what if I read a ton of books every day but it’s all manga and light novels. trashy ones

when you worry about “plating”

This is a regularly done conservative tactic. Attack research because it’s frequently stupid sounding. But sometimes stupid sounding research leads to incredible things.

Sometimes you research the mating habits of red eyed tree frogs and you learn a lot for conservation efforts and stuff about the species. Conservatives love this because they can hand wave and go “who cares about this thing I personally don’t care about”

But those science nerds sometimes do stuff like researching gila venom in the 70s which eventually led to ozempic now, one of the potential major treatments for t2 diabetes, a scourge of our morbidly obese modern society. This has gigantic positive implications for public health and financial benefits

The whole point is you can’t know until you’re done what will be groundbreaking

It’s unbelievably frustrating how much of this narrative is pervasive here. I’m all over these comment replies pushing back against it and here is why: because it is defeatist bullshit. Someone with depression, who is already struggling, reads your comment and now has reason to go “oh well yeah, that’s right, it is hard and it is difficult and I might as well not bother”

Fuck that. Your metaphor is bullshit. The difference is a person living in extreme poverty can’t generally make huge differences with saving $5 a week. But someone with depression can make significant progress with small behavioral changes to build momentum in the direction they want to move towards. This is not conjecture, this is evidence based both via CBT and behavior activation theory.

Frankly I would argue pushing the narrative of “well it’s really hard so you might as well just not try” is far more damaging than what the comic outlines. The behavior in the comic is rude and disenfranchising but the behavior in some of these comments is enabling and actively works against someone potentially seeking treatment

As stated in one of my other replies what do you propose as an alternative? Let people with mental illness languish and send them good vibes? Do you also send thoughts and prayers after mass shootings?

I get where these people are

What are you suggesting? That we just leave these people alone to languish? That to me sounds unbelievably cruel. It’s just under a shitty veneer of pretending to be kind. You’re enabling someone and worsening their quality of life because you don’t want to encounter the idea of discomfort.

Im not telling people with two broken legs to walk to the doctor. I’m telling them to assess their situation and do what is within their power to do in this moment, which would likely be to call emergency services/ambulance in that metaphor

You have to own your problem to start fixing it or it will never get better. There is no changing that.

I wasn’t replying to the comic, I was replying to that person.

Regardless of that the problem is not binary issue. A problem is the people demoralizing the individual, sure, but this is a contributing factor to the individuals inaction. The individuals inaction is a problem as well and for said individual this is the worse of the 2 problems, as it is the main one they can act on. You can complain about other people being tone deaf and that is valid, those people are rude, but it’s not moving you forward

But you still have to take steps to do it or your hand will never get better. Granted it’s easier if people give you support but depending on where you are at in life that can’t necessarily be something you can count on. So you have to break it down into a manageable step and attack it at that point. If you’re having trouble getting out bed, focus on just getting out of bed. Or don’t, just call a doctor from bed and do telemedicine there if possible. Whatever works.

It sounds callous to someone that’s deep in it but the reality of the situation is that excuses won’t alleviate your situation. You have to find what you can do, if you can’t do something then it is what it is but you also have to accept that the world does not exist without consequence and you will probably have to accept the consequences of that action (people being frustrated with you for flaking, trouble at work, etc). Pursue accommodations when possible to alleviate the burden but also recognize that depression is a mix of neurochemical and behavioral components. You have a degree of control over severity of the behavioral part and it is about the choices you make with what how you spend your time

because the core concept of ubi is still keeping elitism and ultra wealthy individuals around; it’s just throwing a pittance at the lowest socioeconomic class to keep morale up and limit some of the social issues like crime caused by extreme poverty. But ultimately while some of these societal issues get alleviated you still have the very major issues of things like Elon musk accumulating enough wealth and power to influence elections and purchase modern communications platforms, political lobbying, and other issues associated with extreme classism.

He is and always was on team tech bro billionaire. He still thinks he (and they) is/are ultimately superior to most people. “Throw some money at them and they will quiet down”

There’s a Simpson’s episode about preppers where they assume the big bad thing happens and fuck off to their bunkers, stuff happens, and they eventually come back to town. When they come back everyone is happy and doing fine and Marge says something like “things were okay after the first few hours. We all worked together and made it work. It was like all the mean, angry, and resentful parts of the town had just disappeared!”