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blunt posted:The only way restaurants are staying afloat at the moment is through delivery apps like postmates and doordash. e: is 5 is a collection of poetry by e e cummings, no relation. Albinator fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Jun 2, 2020 |
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Jun 2, 2020 03:11
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Reforming the US police would be a massive undertaking but I mean, it's not like the country lacks for resources, whether money, materiel, or manpower. This is after all the country that was able to set up places like Willow Run in WW2, and we've had most of a century of technological and management advances since then, the money is there, the people could be found, the systems could be implemented, if someone in power wanted to do it. Really we're talking about a much broader set of changes than just the police, but assuming we're limited pretty much to just them, my own list would be something like; 1a) Demilitarize the police. Regular cops are not armed as a matter of course. Maybe (given America's major problem with gun violence) if it can be demonstrated that there's a pressing need in a given area (e.g. particularly high rates of armed robberies), a small proportion of squad cars may have a shotgun in the trunk, but said cars are manned by cops who undertake major extra and special training, and activate all kinds of additional recording things etc. if said gun is taken out. 1b) Specialist firearms units along the lines of the UK's, where they can have actual heavy gear, armored vehicles, etc., but the training they get has to be truly spectacular, must be kept regularly refreshed and updated, and with a very strict and clearly outlined set of rules on when and how these forces may be activated. i.e. if there's a terrorist attack or active shooting going down, they're called in. If there's someone claimed to have drugs, they're not. 2) A top-to-bottom overhaul in police culture. Root out the whole notion that they are some kind of embattled thin blue line that stands between an anarchic, violent public and order. Police must be a part of the community they operate in (Exceptions may need to exist for very specialized work, but certainly beat cops and the like should as much as possible live in the areas they patrol and so forth). De-escalation of tense situations should be held up as the highest thing for a cop to aspire to. There should be universal acceptance among the public and police that if you're going to give someone police powers, they must be held to a higher standard than the public. Even fascist dystopian hellscape Judge Dredd has that as an important part of their Judges, and a corrupt Judge is explicitly treated far more severely than a citizen committing the same crime. If Mega City One can manage that kind of principle then we should be able to as well. No more acceptance of excuses about it being a "dangerous" or "stressful" job, many jobs are worse and are neither given as causes of malfeasance nor accepted as causes of it. Police today are obsessed with "respect" without comprehending what respect is, and substituing fearful obedience for it. We should have police who have a real understanding of respect, and who possess it because they have, individually and institutionally, earned respect - knowing that you can go to them for help without fear of being mistreated yourself, and knowing that if you attract the attention of the police your interactions will be professional, evenhanded, and genuinely not dangerous for you unless you really are the one who starts trouble, regardless of your race. 3) A complete overhaul in training to support the other objectives. It should be a much, much longer course. Flip the psychological screening around so that people who are inclined towards peaceable resolutions are encouraged to join, not barred, and petty fascists are the ones who can't get in. Probably get rid of intelligence tests entirely because there's no way those are trustworthy or useful anyway. It should include extensive study of at least a fairly broad selection of relevant laws, as well as police regulations on how to operate. Ultimately reconfigure the idea of what the police are for, what justice itself is, and what constitutes the successful enhancement of said justice. 4) Pair police up, if not on a per-unit basis at least on a per-precinct one, with social workers, psychologists, and so on. They should be involved as much as possible to help calm situations, to be able to direct people in distress to resources that can help them, and follow up on cases that may not have warranted an arrest to see how things are going the next day, two days, week, whatever. 5) Police should always have local community oversight and involvement. A council, oversight committee, whatever it might be, formed of people from the community a given precinct handles, with appropriate balances that represent the local population demographically. (The constitution of the police force itself should similarly reflect the makeup.) I'm not smart enough to outlay what kinds of actual powers they should have but they should at the very least be able to set an investigation in motion if wrongdoing is alleged. In a perfect world, it should be entirely possible for someone who has committed a more minor offense to go to their local cop, talk about what went down, and get help to sort things out in a productive way - sort of like a light side parallel to the way a middle class white kids will get "boys will be boys" or "he comes from a good family" or the like. All of this can also be tied together with exactly the kind of feel-good stuff both police and shitlibs love, as long as you're careful to avoid indoctrination or anything, but enhancing cops and regular folks getting to know each other personally. I'd suggest such oversight councils should probably also have a role to play in sentencing, at the least being able to make suggestions, things like "If the guilty is willing to do X amount of community service in our community, and to attend anger management classes, we'd recommend that over a prison sentence". 