This ian't the sort of topic that I normally comment on, but today's events have been particularly disturbing, so I thought I would share what I have experienced.
I have seen two very different people that are very close to me radicalized and turned into full-blown white nationalist, violent tinfoil-hat types.
In the first case, my brother (let's call him Bill) struggled with uncontrollable anger and violent outbursts for his entire life from the getgo. I've been told that that could be linked to a near-suffocation event that happened to him during birth, though I suspect that may be neither here nor there.
Because of his behavioral issues and a terrible juvenile "corrections" system, he spent the majority of his life from the age of twelve through 25 in juvenile detention, jail, and eventually prison. He was in some of the most violent prisons in the United States, and joined a "white power" gang largely for survival. He regularly espoused the exact views detailed in the manifesto on a regular basis whenever he was out. However, after a few years out he sort of naturally came to the conclusion that his whole ideology was bullshit and abandoned it. At present, he no longer holds those views.
In case 2, a friend (who I will call Bob), had never been in trouble, never had any family trouble or any serious trauma, started spouting the exact same stuff as Bill used to. He was about 26 when this started, and it was an enormous surprise to everyone he knew. I, being extremely curious by nature and very close to Bob, spent dozens of hours trying to get to the root of what was going on with him to absolutely no avail.
The important thing with Bob is, his answer to every question about "Where are you getting that?" was a simple "I read it on 4chan/8chan and I believe it." Every. Single. Time.
I realized a couple things. First off, Bob was gone. Every conversation with him was just him repeating *chan talking points over and over again. No amount of appeals to humanity could provoke a novel thought. He kept to his points religiously, and he made it exceedingly clear that he was trying to recruit as much as he could.
Secondly, Bill had originally found himself in his situation through systematic dismantling of his humanity, whereas Bob was doing it purely for uh, internet street cred? Bill was able to face the real world after leaving prison and make his own decisions, but Bob carried something (in my opinion, specifically regarding this issue of radicalization) far more insidious around in his pocket. The approval he craved from the chans was something that had to be sated daily, which made (and continues to make) him a terrifying person to be around.
My point is that from firsthand experience with people from two very different backgrounds that I am very close to, the 4/8/whatever chans are far scarier when it comes to indoctrination than most people could believe without seeing.
TL;DR This issue is far larger and more impactful than nearly anyone would care to admit, and sites like 8chan will likely have an unpredictable and indelible impact on many, many people's lives until it is acknowledged and addressed.
^ This is a really important comment - both of these cases are perfect examples of the issues with places like 4chan and 8chan.
I find the case of Bob particularly important to recognize since people like him - people who are by every definition radicalized by violent, hateful, and destructive ideologies - often don't seem that way from the outside. They can carry out normal, successful lives while still harboring these extreme views and internalizing them very deeply.
To begin, I know that my resume is quite different from many others in this thread, so if my qualifications aren't appropriate, I'll take this down. I figured I would post here anyway because in the past I have had some truly wonderful and supportive people reach out to me from HN, so it's worth a shot.
Location: Rural Washington in the Columbia River Gorge area
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: Unable
Technologies: Email, Excel, Slack/GroupMe/Kik (messengers in general), (S)FTP/SCP, basic troubleshooting for Windows/Mac
Résumé/CV:
1 year of office management doing invoicing, customer service, payroll, etc. for a door and window installation contractor that worked with one of the largest home improvement retailers.
1 week customer service for a law firm (The business shuttered exactly one week after I was hired)
1 year doing customer service/payment processing at call centers that handled things like customer satisfaction for multiple home alarm companies, processing payments for 3 of the big 4 cellular companies, and taking orders for the majority of the largest broadband providers.
1 year of (inbound) sales for home foreclosure listings and police auto auction listings.
(Off and on) About ten years tutoring/editing/providing feedback on essays, one Masters' thesis, website copy, a (yet unpublished) book about patients' relationships with practicioners and how it impacts health outcomes, etc. Pretty much anything you can think of when it comes to written English, I've probably helped somebody improve an example of it.
(Also off and on) About 15 years of helping elderly/non-technically inclined people do basic things like troubleshoot their computers or set up simple websites for themselves.
