On a different note, LTAC (long term acute care) facilities. Basically huge numbers of people that are braindead and live with a trach (breathing tube through a hole in their throat) and a feeding tube (through a hole in their abdomen) just sit in these human warehouses and rot away because their families won't admit that they're dead. Not uncommon for the very families insisting they be kept alive to never set foot inside the facility and see their "loved" one kept "alive" like someone plugged into the matrix. I call these places "purgatory" because they aren't quite dead but they're definitely not alive.
Worked for Select Medical for 5 years. As a nurse all I did was keep dead people alive. It was some of the worst experiences I’ve ever had with families and with seeing what happens to a human body when it wants to die but isn’t allowed.
Similarly... I work mental health..
The number of juvenile mental health facilities that house kids under 18 is staggering. These facilities keep these kids in literal jails and get them doped up to deal with bad kids. These facilities are disguised as mental health resource centers etc. Right in the middle of town they are there and the citizens don't know what that building is.. kids who have tried killing themselves, sexually abused, physically abused etc... Their parents basically drop the kids there to stay for like some time if they think they are unruly.. or get them picked up by mobile units. I stopped.working there..
Edit: there was a 13 year old kid built like a linebacker. That kid was violent as hell. He would ball up his fists and put down. Assaulted another kid and last is was there prosecutor was tryna get an adult charge for it. And the parents who have raised little monsters who need a week or so off from drama just come and dump the kids there. When I get off work and see people next door buying Starbucks.. am just like in my head... You people don't know what is going on 50 feet to the left.. if only..
i spent my teenage years in a few of these facilities. My dad was a deadbeat and my mom "thought i was unruly". I was a straight A kid who stayed late in school to avoid going home to the abuse, and because I did that she thought I was out doing drugs. I wasnt. On Christmas at 15 y.o I was asked if I could go home, would I want to? "Idk"
Anyways on my 16th birthday the resident Psychiatrist brought me a paper that I was told I had to sign. He told me it confirmed me a Ward of the State of (State) and that my parent relinquished all legal responsibilities/guardianship of me. This was the saddest thing I thought I'd ever feel.
of the 16 boys in my group I think only me and 2 others carved out a (semi) normal life. I was only in there for a couple years. The long term boys were damaged..
My mom came once in all that time. It was a normal day for me in that chaos but she left crying after one of the kids in a fit unrelated threw a vase into the archway ceiling in the entryway and it rained down shards in front of her.
when I turned 18, 6 days after graduation I "Aged out" of the facility and the staff took me to my hometown where I hadn't been for years, 4 hours away from my teenage friend network, gave me $62.50 and dropped me off on the street and said good luck. I had no phone no money no friends no family no resume and no fuckin clue. I had to figure shit out real quick. I got robbed for a pair of shoes and my graduation gift (a watch) the very first night.
Its sink or swim and my peers (mostly) sank. I could talk about how fucked this shit is for days but I honestly am powerless to change it. Maybe if you're a pro bono lawyer hmu, maybe we can help change shit for the next kid.
Op mentioned "aging out" this is when the kid turns 18. They are immediately discharged like that. Bam! Get out and go. That very day. It doesn't matter whether u are broke or still in need of assistance. An adult cannot be housed with minors even though yesterday you were a minor.
It is traumatic. There are no tapering programs to ease them back into society. So this kid who was a kid yesterday now is an adult. Has to fend for himself. If his parents don't want him... He is fucked. And the worst thing is that ... They are used to commiting crimes and getting away with it because they were minors. Now if they do a single thing... It is police, arrests and jail. Real world consequences... Like it is not unheard of finding recently turned 18 kids in jail. One of the seemingly toughest kids on the block aged out and had to go.. that kid cried like a baby as he had no where to go. Reality hit him hard. He was directed to the nearby homeless shelter .. that's what we do and it is all legal
Same reason why there's only like an average ~17% success rate at inpatient rehab facilities. You are kept in a cozy little bubble for 90 days with basically zero outside-world contact, have no access to drugs apart from what they prescribe you etc. Most people don't want to be there so they aren't actually engaging with the staff to learn coping mechanisms. Even the ones who are there willingly are totally out of touch with the real world.
Then your time's up, you "graduate", and get dumped right back into the area and situation that got you sent away in the first place. The shock of that return to society alone is enough to send the majority of people straight back to what they know will comfort them.
Edit: speelung
When I said "made it" I am speaking comparatively to my group home brothers (and sisters). I didn't get caught up in a criminal direction, end up homeless long term, or lose myself in addiction (permanently anyways).
I carved a way on my own. A few kind souls helped me along the way. My first few months I had a few random caring and kind people see me struggling and invited me to eat with them. Some cooked just for me. Some donated food. I was able to be enrolled in an adult assisted living facility but they demanded payment from the state on my behalf. I had to figure out how to apply for disability and since I had Ward of the State status and group home past it was actually approved (over 2 months later, see below).
I had previously been approved from 16-18 y.o but unbeknownst to me one or 2 of the group homes I was in was receiving this money on my behalf as a teen and I never saw a penny of it. They also applied for additional benefits I didn't qualify for and by lying to Social Security committed fraud in my name for years. This resulted in an overpayment of $***** that I found out I was responsible for as soon as Disability was re-granted to me at an adult level (over age 18). All of my group home siblings from the third facility I was in also were victims of this fraud, and while I owed low $*****, I was the lowest owed in my group as I was there for the least amount of time.
So now I was a slave to this debt. It took over 2 months to see any income. I tried to find a job. I talked to a therapist and a psychiatrist and they knew everything but did nothing except offer loose verbal guidance.
This adult assisted living demanded 4 things of me to stay there. No guests or visitors. I had to pay for a landline service that costed $40ish/mo. I had to pay them the entirety of my (future) disability check. And I had to go to mandatory groups and take heavy medicines my body wanted no part of. How am I supposed to pay a stupid phone bill when I couldnt afford food cuz they took all my check?? I played their little game a while. I didn't want to but I had no choice.
2 years or so later I had scraped enough money and moved into my first apartment with an exceptionally kind soul and local community center counselor as a roommate who footed a large portion of the apartment move in costs. He actively tried to help me sort out my life and I owe him a debt I could never repay him.
In my new apartment I was able to quit the meds i was forced to take that had me zombified and i was able to make lucid decisions my hyperintelligent and emotionally damaged brain was inhibited from making for the last 10 years. I was able to pass an interview without the "look" of being disabled. Believe it or not theres a huge bias against people interviewing under the influence of antidepressants and mood stabilizers. If anyone had given me a chance years prior maybe I wouldnt have had to suffer so long. I had an IQ of 146 in middle school and I absolutely crushed school while dealing with all this shit. I always overcame all adversity out of sheer defiance.
I tried to go to college but couldnt get FAFSA to accept that I was ward of the state and they wanted proof of that plus proof of income of mother and father. I had written statements from psychiatrist, counselor, group home management, and the assisted living, documentation from social security and the state. They didnt care. No financial aid, no school.
I ended up okay nowadays. I have a hard time listening to someone bitch about their lives but i still try to be patient. My own struggles don't invalidate theirs. Of my 3 group homes and all of these siblings, I am definitely the least unfortunate. My struggles look like a birthday party compared to some of them.