6) Crimes need to be thoroughly reviewed and reformed as well. Both in terms of what constitutes a crime, how a cop handles a crime, and sentencing guidelines (We'll take as read that reforms to what prison is should be included as part of all this). Obviously laws intended as racial cudgels need to go, things like similar drugs being handled differently depending on whether they're predominantly used by white or black people, sentencing being vastly different for white and black people, and so on. When something is still a crime there needs to be some sense in how it's handled. If some kids are raking about doing a vandalism then we can probably have useful structures outside of taking them through the courts to help - see point 4. 7) Where someone is harmed as a result of crime then we should pursue the best known techniques for helping them recover and heal. This might be fairly simple - a general fund to help compensate people who are victims of thefts or vandalism for instance - but my understanding is that resorative justice is currently well-regarded and considered more effective than most alternatives, so that kind of thing should be pursued (And we should always keep an eye out for ways to either make this more effective and alternatives that might be better still). 8) Abolition of nakedly exploitative things like asset siezure, using fines simply to augment the department's bottom line, etc. etc.. Immediately release from prison of people who are there on things like non-violent drugs charges and end the war of drugs completely. Immediate cessation of the death penalty, both because it's immoral in its own right, but also because of racial biases, corruption, and the fact that America does actually have a very lengthy and serious process of investigation and reviews and appeals and still gets it wrong so often. 9) To achieve all this we almost certainly need to undertake a massive overhaul in current police employment and stuff, which is largely going to be best achieved by the bitter pill of doing what jabby suggests and something that has been done elsewhere, and simply let go anyone who doesn't want to be part of the changes with good pensions. As I say, a bitter pill, but probably a necessary one. Of course, what might have been an element of reform that left nobody truly happy but was an "I can live with it" compromise is probably completely out of the window after the last few days, like so many other potential measures. On the other hand justice demands we do something about historical abuses, so there has to be a line that's walked between which cops are investigated/prosecuted/etc. and which are allowed to pass by for reasons of pure pragmatism. I'm not a victim so it's very much not for me to say where that line is, but certainly historic cases involving deaths and serious violence, as well as framing and corruption, need to be investigated, probably some sort of Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 9b) Overhaul Internal Affairs departments so that they're empowered, well-funded, and extensive, and both willing and able to follow leads wherever necessary. Part of changing police culture needs to be making sure IA is welcomed in any department and that cops who are crooked or violent or the like being rooted out is seen as a good thing. Rather than the trope of IA being a bunch of assholes getting in the way of "real" police work. 10) Changes to trials themselves would also be good. I don't know enough to say exactly what would be needed, but something that accounts for how notoriously inaccurate eyewitness testimony is even when people of completely good faith and honesty give it would be a good start. I'm not a big fan of the adversarial system per se, but I do think everyone accused of a crime should absolutely have someone whose job it is to fight their corner. That OTOH runs into problems of "He's a good kid with a bright future he just got a little over-excited" and idk how to balance that, but finding a way to would be important and productive imo. Similarly we need to do something about character assassinations, rape trials being the most obvious problem here but really throughout. 11) Cops should, if they're actually in good standing and behaving themselves properly and conducting themselves well, be paid fairly generously and with benefits and pensions and stuff. Partly because everyone should, but also partly because A) We want to attract and retain people who are actually good for the job, and B) It'll probably help somewhat to reduce stresses and the allure of corruption if police aren't worrying about paying the bills and so on. Of course all of this would be made massively easier by other changes throughout society. As an obvious example, there are myriad ways we can reduce domestic abuse (quite aside from the police being such avid practitioners of it) that don't even require most or any of the above, things like empowering women and ensuring women have authority and autonomy over things like pregnancy, creating a culture that reduces toxic masculinity, etc.. Providing for your population in terms of housing and welfare logically reduces their desperation and thus crime. Creating real communities instead of the busted situation capitalism itself has created would help reduce alienation and thus both reduce people's willingness to commit crime while also increasing their support networks and, again, reducing desperation. Well that turned into an effortpost, and I obviously lied about not wanting to tell others what police reform should look like. It's just some thoughts really. And obviously it's a pretty massive list that would entail extensive, long-term, expensive work to pursue. It would certainly not be easy, but