Most recently: Did all of the copy for a southern California food delivery business, which worked quite well. I am also finishing up the copy for a more premium offering for the same business under another banner.
I am aware that my resume isn't quite spectacular because for a number of reasons, I have had many significant challenges establishing a clear career path in a corporate environment. For this reason, I am happy to accept minimum wage or thereabouts, as I suppose everyone needs to start from the bottom sometime.
Ideally, with my excellent communication skills, I am seeking work in a customer service, clerical work, copywriting role, or something in that area.
Most (maybe all?) CGMs need to be calibrated regularly with finger pricks. In fact in the case of both the Dexcom G5 (haven't known anyone on the G6) and Medtronic Guardian sensors they can occasionally sort of derp out and ask for multiple calibrations in a row for utterly mysterious reasons. I just asked and my partner says the most times she has had to test to get a Guardian sensor back to normal was seven times in two hours.
Of course this is anecdotal, but the point is that your mileage may vary.
Apparently there's a problem with the Guardian transmitter that causes the multiple calibration requests. Minimed is taking orders for free replacements: https://info.medtronicdiabetes.com/bgcheck
I switched to the Dexcom G6 though. It's amazing. I'm using it with open source closed loop pump software for iOS called Loop. There's also a Linux based solution called OpenAPS.
Dexcom 6 doesn't need to be calibrated anymore. Well, it still needs the first calibration when you insert it, but none other than that. Lasts for some 2-3 weeks before sensor needs replacing.
The Dexcom G6 system does not require any calibration, insertion is remarkably pain-free, and it lasts for 10 days. I've had it for a few months (after a couple of years of using the G5 system) and I can't imagine living without it.
By happenstance I have spent about half of my life living with people with T1D and this post echos pretty much exactly what I have heard over the past decade or two.
A lot of non-t1d folks seem to fixate on the needle/lancet parts of management because it is visceral, but have difficulty grasping the huge amount of stress and responsibility around managing time, activity, boluses, diet etc.
For example, managing stress can itself be stressful. Some people with t1d have sever anxiety, and a panic attack can trigger a cortisol dump into their bloodstream, which in turn causes a significant spike in blood sugar. I once saw a panic attack spike a person from 80mg/dl to over 400 mg/dl with no eating, no pump/infusion site failure, or incorrect basal rate.
Also, concerns about your ability to engage in sexual activity with regard to blood glucose is the furthest thing from a humble brag. It is an issue for many, many diabetics and is often a point of embarassment. Kudos for mentioning it!
Recently my partner (23yrs with t1d) and I made accounts on the twitter-like site called Beyond Type 1 which has actually been a really great community of diabetics (and diabetic-adjacent people like me) sharing
their concerns and advice and we have both loved it.
I find this post interesting. I moved out of Portland last year because I was summarily priced out of the city. By "Portland" are you including Gresham/Milwaukie/Beaverton in your estimation?
About seven years ago my friends and I got a 2bd 1.5br apartment for $775 per month in SW Portland. That same apartment is now about double that. In many of the new or renovated buildings you can see a lot of studio apartments with a price floor of $1,300 per month.
Also, little things like a beer that used to cost $2.09 now costs $4.19. What used to be a $4 sandwich is now $7.25, $1.60 tacos went up to about $3. Even prices for stuff like clothing at Goodwill went up significantly over the years that I lived in Portland.
I know this is just my personal experience (and that of my friends), but the genral trend that I saw was an enormous shift to accomodate higher income individuals and families, and an exodus of lower income people all over the place.
This was an interesting read. I guess I'll start with the response.
As has been pointed out by others, bringing up the book was a weird humblebrag. It kind of makes me think that Polly chose to answer this particular request for help because it was an opportunity to continue promoting her book, not that it somehow organically happened to fit in with her advice.
Also, it seems like a lot of the response kind of boils down to "nuh-uh!" and "cut it out!" with no shortage of affirmation-esque platitudes. From my personal experience, I have found that line of reasoning to be frustratingly valid only in retrospect for people that have already overcome the bulk of their depression/anxiety/existential dread. It's easy to be prescriptive or reductive when you have some distance from the issue that you're talking about, and that's not necessarily helpful for everybody.