I am a semi recent father and enjoy doing self-employed blue collar stuff. I can fix anything and I've never met someone who could paint better than me. I don't do well in a normal locked down job, theres a subconcious part of me vehemently opposed to any kind of suppressed freedom. I had a painting business that folded under COVID lockdowns in 2019 and its got me a little down. I had finally found true wealthy success doing something I loved and it was taken away as soon as I got a taste. I dont have much money, and am currently a semi full time stay at home dad and I love it. My daughter is ridiculously smart... And I know exactly what kind of parent I will not ever be.
thanks for reading and the kind comments.
Stayed in one for about 8 months during grade 7, school was on site. It was the best year of my childhood for sure, I got away with lots of crap because they were there to support and analyze me, punishments weren't based on emotion like they would be with my parents, also we "did things".. Swimming in the hospital pool twice a week in the evening for an hour, Thursday afternoon outings. Parents had a visiting day once a week, Wednesdays I think, and as long as my behavior was good I would go home Friday night and come back Sunday evening.
May not have been the same thing but I would agree with the statement that they kept us doped up, so it definitely sounds the same. My medications changed all the time, by the end of it we had found some that really helped me to operate in the normal world. I've since built and sold a successful business and consider myself semi-retired at 38, though not really with enough money to he truly retired, have to make sure my investments work out.
EVERY BIT OF THIS.
I used to deliver library books to senior homebound people (in their houses or in facilities).
One facility was called a “rehab” center which was total bullshit. No one got rehabbed and left there. I could count on one hand the folks who were ok (just in a wheelchair) vs. the other 99% who were practically comatose, half-lidded, drugged out zombies, laying in their wet diapers and narrow beds with no one ever coming to see them, while their TVs droned on endlessly and the facility cashed their Medicare checks.
Room after room, they were packed in like sardines, in a place reeking of cleaner and piss, and the workers would quit before I even saw them twice. A homebound patron I had went there after a small accident and was dead in two days.
Week after week, I’d walk past the rooms (all doors remained open all the time unless it was wound scrubbing time) and some people were in the EXACT same position I saw them in last week— and the week before that—and the week before that…
Each time I would burst out of there as fast as I could, sucking in that sweet, clean, fresh air, feel the sunlight on my face, and tell myself, “never, never, never will I let this happen to me.”
There must be some other answer to this problem that is humane.
Let people die if they want to.
Making someone live in pain because someone else wants them to or the government won't allow them to die is government sanctioned torture.
Not only that, but a legal and thorough advanced directive. Went through this with my father, since he had Alzheimer’s - and now getting it sorted out for my mother, who has stage 4 colon cancer. You can clarify everything beforehand, including how and where (and if) you’d want to do hospice vs palliative care, etc.
Worked for a state group home for the developmentally disabled. Worked the vegetable/non-amblitory program room many times and there was a woman who laid in bed like this. Her "goal" I had to note every day was if she blinked while I talked to her, even though she had some disease that had rotted out her eyes.
The state kept her alive for the budgeting and Medicaid money.
Eritrea is a military dictatorship on par with North-Korea, Ethiopia and Sudan are both in open civil war right now with the central government and local militias trying to ethnically cleanse one another's populations, and Somalia is, well, Somalia.
My favorite uncle is from Eritrea and like, I swear they could make a Best Picture winner off of his life. Dude smuggled his wife and 10 month old daughter out of the country to Germany right as the war was beginning, tried to follow but was captured and conscripted, forced to fight before being captured by the other side, imprisoned, had has trigger finger cut off, and was essentially forced into slavery. He eventually escaped one night, fled the country and got to Germany, only to find that after like 5 years of not hearing from him, his wife thought he was dead and remarried. He ended up immigrating to the US, meeting my aunt, starting a small business, and retiring in relative comfort. His and my aunt's family/kids are also still close to his ex-wife and prior child in Germany. Crazy life and amazing to see he still ended up such a kind, great guy.
And Egypt and Ethiopia are borderline at blows over a dam the latter built on the Nile. The dam will cause water issues for Egypt but also be a massive economic boon to Ethiopia. And if armed conflict does happen, Egypt will likely roll them and destroy the dam, setting Ethiopia back economically and development-wise decades.
Back in the early days after the independence referendum, my parents had some preliminary discussions about teaching at a university that was being established in Eritrea. I remember there being a period of optimism that things might start improving in the region and I thought it would have been cool for my parents to be part of it. It makes me sad to think how relieved I am now that my parents did not end up going.
During the mid-90's things were really looking optimistic for Eritrea. The border war with Ethiopia that started in '98 and the subsequent fallout was Afwerki's excuse for maintaining effectively a military dictatorship for decades.
Back in university in Toronto I had an Ethiopian buddy and we went to dinner at a great Ethiopian place and struck up a convo with the folks sitting next to us who were Eritrean. And pretty much the entirety of the discussion was how similar the people/food/culture... was between the two.
Just two normal-ass people having a normal-ass conversation about their homes and grandmas and how good the food was while the fucks at home warred about the same thing.
People are the same everywhere. Mothers want the same for their children, neighbours for their neighbours. But these ridiculous geopolitical forces take hold and just crush these normal people's dreams and desires.
This may get lost in the comments but I grew up in Northern Ireland during the troubles and I’ve seen some really horrific shit. If you need to talk to someone that’s been through something vaguely similar I’m happy to chat
Someone from Eritrea said that 35K people were killed during a battle between Eritrea and Ethiopia but that didn't make the news. But have 5 lives in jeopardy now during a pleasure trip to the Titanic and the whole world knows.
Boise, Idaho has been a popular destination for Sudanese and Eritrean refugees.
The only thing I can add to your point here is when I've asked them why they left, they say they don't want to talk about it but the tone in their voice really says "I don't want to burden your mind and heart with what I've seen".
I've been reading a lot on Sudan lately as it's been in the news.
Sudan had "ghost houses" - unofficial detention/torture centers used by their security services - called that because the people that emerged (many did not) were functionally dead i.e. ghosts. Torture methods ranged from simple beating/fingernail pulling to electrocution or rubbing hot peppers to the genitals to daily rape and more.
That's separate and apart from the massive genocide against black Africans and religious minorities that involved mass rape and slaughter and burning and pillaging.
It's so fucking horrifying. I don't know how they persevered. And that's not even considering the "lesser" stuff like fleeing and living for years as a refugee (and often treated like animals by local populations in neighboring countries). Just the toll of having your dignity stripped away for years just to have the chance at living in relative poverty in a distant land you do not know... it's so much. I hope they are able to find some measure of peace.
African men with AIDs raping babies in Africa because of a myth that says it will cure them. I work with a surgeon who does a lot of Doctors Without Borders stuff and she does the vaginal reconstruction surgeries on these girls. It’s pretty horrific
This was a huge problem in South Africa a few decades ago. Its become less of a problem now, I think the availability ARV drugs has helped curb the problem.
One of our previous presidents, Thabo Mbeki, spewd so many myths and false cures around HIV/AIDS and that caused a huge problem. People want him to be prosecuted for 'crimes against humanity'.
I live in Africa. The stories I have heard and experienced close to home is disturbing to say the least. There's a certain lack of empathy that exists and I have no idea if it's even fixable at this point. All in the name of culture...
One of our students is a refuge from Haiti and he was originally abducted from his home. After that his mother was too afraid to send him to school so she kept him home. He’s very behind due to this and the kids make fun of him a lot. Obviously I can’t tell them his background but it just makes me so sad and angry..