I do believe that with political will it would have been possible to do it. Bernie, certainly, might have had a real shot at leading reforms on this scale, and if there was genuine political leadership in America it could have been pushed forward as at least a general principle to pursue in the last few days. Pretending my list is a good one, imagine if Biden had put out something like this alongside credible, believable statements about his intention to pursue it should he become President - it could immediately have become both a focal point for how to proceed, have helped calm the situation by promising a real alternative that could be started in January, have created a dramatic boost to his campaign that brought in huge donations and volunteer efforts and support, and so on. All the people on the streets the last week would have a place to channel their energy and anger, with a real goal in sight. Instead, we got "Shoot them in the legs", and as my friend Karen said earlier, "I don't know why I expected anything better of a man who can only shoot himself in the foot". Of course, there are plenty of structural reasons Biden and most of the Dems aren't all aboard such a thing, but it could have been pursued as a credible policy platform, is my point, and probably one that made political hay. Ms Adequate fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Jun 2, 2020 |
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Jun 2, 2020 03:59
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Ms Adequate posted:6) Crimes need to be thoroughly reviewed and reformed as well. Both in terms of what constitutes a crime, how a cop handles a crime, and sentencing guidelines (We'll take as read that reforms to what prison is should be included as part of all this). Obviously laws intended as racial cudgels need to go, things like similar drugs being handled differently depending on whether they're predominantly used by white or black people, sentencing being vastly different for white and black people, and so on. When something is still a crime there needs to be some sense in how it's handled. If some kids are raking about doing a vandalism then we can probably have useful structures outside of taking them through the courts to help - see point 4. There's an interesting story from that "Beau of the Fifth Column" youtuber about how a veteran friend of his with PTSD was being hassled for handing out food post-Katrina, and apparently came seconds away from pulling a gun and shooting the cop threatening to arrest him. Cop was only saved because he decided it wasn't worth his time and wandered off. Could be a bullshit story, but I agree with his conclusion that trying to enforce obviously unjust or pointless laws leads to a lot of preventable violence, and cops need to avoid those situations. Side note, his other conclusion which I really liked the phrasing of was: "Do-gooders, at this current time, are doing good out of anger. Don't mess with them." Definitely rings true for me.
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Jun 2, 2020 04:45
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jabby posted:There's an interesting story from that "Beau of the Fifth Column" youtuber about how a veteran friend of his with PTSD was being hassled for handing out food post-Katrina, and apparently came seconds away from pulling a gun and shooting the cop threatening to arrest him. Cop was only saved because he decided it wasn't worth his time and wandered off. That's a really good line yeah, and definitely cops would be safer if they weren't doing bad poo poo that pissed people off. Reforms should probably involve something about police having a conscience and being encouraged to act on it, refusing to enforce unjust laws and the like.
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Jun 2, 2020 04:52
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I think that might have a chance in the UK with the right government in charge. In the US the issue is that most of this cuts right across why the police was established, and funded, and decentralised. In certain respects part of the problem is policing tailored to a local communities needs, as the local community electing the local sheriff is racist as gently caress. Btw, I can recommend the Netflix series 13TH. a well put together historical documentary about the broken justice system in the US and its roots.
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Jun 2, 2020 05:11
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https://twitter.com/KishWidyaratna/status/1267582227396861954
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Jun 2, 2020 07:18
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yes, I'm sure burying a report into how you've been knowingly endangering ethnic minorities is a great way to avoid stoking racial tensions e: like this is such an obviously stupid move that I'm surprised even they're incompetent enough to make it. to the point that I'm wondering if they actually want to make people angry for some reason? XMNN fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Jun 2, 2020 |
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Jun 2, 2020 07:50
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spontaneous and energetic grass-roots Herd Immunity parties masequerading as angry protesters
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Jun 2, 2020 08:12
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Yeah there's no way that this looks good, because anyone with an interest in reading it (and even those that weren't until it was suppressed) are going to assume that it says the worst thing possible. Deliberate botched handling of information by Reagan (and a dose of Soviet propaganda capitalizing on that misstep) is why there's a bunch of people who think that Reagan instructed Robert Gallo to invent HIV as an ethnic cleansing program, so going against transparency during an epidemic is a very harmful move.
