cosecantphi

RIP to my old Minecraft world from 2019 on this 2.5 inch HDD I now use as a mirror for shaving

(Initially posted in c/drugs but thought it would get more engagement here)

I was thinking about the way cannabis is increasingly legal in the US, and I'm starting to see it as a symptom of balkanization in this country that might start to become the model for the legalization of other drugs.

To explain: In most places in the US it is either legal or de facto legal despite the fact that until this year it was federally considered a schedule I controlled substance alongside Heroin, LSD, and many other widely known recreational drugs. For decades the federal government considered cannabis to be wholly unsuitable for all medical use and too dangerous for scientists to even research. They dedicated vast resources into destroying cannabis farms and putting cannabis users, dealers, and growers into prison. It was in a legal category more severe than fentanyl and many of its analogues.

Without even changing those laws, we got to a place where most states decided to just hand out licenses to businesses to grow and sell it, and allow anyone over the age of 21 to buy it.

I think the research chemical scene has by now made it clear that recreational drugs are not a finite group. New drugs are invented all the time. In the same way, new plants containing psychoactive compounds are either discovered or popularized all the time. They do not necessarily start their lives in the public consciousness with stigma, and they can be just as benign or deadly, euphoric or dysphoric, sedating or stimulating, psychedelic or inebriating as any classic, widely known drug.

The way the federal government categorized drugs and the way the DEA enforced drug law was never rational when you approach it from the goal of reducing the harm drugs cause socially. In actuality it was always about maintaining a legal and socially acceptable avenue for continuing this country's legacy of racism and slavery.

What this means is that which new drugs are to be banned, which are to be ignored, and which are to be accepted is an entirely local matter determined by which marginalized communities can be connected to each drug for purpose of stigmatization. With increasing social disunity across the states, we might begin to see certain drugs became wide spread and tolerated in certain states but treated with extreme hostility elsewhere. A situation like this would paralyze the ability of the DEA to gain enough cooperation from local law enforcement to curtail production and distribution, leading to decrease in stigmatization and eventually the relaxation in attitudes even in places where the stigmatization began.

About a month ago I got ghosted by my first real job just a couple months in, and it happened at a real inconvenient stage in my life. I didn't qualify for unemployment, so I was just kinda fucked and had to deal with it entirely on my own. I did manage to save some money during those two months, but now I'm running out and finding another job has been more challenging than I thought it would be.

My mother works at a grocery store, and she told me she'd talk to her manager about getting me hired there too. Couple dollars more than local min wage, night stocking shelves, which I actually enjoy doing so long as I'm not pushed into working at a ridiculous pace. So she set me up with an interview with her manager, and here's where I find out it's a temporary position opening up because her union is about to go on strike. The manager is telling me I might have to cross a picket line. My own mother set me up to scab at her workplace, and she didn't tell me.

Needless to say, I felt betrayed. She also feels betrayed at me for not taking the job. Lots of feelings of betrayal going around. So I'm back at square one, running out of money.

I need help paying for my Buprenorphine prescription this month and the next, and have no where to turn right now but Hexbear. It's 60 dollars with GoodRX, so I need to raise $120. I saw some other comrades in bad situations have actually been receiving judgement free aid here, and that's honestly fucking amazing.

If any comrade in a better position can help, here's my cashapp details: (removed payment link as per new rules) EDIT: I now have a Venmo account set up. (removed payment link as per new rules)

EDIT2: So far you've all raised $70! That's very helpful, I appreciate it so much. Just need another $50. EDIT3: Total donations at $90, only 30 more to go!

EDIT4: Thanks to all of you I've now hit my goal of $120. It'll be so nice for my mental health to not have to worry about this stuff for a little while. I want you all to know I appreciate this so much, and I hope to pay it forward when my situation becomes stable.

EDIT5: Removed payment links as per new rules.

For purpose of discussion, assume that due to bad luck, this asteroid has evaded the detection of all amateur and professional astronomers until about six months from impact. The asteroid is too large to deflect with humanity's current spacefaring capabilities, and the general scientific consensus is that the impact will end all multicellular life on Earth.

What do those six months look like?

I started a new job at a whole new grocery store a couple months ago. Got hired as a cashier a little while before the grand opening, but my first weeks consisted entirely of stocking all the empty shelves. Then when we opened, it was a nightmare suddenly dealing with customers for the first time but I thought I adapted fairly quickly.

Next two weeks my hours dropped from 30 per week to just 15, but my boss went out of their way to let me know I'd be getting more hours next week, so I wasn't worried and considered it a fluke.