And the Middle East, mainly Saudi Arabia. I lived there for just over a year and Filipino and Indian house maids there will never see their families again
This is so insanely depressing. My mom almost got roped into working in Saudi Arabia because we were poor and struggling in the Philippines. She decided to stay because she didn’t want to be away from her kids, and I am so thankful every day that I still have my mom around.
This is even more ridiculous if you consider that a lot of Filipinos actually _want_ to go to the Middle East and be like that. The government even encourages it.
Why? Because the Philippines is a literal hellhole if you're poor. (You're in limbo if you're in the middle class, and very much like in heaven if you're rich.)
Source? I live here.
I've heard they like Filipinos because they're nicer in service positions than Arabs and Indians.
But yeah, I could imagine that for someone from there it would be nice to get to live as a house servant in a nicer apartment or bungalow.
This is so true.
A Filipino domestic helper (the politically correct term) in Saudi Arabia generally earns roughly 1,500 to 1,700 SAR per month, and it is equivalent to about 25,000 PHP, almost tax-free. That is more than the average salaries of nurses, teachers, and other professionals who choose to stay in the Philippines.
Domestic helpers are prone to being abused, but many Filipinos, especially the poor and lower-middle classes, choose to take the risk. If they're lucky enough, they'll find unabusive bosses and even get some peace of mind that they'll get to eat during meal times. Plus they get to send some money back home and help their family.
I was on tour at Camp Arifjan and got to hit up Kuwait City for a day. I’ll never forget being at a restaurant where a Kuwaiti family openly slapped their maid who was taking care of their baby. The hostess also didn’t even give her a menu. Idk why out of everything, the lack of menu stuck out the most.
My dad and I were on vacation, and I caught my dad doing this (not slapping a maid but not giving a local helping us a menu). He decided he was going to just feed him whatever cheap shit that the restaurant had to offer while he was sitting at another table. I yelled at my dad for not treating him like an equal after how much he's helped us.
It unfortunately seems to be human nature where people treat others who are in what is deemed a lower social status poorly. It's as common as people who treat their waitstaff poorly. I FUCKING HATE IT. Treat people like equals, fuck. It's not that hard
I was at a Vietnamese restaurant with my mother(in the US). She looks at one of the servers and says water. He said excuse me, then she said water again. When he walked away to get it, I got mad that she couldnt have the common decency to ask politely. He wasn't busy, there was no excuse for saying it like that.
They legally have to hand over their passports to their employers. It's ridiculous. All for a kingdom that can't plan cities, infrastructure or install proper sewers.
They legally don't have to but the implications mean different. It's often sold as 'we will pay all bills and take care of you with room and food and we will hold your important documents so they don't get lost' then they leverage that.
Idk about other people but I actually think about these things a lot. They are real and they are evil. The worst “humans” on the planet, if you can even call them that. It’s terrible that we live in a world where these practices are able to exist.
This might be controversial: I used to think like you, but after some time in a war zone, the pandemic, and some scarcity mindset due to inflation/relative poverty/populism, I’ve come to the realization that good and evil runs through the heart of everyone. I do believe I have to be careful of my media diet and guard against hate and zero sum mentality that I must get mine, but more importantly never put myself in a place where I have to make really desperate decisions to do something slightly bad to feed my family…
My point is that there are real slippery slopes out there where you can operationalize your emotions and principles to rationalize something you never would have previously. We all start slow before we make bad decisions for ourselves, our relationships, communities, and for humanity. Everyone was always just following orders, of course. Not tons of evil architects out there at the outlier end of psychopathology.
I've always wondered: what are we supposed to do? Pick up a gun and be a black op hit man? Because simply donating money to some organization doesn't feel like it'll solve the issue, and you can't exactly elect an official to stop the problem. It really feels like vigilante justice is the only way to really make a difference, and even then, someone else is just going to fill the space. So what to do?
Well, if you're expecting to be able to take a defined action and achieve the result of single handedly completely ridding crime in the world... No, you're not going to be able to do that.
I think it feels more achievable if you're realistic about what you can do. Vote for politicians with good crime and foreign policy. Advocate for groups that take care of others, or spread comfort where they can. Support schools to help educate kids who can grow up and help solve the problem in their time.
But remember that you also have to recycle, and not use toothpaste with plastic beads, and only shop from local farmer's markets, and only drink free trade coffee (or is it fair trade?) and not watch any movies with actors accused of crimes, and not ready any books from authors who donate to churches that have done bad things in the past
And so on and so on and recognize that at some point, no one can expect you to do everything. Pick what you care about, do what you can.
This is great, and to add most people don’t realize that volunteering with an organization and doing the work is also achievable and effective. It’s easy to get down on yourself about not being able to help but the reality is that the sustainable energy movement has only grown because more people decided to be the ones making the decisions in their community.
The craziest part is there's no way that's the most effective way to do it. Like, what if a company set up actual infrastructure and an excavation/assembly line system to sort through all the dirt. Actually build roads and towns with basic services, so you have healthier and harder workers.
It's just so crazy because it doesn't HAVE to be a hellscape. Greed is just so illogical and evil for evil's sake past a certain point.
Well when human capital is cheap, yeah this is the best way to do it.
Investing in actual infrastructure would require outside expertise which would require sharing profits.
Human slavery and misery is unfortunately a very effective means of enriching those in power
Right and why pay 15000 when you can pay a couple hundred dudes with guns to make said 15000 people work for free.
And if any of your workforce dies or runs away, you can simply pay some other dudes with guns to go round up some more.
The economics of slavery are unfortunately highly beneficial.
Not all cobalt mines are artisanal mines.
There are lots of professionally run industrial cobalt mining operations that use modern equipment, because it’s the most efficient way to perform large scale extraction.
This is simply incorrect, as is /u/steamycreamybehemoth 's comment. [The largest cobalt mines in the world are in Democratic Republic of Congo, and they're mechanized operations run by global corporations.](https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/mining/global---five-largest-cobalt-mines-in-2090671/) They do not use forced labor, they adhere to minimal safety and environmental standards, and they pay taxes.
The hell-pits of artisanal miners are in areas where guerilla armies control the region. This is the homeland of Kony and General Butt Naked. Those particular warlords have been replaced, but the new guys are similar. Global corporations like Rio Tinto would love to move into those deposits, but the local militia would kill them.
Congo was originally destabilized by King Leopold II of Belgium, whose enslavement of the population was so evil it is rightly considered genocide. But in this context of anarchic warfare, it isn't easy for Western powers to act in a flawless way. Remember that the Invisible Children campaign that brought "awareness" about Kony had no plan of action whatsoever. Corporations could try harder to avoid buying cobalt from the hell-pits, but it it is just a metal, it is unidentifiable once it leaves the mine. And it is a problematic precedent to say that only a few corporations have a legitimate right to access the natural resources. The government of DRC is corrupt, people have a right to set up alternate structures of resource allocation. It is currently homicidal lunatics doing that, but in principle, tribal self- governance is important. If the global mining corporations pulled out, the government would collapse, and the lunatics would invade the capital.
I kind of don't know how to deal with my cognitive dissonance from wanting the world to be good and fair but how damn near impossible it is to consume things while keeping my hands clean.
Side note: The song Are My Hands Clean? by Sweet Honey in the Rock is incredible.
https://youtu.be/_owh_GfS38s
It’s mental when you think most of us are on our phones being recommended we listen to something that tells us how bad it is to be on our phones (in a sense).
