it seems pretty crazy please share your stories
Everybody has awful healthcare stories but when you're not actively dealing with it, life is pretty normal on the surface. It's all a potempkin village though. The same 40 stores just repeating themselves over and over. America isn't hell, it's purgatory.
I think you could spend a few weeks here and have a great time. It's soulless, reflexive consumption. Dopamine pathways mapped into pavement, salty linked to sweet linked to horny linked to angry. I think it you spent your existence inside a pleasure pod that squirted neurotransmitters directly into your bloated gut, that's basically America.
you could travel 1000 miles and only experience 60. I'm super cynical right now. That picture triggers a big mood and I think it's highly metaphorical.
not great, comrade, not great.
Firstly poverty is everywhere, but we don't call it poverty. we call call it laziness/criminality. Most people cannot afford to go to the doctor even with health insurance because the copay of the most basic appt is around a full days work on minimum wage (after taking hundreds per month for the privilege of having health insurance).
Society is entirely consumerist and focused on the individual. In some places, even recycling isn't common. Leftover food in restaurants or grocery stores is thrown away and explicitely ruined so that dumpster divers (the mass amounts of impoverished people) don't get free food.
Every form of community costs money here unless you are lucky enough to live somewhere that invests money in parks, which is not very many places. And you can tell its really affected how people think because we're inherently distrustful of each other (by design).
Finally, the government largely does nothing but take our money and give it to rich people or go bomb brown people with it. I live in portland and the mutual aid groups have done more for the wildfire evacuees than the government, so far. SOME local governments do get good stuff done but thats extremely rare and doesn't happen very often, and almost always watered down in some way. We have maybe 15 or so decent leftists in gov that I can think of in the whole country, the rest are neolibs that want tepid market based "solutions" or just religious fascists.
Every form of community costs money here
I feel like this gets to the heart of it, or something I dunno, like america has refined and sharpened individualism to such an extreme that everyone is in their own little bubble of misery. We're communal creatures not meant for this kind of separate competetive attitude.
exactly. And everyone feels it too, everyone feels lonely. It turns into a sick thing where you can only bond with people who paid money for the same things you do, instead of bonding the basis of like, shared community and common humanity.
Every form of community costs money here
Either that or it's very associated with religion, which can range from pretty okay group of people, to complete 100% no compromise evangelicalism and or conservatism. Generally, the more rural you go the more towards the later it tends to be.
unless you are lucky enough to live somewhere that invests money in parks
The rural 'city' I live in does have some parks, but hardly anyone goes to them. However, considering how the older people who live here always seems to give me the vibe that they really hate anyone younger than 30 that isn't married and having kids. And also how religious this city "is", like you'd run out of fingers just counting the number of churches here. It doesn't surprise me one bit how little the parks are used.
Another "perk" of that attitude is that it also extends into how the police is ran here. To put it this way, the best case scenario i'd have when pulled over by a city police is that i'm getting searched for drugs no matter what just because i'm young and male. As the joke between family goes, it takes 3 cruisers to do a traffic stop, 1 to make the stop, 1 to bring the back-up, 1 to bring the K-9, and a 4th because that cop was bored that day.
edit: To expand a little bit here, the town got wrecked by 2008. However, it somehow stayed on life support only because about 20mi north of the city, there's a truck and air freight hub there. And where I live is Hillsboro OH, which is quite a depressing little town.
fucking same. the Upperclass Progressive Liberal™ boomers i'm related to will be like "hey i'm going to be in town let's meet for lunch" no???? you're traveling through several high rate areas??? you're high risk and so is someone i live with??? the restaurant workers deserve better than that???
I will say that Athens is probably the most segregated city in the state. Everything around the university and convention centers is very wealthy, but go another block over and it might as well be a different city. The divide is really stunning, but visitors usually never see it.
I'm a remarkably privileged, cishet white male. I have advantages in America that few have, and yet there's still a story in my life that makes me say Fuck America.
