling their child to eat their veggies then that is not a violation of body autonomy, as long as the child does it of their own free will. If they put “themselves”( with necessary help) or put that veggie in their own mouth, it is not a violation of body autonomy.

A mother can give her child up at anytime. The child is not violating her body autonomy because it is not using her body (unless breast feeding however this can be stopped).

The key words are use someone else’s body. It very obviously shows that body autonomy relates to someone else using your body. It doesn’t relate to you using your body to give care.

These statements lead me to believe you haven’t had any significant interactions with children. Anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time with children...of any age know they need to be told to do things like go to bed or brush their teeth or eat their veggies because they won’t do what is good for them naturally. Also, having children is an incredible upheaval to everything about you. You give up things you want to do, like sleep, work, hang out with friends, watch TV, read a book, be with your spouse/SO, etc to take care of a child. A child demands care and you must give it care, even when you don’t want to.

Going back to the definition we’re using: if you don’t want to do something, but someone else is forcing you to care for them, how is that not a breech of full consent? You’re trying to differentiate it as though a child in the womb uses the mother’s body in a different “consent” than when a child is outside the womb. That’s not how parenthood works. You can’t turn parenthood on and off when it’s convenient or when you want to. You’re a parent when it’s dirty and you’re sleep deprived and when it pulls you from things you want to do and when it costs more than money, it cost time, energy, resources, and talents you don’t have.

Children are already considered to be less in our society. They can’t vote, make medical decisions, work, drink or get a tattoo.

Honest question: do you think children should be able to vote, make medical decisions, work, drink, or get a tattoo?

Safe Haven Laws: statutes in the United States that decriminalize the leaving of unharmed infants with statutorily designated private persons so that the child becomes a ward of the state.

This may not be what you think it is. First, there’s a time limit. A newborn/infant typically has to be a certain age (3 days old seems to be the minimum) to be relinquished and cannot exceed a certain age (7, 14, and 30 days are typical). Second, they must be unharmed. Third, they can only be relinquished at certain locations which is specified by state. Fourth, once relinquished the child becomes a ward of the state.

Is this better than leaving a child to be found by chance in an alley or dumpster? Absolutely. But a mother cannot leave her child on a porch and claim it’s a safe haven--there are laws in place and that would be seen as child endangerment.

So is it easy to give up a child? Yes, with caveats. There are multiple ways to surrender a child to the system but it’s all up to if the mother is willing to or not.

Banning abortion is a slippery slope to oppression. “No woman can call herself free who does not control her own body.” —Margaret Sanger

...do you really want to invoke Margaret Sanger? You might want to research into her more before you tout her as a paragon of quotable virtue. (X X X X X X X) She openly advocated forced sterilization, eugenics, planned population control, and the removal of those with mental disabilities. She spoke at a KKK event in 1926; and ended up receiving multiple offers to speak at other events. This is the woman you’re going to quote as though I should care what she says?

No, banning abortion is not a slippery slope to oppression--it’s actually the other way around. Abortion on demand, abortion up to birth, survivors of botched abortions, post birth abortion...where does it stop? At what point is it murder? Pro-life is simple: it’s a life from the moment of conception therefore abortion is murder from week 1 all the way to post birth abortions and beyond.

I can draw a firm line in the sand, where’s your line?

If we’re pulling out quotes: “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell people not to kill one another?” ~ Mother Teresa “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish” ~ Mother Teresa “Abortion can never be safe. Any procedure where ‘success’ means the killing of another human being can certainly not be safe” ~ Abby Johnson

New question:

Feminism - the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes Pro-Life - you have the wrong definition, my friend. The pro-life movement is advocating for both lives involved in the pregnancy. It’s the radical notion both lives matter. Again, I’m not a feminist so I can’t answer this question from that perspective. I would assume the position pro-life feminist’s have is abortion kills baby girls and women and they’re against that. I would hope they’re against the killing of baby boys too. I’ll throw to @pro-life-feminism or @prolife-feminist for an answer to this question.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The reason I go to mental incompetence is because of Sanger and the history of eugenics against those with mental disabilities. If “body autonomy” can be declared for pregnancy, then why not the care of others? Again, you want to differentiate between someone using your body for care and you using your body to give someone care. There are times there is no differentiation--such as caring for children or the mentally disabled. Due to how you have given answers, I assume you’ve never been in that situation and are not speaking from experience when you say things such as “...setting bed times or telling their child to eat their veggies...is not a violation of body autonomy, as long as the child does it of their own free will.”

There are 3 overarching classes that need protection in a well-functioning society: the children, the elderly, and the mentally disabled. Sanger and abortion actively attacks 2 of those classes, which is why I bring up the mentally disabled.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post Two:

Again, I’m not a medical expert and neither are you. Let’s get that out of the way. Abortion is when a completely healthy woman walks in to terminate her pregnancy for a non-medical reason. Is it a termination? Yes. Is the mother’s life at risk? No. During a life-saving procedure for the mother, a pregnancy can terminate--either spontaneously due to stress or due to medications or procedures used to save the life of the mother. Is it a termination? Yes. Is the mother’s life at risk? Yes. Do you see the difference? The definition won’t have intent because it’s defining the actual event, not the emotion-driven logic behind the decision. When a woman gets an abortion, there is always an intent, a reason, for it. Whether that be her own intention or someone else forcing her to have an abortion, there is always a reason women get an abortion. During a life-saving procedure, there is no intent to terminate the pregnancy. The medical field has created safer medications and procedures to use during pregnancy to specifically reduce the chance of a termination. This has no intent--the woman’s life is at risk and must seek treatment and caution is made to keep the pregnancy.

In a sterile, event-only definition, are they both terminations? Yes. Bring the world into focus and you see the intent is the overriding factor in both.

If you can find me one doctor who isn’t pro-life, that says a save the life abortion isn’t abortion, I would be surprised.

...you want to hear a non pro-life doctor say a life-saving procedure termination isn’t an abortion? I’ll just look at my Rolodex... I actually live near a major medical center and several hospitals so once restrictions are lifted, I’ll try to see what I can do. I will commit to doing this for you as far as they allow me.

I actually don’t notice how the pro-life argument has more science backing it, if you or anyone could point it out that would be nice.

It’s because I’m the one posting sources backing my claims and using actual science to make any assertions.

Honestly I find the pro-life arguments reductionistic.

That’s an interesting statement. The pro-life stance is all life has value, life begins at conception, and you can’t kill that life. I guess in a way it would seem reductionistic if you have to go through a flowchart to determine the value of someone and whether that lines up with the latest definitions at the time.