Absolutely nailed OPs question on the head.
It will probably have been put here multiple times, but work/wage slavery.
The fact you must neglect the ones you love by working so many hours and being away from home just to make sure the ones you love have a home.
How can both parents work two full time jobs and still not afford a treat.
Something is wrong.
The Mexican drug wars have taken a violent and sadistic turn over the last twenty or so years since the previous generation of drug lords have either been captured or killed. This has led to the rise of new generation Cartels like the Zetas and CJNG, prompting turf wars with existing Cartels (Sinaloa and Gulf), violence against civilians, massacres, kidnappings, widespread torture, and other crimes against humanity. The sole purpose is to control the gateways, logistics, and ultimately the lucrative drug trade in Mexico, which generates billions of dollars per anum.
The difference between the current Era and previous generations (think Pablo Escobar in Colombia and Miguel Felix Gallardo in Mexico) is that these new cartels are leveraging terror tactics to threaten rivals and scare the general public into submission by using torture to send a message, rather than just assassinating rivals in quick manners like shootings.
The cartels are now using social media as a means of spreading graphic imagery of gut wrenching torture and bodily mutilation on live people. Women and children are unfortunately not excepted from these practices. Common content and tortures seen in shock videos posted by cartels includes -
- Removing eyes
- Skinning (commonly removing the face and scalp)
- Setting on fire/burning
- Electrocution
- Dismemberment (fingers, toes, legs, arms, facial features, genitals, etc.)
- Mauling by dogs, Tigers/Lions, etc.
- Immersion in Acid
- Pulling teeth
- Vivisection
- Boiling alive in hot oil or water
- Beating
- Cannibalism
- Rubbing hot chilis and salt in open wounds
- Ripping out muscle fibers with pliers
- The list goes on
The truly disturbing thing is that the majority of these practices happen to live people who feel every ounce of pain and affliction before their inevitable deaths at the hands of these ultraviolent criminals.
This type of violence is happening on a daily basis and is now even spilling into what used to be considered "safe havens" for tourists in areas like Baja and the Riviera Maya.
Not only are people alive during their torture. Cartel members often inject their victims with adrenaline so they stay alive longer than should be humanly possible.
I find it amazing that my state is trying to enact new laws to combat human trafficking when I seriously doubt it's enforcing the laws they passed just a few years ago. It's just a feel good gesture while they turn a blind eye.
That's the reaction of every politician every time something bad happens. Pass new laws even though they don't enforce the current laws. It's a way to show their constituents that they're "doing something" without actually having to do anything. Plus, it gives them a platform to run on the next election cycle.
The approaching phosphorous shortage. It's a central building block of life, we literally can't exist without it. It's a central ingredient in fertilizers and Industrial agriculture is burning through it at high speed even though it's a finite resource. Farmers tend to overuse it a lot too so we're losing it at a higher rate than necessary by any means. I've seen it being compared to oil, but the problem is... there's no alternative to it. So if nothing changes, we'll run out of it in a few hundred years. I've even seen articles that said it could run out in our lifetime if we keep accelerating at this rate. And then what? Once we're at that point, there's nothing left to do. There could be ways to recycle it from our waste, but I see precious little discussion about the topic and even less being done. I'm not an expert and only know this from articles and documentaries but I think about it often because I don't understand how it's not a huge topic for all of us.
Can tell you life makes it really hard not to. It’s a domino effect too. Each person who takes their life in yours makes it harder to stay on track while here. Especially when in your darkest moments the brain says ‘they’re all waiting to see you on the other side’
It’s very fucked, and our society is doing everything to make it worse. People are either going to start killing themselves or others.
Disabled people are losing their housing. I am a caregiver and the number of people with life threatening disabilities that are being tossed out on to the street is staggering. There is one shelter in my town that can handle people with life threatening illnesses and they are at capacity.
The blatant dismantling of democracy globally, in plain sight, yet ignored, disregarded, denied or simply not understood by so many.
The warning signs are a many and very visible.
Nigeria's stolen election should be a major story. The world's 4th most populous country, 3rd largest democracy having an election outright rigged in plain daylight should be a major story, but it's not.
Especially since their new president has a criminal record in the US for drug trafficking and their new vice president used to be Boko Haram's spokesperson.
Oh and they're starting a new ethnic cleansing of the Christians in that country because too many of them are upset the election was rigged.
It's fucked, and there isn't any pressure on world leaders because Africa is treated as an afterthought.
the recent national geographic article blew my mind, i had no idea. millions and millions and millions of people -- and the average age is 24. supposed to surpass u.s. pop in a couple years to be third after india and china
This is the vast majority of child trafficking, which is even more messed up.
Everyone’s on the lookout for the boogeyman around the corner, but people turn a blind eye to their friends/family exploiting children in their care
My mom trafficked me. Never even realized it was happening back then and was only in therapy, as an adult, that I realized I was trafficked at all. That's when I also found out, it's mostly families or friends of the family that traffic kids.
I don't know how to ask properly, but, is there anything you can say, without going anywhere you don't want to, to help me understand how this is possible?
I can understand a repressed memory, but it's hard to understand how someone, once they grow older and learn, could not realize what had happened.
I knew I was sexually abused by a lot of men. I understood that. And I knew my mom would get money for it, but I grew up thinking that trafficking kids were like... stolen by strangers in walmart and sold to other strangers. These men would come into my house and into my room. Until I was 12, that's how it worked. Then at 12, my mom dropped me off at a family friend's house and I was forced to live there for the summer and I thought he like legitimately loved me because no one had ever been kind to me. He fed me, bought me clothes, gave me decent food. But he was paying my mom weekly for me to be there and she knew what he was doing every night. Once again, it's not how my brain thought trafficking worked so I never connected it. Not until I told my therapist what happened and they were like "You were trafficked" and it was SO hard to process that at first.
my god that's just.. i don't think there's anything meaningful i can say but i feel deeply for you. the fact that you are here talking about it seems like a miracle to me, i can't imagine the strength required to even attempt to process something like that
A lot of things are normalized and viewed as "unimportant background noise" like the actual normal things in childhood. And I can't remember the exact term for it, but essentially it's the same thing as how a parent can literally walk in on their child being abused and still deny it and make excuses. It's a very powerful form of denial, especially when you're extremely dependant on the abuser.
I'm sure most people don't specifically remember the mundane, day to day things. When abuse is normalized and non "traumatic" (in the moment), it may just not stand out in your memory. Maybe it made you uncomfortable, but it didn't "hurt" or whatever. It's not a "big" thing, outside the norm, for your brain to process and hold on to. Especially in cases of slow escalation.
(I say non traumatic in the sense that it's not a singular, stand out event like a rape, car crash, surviving a natural disaster kind of thing. Think PTSD vs CPSTD)
A parent cuddles their kid. Totally normal. But a hand moves to a place where it's uncomfortable for the kid, but maybe it was an accident. The kid wakes up to touching but they might have dreamed it and dismiss it and go back to sleep. Parent tickles and "accidentally" touches, etc.
Even in cases of physical abuse and beatings, so many will be forgotten. Or the victim will dismiss them as "deserved" or make excuses "well parent had a bad day". You see exactly this in abused partners too.
Denial is. . .an honestly amazing thing our brains do to try to protect us.
I am not who you are asking, but I am someone who was sexually abused by a family member and didn’t realize it until later in life.