Anyway, as far as Haunted's post goes, I can entirely identify with those feelings.
On my nineteenth birthday I had my house raided (and entirely destroyed) by the gang taskforce of the local pd. This was because in the middle of the night before, my house had been tagged with some gang related graffiti on the side of the house that faced the freeway. I couldn't afford to fix the place after the raid, and had no way of guaranteeing that the people that tagged the house wouldn't continue to do so.
So I had to move with only the clothes I was wearing.
At 20 I had to move overnight because a stalker broke into my mother's house (where I was staying) and tried to choke me to death. When the police arrived, I was almost arrested because the stalker had friends in the department (this individual moonlit as a kind of "high class" cocaine dealer to lawyers and a few judges in the area). Knowing he was certainly going to come back with no consequences, I moved again. This time I was able to carry my laptop and a change of clothes.
At 21, me and my then-girlfriend up and left everything that wouldn't fit in her car so that we could move in with her parents as a way to get her out of prostitution. When we got there, her parents changed their minds and we ended up selling everything including the car in order to get a ride across the state to an office building I knew we could squat in.
At 22, I was summarily kicked out of the living room that I had been crashing in because I told the guy whose house it was that I wasn't comfortable with covering for him every time he stole money from his wife to buy heroin. He kept my laptop and the bag of half my clothes out of spite.
I have since lived in much more stable circumstances, and the last two time I'ved moved, I've kept all of my stuff and relationships! For the first time in my life! That being said, it's made it difficult for me to shake the mindset of "Don't buy it or care about it if you can't take it with you given five minutes' notice." In fact, I don't know if I'll ever be entirely without that feeling rattling around in my head.
If put on the spot, I would have difficulty making a rational argument that my life hasn't been wasted. There objectively exists a number of periods of my life which I have nearly zero to show for. That being said, it's not a line of thought that I regularly entertain. That type of existential despair is simply too easy to wallow in. It's like quicksand. The idea of a ~Meaningful Life~ (and its opposite) is at once way too emotionally weighty and way too easy to mercurially define to be a useful focus for anybody, especially people that are already struggling with other issues.
As for broke, it is a tangibly anxiety-provoking and embarrassing thing. Every little setback (like schools you're applying for asking for surprise paperwork that you can't access, being "mysteriously" rejected by a school wholesale without an interview just for ASKING if they offer financial aid, not being able to afford basic resources to launch a small business, etc.) makes everything seem more and more like there is some sort of cosmic curse at play, or that the world is actually reflecting my personal worth. All I can really do is keep trying, and personally only the tiny victories help with that sort of anxiety. That's just me of course, others might respond to being broke differently.
As for "friendless", the only thing I can think to say to someone who makes that claim is "Are you sure about that?" I recently moved to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere and have yet to make any close friends in the area, but I still have close friends from all around the country that I talk to on a near-daily basis. Group chats are great for this. Whenever I am feeling lonely, I figure that it's on me to reach out.
The friends you"ve moved away from probably miss you as much as you miss them, and while it's not the same as hanging out in person, an extended phone call or a nice text chain full of jokes and news snippets can be a healthy reminder that you haven't just "disappeared".
Sorry this got a bit long, I might've lost and then re-found the thread of my reasoning at some point ;)
Basically, I think it's good that the original author decided to reach out and ask for help, even if the help is from an advice columnist. I would encourage anybody else struggling with these things (like I currently am) to make an effort to do the same in whatever way works for them. Asking for help when needed, and offering it when capable are two of the most satisfying and empowering things a person can do.
Also as stated by many posters, therapy from a good therapist can also be a godsend.
Anyway I'm done rambling for now. If anybody wants to have a friendly chat about depression or isolation etc., feel free to shoot me an email! I am not a professional anything, but I'm pretty friendly and a good listener!
This is really neat. The stylization of the hexagonal tile sets reminds me of a tabletop game I played years ago called Heroscape. Is there any chance that it was inspired by that?
I find the phrase "oriental philosophy" to be problematic in addition to being quite vague.