I’m going to hazard a guess here, let me know how accurate I am? You were raised in an environment in which you believe your body autonomy was routinely broken. You didn’t want to do something (go to bed, brush your teeth, eat veggies, take a bath/shower, etc) but your parents/guardians made you do it anyway. Because you believe you were forced to do things you didn’t want to do, you believe children should have the right to choose to make their own decisions. This thought process has carried you through to your 17 or 19 years of life when you discovered the concept of “body autonomy” and now body autonomy rules all. It’s the ultimate decision maker for you. Am I anywhere close to what happened?

Quick semi-related question: do you believe men should be forced into fatherhood? If women have the choice to choose motherhood, should fathers have the choice to choose fatherhood?

More links because you asked for them: aclj.org Think ACLU but actually doing good. Pro-Life Action League - former abortion providers Born-Alive Abortion Survivors (pt 1) Born-Alive Abortion Survivors (pt 2) - Gianna Jessen - saline abortion survivor - Claire Culwell - survived the abortion that killed her twin - Josiah Presley - survived an abortion at 2 months - Ana Rosa Rodriguez - survived a 32-week abortion - Heidi Huffman - survived a 10 week abortion - Brandi Lozier - survived a saline abortion - Sarah Brown - survived an abortion that left her with brain damage and blind. Died at 5 years old due to complications of the abortion. - Carrie Fischer - survived an abortion that left her disfigured and with health problems. Feminists for Life - pro-life feminists March for Life - the largest pro-life event around the world Life Institute - pro-life group around the world

So...I might have gone a little overboard? But you wanted more links...

Hope all is well with you! Stay safe, friend :)

#sorry it's taken so long #my thoughts #abortion #prolife

1 note · View note

thehoardofthegreatdragon · 5 years

Text

Quirk Science and the Todoroki Flame: Fan Made, Physicist Approved

In the words of xkcd: Stand back, I’m about to try science. Except with quirks and not the real word because self control what self control?

In preparation for the new chapter of BCC (get hyped people, its gonna wreck y’all), I have written up a detailed head canon on Todoroki flames-- why they are so well controlled, how the temperature could vary, and the likely consequences hundreds of years of quirks would have on forensic science in BNHA. All of this has been run by an honest to god physicist to ensure I am not being unrealistic.

Enjoy!

Yes, I know, I have better things to do with my time. Do I care? Oh absolutely, but I did it anyway.

Alright, so let’s get into this. We will use Enji as a case study for the below. The key idea is that his flames burn in a grid pattern, and that as he varies the size of the grid pattern he can reduce the temperature and increase the efficiency of his burn.

Think of fire like a digital brush. You can just use a solid fill-- but this is a waste of paint if you are just trying to shade an area in. On the microscopic level, you are better off using a pattern like a grid. The finer you make the grid, the hotter the flame. Overall, you use less energy for a similar concentration of flame. Expand the grid pattern, and you space out the effects of the flame-- the temperature drops and flame becomes less dangerous.

(I’m happy to talk more of the actual details of this, but figured I should leave the actual measurements of carbon-carbon bonds out. I am only mostly crazy.)

Why a grid pattern, you ask? Simple-- its more efficient. Fire is, at its core, energy and movement. The more chemical bonds you can break down with less energy put into the system, the more efficient your fire-starting is. (Enji’s all about efficiency, after all.)

Not only would this explain the control Enji has over the temperature and amount of damage his flame does, it also brings up interesting questions about quirk-forensic science-- I cannot believe that after over a hundred years of quirks being around-- and being used in criminal activity!-- that the police don’t actively search for ways to track quirk usage. Take the study of the noumu, for instance-- while its unclear to me if they can actually test for different quirks, they can certainly test for the DNA of several people. This implies the society has at least the medical technology we do. But we have also seen that they have some understanding of the origin and function of quirks-- see chapter 135 and Aizawa talking about ‘quirk factor.’

If they can trace the remnants of several different people in the noumu through DNA, I would argue that they should be able to trace this ‘quirk factor’ in a similar way. This would allow for the investigation and criminal processing of people like Toga-- they’d be able to identify her quirk factor, even though her quirk effectively disguises her.

But back on topic. Given advancements in medical science and the increased study of quirk effects, it’s likely quirk related injuries would be hyper-analyzed. There would be doctors dedicated to identifying the marks of different types of quirks, likely even quirks that are able to trace the effects of other quirks.

If there is one thing biology teaches us, it’s that humans never fail to adapt to new situations: I struggle to believe that we wouldn't adapt to quirks just as quickly.

Enji is the Number One hero-- his quirk must have been studied to hell and back. People want to replicate it (Enji himself wants this!), villains want to know how to stop it, doctors want to be able to heal the wounds it causes. It is likely one of the most well-understood quirks in the BNHA universe. This brings us to a fascinating question.

Can Enji’s burn pattern be matched, like a finger print?

It’s a logical question, with terrifying ramifications-- if Enji’s burn pattern was traceable, would Shoto have the same pattern? Would Dabi?

It’s hard to say for sure, but what is sure is this: quirk science exists, and is an area of untapped potential for fandom.

We have work to do, people.

#meta #bnha #bnha meta #this is my challenge to fandom #let's explore this

185 notes · View notes

setmeatopthepyre · 5 years

Text

Mental Health Tips

So, I was looking through my mood tracker recently and realized there’s been a gradual but undeniable increase of good days and a decrease of bad days, and it hit me that yeah, I have been doing better and better. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that getting my ADHD diagnosis in January was a life changer. There’s a (great) book on ADD called You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy? and that was exactly how I felt. Wait, all the things I’ve been struggling with, all the times I beat myself up over my lack of discipline or worried that I had a brain tumor because I’d forget things in seconds or thought I might be bipolar because I could go from the highest highs to extreme lows multiple times a day, that was all because of one thing? Amazing!

Anyway, realization is one thing. Then there was medication (also a life changer), and therapy, and look where we are now! Over the past year I’ve learned a few things that have had a huge positive impact on my mental health, and I thought they might be useful for others struggling with their mental health, whether it’s ADHD or something else.

You’re not the only one

Just to start off nice and cheesy, but it’s true. The reason it might feel like you’re the only one dealing with what you’re dealing with and struggling to do what seems so easy to others, is because mental health is still stigmatized and not something people generally talk about. But that doesn’t mean they don’t know it.

When I got my diagnosis, I talked about it a lot. Part of it was hyperfocus; it was something that was on my mind a lot so it became my one subject to fall back on. However, another part of it was knowing that if I’d known what ADHD really was earlier, my life would have been so much better so much sooner. At times I was sure I brought it up too much, but I’m glad I did. Being open about my mental health issues made people around me open up about theirs. Whether it’s people you know IRL or a tumblr page with mental health memes, that affirmation that other people have the same quirks and struggles as you do helps so much.