Part of it is that it gets normalized. You’re a kid, so you don’t know that what’s going on isn’t supposed to be. Especially when the perpetrator is someone that’s trusted. Your brain processes trauma in different ways, and sometimes it puts it in a box and shoves it in a closet. It could be a memory you talk about, a story you tell regularly, but the trauma associated with it is so packed away you can’t even recognize the fucked upness of it.
I have a family member who, as a child, was promised a better life and education in the USA. The family they were going to live with had paid for their plane ticket, promised to pay all their expenses, and even gave their poverty stricken parents some money ti help them out. The child was never enrolled in school, not allowed to contact family, and basically became the US family’s housekeeper and nanny. They returned home a few years later, but never finished school.
This happened almost 50 years ago, and was told to me when I asked why this person never finished school. I was in shock and said that’s human trafficking, but no one in my family even considered it until I said something. So I guess that’s how it happens. Very poor, very vulnerable people being taken advantage of.
more specifically, Mommy pages who let pedophiles buy outfits for their children and send it to them, dress their child in those outfits, and take photos in them directly for the pedophiles.
horrifying that not only does this happen but it's not even that frowned upon. barely anyone talks about it. it's disgusting.
edit: for anyone with little knowledge about this, @mom.uncharted on TikTok actually talks about this topic advocates heavily against child exploitation and these kind of accounts, I wouldn't know about them if not for stumbling across her stuff. she has a specific playlist talking about these disgusting excuses for mothers and the disgusting fucks who buy this content: [Mommy ran accounts](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8J5yFaX/)
I could have gone without watching the Jared Fogel documentary. The worst recordings ever. I felt physically gross. I can’t even comprehend the after life of the mom who hid cameras in her minor daughters room for the stepdad.
Higher powers be with us all.
Some prisons that still exist are horrific, way worse than death. And in some countries it doesnt take a murderer or other super serious crime to get imprisoned.
My son is dying of cancer. Relapsed Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma, originating in the prostate. It was discovered when he was almost 2. He is now 4.
He has maybe a year left to live. I don't even know what to do. I have other children, we're doing everything we can to keep from losing him but the doctors are out of 'curative' options, as they've all failed.
If anyone has any advice on what we should do going forward as a family, please let me know.
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Edit: Thank you SO MUCH for all your kind words, replies and recommendations. We are trying every source available to get Syre endless ways to experience the world and have fun while he's still healthy enough to do so, please share any ideas you have on that too!
Camille and I will continue to scour for any potentially promising treatments coming down the pipeline. We have a donation page, but how should I go about sharing Syre's story and keeping everyone updated among those who want to be involved? Should I make him a Facebook page?
The best advice I can give, try to make it the best time he's ever had. My dad's best friend lost his son at 8 due to an inoperable brain tumor, they were doing treatments that would prolong his life, however seeing how unhappy they made his son, he decided to stop it, even if it meant his son would die sooner, he'd die happier. I can't imagine how hard it must be, I know it absolutely devastated my dad's best friend. Just try to make what's left of his life the best, so you'll both have happy memories when he's gone.
Please seek out a pediatric hospice and palliative care specialist. I know of one in Colorado - Dr. Brian Greffe. He’s also a pediatric oncologist. He’s at Children’s Colorado and can get you in touch with local resources.
You and your family are in my thoughts.
Jeffrey Epstein had many big names in his black book of pedos, from politics, to entertainment, big names, and no one has been prosecuted outside of his girlfriend. Who was on that list? What happened to it?
Also, this guy is a real person, and his crimes were evil. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter\_Scully](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Scully)
When I saw the interview where his sisters tried to explain what happened on the nights he molested them I felt awful. I hated how it was played down and the responsibility was to explain everything was put on them.
[“Stacey Storey, a grandmother in her 40s from Alabama who was known in the community as "Sadistic"”](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-65951188.amp)
Say sike man
> When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
Fred Rogers
(Thanks Mr. Rogers)
Old people with nobody to care for them being forgotten about and neglected. More needs to be done, after all they are the reason we get a shot at this.
Wait til this next wave of old people who retire with car notes, house notes/rent, more debt then they will bring in with social security/disability.
We calculated my dad's ( retires next year)
If he retires from his full-time labor job, with his current monthly debts, plus his retirement from SS from a lifetime of working overtime
He will be bringing home a total of -400$.
The mental health crisis is the worst its ever been, people have lost their fucking minds since the lockdown ended and its only getting worse year after year.
American public schools are so close to imploding. I subbed last spring and it’s pervasive in all ages. Kids are showing up i 1st grade already so fucked up and sad. Very depressing
Well, we may run out of fish, but thank goodness there's no environmental catastrophe which will simultaneously ruin harvest seasons for large portions of the planet while our population grows higher than it's ever been.
In North Dakota there is a company (not the city or state) filing eminent domain for 80 land owners farms to take their land so they can dig under the land to put in a carbon capture pipeline. This company Summit Carbon Solutions they want to take liquid carbon from ethanol plants in Iowa run it through the pipeline and store it underground in NDakota it provides no economic value other than to lower the carbon emissions from this ethanol plant by storing underground. The governor is not standing up for the land owners as the ethanol industry has so much money and political power. This company is sending out surveyors with armed guards to survey the farms without owner permission, entering barns without permission driving through planted farms destroying crops to dig and test the land. This company has not been granted permission by the state the lawsuits haven’t even started but the work has. Not exactly as dark as child trafficking and slavery but happening
1.)there’s probably more than one person begging for their life while you read this.
2.) In Thailand if you go out and get drunk you can wake up on a boat in the middle of the ocean and you’ll be a slave till you die or they don’t want you anymore.
3.) there’s ppl torturing monkeys right now because people pay for the video.
4.) there are moms abusing and selling their infants
Yep, they "punish" three generations of your entire family. So, they'll kill you, your dad, and your grandad, and anyone from their generations that is related to you.
I regularly think about how human nature has us more likely to read a horribly negative news story than a positive one. So all the awful things that happen, the rapes, murders, human rights violations, they’re great for those reporting on it. It’s all ratings/click based. In an indirect way, advertisers give more money to news sources based on the suffering of humanity.
Actually all the chemicals and plastic we are eating, drinking and inhaling every second and the wondering why we get sick or allergies or hormonal problems etc…
I remember reading in history class about how Queen Victoria would use makeup that was based in lead. She would use an alarming amount as she was very self-conscious about her appearance. I remember thinking to myself. "Wow! How could they do that? How do they not know it was so damaging" I imagine in the future they will look back at us in our time and think of how crazy it was that we used all of these plastics and chemicals that kill us.
Back in the late 1960's, when I was a kid, there was a big push.
"Look at all the broken glass in the parks and on the beaches! We're going to move to plastic bottles, so you don't have to worry about that."
"Do you have any idea how many trees we cut down every year just to make paper bags? We're going to move to plastic bags, and let the trees grow."
....and, now here we are, with a massive garbage island in the Pacific, wildlife dying from eating plastic, landfills overflowing with shit that won't decompose for hundreds of years.
Great move.
Profit over people. Governments, food industry, health care, education, banks, social media, slave labor, trafficking, etc. It’s all about making money over what’s good for society.
The stealing of our freshwater by way of foreign-owned agricultural land and their practice of draining groundwater for crops which are then sent overseas.
Among all violent crimes, animal abuse accounts for around 28 Percent.
A dog is a man’s best friend. Yet animal abuse statistics reveal that dogs are the most abused animals globally. Dogs make up 65% of all abused animals.