Additionally, your statement that this "oriental philosophy"(?) doesn't give "due credit" to abstractions, which seems like a very wide dismissal of an undefined subset of philosophical groups.
Then you go on to dismiss meditation as a practice as well, as an "escape from reality". I am assuming that you would agree that since abstractions and definitions are important, the term "reality" isn't well-defined within your statement.
I am curious as to what you mean in general, because it seems like you're trying to tear down some sort of philosophy that we aren't privy to without offering any meaningful alternative counterpoint.
>I find the phrase "oriental philosophy" to be problematic in addition to being quite vague. oriental philosophy
And I find your tone to be unnecessarily confrontational. People have been writing about consistent differences between Eastern and Western philosophies for at least a hundred years. Hell, there's an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to Eastern philosophy[1]. I'm curious as to what exactly you find "problematic" about GP's post.
Though I strongly disagree with the overall sentiment here, as well as some of your specific statements, your post touches on some interesting points.
In an earlier post, I mentioned a very, very small group of people that I have met that were almost mystifyingly homeless despite them having very few limiting factors that regularly contribute to homelessness.
The one thing they all had in common was that they stayed in places that didn't have harsh winters or dangerously hot summer (e.g. coastal California). I have not, however, met any person that fits that description in the Oregon/Washington deserts, Utah, Colorado, or even inland California.
In a nutshell, yes it is technically possible to sleep outside in coastal California without risking death from exposure. However, climate does not mitigate the risks posed by arrest for illegal lodging, violence from those around them (other homeless people, and others that are simply cruel), starvation, theft etc. It also does nothing to help with access to (even critical, immediate) healthcare, counseling, education or really any other factor that helps people get into a better situation.
As far as smartphones go, I agree that access to one can be life-changing to a homeless person, bt I could not disagrew more strongly with your characterization of that access making living on the street -with all the risks that that entails- as "less unattractive". To be earnest, I suppose I don't understand that point. If your landlord shows up with a police officer to forcibly remove from your home for not paying rent, the relative "unattractiveness" of what comes next for you isn't a variable that is taken into consideration. You have what you can carry, and hopefully an idea of where to walk next.
If "what you can carry" includes a smartphone, your chances of getting access to help is certainly improved dramatically, and yes, if you can find a spot that is near an open wireless AP, you might watch some Netflix. It is hardly the equivalent of living in a 3k/month apartment.
From my experience, cars and vans break down or get towed, phones break, phone plans run out of data (or in some cases, phone minutes. The poorest peole often still don't have reliable access to unlimited plans, even in 2018), you can get banned from coffee shops for making others uncomfortable by your appearance alone (people don't like to look at a person that has to carry all of their belongings with them).
I lived in a car for a while, but sold it for $300 for a train ticket to a place with fewer police. I had an eight year old laptop running an old distro of Ubuntu (without a working battery) that I traded for a weekend inside during a particularly bad cold snap. On two different occasions I have had to leave every single object I owned behind, and start over with only the clothes on my back and whatever was in my jeans' pockets.
If your point is that there is a differnce between homeless people and, as you put it, "homeless" people, then yes I agree. The biggest difference here is that of access to resources that can help bring one off the street, and whether or not perfectly healthy, capable people are making intentional decisions to reject those resources. The latter group is a genuinely fascinating anomaly, and does not reflect the reality of the problem.
Personally, I find that "move somewhere that's more desirable or manageable" to be problematic. The only reaon why I was able to leave a particular city was because I had a car to sell for tickets. If I hadn't, I simply would not have left. Even when I got there, I didn't have two nickels to rub together, so housing prices didn't really matter.
I would encourage anyone that feels this way about the homeless to do a bit more digging, or just have a conversation with a few people that are currently or were recently homeless. This particular attitude of lumping everybody under the umbrella of The Worst Examples doesn't seem to serve the goal of fixing this problem.
My point is that the word homeless has become more ambiguous than ever.
Even your post is conflating what I was describing as "homeless" for people living out of vehicles/tents as living rough on the street.