The bare minimum is better than nothing

Yes, it’s obvious. It’s still something I struggle with because there’s that little voice that goes ‘yes, but I should be able to do more’. Guess what? That there thought qualifies as not one, but two negative thinking patterns: should-statements and all-or-nothing thinking. Just because you think you should be able to do something doesn’t mean that’s the best choice for you, or realistic. Besides, who says you should? Society? Society knows nothing.

Thinking you should just be able to do all your dishes but getting overwhelmed at the prospect of doing so isn’t helpful. Washing a single dish, or even just rinsing one because that’s all you can manage? That’s still better than nothing.

That said, yes, strive for progress over perfection, but remember that progress is not the bare minimum. Sometimes, the bare minimum is maintaining the status quo, or even just making sure things get slightly less worse than they could have. And that is okay.

Remove steps & automate

Speaking of which: often it’s possible to make the absolute minimum easier. How? By removing obstacles, simplifying things so that they don’t take as many steps or spoons to complete. If your laundry basket is in the bathroom while you tend to undress in your bedroom, that’s where you move your laundry basket. Personally, even having a laundry basket with a lid on it is too many steps for me most of the time. If I can’t chuck my dirty clothes right in, they end up in a pile on the floor. Solution: my laundry basket is within throwing range and doesn’t have a lid.

It only has to work for you

Sure, society dictates that clean clothes go in a wardrobe or a dresser. That’s just the way it’s done. But guess what? When clean clothes start piling up all over my room because I can’t bring up the energy or focus or whatever to put them away, I break out boxes. One box for clean laundry. One box for clothing I’ve worn but isn’t dirty yet. And then the laundry basket goes right beside those boxes in my room, in plain sight. That’s my system until I feel better. If I’m feeling up for it, there’s an extra box so that I can divide my clean clothes up between ‘large’ (aka pants and shirts) and ‘small’ (underwear and socks) to make it easier on myself when I get dressed. Did my laundry? Clean clothes go in the clean clothes box. Wore something but it still smells okay and there’s no stains? Toss them at the ‘worn’ box.

Is it how “things are done” normally? No. Does it mean my clothes are even more crumpled than usual? Yes. However, it also means that there’s less clutter in my room, it’s easier to find something to wear, and there’s less risk of me just living in a pile of trash because my room’s a mess anyway.

Your idea of progress may be different from others. Your coping mechanisms might not work for other people. Your adaptive behaviours may not line up with societal expectations, and that’s fine! In fact, that’s more than fine, because they shouldn’t. They only have to work for you.

Remove forks

So the whole spoon theory is fairly well known in mental health circles, but reading about the Fork Theory was an eye-opener for me. It’s explained here, but because reading that article is another extra step (ooh, so meta), here’s the most important bit:

You know the phrase, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done,” right?

Well, Fork Theory is that one has a Fork Limit, that is, you can probably cope okay with one fork stuck in you, maybe two or three, but at some point you will lose your shit if one more fork happens.

A fork could range from being hungry or having to pee to getting a new bill or a new diagnosis of illness. There are lots of different sizes of forks, and volume vs. quantity means that the fork limit is not absolute. I might be able to deal with 20 tiny little escargot fork annoyances, such as a hangnail or slightly suboptimal pants, but not even one “you poked my trigger on purpose because you think it’s fun to see me melt down” pitchfork.

This is super relevant for neurodivergent folk. Like, you might be able to deal with your feet being cold or a tag, but not both. Hubby describes the situation as “It may seem weird that I just get up and leave the conversation to go to the bathroom, but you just dumped a new financial burden on me and I already had to pee, and going to the bathroom is the fork I can get rid of the fastest.”

It’s close to the whole ‘removing steps’ thing, but less about making a task easier and more about giving you space to deal with things.

What this means for me is that when I’m having a less than stellar day mentally, I pay extra attention to what clothes I put on in the morning. Nothing too tight, nothing even slightly scratchy. It may be a tiny fork in the morning, but if I’m in a socially difficult situation, it might be a tiny fork too many that will lead to me being overwhelmed or overstimulated. I need to make sure I’m as comfortable as absolutely possible, aka remove as many forks as I can. Sometimes this means shaving my legs even though I think it’s bullshit that I care about that, or wearing clothes that draw as little attention to me as possible. No, I don’t want to care about what others think, but the truth is that part of me does, and I can’t change that right that instant. What I can do is minimize the chance that I get overwhelmed on an already stressful day.

Forks don’t have to be annoyances. They can also be tasks you keep putting off or something you keep reminding yourself of. Sometimes having a self-care day for me means doing all the easy things I’ve been meaning to do for ages but haven’t gotten around to. Sometimes it’s writing down all the things that are buzzing around in my brain, just so that I can assure myself I don’t have to remember them anymore because they’re on paper now. Sometimes it’s turning off notifications for specific apps because seeing them pop up makes me feel guilty when I’m not in the right frame of mind to respond.

Sometimes removing a fork costs spoons, like when I’m at a restaurant with a friend and I know that sitting in a spot where people walk by behind me is a pretty big fork for me, but removing it means asking them if they mind switching spots. That’s when it helps to be open about what you’re dealing with, because most of my close friends know by now that I always prefer to sit with my back to a wall, and I don’t even have to ask.

Compromise and automate

Back to the should-thinking. Sometimes removing forks means throwing all the shoulds out the window because they just aren’t working right now, and you’ll get back to them later. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t think I should care about what other people think, but I’m not there yet, so sometimes making life easier for me means compromising on that and conforming to societal standards if I know I’m going to need everything I have to get through a day. Another example: I feel like I should buy whole vegetables and cut them myself and cook my own meals, because pre-cut and prepackaged things are often more expensive and just contribute to more plastic waste. Okay, cool, but that ideal version of me who has the time and energy to do that hasn’t shown up yet, and in the meantime I need to eat. Buying a pre-packaged meal with actual vegetables in it is still cheaper than ordering pizza because I can’t get myself to cook, and it’s still healthier than trying to fill up on crackers because I couldn’t deal with the social aspect of opening the door for the pizza delivery.

Sometimes, in order to remove steps, you have to compromise. Sometimes, in order to remove another worry (aka fork), you have to automate. When I first started on meds, I would write down the time I took them, calculate when I’d need to take my next dose, and set an alarm. It made me procrastinate taking my next dose, because it was too many steps. There was an app that did all that for me, but I thought it was ridiculous to pay for an app that did exactly what I should be able to do myself.