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Jun 2, 2020 08:15
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How has this not been leaked already
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Jun 2, 2020 08:31
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Ms Adequate posted:Of course, there are plenty of structural reasons Biden and most of the Dems aren't all aboard such a thing, but it could have been pursued as a credible policy platform, is my point, and probably one that made political hay. Ending the drug war is one that they could, and should do asap. That's something that should always have been done on a healthcare model. Actually running healthcare reform would be another good one to try, and ending the qualified immunity doctrines that turns police from "only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen" into supercitizens is one that's actually being tried at the moment. https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1267267244029083648 Other than that, the USAs best options all seem to come from organic bottom-up movements or municipal level violence reduction units, community courts, and peace patrols, or at best at the state level deciding not to route actually-its-not-a-tanks from Raytheon to village PDs.
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Jun 2, 2020 08:36
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Seems like overnight the US protests have escalated to people shooting at cops and ramming police lines with cars. Also Trump had riot police attack a bunch of protesters so he could go do a photo op at a church. Yikes.
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Jun 2, 2020 08:42
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Dunno if I'd really call that escalation given police have been shooting people's eyes out op
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Jun 2, 2020 08:50
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Saros posted:Seems like overnight the US protests have escalated to people shooting at cops and ramming police lines with cars. Also Trump had riot police attack a bunch of protesters so he could go do a photo op at a church. Yikes. I'm probably just cynical as gently caress at this point but I reckon this is all probably playing in trump's favour now.
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Jun 2, 2020 08:51
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Saros posted:Seems like overnight the US protests have escalated to people shooting at cops and ramming police lines with cars. Also Trump had riot police attack a bunch of protesters so he could go do a photo op at a church. Yikes. He also gassed the priest of the church in the process. Probably inadvertently, but I doubt Trump gave it much thought either way.
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Jun 2, 2020 08:52
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Jippa posted:I'm probably just cynical as gently caress at this point but I reckon this is all probably playing in trump's favour now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o861Ka9TtT4
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Jun 2, 2020 08:54
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Who is shooting the cops though? Because a lot of this seems like tactics discussed by James Mason/SIEGE, William Pierce, and Atomwaffen Division for accelerating the decline of modern society. "Shoot cops during a peaceful protest to turn it into a massacre" is a tactic discussed by all three.
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Jun 2, 2020 08:57
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Jippa posted:I'm probably just cynical as gently caress at this point but I reckon this is all probably playing in trump's favour now. I dunno, I feel like at this point whether it's protesters being shot in the face, looting, fires, or police being killed most people probably just chalk it up under "general scary chaos". I don't think any of it plays well for him.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:02
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You know I joked about it yesterday but is anyone else finding their mental state eroding over the past few months? The combination of no meaningful work and no real incentive to leave the house, leaving me to just consume the internet like a loving baleen whale, has chopped my attention span to basically zero. I've not read a book in weeks - just can't concentrate, I forget the preceding paragraph before I even start the next. Television is just a background noise, if I sit down to try and watch something I instantly pull my phone out and start scrolling. There's a stack of unfinished personal projects, from minor DIY to a novel, staring at me but nope, just gotta quickly refresh Twitter. The last thing of any note I completed was that post about the BT Tower *and I had to check my drafts folder to remember what I posted about*. Now you could advance the theory that the last few weeks have had Happenings at such a fever pitch that it's not surprising that I've ended up in this state but I don't really feel anything about any of it. Murders, mayhem and Jimmy Bollock suddenly coming out on the side of BLM get the same level of shock from me as an own goal from 90s lower-league football. I'd worry about boomer brain, but it's somehow even worse, as I can't even be arsed posting (or even forwarding) for the most part. It feels more like an eating disorder, I just have to keep shoveling it in without any actual enjoyment or disgust or even acknowledgement. I'm exaggerating this all a little bit, but I sort of walked in on myself yesterday with those posts about the police when I re-read them, because they're a pretty incoherent mess when the ideas in my mind were fairly sharp and well-defined, and it's given me the mental equivalent of a toothache that I can't stop prodding, and as I've always said I find just writing this sort of stuff out to be pretty strongly therapeutic on its own. I'm now off for a long walk to get some dog treats - not because I need them, this idiot creature has more food in the house than I do - but because actually having a project to complete and completing it will do my brain and body far more good than wearing my scroll wheel another couple of mms ever will.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:04