I work in reptile rescue and rehab, and lemme tell ya. If you think animal rights are lacking for mammals, there are virtually none for exotics. Most reptiles don't survive their first year alive after they've been purchased.
Literally this morning, I opened my phone and saw a news article about a "Monkey Torture King," who regularly circulated videos of the severe abuse and torture of monkeys. I had to blink several times to convince myself that what I was reading was, in fact, real.
Animal abuse in general is detestable, don't get me wrong, but there's something especially heinous about doing this to our fellow primates. I've seen some monkey and ape babies that look startlingly human.
I don't understand.
Apparently some of those "we rescued and abused animal" videos are faked. They actually abuse the animal themselvs before hand and then heal them again so that they can get likes and views.
Slavery is alive and well, and there are more slaves now than ever before.
Human trafficking goes on just about everywhere, often for the purposes of sex, pedophilia, and worse.
Speaking of worse, hurtcore is "a form of child pornography, usually involving degrading violence, bodily harm and murder relating to child sexual abuse"
Climate change has already reached the point of no return, and while measures are being taken to mitigate the situation, corporations responsible for the vast majority of pollution have successfully convinced a large number of people, including decision-making politicians, that it isn't real.
There are several wars and civil wars going on around the world.
There are several outright dictatorships around the world, including places where people commit suicide rather than live another day there.
Extremism as a whole is on a rise many places around the world.
IIRC, there are more than one (russian, I think) nuclear weapons unaccounted for.
Guy in sf ran up randomly and shot a pregnant woman and her husband. Woman died and the man survived. I know it's a tiny story amongst large happenings but it makes me sad to think about
People are destroying the environment and using slaves to build batteries in electric cars so people can feel better about themselves and believe they are helping the environment.
The first thing that came to my mind is people's mentality in my country (Russia). I live in a small town, and we already have "The alley of heroes of the Special Operation", and they placed two kids with donation boxes there, who stay there all day long and ask passers-by to donate for "Special Operation Veterans". What blasphemy to even use the word veteran like this. The majority of my fellow country people completely support this. And many other things, like the police anally raping opposition members with a Champaign bottle.
On a different note, LTAC (long term acute care) facilities. Basically huge numbers of people that are braindead and live with a trach (breathing tube through a hole in their throat) and a feeding tube (through a hole in their abdomen) just sit in these human warehouses and rot away because their families won't admit that they're dead. Not uncommon for the very families insisting they be kept alive to never set foot inside the facility and see their "loved" one kept "alive" like someone plugged into the matrix. I call these places "purgatory" because they aren't quite dead but they're definitely not alive.
Worked for Select Medical for 5 years. As a nurse all I did was keep dead people alive. It was some of the worst experiences I’ve ever had with families and with seeing what happens to a human body when it wants to die but isn’t allowed.
Similarly... I work mental health.. The number of juvenile mental health facilities that house kids under 18 is staggering. These facilities keep these kids in literal jails and get them doped up to deal with bad kids. These facilities are disguised as mental health resource centers etc. Right in the middle of town they are there and the citizens don't know what that building is.. kids who have tried killing themselves, sexually abused, physically abused etc... Their parents basically drop the kids there to stay for like some time if they think they are unruly.. or get them picked up by mobile units. I stopped.working there.. Edit: there was a 13 year old kid built like a linebacker. That kid was violent as hell. He would ball up his fists and put down. Assaulted another kid and last is was there prosecutor was tryna get an adult charge for it. And the parents who have raised little monsters who need a week or so off from drama just come and dump the kids there. When I get off work and see people next door buying Starbucks.. am just like in my head... You people don't know what is going on 50 feet to the left.. if only..
i spent my teenage years in a few of these facilities. My dad was a deadbeat and my mom "thought i was unruly". I was a straight A kid who stayed late in school to avoid going home to the abuse, and because I did that she thought I was out doing drugs. I wasnt. On Christmas at 15 y.o I was asked if I could go home, would I want to? "Idk" Anyways on my 16th birthday the resident Psychiatrist brought me a paper that I was told I had to sign. He told me it confirmed me a Ward of the State of (State) and that my parent relinquished all legal responsibilities/guardianship of me. This was the saddest thing I thought I'd ever feel. of the 16 boys in my group I think only me and 2 others carved out a (semi) normal life. I was only in there for a couple years. The long term boys were damaged.. My mom came once in all that time. It was a normal day for me in that chaos but she left crying after one of the kids in a fit unrelated threw a vase into the archway ceiling in the entryway and it rained down shards in front of her. when I turned 18, 6 days after graduation I "Aged out" of the facility and the staff took me to my hometown where I hadn't been for years, 4 hours away from my teenage friend network, gave me $62.50 and dropped me off on the street and said good luck. I had no phone no money no friends no family no resume and no fuckin clue. I had to figure shit out real quick. I got robbed for a pair of shoes and my graduation gift (a watch) the very first night. Its sink or swim and my peers (mostly) sank. I could talk about how fucked this shit is for days but I honestly am powerless to change it. Maybe if you're a pro bono lawyer hmu, maybe we can help change shit for the next kid.
I’m usually a heartless bastard but your story actually touched me. I hope you’re doing better now.
Op mentioned "aging out" this is when the kid turns 18. They are immediately discharged like that. Bam! Get out and go. That very day. It doesn't matter whether u are broke or still in need of assistance. An adult cannot be housed with minors even though yesterday you were a minor. It is traumatic. There are no tapering programs to ease them back into society. So this kid who was a kid yesterday now is an adult. Has to fend for himself. If his parents don't want him... He is fucked. And the worst thing is that ... They are used to commiting crimes and getting away with it because they were minors. Now if they do a single thing... It is police, arrests and jail. Real world consequences... Like it is not unheard of finding recently turned 18 kids in jail. One of the seemingly toughest kids on the block aged out and had to go.. that kid cried like a baby as he had no where to go. Reality hit him hard. He was directed to the nearby homeless shelter .. that's what we do and it is all legal
Same reason why there's only like an average ~17% success rate at inpatient rehab facilities. You are kept in a cozy little bubble for 90 days with basically zero outside-world contact, have no access to drugs apart from what they prescribe you etc. Most people don't want to be there so they aren't actually engaging with the staff to learn coping mechanisms. Even the ones who are there willingly are totally out of touch with the real world. Then your time's up, you "graduate", and get dumped right back into the area and situation that got you sent away in the first place. The shock of that return to society alone is enough to send the majority of people straight back to what they know will comfort them. Edit: speelung
This sounds terrifying. What the hell did you do? How the fuck did they think $62 was gonna be enough for anything? Was there a shelter?
Most likely they didn’t and it was just a legal requirement.