I bought the app. I tap one button and my phone sends me a notification when my next dose is due. I have my phone on silent/no vibrate all the time, because notifications are overwhelming to me, so I have an activity tracker watch that lets me reroute only specific notifications to my watch, and now my watch vibrates when I need to take my next dose. I know this isn’t an option for everyone because obviously those things cost money (and it just goes to show how life is so much easier for the rich because they can automate so much), but if there’s any way to turn something you have to do often into something that will do itself mostly on its own, it may be worth looking into. Yes, even when you think you should be able to do it yourself.

Are you sure the thing you’re worrying about is a problem?

This may seem super simple and obvious, but I legit had to change the ‘worry flowchart’ my therapist gave me to have an extra first step: ‘Do I have proof the problem exists?’ Spoiler: most of the time the answer is no.

I’m running late, I’m not sure if I’m going to make my bus to work. I’m stressing out about what will happen if I’m late. Maybe my superiors will get angry at me. Maybe this will be one too many times. But guess what? I don’t know if I’ll miss the bus. I might still make it. Until I know for certain that I’m going to be late, there’s no use worrying about what might happen. Even if I end up being late, I don’t have any proof that my superiors will be angry with me. I don’t know yet if the problem even exists, so why act like it does?

Another example: I can beat myself up over the fact that people think I’m lazy because I need to take a break. I feel terrible. I don’t want them to think I’m lazy! I can’t relax even though I desperately need to take a break. I told my therapist, and he asked me for proof. Do I have irrefutable proof that people think I’m lazy? Of course not, that’s an assumption I make. Am I a mind reader? No, I just tend to assume the worst. Okay, so why am I worrying about it if I’m not even sure the problem actually exists? Right.

This is not a moral failing and it does not affect your worth

Building on that: even if people think I’m lazy (and I don’t have proof that’s true!), that doesn’t mean their opinion is fact. Their perception of me is not a moral failing on my part. My therapist made me provide proof for and against the hypotheses that I was lazy, and there was way more proof against that statement. At the time, I was in school four days a week, working three, and had two other projects on the side. If, for example, my parents thought I was lazy for having no energy to do chores on my one free day in two months, (again, I had no proof they even thought that), they would’ve simply been wrong. They could’ve thought it all they wanted, but it did not mean I was lazy.

A lot of symptoms of mental health issues can be perceived by others as negative character traits, and that’s one of the reasons it’s so difficult to discuss sometimes. The thing is: their perceptions and opinions do not actually reflect on you or in any way determine your worth. Your brain going about things differently than theirs is as much your fault as needing glasses is (it isn’t).

And last but not least:

Emotion comes first (and goes last)

That sounds nice and cryptic, right? What I mean is that knowing your immediate reaction to something is unnecessary and that things aren’t as bad as they seem is different from feeling it. Your knee-jerk reaction is going to be emotion. Likewise, it’ll take a while before your emotions catch up with where your brain is going when you reroute your thoughts away from negative places.

The RSD, or Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, that comes with ADHD means that sometimes I have extreme negative emotional reactions to situations. When someone responds a little less enthusiastically than what I’m used to, for example, or when friends talk about something they did without me (even if I wouldn’t have wanted to do that particular thing and they know that), or even when someone didn’t hear what I said, it can cause this void to just open up in my chest and swallow every sense of happiness I may have been feeling. It happens suddenly and drags me straight down to my lowest point.

Lately, in those moments, I’ve been able to check in with myself and analyze what it was that triggered this meltdown. Thanks mostly to therapy I can rationalize that things aren’t so bad, and I can claw my way out of that pit, but that always comes one step after that first instinctual emotional reaction. Likewise, knowing things are fine does not mean the negative emotions disappear straight away. They take some time to dissipate, and I’m a little more emotionally vulnerable for a bit while they do. Emotion happens first, and leaves last.

It can be disheartening. It can feel like progress isn’t being made, but that very realization is progress, even if you’re not feeling it yet. Emotions follow the path they know best, and if for you, like me, that path is automatically assuming the worst, you’re gonna feel the emotions associated with that for a while, even when you rationally know it’s all crap. The thing is, practice makes perfect, and redirecting your thoughts into a more positive direction will, eventually, make that path the easiest one to find. Your feelings may take a little while to figure it out, but they’ll find that path eventually.

I’m not saying I’m cured. I’m not saying I know everything. I have bad days and struggles and all that, but I have been doing better.

I mentioned it briefly at the beginning of all of this, but I started tracking my mood in July. It’s just one general mood a day, which obviously doesn’t quite display the ups and downs I deal with, but I tried to log the average for the day. I started doing so because I sort of knew I was doing better and better but of course once you get used to something, it becomes the new normal and it’s hard to tell when progress happens, so I tracked it:

#this is the first thing I've written in one go in so long oops #ofc right after that I had a bit of a mental health setback for a few days bUT #that's part of the process amirite #mental health #mental health advice #adhd #actual adhd #actually adhd #depression #mental health support

10 notes · View notes

riv-kai · 5 years

Note

Hope everything is going well for you these days. What with the mass panic and virus mess.

Thank you so much my Anon friend, I feel like this is meant to be because I haven’t known where or how to share the thoughts I’ve been having, so thank you for checking up on me and giving me a reason to speak up.

Before you read on, I want you to know I’m fine and I’ve been through much worse before this, I know this is just temporary so I haven’t given up hope. And I don’t expect anyone to reply or read this, I’m just giving my thoughts a voice so I don’t make myself feel worse by keeping it inside.

———

I’m having trouble communicating how this time period feels. Not everyone knows this, but I have multiple chronic illnesses, and have had them for all of my life after a medical-related injury that weakened my immune system at 18 months old. This allowed Lyme disease and co-infections (passed down from a parent who was unaware they had it) to come out of dormancy and take over my body in a time of immune weakness. From then on, it got worse and worse until it fully hit me when I got food poisoning and H1N1 in the same couple of months in middle school. At 16, after what felt like a full life of struggling to survive, I was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease. This means it was chronic, because hello, I have been on more antibiotics than my whole family combined and that didn’t even TOUCH it despite the CDC’s claims that a 30 day round should do it. I still had lyme spirochetes in my blood at 18 and a relapse I had to treat at 23 after aggressively treating Lyme and it’s co-infections for 9 years. Nine. In a youthful, fast-recovering body. The US government is the only country that no longer recognizes this disease to be “chronic,” claiming it’s a residual “post-lyme disease syndrome” as an excuse to say we don’t want to study your complex chronic disease and would prefer it didn’t exist because it’s a business obstacle for us. And despite having proof of the pathogen in my blood chronically, they won’t acknowledge its existence all because of some petty controversies and that we are now a liability to them. They won’t make insurance pay for your perplexing and unpredictable disease... if doesn’t exist to them. When their treatments don’t work and we are no longer profitable to Big Pharma, we are erased and become part of a silent epidemic. At the end of the day, all they had to do was be honest, even just with the fact that they haven’t researched enough to understand the big-scary-bug. But of course that’s a big ask from a big system.