I had worked two years with a psychologist on some deep-seated trauma. We were at a critical point in my therapy. My marriage was on the rocks and there were some behavioral patterns that I had that was contributing to it. I was making real progress with this therapist.
I was on my dad's insurance, and his employer decided to switch insurance plans to save money. My therapist wasn't able to be in the network for that insurance plan, which meant my treatment was full price out of pocket. I was on the hook for $100 a week, and I couldn't afford it.
I stopped therapy and began spiraling. My marriage ended a few months later, and I attempted suicide at the end of the year.
I'm better now, but seriously, fuck America.
I'm dealing with a similar surgery story soon in another country, and holy shit the health insurance/medical aid bullshit is driving me though the roof, can't even imagine how bad it must be in the land of the free
Legalizing MJ is such a no-brainer
Ah, but then how will they illegally search and harass you?
Idk what you mean by RoA? Route of access?
In regards to drugs, RoA means route of administration.
As far as vaping goes, i've had some success with just making my own liquid. I just put weed in a coffee grinder, put that in a glass jar, cover it with the glycerine i also use to mix my "normal" nicotine vaping juice, stirr and let it sit for a few weeks before i filter it off through a normal coffee filter and use the remains for a second flush that works just as well as the first. After that is done, i just eat the remaining weed mush spoonful by spoonful. I've tried other methods like doing an alcohol extraction first and i've found nothing to work as well as the simple "just pour the liquid over the ground weed" method.
I vape this liquid in a normal sub-ohm e cigarette (Geekvape Aegis mod w/ Dead Rabbit drip atomizer with two fat Wotofo Juggernaut coils clocking in around 0.2 Ohm, ran at around 75 Watts). I think it could definitely be stronger, i still smoke my bong if i want to get super fucking high, but the liquid lasts me much, much longer than weed does, it is entirely sufficient to satisfy any weed cravings i have and the taste is just the best i've ever had, it beats any smoking method i've ever tried. Just pure weed flavor, so good. When i'm visiting friends and bring my vape, they'll always ask to try it out and i've yet to see someone who isn't completely blown away by how good the vapour tastes. And the smell is completely gone after a minute, too.
but it also keeps me poor (it’s expensive, black market)
have you tried growing your own? it can be under a hundred to get setup, less depending what you have lying around and you save that from the weed you get in your first grow anyway. Doesn't take much space, like 1'x1'x4' vertical, and growing it is really really satisfying (especially if you're usually alienated from the products of your labor) - check out r/spacebuckets for some small grow setups and tips
I live in a highly populated county, with a massive wealth disparity, and it's really dissonant to observe. If I drive a couple miles in one direction, I'll see extreme wealth and opulence, a couple weeks ago I saw someone driving a $3,000,000 Bugatti Chiron. Two miles the other direction, towards the urban center, extreme poverty, homeless people everywhere, truly saddening to see.
It really messes with my head, it's like a microcosm of America. I find myself struggling to reconcile what the hell is happening here, why are we ok with this?
No one you know is doing well, you work all the time and barely make any money. Everyone is just simmering angry. No one looks at one another . Every time you drive it’s insanely dangerous. All your friends and family are awkward and uneducated
conversely, if someone you know IS doing well, they think you're insane (or whiny, or divisive) for noticing how terrible shit is on the whole
I think I saw a bit of blue sky through the smoke today but maybe it was a mirage. I could probably count on my hands the number of times I left my house since the lockdown began
The sun had been a blood red orb for like a week, so dim it almost looks like an eclipsed moon with no surface texture.
my neighbor is on vacation and im watering her plants for her, every time i finish im dying and feel my lungs collapsing because of all the smoke i breathed through (while still wearing a mask)
Damn that sucks, the smoke is slightly less bad right now because I'm up wind for the moment. My lungs are definitely feeling it though.
It got worse today. I drove to my boyfriends house yesterday which is 30m mins away and it was way better. Gotta find any excuse you can not to hurt your body
ah fuck I just did a generalized experience and not actually any stories so I'll add one here
One time my boyfriend lost his job. I was making full time minimum wage, but even with unemployment, we had to choose between paying rent on time or the other bills (credit card debt) and food. I looked into getting food stamps, but we made too much money for it.
