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I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
191–200 of 528 posts
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why limit the discussion to the current system and past ones? That's like saying memory safety is bad because before C++ there was assembly code and that was even less safe.
> which...sure! We shouldn't accept the status quo. But that's a different argument.
It's literally the exact same argument.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#193> If your worth is not determined by your productivity, then what remains of you underneath it all? Everything else. You are worth so much more than your productivity. I'm glad I never got sucked into the protestant work ethic, since defining yourself based on your labour and the value you generate from that sounds woefully narrow-minded (this doesn't feel like quite the right word, but close enough). It's probably h…
"Your worth" is a bit of a vague and meaningless term (everyone is worth infinite in some sense). But if we want to talk about your general ability to secure more comfortable living conditions then your worth is very much linked to your productivity. The average living conditions are largely determined by how productive the average person is. There are some hard-to-escape balance equations at play there. Good vibes a…
> Looking after disabled people requires an enormous productive surplus from the rest of us and a recognition that the people creating the enormous surplus are in practice worth quite a bit more than the people who are on the receiving end of charity.
We already don't do this with regards to normal people. Being a farmer isn't a particularly high-paying nor high-status job. I don't mind changing this around if we get a more humane world in return, but these issues seems orthogonal to each other.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#194Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#195hEDS and POTS, which is what the author claims to suffer from, are not good reasons for a disability. hEDS is responsive to particular supplements, especially methylfolate, etc., so build up your stack. For me, POTS was caused by a PPI drug, and eventually remedied upon discontinuation of the drug in combination with daily exercise. Afaik, there is no genetic basis for POTS, and if it there were one, it would be unlikely to be the cause. As I keep telling myself, choosing inaction is a personal choice.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the vast majority of human life experience being in nomadic hunter-gathering, villages, farmland, and walled city-states. in which they lived in families, extended families and tribes as the primary units. I didn't understand your argument at all.
The nuclear family lived separate from the extended family. In separate cities. This is a new thing. You lived with your clan in history, not apart. The nuclear family is completely separated physically from their extended families, even across village lines.
Oh, I see. I agree with the other commenters, I think you may be focusing too much on the "nuclear" part of GP's comment. I interpreted that more as "immediate" family, and I think throughout history that people were most likely to rely on immediate family, then extended, then general kin.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you consider Candy Crush as productive I guess words just don't have meaning anymore so there's no point arguing. I highly doubt you actually believe this, but I have been wrong before.
> If you consider Candy Crush as productive I guess words just don't have meaning anymore so there's no point arguing. I'm using the word differently to you. It's productive insofar as you enjoy doing it. Just to make a point, have these two definitions from Wiktionary: > Capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile. Capable of producing enjoyment, yup. I'd call playing Candy Crush productive if e…
Oh come on. Parent is right, at this point, words have no meaning. By this logic, everything produces something, therefore everything is productive.
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Reading the classics is productive because it's enjoyable, even though it doesn't help with your work It's productive in that it is hard and a sign of high intelligence. Don't believe me and swap it out with Candy Crush. Is playing Candy Crush productive? This obsession about people with disabilities is weird. Yes, people with real disabilities exist. But focusing on pathologizing every day life is extremely harmfu…
> Roughly 20% of undergraduate students at Ivy Plus institutions (including Harvard, Brown, and Cornell) are registered as disabled and receive accommodations. This figure has surged dramatically over time, rising from fewer than 3% at Harvard and under 6% at Cornell in 2015. That seems to check out with the period people started getting more addicted to social media, pandemic side-effects and increased awareness of…
> Roughly 20% of undergraduate students at Ivy Plus institutions (including Harvard, Brown, and Cornell) are registered as disabled and receive accommodations. This figure has surged dramatically over time, rising from fewer than 3% at Harvard and under 6% at Cornell in 2015.
I think it's naive to assume that this phenomenon reflects an actual increase in disability rather than a cohort who has been raised to pathologize every human difference as a sign of some disability and then use those diagnoses to secure advantages in systems meant to help people with actual special needs.
There's clearly a lot of pretending going on. On the extreme end look at the numerous DID[1] "influencers". These folks are plainly pretending to have a debilitating mental disorder (which strangely never prevents them from going on podcasts and YouTube interviews) to curry fame.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
also the comment "I've considered suicide because I was unable to make ends meet. I don't want others to experience that. Is that too much to ask?" was important and extremely insightful, wanted to ask what you meant with "was unable to nake ends meet" which type of ends?
> could you please summarize in short what you meant here as keypoint? > I'm not sure we are interpreting this right,based also on reactions and troll references in clear contrast to your other comment. I'm not sure what's unclear about my first comment, but I'll try to rephrase with new words. People are people and deserve to be treated humanely as such. Productivity is but one aspect of people, and not the only one…
thanks a lot for the clarification and effort for it.
Maybe the other reactions made it generally more unclear, but was unsure about the core message.
This is much more clear and direct, and yes I was believing you meant something in that direction.
Regarding the other comment, thanks also, I understand that feeling the moment of having to ask something like that, but I think that if fought with enough pragmacity I think I would try to overcome the psychological part because the need would overcome the shame, and that would overcome the situation. or that is not feasible in that case?
Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
#200> I’m 38 years old and I just had to ask my mom if I could borrow money [...] potentially spending the next 50 years without stable income
Without stable income it might be more like 20 years. (I wish you personally a long and bountiful life!)
I'm in a similar boat. As a 3rd child in a somewhat poor family, I do not have any inheritance and actually need to help my mom financially (though it's not a burden). My wife is also from a rural area and her inheritance is barely worth 5 (hypothetical) figures. We never got or will get anything given to us for free. We are in our 40s and we completely gave up on having children (though it was not overall a financially-motivated choice) or property (this one certainly is). Live day to day while I can work, and die without regrets when I cannot anymore. Thanks to AI that happens probably sooner than later.