At my very best, my body can’t work or live like abled bodies can, and if I force myself to (because I desperately want to) I always crash and burn. All because of pathogens. And I don’t want you to fear pathogens or give me a pity party. I’m someone who says fuck the system and believes I can continue to heal despite so many doctors giving me bad news throughout my childhood. I’ve already beaten the odds and am proud of it, so this isn’t about me. Right now, I just want someone out there to see what is happening surrounding another pathogen and to pay attention.

I never expected the whole world to understand any bit of how it feels to be at the mercy of a pathogen. Some people will act like you’re being dramatic, faking it, or that “even if it is bad, it’s not that bad because only the weak people die.” Listen, even if you don’t die (I barely survived a few times) that mindset totally discounts the trauma and suffering that lives with you forever. It doesn’t matter if you don’t die. This shit sucks. So now, I’m grappling with many things: wanting to help people through the beginning stages of processing this despite being decades ahead in processing it and sick of thinking about it, being wholly frustrated with those who STILL openly treat disabled people as expendable goods instead of human beings, and ultimately feeling like even if I did explain, it might only make people feel hopeless. However, these are all fear-based thoughts.

The truth is that I know what I’ve experienced for the past 24+ years, even if no one else ever can understand it or believe me, and these experiences helped me understand how pathogens and infections work from an emotional and mental level, not just what it physically does to your body. And I want to help somehow, so I’ll share what I can for now.

If nothing else, I want you to only take away this — pathogens are also living things. I don’t care if I sound crazy, wholly realizing this helped me end that nine year treatment battle with Lyme disease (even if I’m still working on handling the destruction it left behind).

An infection is just as much a mental and emotional battle as it is physical. These pathogens do not have the ability to understand that they are killing the hosts they need to survive and reproduce, they just take take take. I feel like we can all sense this beneath the surface. This microscopic expression of selfishness is a source of the deep, out of control, primal urgency we’re feeling. I’ve felt it before, and they are never the only ones acting out. And this is really important — we have to stop mimicking the pathogen’s behavior in response to its behavior, trampling over each other in fear and hoarding chunks of this world’s wealth/goods that are too big for us to hold in the name of “survival.” Or pretending the outside world doesn’t exist, that “you’ll be fine, so it doesn’t matter if I go out” and spreading sickness to others. This is an exact parallel to what the pathogen behaves like.

I need you all to care with me about fellow human beings. That is our strength as a species, and we are not pathogens so we don’t have to stoop to their level. Get your helping pants on. Tell someone you love them, and spend some time with them to distract or calm their anxieties. Stay home as much as possible and fight for those people who can’t go out or people who are forced to stay in, even if they want to.

And then I need you to hold our government and long-broken medical system accountable. Please, don’t let them brush their wrongdoings over this time, now that their behavior is out in the open. Don’t let them forget what they’re doing, who they are turning away, who they are making us believe are just “a few numbers.” Don’t let this pathogen take you down mentally, either. Even if you get sick, even in a mild case, and it effects you mentally on top of physically, you are not crazy. What traditional medicine tends to neglect is that these pathogens get into your head (trust me) and it’s important to realize that so you know it’s not something you’re making up. It’s not your fault. It’s not wrong to feel hopeless or shattered or depressed or unlike yourself when you get sick, you are just ill. You need help. Deserve it. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Take it seriously, but don’t let it take over you. This is a delicate balance and you may waver from one side to the other, but I promise it’s possible to both care and not submit to fear. Pathogens feed off of “weak” openings, and so fear and stress before you even have it is the last thing you need. Btw, no one is truly “weak,” even if you go through moments of weakness. This idea of strong vs weak is just how primal thoughts work, and pathogens are very primal so I’m explaining through their instinctual “perspective” as a species.

And I’m not sure what I can do about this, but I don’t want more people to live like I did growing up. I want people to see what I’m seeing now, decades later, that there is actually hope. There is more to society than a government that treats its people like business deals. We are more powerful than we feel. We are capable of fully caring about each other, even if it’s just through one anonymous message on the Internet.

———

I’m sorry if this made no sense, especially in response to an anonymous message, but thank you again for being here. I hope you are staying indoors if you can, and are safe and healthy to the best of your ability. I know it’s hard even if you are healthy, and there is so much that can feel out of our control in response to illness, but what’s new and a possible hope for me is that we are not alone in this experience this time. I hope you can feel the love even from miles away, I’ll try to make an extra effort to show I care.