Later, we incorrectly assumed that we wouldn't have to pay taxes for the unemployment because like... that came from our taxes and again, could barely afford to eat. One time I bought a bag of apples, misreading the price being per bag v per pound. The price ended up being like $30 for some apples and I had too much social anxiety to ask the checkout person to put it back. That accidental purchase literally fucked us for weeks. Like literally we could only afford to $5 towards gas each week and were CONSTANTLY running on empty. But thats the kind of anxiety that is normal when you're impoverished.
Anyway since we fucked up our taxes, we got audited. We ended up having to pay the tax man all the money we owned - around 2k. We did a payment plan and paid.... but missed one payment and they called our workplace to garnish our wages.
Anyway I got super lucky and have a decent paying job now and its soooooo fucking night and day what life is like now v back when I was poor (like 5 years ago...)
Oh, and other time during this same period, our kitten died and the vet appt costs like $1000. Our late was rent that month. we explained why. but we still got hit with a late fee.
I grew up in a rural area in the South in Appalachia and it was crushingly poor. My parents were both white collar professionals who worked in an urban area, so the conflict was really fucked. My hometown still had the segregated school where all the Black kids had to go where I practiced basketball in their gym. During integration, the KKK blew up part of the high school, but that was obviously well before my time. I remember one school project I had to interview older people in town and they told me all about it. My grandfather always casually used the n-word, but he also rarely talked.
The South is littered with private schools that all opened right as integration took place. No one wanted their kids to go to schools with a Black person. They're all still in operation.
Education funding in the US in general is fucked. Most funding comes from the local community instead of federally, so rich communities have better schools and higher graduation rates.
You have to drive everywhere. Even if you have a place nearby that you could theoretically walk to, you drive. I know two mothers who were killed walking because there were no sidewalks in their neighborhood. Driving is safer than walking. Never walk.
American flags are fucking everywhere, in front of homes, businesses, on cars. My next door neighbor had a fucking flagpole installed in his front yard. Every day he'd hoist that fucker up.
I moved to New York City, which is one of the least American places in the US. But don't let that fool you, it's still pretty fucking American here. We invest nothing in infrastructure. Our subway is massively underfunded despite being asked to run 24/7, and our bridges are all in desperate need of repair. New York still struggles to have its character and identity--which I think and hope it always will have--but it has been significantly theme parked for the rich. New construction in the city is all luxury condos. Coops are still affordable, but they're all starting to go up in price, and they're incredibly hard to purchase. The way a coop works is that you own part of the building rather than an individual unit, and so you have to show financials and get reviewed by the coop board. It's like a Homeowners Association on steroids, basically. But some coops are run by fairly leftist teams so that's kinda cool.
Homeowner Associations are fucked. They're like private authoritarian governments that exert massive amounts of control over your property. They're also tacitly used to keep brown people out.
Oh and I fucking hate this but white transplants in New York City are complete motherfuckers. They don't want their kids to go to public school. Or if they do they do fucked up shit like Samantha Bee and Jason Jones did.
There's a ton of racism in New York too. The NYPD is terrifying. Never run afoul a cop. They'll fuck you ten ways to Sunday before you can catch your breath. I remember once I was at a house party and they broke the law by walking straight into the house, intimidated everyone, had us turn off the music, and fucking left me shitless. Just absolutely unnecessarily belligerent motherfuckers. And this is as a white dude.
Oh and fuck me, nothing government-related is every straightforward. I struggled for days to figure out getting my unemployment benefits when I got laid off. Couldn't tell you to this day if I violated the ACA because I did or didn't have health insurance. Getting a driver's license is a baffling ordeal. Voting is confusing and convoluted. Even reentering the US is ten times worse than going through customs at any country I've flown into.
I looked at a picture of an Austrian train station today, and imagined what it would be like to live in a functioning country.
someone showed me a couple pictures from moscow's metro station a couple weeks ago and i started tearing up, no joke