But the general vocabulary everyone uses does not distinguish between the two, it's all just homeless. And this is how we arrive at people being surprised by the quality of people they find as technically homeless.
There are many people who technically qualify as homeless who are simply not paying expensive ass rent, but living out of vehicles in desirable areas where the rent is expensive, and doing so quite comfortably and connectedly thanks largely to the smartphone.
We need a different word to describe this class of homeless people. They're more willfully homeless than the classical meaning of homeless, because their homeless option doesn't really suck as much as it used to.
I've lived out of a car quite a bit throughout the bay area, and talked to a bunch of people doing the same thing along the coast in the process. There are numerous folks living out of vans waking up to million dollar views every day without paying any rent or mortgage. They're living the dream, should we still call them homeless?
I have been homeless in very affluent cities on the California coast, including San Franscisco. I strongly disagree that having a "million dollar view" constitutes "living the dream."
If a person is at risk of assault or arrest for their inability to go indoors and has no immediate ability to remedy that, I have no issue calling that person homeless. Regardless of how one views that person's life decisions they face the same systemic issues as any other homeless person.
If your point is strictly that the language is ambiguous, perhaps it would be more appropriate to use "people that choose a vagabond lifestyle" (which is close to your original statement) over a confusing mix of "homeless" and " "homeless" " to refer to the tiny subgroup that you are referring to.
> just have a conversation with a few people that are currently or were recently homeless
A couple decades ago in San Francisco, I used to host an open mic. One of the regulars was Keith Savage, a poet who would occasionally compose and perform appreciations of the other regulars who had moved him. He was so empathic, so good at capturing what people were trying to communicate and then reworking it and responding... he gave so many people a rich reward for being brave enough to take the open mic stage.
Keith happened to be homeless, though that's not the most important or interesting thing about him... Folks, if you exclude the homeless from your life, you may be missing out...
I have seen two very different people that are very close to me radicalized and turned into full-blown white nationalist, violent tinfoil-hat types.
In the first case, my brother (let's call him Bill) struggled with uncontrollable anger and violent outbursts for his entire life from the getgo. I've been told that that could be linked to a near-suffocation event that happened to him during birth, though I suspect that may be neither here nor there.
Because of his behavioral issues and a terrible juvenile "corrections" system, he spent the majority of his life from the age of twelve through 25 in juvenile detention, jail, and eventually prison. He was in some of the most violent prisons in the United States, and joined a "white power" gang largely for survival. He regularly espoused the exact views detailed in the manifesto on a regular basis whenever he was out. However, after a few years out he sort of naturally came to the conclusion that his whole ideology was bullshit and abandoned it. At present, he no longer holds those views.
In case 2, a friend (who I will call Bob), had never been in trouble, never had any family trouble or any serious trauma, started spouting the exact same stuff as Bill used to. He was about 26 when this started, and it was an enormous surprise to everyone he knew. I, being extremely curious by nature and very close to Bob, spent dozens of hours trying to get to the root of what was going on with him to absolutely no avail.
The important thing with Bob is, his answer to every question about "Where are you getting that?" was a simple "I read it on 4chan/8chan and I believe it." Every. Single. Time.
I realized a couple things. First off, Bob was gone. Every conversation with him was just him repeating *chan talking points over and over again. No amount of appeals to humanity could provoke a novel thought. He kept to his points religiously, and he made it exceedingly clear that he was trying to recruit as much as he could.
Secondly, Bill had originally found himself in his situation through systematic dismantling of his humanity, whereas Bob was doing it purely for uh, internet street cred? Bill was able to face the real world after leaving prison and make his own decisions, but Bob carried something (in my opinion, specifically regarding this issue of radicalization) far more insidious around in his pocket. The approval he craved from the chans was something that had to be sated daily, which made (and continues to make) him a terrifying person to be around.
My point is that from firsthand experience with people from two very different backgrounds that I am very close to, the 4/8/whatever chans are far scarier when it comes to indoctrination than most people could believe without seeing.
TL;DR This issue is far larger and more impactful than nearly anyone would care to admit, and sites like 8chan will likely have an unpredictable and indelible impact on many, many people's lives until it is acknowledged and addressed.