#anonymous #inbox

2 notes · View notes

hazardville · 5 years

Text

Fuck You Facebook

So, in case anyone’s seeing this without coming here from my Facebook: Facebook removed this post because it was flagged as spam. I’m preserving it here because this information should be shared and Facebook’s attempts to obscure the sharing of health information should be condemned, widely and publicly. Enjoy. This is a long post addressing two underlying issues with the current response to the pandemic that leave me concerned. It’s the longest post I’ve ever written. The Medium version of this post (link below) has been viewed 1.2M in less than the last 24 hours as of 3/17/20. For those of you not taking action, or believing the pandemic to be “over hyped”, you can make fun of me as much as you want now or when this is over. You can make me the subject of memes and post it everywhere. I will pose for the picture. I am not trying to convince you, but I do feel compelled to share information that I deem critical to all of us, which is why I am posting this at all. WHY YOU SHOULD TAKE 5 MINUTES TO READ AND CONSIDER THE INFORMATION I AM SHARING: As of 3/15/20 at 9 am PST this post has been shared over 50k times since it was posted 2 days ago. So a lot of people find value in the post and although it's a long read, I believe you will find this information valuable too. For those of you who don’t know me well, I am analytical and metered. I don’t freak out nor do I respond emotionally. I also don’t post a bunch of bullshit or political or controversial stuff on Facebook. I founded and am CEO of a successful software company that provides SaaS based data, analytics, and dashboards to recruiting departments at companies we all know. As you would expect, I am data driven and fact based. Before founding my company I held executive roles leading very large recruiting teams at some of the world's fastest growing companies such as Starbucks and Google. At Google I was fortunate enough to report to Sheryl Sandberg before she took the Facebook COO role. I was a Chemical Engineering major in college and have a business degree from a top undergraduate business school. I am not one for hyperbole or histrionics. My bullshit factor is close to zero. I share all this personal information only to help solidify that this post may be worth reading and sharing with others. I would encourage you to forward or share this post at your discretion. Many people do not understand what is happening with the pandemic to the degree required which is why I took the time to write this and share this on Facebook. Now that I've gotten the introduction out of the way, here are two issues I want to bring to everyone’s attention. ISSUE ONE: SOCIAL NORMS ARE POWERFUL MOTIVATORS AND GETTING IN THE WAY OF PEOPLE TAKING THE RIGHT STEPS IN RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC: One of the current problems with addressing the pandemic is the social pressures of taking action today. It's awkward, and feels like an over-reaction. The reason it feels like an overreaction is that most people OVERWEIGHT the currently reported cases and inherently UNDERWEIGHT the mathematics of how the virus is spreading and what will happen in about 30 days time. This is because our brains tend to think linearly as opposed to logarithmically. It’s the same reason many people don’t save for retirement or understand compound interest. To create a new social norm, human beings like to see behavior modeled. This serves as a signal that says, “oh, someone else is doing it so I should do it also.” SO HERE IS A SOCIAL BENCHMARK FOR REFERENCE - THIS IS WHAT I’VE DONE FOR MY FAMILY TO DATE: I have already isolated my family. We have canceled EVERYTHING. We have canceled previously scheduled doctor visits. Social get togethers. No play dates. Normal routine meetings. Everything has been canceled. It's difficult and socially awkward. Some of you think I’m crazy, but I’m doing it not because I am afraid, but because I am good at math (more on that in part 2). I had to have my 16 year old daughter quit her job coaching junior gymnasts at the local gym, with one day’s notice and also tell my kids they can't attend youth group at church. Both of those were tough discussions. I told a very close friend he shouldn’t stay at my house this weekend even though he was planning to and had booked his flight from the Bay Area. I canceled another dear friend’s visit for later this month to go snowboarding on Mt Bachelor. We are not eating out. Our kids are already doing online school so we don’t have to make changes there. I would not send my kids to school even if they were in public or private school. We have eliminated all non-essential contact with other people. We will only venture out to grocery shop when required. We will still go outside to parks, go mountain biking, hiking, and recreate to keep ourselves sane and do other things as a family, just not with other people. We have stocked up on food and have a supply for ~2 months. We have stocked up on other goods that if depleted would create hardship, like medicines and feminine hygiene products. We have planned for shortages of essential items. THE REASON I HAVE CHOSEN THIS ROUTE FOR MY FAMILY IS MULTI FACETED: 1. Although my family is considered low risk (I’m 49 in good health, Angi is 46 and in good health, and our kids are 14 and 16), we must assume that the healthcare system cannot help us, because the hospitals will become overwhelmed very quickly. Most American hospitals will become overwhelmed in approximately 30 days unless something changes. More on this in part 2 below. So although we are in great health and unlikely to become gravely ill, the risk is greater if you do not have access to the medical care that you need. This is something for everyone to consider. As a society we are accustomed to having access to the best medical care available. Our medical system will be overwhelmed unless we practice social distancing at scale. That said, the medical teams in Italy are seeing an alarming number of cases from people in their 40s and 50s. Triage tents are already going up in the parking lots at many hospitals close to the epicenters in the United States. 2. It’s not a matter of if social distancing will take place, it’s a matter of when. This is because social distancing is the only way to stop the virus today. As I will explain in part 2 below, starting now is FAR more effective than starting even 2 days from now or tomorrow. This has been proven by Italy and China (and soon to be France and other European countries who have been slow to respond.) [updated as of 3/14 France is now on lockdown mandated by the government]. Wuhan went on lockdown after roughly 400 cases were identified (and they had access to testing that America has systematically failed to do well to date). The US already has more than 4 times this number of known infected cases as Wuhan did when it was shut down, and our citizens are far more mobile and therefore spreading the virus more broadly when compared to Wuhan. Yet our response is tepid at best. If hand washing and “being smart” were sufficient Italy would not be in crisis. So I pray the draconian measures are coming from our government, because they are required to stop the spread of the virus. It’s better to start sooner than later as the cost is actually far greater if we wait. I pray they close all schools and non-essential services the way that Italy and China have done. 3. Spreading the virus puts those in the high-risk category at much greater risk. This is the moral argument. It’s a strong argument because there are only two ways, as of today, that the virus can be stopped: let it run its course and infect 100s of millions of people, or social distancing. There is no other way today. If you don’t practice social distancing, people downstream from you that you transmit the virus to will die, and many will suffer. 4. The risk of infection is increasing exponentially, because the quantity of infected people, most who will not show symptoms, is doubling every three days. So the longer you wait to self-isolate, the greater the chance of you or someone you love becoming infected and then you infecting others because more of the population is becoming infected. There are twice as many infected people today as there was on Tuesday. 5. The virus is already in your town. It’s everywhere. Cases are typically only discovered when someone gets sick enough to seek medical attention. This is important as it typically takes ~5 days to START showing ANY symptoms. Here’s the math: For every known case there are approximately 50 unknown cases. This is because if I become sick, I infect several people today, and they infect a few people each tomorrow (as do I), and the total count of infected people doubles every 3 days until I get so sick I get hospitalized or get tested and become a “known case”. But in the time it takes me to figure out I am sick 50 others downline from me now have the virus. So every third day the infection rate doubles until I get so sick that I realize I have the virus an am hospitalized or otherwise tested. Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital estimate that there are 50x more infections than known infections as reported (citation below). The implication of this is that the virus is already “everywhere” and spreading regardless if your city has zero, few or many reported cases. So instead of the 1573 reported known cases today there are likely 78,650 cases, at least, in the United States. Which will double to 157,300 by this Sunday. And this will double to 314,600 cases by this coming Wednesday. So in less than 1 week the number of total infected in the United States will quadruple. This is the nature of exponential math. It’s actually unfortunate that we are publishing the figures for known cases as it diverts attention away from more important numbers (like the range of estimated actual cases). [Update as of 3/15/20 - I've been sent more research that may add clarity to the ACTUAL cases vs CONFIRMED cases and will update this post with any conclusions] 6. Some people cannot, or will not, practice social distancing for a variety of reasons and will continue to spread the virus to many people. So everyone else must start today. The reasons above are why I have begun to practice social distancing. It’s not easy. But you should do it too. The hospitals will be at capacity and there are not enough ventilators. You will hear a lot about this issue in the coming few weeks... the shortage of ventilators. ISSUE TWO: MANY PEOPLE ARE FOCUSED ON THE WRONG NUMBERS: Yes, the virus only kills a small percentage of those afflicted. Yes, the flu kills 10s of thousands of people annually. Yes, 80% of people will experience lightweight symptoms with COVID19. Yes the mortality rate of COVID19 is relatively low (1-2%). All of this true, but is immaterial. They are the wrong numbers to focus on... The nature of exponential math is that the infection rates start slowly, and then goes off like a bomb and overwhelms the hospitals. You will understand this math clearly in the next section if you do the short math exercise. Evergreen hospital in Seattle is already in triage. I have heard credible reports from people on the ground that they are already becoming overwhelmed. And the bomb won't really go off for a few more days. Probably by Wednesday, March 18th (next week). In just a few days from now we will hear grave reports from Seattle hospitals. [update as of 3/15/20 - see the comments section below for an update from a staff member at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, WA] You should assume the virus is everywhere at this point, even if you have no confirmed cases in your area. YOU SHOULD DO THIS SIMPLE 2 MINUTE MATH EXERCISE (NO REALLY TAKE TWO MINUTES AND DO IT): To further understand exponential growth, take the number of confirmed cases in your area and multiply by 10 (or 50 if you believe Harvard and Massachusetts General estimations) to account for the cases that are not yet confirmed. If you have no confirmed cases choose a small number. I’d suggest 10 cases in your city, if no cases are yet reported. But you can use whatever number you like. This number of infected people doubles every ~3 days as the infection spreads. So literally take your number, and multiply by 2. Then do it again. Then do it again. Then do it again. Do this multiplication exercise 10 times in total. 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x (the number of estimated infections in your city today (not just the reported cases)). This result is the estimate for the actual cases in your area 30 days from now. The math will take 30 seconds to complete with a calculator and it’s worth doing the math to see how it grows. This end number is the number of cases in your city 30 days from today if a large percentage of the population do not practice social distancing. 2 to the 10th power is 1024. When something doubles 10 times, it's the same as multiplying by 1024. The infection rate of the virus doubles every 3 days. In thirty days there will be 1,024 times the number of infected people in your area as there is today if your community does not immediately put social distancing into practice. One thousand and twenty four times as many infected people as there is today, in just 30 days. Next, divide the final number (the scary big one) you just calculated by the current population of your city and you will be able to get the percentage of people THAT YOU KNOW PERSONALLY who will be infected 30 days from now. Next take 15% (multiply by 0.15) of that final 30 day number of total infected people (the number you calculated by multiplying by 2 ten times). This will provide an estimate of the serious cases which will require hospitalization, and compare it to the number of beds and ventilators available at your local hospital. Google the "number of beds" and the name of your local hospital now. It takes 2 seconds and the number of beds is easy to find. 65% of beds are already occupied by patients unrelated to the coronavirus. St Charles in Bend, Oregon where I live, has 226 beds and the town is roughly 100,000 people. Most hospitals have on average, 40 or fewer ventilators. 5% of patients require ICU treatment. There are very few ICU beds compared to regular beds in hospitals. There are very few negative pressure areas in any hospital to deal with the containment of airborne diseases. These numbers you just calculated are the Big Problem: Too many patients, not enough beds, and a serious shortage of ventilators (the biggest problem) if we don't immediately begin social distancing. More on this biggest problem related to the insufficient quantity of ventilators is below. COUNTRIES THAT GET OVERWHELMED WILL HAVE A MUCH GREATER MORTALITY RATE BECAUSE THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO ADEQUATELY CARE FOR THE SICK. And by sick I mean not just coronavirus patients. Your son or daughter that needs acute care surgery this May for his badly broken leg will be attended to by an orthopedic doctor that has been working at maximum capacity and working 18 hour shifts for 7 days every week for 6 weeks because it was required to care for all the coronavirus patients at her hospital. Or the orthopedic surgeon will be sick with the virus and your son or daughter will be operated on in a tent in the hospital parking lot by a non-expert or a member of the National Guard. Your elderly Mom that has diabetes and goes into acute distress next month may not receive ANY medical care because the doctors are consumed and have to prioritize patients based on triage guidelines based on success rate probabilities. Your sibling’s family that are all injured in a terrible car crash in June will have diminished care. If one of them needs a ventilator there will be none available because all of them will be in use by critical coronavirus patients. Your young friend with cancer and a compromised immune system from treatment will succumb even though the cancer was curable and the treatment was working, because their body was too fragile to combat the coronavirus due to the chemotherapy and they couldn't receive the customized, acute care required due to the hospital being overwhelmed. All of the above is currently happening in Italy, who had the same number of infections we have today just 2 weeks ago. You must start social distancing today. The count of actual virus infections doubles every ~3 days. The news and government agencies are lagging in their response. So we hear that the US only has 1573 cases today (3/12/20) [update as of 3/15/20: 3115 confirmed cases), ( see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) and it doesn't seem like a lot. It would be better to report the estimated actual cases, since reported cases don’t tell us much. However, we know from China that the actual number of cases are at least an order of magnitude greater than the reported cases, because people get infected and do not display symptoms. In math, an "order of magnitude" means ten times difference, or put another way, a factor of 10. 100 is 10 times greater than 10, so it's an order of magnitude greater. Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital just released their estimate (recording is here: https://externalmediasite.partners.org/Mediasite/Play/53a4003de5ab4b4da5902f078744435a1d) that the actual cases are 50x greater than the reported cases. So we likely have 75,000 cases in the United States already. The number of reported cases is not that important. But let’s assume the current number of cases is only 10,000 ACTUAL cases in the United States just to be conservative and model out what will happen: If we don’t stop the virus from spreading, in 30 days we will have 2 to the 10th power more cases of infected people because the infection count doubles every 3 days (the virus doubles every 3 days and there are 10, 3 day periods in 30 days). The math: 2 to the 10th power means 1,024 times as many cases as we have today (2 times 2 repeated 10 times). This number is a catastrophically big problem for all of us: We will have 10 million+ actual cases (10,000 actual cases today x 1,024) in the United States in just 30 days’ time if we continue without extreme social distancing. 