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It's not just you. I've been in awful mental health*, just tired all the time, sad, unmotivated, stressed, crying a lot, my girlfriend (who doesn't normally have mental health issues) isn't far off, I've heard similar stuff from loads of other people. Seems like the kind of thing that would probably be normal in these kinds of situation if these kinds of situations were themselves halfway normal. Be kind to yourself is about all you can do. *which normally correlates with bad posting, so, uh, sorry, probably (e: for me, not twisto, who's been posting as insightfully as ever imo) Borrovan fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Jun 2, 2020 |
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Jun 2, 2020 09:16
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Borrovan posted:It's not just you. I've been in awful mental health*, just tired all the time, sad, unmotivated, stressed, crying a lot, my girlfriend (who doesn't normally have mental health issues) isn't far off, I've heard similar stuff from loads of other people. Seems like the kind of thing that would probably be normal in these kinds of situation if these kinds of situations were themselves halfway normal. Be kind to yourself is about all you can do. I realised just before I set off that at least in my case it's that sneaky fucker depression creeping in with a fake moustache and a slightly different set of symptoms. Of course this realisation let me to come back and  but it's a start.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:20
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Yeah I think people's mental health will have plummeted across the board. I'm wfh but have no motivation to do much of anything, and my sleep is completely and utterly hosed. The lockdown on its own is enough to get me down but with everything else going on it's just... gently caress. I've seen my family twice since the beginning of March - both times for funerals. It's very difficult to be positive about much of anything.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:22
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Guavanaut posted:Who is shooting the cops though? Because a lot of this seems like tactics discussed by James Mason/SIEGE, William Pierce, and Atomwaffen Division for accelerating the decline of modern society. "Shoot cops during a peaceful protest to turn it into a massacre" is a tactic discussed by all three. I think you just answered your own question, though. The militarisation of America's police is a response to the militarisation of American society in general. So long as there are all those assault rifles in circulation, disarming the cops is a pipe dream. You're literally talking about setting up the plot of Robocop - underequipped officers sent into a meat grinder of criminals with military grade weapons. If you want to demilitarise the cops, you first have to institute gun control. And that ain't gonna happen, because both parties enjoy having that heavily armed police force way too much.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:23
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Yeah I'm with you twisto
Bobstar fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Aug 12, 2020 |
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Jun 2, 2020 09:24
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This being available for free seems relevant to current police discussion https://www.versobooks.com/books/2817-the-end-of-policing
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Jun 2, 2020 09:28
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Yeah my brain is also kind of goo. I thought (not to sound like a bootlicker) being back at work might help because at least if I'm pootling around in my little forklift I'm not thinking about bad poo poo all the time but I'm still just generally on another loving planet. Not to get too e/n but I was very unwell for a few years in my teens and it's scary being in a similar sort of headspace again but one upside of it is I know it isn't necessarily permanent. It sucks being in a brain fog but it is a lot less scary knowing "oh brains just loving do that when they're overloaded" and not "my brain is now permanently hosed". Gently pushing yourself to go and do Something Else and finish it is pretty much the best option yeah, especially if it's something offline. I've got a lot of plants so often if I can't think of anything else to do I'll go check if they need cutting back or dusting or anything, then that's usually had me away from Scrolling long enough that I can think of doing something wild like reading a book.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:30
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Cool to see a former? Labour MP working with someone who pushed a neo nazi conspiracy theory about labour https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1267706344175554561?s=19
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Jun 2, 2020 09:37
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Definitely feeling you guys on the mental health front. I've been at work throughout this so I don't have the isolation and boredom to cope with, but it's replaced by constant nagging terror of infection and crushingly depressing experiences with patients. I've always been a pretty cheerful guy at work, my mental defences definitely err towards "too detached" rather than "too involved". But the last few weeks I sit down sometimes and this wave of sadness comes over me. Trying to motivate myself to do anything outside of work other than stare at the TV had been hard. There is some comfort in knowing I'm not alone though, I see it in my colleagues as well as you guys. I think it's everywhere. A nurse in the Goon Doctor said a quarter of her ICU is now filled with suicide attempts  We will make it through though. And if any of you are feeling really bad please reach out to someone.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:37
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https://twitter.com/PopulismExpert/status/1267730581904908289?s=19
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Jun 2, 2020 09:38
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I'm actually doing quite well on the mental health front, although I guess I'm being buoyed up by my antidepressants :v I'm quite comfortable staying at home, working from home, playing videogames, working on art projects and knitting a lot. Getting a bit bored of having to watch the lovely weather go past from my balcony and the news is an unrelenting source of horror but for me personally it could be a lot worse. My husband isn't dealing so well, unfortunately. He's been very up and down. I'm glad I'm here to talk to him when he's feeling low.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:43