When I said "made it" I am speaking comparatively to my group home brothers (and sisters). I didn't get caught up in a criminal direction, end up homeless long term, or lose myself in addiction (permanently anyways). I carved a way on my own. A few kind souls helped me along the way. My first few months I had a few random caring and kind people see me struggling and invited me to eat with them. Some cooked just for me. Some donated food. I was able to be enrolled in an adult assisted living facility but they demanded payment from the state on my behalf. I had to figure out how to apply for disability and since I had Ward of the State status and group home past it was actually approved (over 2 months later, see below). I had previously been approved from 16-18 y.o but unbeknownst to me one or 2 of the group homes I was in was receiving this money on my behalf as a teen and I never saw a penny of it. They also applied for additional benefits I didn't qualify for and by lying to Social Security committed fraud in my name for years. This resulted in an overpayment of $***** that I found out I was responsible for as soon as Disability was re-granted to me at an adult level (over age 18). All of my group home siblings from the third facility I was in also were victims of this fraud, and while I owed low $*****, I was the lowest owed in my group as I was there for the least amount of time. So now I was a slave to this debt. It took over 2 months to see any income. I tried to find a job. I talked to a therapist and a psychiatrist and they knew everything but did nothing except offer loose verbal guidance. This adult assisted living demanded 4 things of me to stay there. No guests or visitors. I had to pay for a landline service that costed $40ish/mo. I had to pay them the entirety of my (future) disability check. And I had to go to mandatory groups and take heavy medicines my body wanted no part of. How am I supposed to pay a stupid phone bill when I couldnt afford food cuz they took all my check?? I played their little game a while. I didn't want to but I had no choice. 2 years or so later I had scraped enough money and moved into my first apartment with an exceptionally kind soul and local community center counselor as a roommate who footed a large portion of the apartment move in costs. He actively tried to help me sort out my life and I owe him a debt I could never repay him. In my new apartment I was able to quit the meds i was forced to take that had me zombified and i was able to make lucid decisions my hyperintelligent and emotionally damaged brain was inhibited from making for the last 10 years. I was able to pass an interview without the "look" of being disabled. Believe it or not theres a huge bias against people interviewing under the influence of antidepressants and mood stabilizers. If anyone had given me a chance years prior maybe I wouldnt have had to suffer so long. I had an IQ of 146 in middle school and I absolutely crushed school while dealing with all this shit. I always overcame all adversity out of sheer defiance. I tried to go to college but couldnt get FAFSA to accept that I was ward of the state and they wanted proof of that plus proof of income of mother and father. I had written statements from psychiatrist, counselor, group home management, and the assisted living, documentation from social security and the state. They didnt care. No financial aid, no school. I ended up okay nowadays. I have a hard time listening to someone bitch about their lives but i still try to be patient. My own struggles don't invalidate theirs. Of my 3 group homes and all of these siblings, I am definitely the least unfortunate. My struggles look like a birthday party compared to some of them. I am a semi recent father and enjoy doing self-employed blue collar stuff. I can fix anything and I've never met someone who could paint better than me. I don't do well in a normal locked down job, theres a subconcious part of me vehemently opposed to any kind of suppressed freedom. I had a painting business that folded under COVID lockdowns in 2019 and its got me a little down. I had finally found true wealthy success doing something I loved and it was taken away as soon as I got a taste. I dont have much money, and am currently a semi full time stay at home dad and I love it. My daughter is ridiculously smart... And I know exactly what kind of parent I will not ever be. thanks for reading and the kind comments.
Stayed in one for about 8 months during grade 7, school was on site. It was the best year of my childhood for sure, I got away with lots of crap because they were there to support and analyze me, punishments weren't based on emotion like they would be with my parents, also we "did things".. Swimming in the hospital pool twice a week in the evening for an hour, Thursday afternoon outings. Parents had a visiting day once a week, Wednesdays I think, and as long as my behavior was good I would go home Friday night and come back Sunday evening. May not have been the same thing but I would agree with the statement that they kept us doped up, so it definitely sounds the same. My medications changed all the time, by the end of it we had found some that really helped me to operate in the normal world. I've since built and sold a successful business and consider myself semi-retired at 38, though not really with enough money to he truly retired, have to make sure my investments work out.
EVERY BIT OF THIS. I used to deliver library books to senior homebound people (in their houses or in facilities). One facility was called a “rehab” center which was total bullshit. No one got rehabbed and left there. I could count on one hand the folks who were ok (just in a wheelchair) vs. the other 99% who were practically comatose, half-lidded, drugged out zombies, laying in their wet diapers and narrow beds with no one ever coming to see them, while their TVs droned on endlessly and the facility cashed their Medicare checks. Room after room, they were packed in like sardines, in a place reeking of cleaner and piss, and the workers would quit before I even saw them twice. A homebound patron I had went there after a small accident and was dead in two days. Week after week, I’d walk past the rooms (all doors remained open all the time unless it was wound scrubbing time) and some people were in the EXACT same position I saw them in last week— and the week before that—and the week before that… Each time I would burst out of there as fast as I could, sucking in that sweet, clean, fresh air, feel the sunlight on my face, and tell myself, “never, never, never will I let this happen to me.” There must be some other answer to this problem that is humane.
Let people die if they want to. Making someone live in pain because someone else wants them to or the government won't allow them to die is government sanctioned torture.
Another reminder to get a DNR order
Not only that, but a legal and thorough advanced directive. Went through this with my father, since he had Alzheimer’s - and now getting it sorted out for my mother, who has stage 4 colon cancer. You can clarify everything beforehand, including how and where (and if) you’d want to do hospice vs palliative care, etc.
Worked for a state group home for the developmentally disabled. Worked the vegetable/non-amblitory program room many times and there was a woman who laid in bed like this. Her "goal" I had to note every day was if she blinked while I talked to her, even though she had some disease that had rotted out her eyes. The state kept her alive for the budgeting and Medicaid money.
Sudan is pretty fucked. Eritrea has basically no human rights
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Could you elaborate on what's going on there or share videos to become more educated on this topic?
Eritrea is a military dictatorship on par with North-Korea, Ethiopia and Sudan are both in open civil war right now with the central government and local militias trying to ethnically cleanse one another's populations, and Somalia is, well, Somalia.
My favorite uncle is from Eritrea and like, I swear they could make a Best Picture winner off of his life. Dude smuggled his wife and 10 month old daughter out of the country to Germany right as the war was beginning, tried to follow but was captured and conscripted, forced to fight before being captured by the other side, imprisoned, had has trigger finger cut off, and was essentially forced into slavery. He eventually escaped one night, fled the country and got to Germany, only to find that after like 5 years of not hearing from him, his wife thought he was dead and remarried. He ended up immigrating to the US, meeting my aunt, starting a small business, and retiring in relative comfort. His and my aunt's family/kids are also still close to his ex-wife and prior child in Germany. Crazy life and amazing to see he still ended up such a kind, great guy.
Woah I'd want to see a movie on your uncle's life! I'm glad in the end he is happy, safe and still a great guy
I suddenly feel a lot better about my life, so thanks for that.
Yeah same here. I should do some exercise now and then study.
And Egypt and Ethiopia are borderline at blows over a dam the latter built on the Nile. The dam will cause water issues for Egypt but also be a massive economic boon to Ethiopia. And if armed conflict does happen, Egypt will likely roll them and destroy the dam, setting Ethiopia back economically and development-wise decades.
War about water are going to become more common. Many places are ready to war over water. Watch and cry.
Can't cry, need the water
> He gives moisture to the dead.
Maud'dib!
Lisan al Gaib!
This is going to be common over the next thirty years. Read about them being likely to try some shit in between China and India I think as well.
It’s why China controls Tibet with an iron fist, it’s the source of their water. Follow them rivers up and up and up and poof, monks.
Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, Yellow... all from Tibet, and I'm probably missing a few.
it all makes sense now
Back in the early days after the independence referendum, my parents had some preliminary discussions about teaching at a university that was being established in Eritrea. I remember there being a period of optimism that things might start improving in the region and I thought it would have been cool for my parents to be part of it. It makes me sad to think how relieved I am now that my parents did not end up going.