Of course the next schedule came out, and surprise: 0 hours for the entire week. Then my manager and boss both blatantly ignored all my attempts to talk about this on the stupid ass app we use for communication.

This happened to about 10 other coworkers too, and it clicked for me. It was just a fucking bait and switch to get some extra manual labor to get the store open sooner. Lure us in with promise of a long term job, and then throw us out like trash two months later when they're done with us.

Please, we need some more excuses for the lack of terror.

I can't get paid for shitting on company time since I never really need to shit at work, but I'll be damned if I don't kill the same amount of time while on the clock. Thank god restroom breaks are mandated by OSHA and they don't count toward our normal 10 minute paid breaks. Over the course of an 8 hour shift, I try to spend at least 30 minutes total in the restroom.

I step out of Hexbear and into another instance for once and immediately get this shit lmao

I was letting off some steam about how sick and tired I am about working a shit job to make some asshole rich, and I made an off hand remark about how my employer probably belongs in a gulag. Further down the reply chain, this lemmitor asshole shows up to send me a whole tirade full of faux concern, breaking out the psychoanalysis to say I'm just an extremist full of unjustified hatred because I must be a bitter loser. Somehow they come up with this nuclear hot take comparing my anger at the capitalist class to a Christian fundamentalist hating gay people.

But the fucking cherry on the top here is sending me this comment as their very first interaction with me and proceeding to instantly block me to deny me the chance to reply at all. I've seen others use the block feature as a means of getting the last word in, but never to get both the first and last word in at the same time. And in the end, this self-unaware lib ends up calling me the overly self righteous one. Perfect.

Tbh, what gets me is that they were so fucking close to getting it. They almost came to an accurate understanding of the fact that my material conditions as a poor person getting fucked over day in and day out by my employer stealing my labor will heavily inform my politics. But of course they never quite reach that point, instead bizarrely veering off into psychologizing me, and acting like this is all just some sort of character flaw on my part.

Rule one: https://hexbear.net/comment/4738025

Four light years may seem like an unfathomably long distance, but in comparison to the size of our galaxy, it's practically right next door. In fact, it's close enough that the Alpha Centauri system has nearly the same constellations as we do, just subtly warped due to the relatively small parallax factor.

The only caveat is that they're missing the brightest star in Centaurus, having traded it for an additional bright star in Cassiopeia on the opposite side of the sky. The Sun's stellar magnitude is 0.5 from that distance, that's about as bright as Betelgeuse in Orion.

I don't think we'll ever be so lucky that our closest star system just happens to contain a planet with alien life on it. That said, it's so surreal to think about even just the possibility of a life harboring planet orbiting Proxima Centauri. I'm imagining those creatures looking at the Sun in their night sky and wondering themselves about the existence of neighboring aliens.

(To clarify, Alpha Centauri is actually a triple star system close enough together to look like a single star to the naked eye. Alpha Centauri A and B are both sun-like stars with a roughly similar mass and brightness. Proxima Centauri is the nearest of the three, and it's a red dwarf with confirmed planets.)

Disclaimer: As far as I know, I'm not going to die soon. I'm asking this question in case that changes someday.

So I was just thinking about this and thought it might be a good idea to leave your family some money while fucking over the bank on your way out. The creditors would go after your worthless estate only to find the recently purchased assets are missing, but you're already dead and can't be charged with fraud. And if you do some decent opsec, they can't implicate your family either.

I assume without laundering the money, your family would not be able to use it on anything big. And your available credit wouldn't be enough to make a massive quality of life improvement for your loved ones. But even if they only spend it on groceries and hobbies for a few years, it would make a nice goodbye gift.

Am I missing anything that makes this a horrible or unacceptably risky idea?

Recent example is Intel dropping the i from their CPU branding. What was an Intel Core i7 is now an "Intel Core Ultra 7". This is a bizarre choice. The i3, i5, and i7 branding is very much a household name, and they're just throwing that away.

Infinitely worse, they've also thrown out their low end Pentium and Celeron CPU branding. Now they're simply calling them all a generic "Intel Processor". What the actual fuck? People avoid Pentiums and Celerons because they're widely regarded the absolute bottom of the silicon barrel. Now instead of "don't get a Celeron, it's practically e-waste" it's going to be "don't get an INTEL PROCESSOR, it's practically e-waste". Holy shit.

A bunch of rich fucking failchildren got paid the big bucks for these ideas meanwhile I'm making min wage working infinitely harder while actually producing a non-negative surplus value for my employer to steal.