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not sure going back to work has massively improved my mental health, seeing as I have to see all the people I hate face to face again as they try to murder me via their own stupidity also their response to me saying "we need to do x, y and z to reduce the risk from covid, but the most important way of reducing the overall risk is to reduce the number of people working in close proximity in the building, because even if people follow these rules, which they won't, they still don't eliminate the risk" in a big long email was to say "cool, let's do that" and then immediately say everyone needs to be back in the building, because they're stupid selfish cunts so now I'm doing as little work as possible, applying for jobs/PhDs and doing on Duolingo on company time (and posting too obv) 
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Jun 2, 2020 09:43
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It's not? Our police aren't as racist and aggressive towards black people as American police are, but that's a low bar. We can have many issues with racism in the police and them come from a very different place than in the US.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:48
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Yeah, I think the pandemic (or more accurately the isolation & lockdown) has been really bad for the general mental well being. People just don't have the ready access to their normal support networks, they can't just hug a friend, all these little basic things you can take for granted. Fortunately for me I'm exceedingly comfortable with my own company so I've been well equipped for the long hours alone. I'm learning Russian with Duolingo, I'm reading so drat many old comic books, I'm slowly savouring Yakuza 4 now I finished 3. I haven't run out of my SSRIs which helps me enormously. But I have noticed others struggling with it all and as much as I personally think we need to keep the lockdown in place for longer I'm also worried about how most people would react to that, or to a 2nd wave of Covid-19 that leads to a tightening of restrictions.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:51
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https://twitter.com/CareQualityComm/status/1267719896609304582?s=20
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Jun 2, 2020 09:52
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True goon murderheads should feel very at home with long-term isolation.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:52
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My mental health is often fragile but yes, my brain is also slowly turning to goo at the moment. I'm not helping myself because I recognise that going back to work would help, but I'm also terrified of it. I've been crying a lot, but that's not especially new! In a way this furlough has been what I wanted, a long break with no obligations, although not being able to leave the house isn't ideal as I have hobbies. But I'm surprised that the obligations didn't really go away, my brain checks in on them constantly, wondering when I will be held to them again. So even on a day with nothing to do, my body is full of dread. The sheer and steadily increasing insanity of the world absolutely doesn't help. Like twisto I'm consuming the internet like I'm starving, I did think it was keeping me sane but really I think it's driving me crazy. The worse I feel, the less likely I am to reach out for help... as useful a trait as it sounds. Going for a hike today
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Jun 2, 2020 09:55
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goddamnedtwisto posted:You know I joked about it yesterday but is anyone else finding their mental state eroding over the past few months? The combination of no meaningful work and no real incentive to leave the house, leaving me to just consume the internet like a loving baleen whale, has chopped my attention span to basically zero. I've not read a book in weeks - just can't concentrate, I forget the preceding paragraph before I even start the next. Television is just a background noise, if I sit down to try and watch something I instantly pull my phone out and start scrolling. There's a stack of unfinished personal projects, from minor DIY to a novel, staring at me but nope, just gotta quickly refresh Twitter. The last thing of any note I completed was that post about the BT Tower *and I had to check my drafts folder to remember what I posted about*. Mine has been swinging wildly, but I was discussion with my wife just last night how honestly I'm finding it incredibly difficult to motivate for anything that isn't part of my current daily/weekly routine, and how weird and distressing it is that I've almost completely stopped reading fiction for pleasure over the last couple of years. And I'm better off than a lot of people in that my need for human contact is relatively low, but even I'm starting to get starved of conversation and socialising. I'm super fortunate to still have, and still be able to afford, weekly therapy if for no other reason that just to vent this stuff.
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Jun 2, 2020 09:57
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I'm glad I'm not the only one whose concentration is shot. I think my reading speed is about 1/4 of the usual, but forcing myself to read a couple of hours a night is giving me a much-needed break from online hellworld E: glad? *relieved
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Jun 2, 2020 09:58
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From the Ars Technica comments section (which, for a comment section, is fairly non-terrible, if a bit liberal sometimes) Antifa are the people who stormed the beaches at Normandy. From the land side.  Another mental health boost: got that fudge to look forward to!
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Jun 2, 2020 09:58
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| # ? May 20, 2024 16:27 |
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That displays a breathtaking ignorance of reality, history and English
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Jun 2, 2020 09:59
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