10 million people with the virus. And it will keep doubling every 3 days unless we practice social distancing. 15% of cases require significant medical attention, which means that 1.5 million people will require significant medical attention if 10 million people get infected (15% of 10 Million total infections = 1.5 million people requiring hospitalization). 1.5 million hospitalizations is way more than we have beds for at hospitals in the United States. And 65% of all beds are already occupied in our hospitals. But many patients (5%) with the virus need ICU beds, not just any old hospital bed. Only about 10% of hospital beds are considered intensive care beds. So we will have a huge bed shortage, but that is not the biggest problem, as we can erect temporary ICU shelters and bring in more temporary beds, as Italy has already done, and California and Washington hospitals have already done. Evergreen Hospital in Seattle has already erected temporary triage tents in the parking lot as of 3/13/20. All regular beds are full at Evergreen Hospital as of yesterday. Once the government of China, Norway, and Italy came to understand this math, they reacted accordingly and shut EVERYTHING down. [update as of 3/15/20 now France has done the same lockdown]. Extreme social distancing is the only response available to stop the virus today. The United States is not responding well nor are other countries like the UK. Countries that do not respond well will pay a much larger, catastrophic price. But hospital beds are not the big problem. The lack of ventilators is the big problem. Most estimates peg the ventilators in the United States at roughly 100,000 to 150,000 units. See the study from last month: http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/resources/COVID-19/200214-VentilatorAvailability-factsheet.pdf The primary and most serious comorbid (comorbid is a medical term that means co-existing or happening at the same time) condition brought on by the Coronavirus is something called bilateral interstitial pneumonia which requires ventilators for treatment of seriously ill patients. So if 1.5M people of the 10 million infected 30 days from now require hospital care (15% of the 10M estimated total infections), 1.3M may not get the care that they need because we don’t have enough ventilators, beds, and ICU beds in the United States. And remember, this is only if ALL OF US EFFECTIVELY start social distancing by April 11th (30 days from today). This increases the mortality rate significantly. BUT IF WE START EXTREME SOCIAL DISTANCING BY MARCH 23 (12 days from original writing), WE AVOID OVER 1.4 MILLION PEOPLE GETTING CRITICALLY ILL AND OVERWHELMING THE HOSPITALS: If everyone takes extreme measures to social distance, and the United States can dramatically reduce the spread of the virus 12 days from now, the math is very different, as the exponential growth will only be 2 to the 4th power (12 days divided by the doubling rate of every 3 days equals the exponent of 4): 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16 So instead of 10 Million cases in the United States if we wait 30 days, if we act 18 days sooner, we will have only 160,000 cases (16 times the estimated 10,000 actual cases as of today), of which 15% are likely to require hospitalization. This is 24,000 critical patients (a huge difference compared to 1.5 million acute patients). The difference between taking extreme measures now, versus waiting even a few days, is very large due to how exponents work in math. THE OUTCOME IS EVEN BETTER IF WE TAKE ACTION IN THE NEXT 6 DAYS: If the vast majority of the population self isolates and implements social distancing in only 6 days from now the exponential math is 2 to the 2nd power (6 days divided by the 3 days it takes the virus to double means the exponent is only 2). In math this is "two squared". 2 x 2 = 4 Multiplied by the estimated 10,000 ACTUAL cases as of today (3/12/20) that means only 40,000 total cases will develop, 15% of which may be critical which is 6,000 critical patients. This is why you should share this post broadly. If people begin social distancing in the next 6 days it will greatly reduce the impact on all of us. It's why they say a "post goes viral". SOCIAL DISTANCING WILL REDUCE THE FINANCIAL IMPACT TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY: Finally, the longer everyone waits to practice significant social distancing the greater the economic hardship will be on all of us. Lost jobs. Mortgage defaults. Closed businesses. Bankruptcies. All will be minimized if you start social distancing today. Some of the reasons the economic impacts will be reduced are worth mentioning: If we stop the virus now the overall duration of the outbreak will be far shorter. The stock market will normalize more quickly and recover more quickly. Businesses and people will be able to survive a shorter duration outbreak vs a longer duration outbreak. More companies will avoid bankruptcy if we begin to practice social distancing now. This is a big financial reason to begin social distancing if you are employed by any company: if companies see that the virus is being slowed, they will be less likely to conduct layoffs. You will be more likely to be laid off or experience a job-related event if we don’t practice social distancing immediately. As an HR executive, I’ve been involved in many, many layoffs. It’s the last thing companies want to do. But if they see that the pandemic will be shorter lived vs long and drawn out, they are less likely to make the permanent decision of laying off staff. The overall economic impact that hits your bank account will be greater if you wait or you don’t practice social distancing. This is why Norway acted now, because it’s less economic impact to take drastic measures early than to do them later, and it saves a lot of lives and suffering by doing so. And Norway has only one confirmed death as of this writing. Many people have suggested they want to support local restaurants and other businesses, who have seen sales drop by 50-90%. Stopping by and visiting them won't save them. What will save them is social distancing and what you do after the pandemic is over. If you are concerned, call them and buy a gift certificate over the phone. START TODAY. I CAN’T STRESS THIS ENOUGH. YOU MUST START TODAY. Finally, the article that I posted yesterday written by Tomas Pueyo has been read 30M times in the last few days and has been updated with new information. It’s worth reading again. Here’s that link. https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca Other up to date data I frequently consult regarding the pandemic is here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ I hope this is helpful and useful. My brain focuses on the math and I try and be fact based in my analysis and interpretation of how I should respond. THERE IS MORE INFORMATION IN THE COMMENTS BELOW WORTH READING AND I WILL BE UPDATING THIS POST, AND THE COMMENTS, WITH MORE INFORMATION, (AS OPPOSED TO CREATING NEW POSTS). MY FINAL PARTING THOUGHT: Please share or forward this post at your discretion. If everyone shares this post and two of your friends share this post and so on, we use the power of exponential math to work in our favor, which seems appropriate given the virus is using that same exponential math against us. HOW YOU CAN REALLY HELP: If you know people who have large numbers of followers, or people in the media, please leverage your personal relationship with them and ask them to amplify this post by sharing it or the Medium Post (link below) For people not on Facebook you can email or text the link. It would be useful to get the post on Twitter and LinkedIn by sharing the Medium post. If you know people in government this fact-based post may help inform them to make the best decisions. It's time for us humans to go on the offensive against the virus. We must fight back. There is only one way to do so: Social Distancing. Do it today. NOTE: Anyone, including the media, is free to use this post, any related content, in all or in part, for any purpose, in any format, with no attribution required. Please direct message me if you have other ideas for how to raise awareness. Finally, I can no longer keep up with friend requests given how much this post has been shared. To receive updates or follow me, please use the "Follow" button on Facebook. 3/16/20: I am preparing a second post, now that 4 days have gone by since the first post. To receive it please follow me on FB. I can not keep up with the friend requests. https://medium.com/@Jason_Scott_Warner/the-sober-math-everyone-must-understand-about-the-pandemic-2b0145881993 https://www.facebook.com/jason.scott.warner/posts/10163742243430144

2 notes · View notes