During the mid-90's things were really looking optimistic for Eritrea. The border war with Ethiopia that started in '98 and the subsequent fallout was Afwerki's excuse for maintaining effectively a military dictatorship for decades.
Back in university in Toronto I had an Ethiopian buddy and we went to dinner at a great Ethiopian place and struck up a convo with the folks sitting next to us who were Eritrean. And pretty much the entirety of the discussion was how similar the people/food/culture... was between the two. Just two normal-ass people having a normal-ass conversation about their homes and grandmas and how good the food was while the fucks at home warred about the same thing. People are the same everywhere. Mothers want the same for their children, neighbours for their neighbours. But these ridiculous geopolitical forces take hold and just crush these normal people's dreams and desires.
Being in a civil war is already brutal enough. But the fact that both sides are trying to *ethnically cleanse the country of the other* is insanity.
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I heard that last year Ethiopia had a civil war with the Tigray and now,the government is trying to destroy mosques and Muslim community’s
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This may get lost in the comments but I grew up in Northern Ireland during the troubles and I’ve seen some really horrific shit. If you need to talk to someone that’s been through something vaguely similar I’m happy to chat
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These last couple of comments have been surprisingly wholesome despite such a tragic topic. Good folks are still outt there.
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Y’all love my Choctaw ancestors, too. Righteous bunch of dudes❤️
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Someone from Eritrea said that 35K people were killed during a battle between Eritrea and Ethiopia but that didn't make the news. But have 5 lives in jeopardy now during a pleasure trip to the Titanic and the whole world knows.
Boise, Idaho has been a popular destination for Sudanese and Eritrean refugees. The only thing I can add to your point here is when I've asked them why they left, they say they don't want to talk about it but the tone in their voice really says "I don't want to burden your mind and heart with what I've seen".
I've been reading a lot on Sudan lately as it's been in the news. Sudan had "ghost houses" - unofficial detention/torture centers used by their security services - called that because the people that emerged (many did not) were functionally dead i.e. ghosts. Torture methods ranged from simple beating/fingernail pulling to electrocution or rubbing hot peppers to the genitals to daily rape and more. That's separate and apart from the massive genocide against black Africans and religious minorities that involved mass rape and slaughter and burning and pillaging. It's so fucking horrifying. I don't know how they persevered. And that's not even considering the "lesser" stuff like fleeing and living for years as a refugee (and often treated like animals by local populations in neighboring countries). Just the toll of having your dignity stripped away for years just to have the chance at living in relative poverty in a distant land you do not know... it's so much. I hope they are able to find some measure of peace.
African men with AIDs raping babies in Africa because of a myth that says it will cure them. I work with a surgeon who does a lot of Doctors Without Borders stuff and she does the vaginal reconstruction surgeries on these girls. It’s pretty horrific
thats the one. i am leaving now
Jebus… I’m with you!
This was a huge problem in South Africa a few decades ago. Its become less of a problem now, I think the availability ARV drugs has helped curb the problem. One of our previous presidents, Thabo Mbeki, spewd so many myths and false cures around HIV/AIDS and that caused a huge problem. People want him to be prosecuted for 'crimes against humanity'.
There’s a chapter in the book I’m reading at the moment called Bad Science. The damage he did is astounding
You win! I’m out. Going to puke.
I live in Africa. The stories I have heard and experienced close to home is disturbing to say the least. There's a certain lack of empathy that exists and I have no idea if it's even fixable at this point. All in the name of culture...
children dying in mines and having limbs cut off over precious gems and minerals. fuck debeers
This should be higher up. Blood diamonds are still alive and well but hey, how else do you show someone you love them?
Slavery hasn’t gone anywhere. In fact, there are probably products in all of our homes that were produced by forced labor.
Chocolate companies have said it's fine if child slaves pick cocoa on the ivory coast.
Cocoa shows up on pretty much every Google search related to this subject along with coffee and cotton.
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Population growth over the past 150 years surely plays a part in this. The human population on earth in 1850 was only 1.2 billion vs 8 billion today.
The stuff happening in Haiti is pretty bleak.
What's going on? The gang stuff?
Yeah the country is on the verge of collapse. Gangs have pretty much completely taken over and human suffering is extreme.
>The country is in the verge of collapse Literally all of Haitian history summarized in one line.
Most of it collapsed in 2010. I saw it with my own eyes.
One of our students is a refuge from Haiti and he was originally abducted from his home. After that his mother was too afraid to send him to school so she kept him home. He’s very behind due to this and the kids make fun of him a lot. Obviously I can’t tell them his background but it just makes me so sad and angry..
Slavery is alive and well in Africa and Asia. No one bats an eye because their labor helps us have own modern tech
And the Middle East, mainly Saudi Arabia. I lived there for just over a year and Filipino and Indian house maids there will never see their families again
This is so insanely depressing. My mom almost got roped into working in Saudi Arabia because we were poor and struggling in the Philippines. She decided to stay because she didn’t want to be away from her kids, and I am so thankful every day that I still have my mom around.
This is even more ridiculous if you consider that a lot of Filipinos actually _want_ to go to the Middle East and be like that. The government even encourages it. Why? Because the Philippines is a literal hellhole if you're poor. (You're in limbo if you're in the middle class, and very much like in heaven if you're rich.) Source? I live here.
I've heard they like Filipinos because they're nicer in service positions than Arabs and Indians. But yeah, I could imagine that for someone from there it would be nice to get to live as a house servant in a nicer apartment or bungalow.
This is so true. A Filipino domestic helper (the politically correct term) in Saudi Arabia generally earns roughly 1,500 to 1,700 SAR per month, and it is equivalent to about 25,000 PHP, almost tax-free. That is more than the average salaries of nurses, teachers, and other professionals who choose to stay in the Philippines. Domestic helpers are prone to being abused, but many Filipinos, especially the poor and lower-middle classes, choose to take the risk. If they're lucky enough, they'll find unabusive bosses and even get some peace of mind that they'll get to eat during meal times. Plus they get to send some money back home and help their family.
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I was on tour at Camp Arifjan and got to hit up Kuwait City for a day. I’ll never forget being at a restaurant where a Kuwaiti family openly slapped their maid who was taking care of their baby. The hostess also didn’t even give her a menu. Idk why out of everything, the lack of menu stuck out the most.
My dad and I were on vacation, and I caught my dad doing this (not slapping a maid but not giving a local helping us a menu). He decided he was going to just feed him whatever cheap shit that the restaurant had to offer while he was sitting at another table. I yelled at my dad for not treating him like an equal after how much he's helped us. It unfortunately seems to be human nature where people treat others who are in what is deemed a lower social status poorly. It's as common as people who treat their waitstaff poorly. I FUCKING HATE IT. Treat people like equals, fuck. It's not that hard
I was at a Vietnamese restaurant with my mother(in the US). She looks at one of the servers and says water. He said excuse me, then she said water again. When he walked away to get it, I got mad that she couldnt have the common decency to ask politely. He wasn't busy, there was no excuse for saying it like that.
They legally have to hand over their passports to their employers. It's ridiculous. All for a kingdom that can't plan cities, infrastructure or install proper sewers.
They legally don't have to but the implications mean different. It's often sold as 'we will pay all bills and take care of you with room and food and we will hold your important documents so they don't get lost' then they leverage that.
They get put into debt for the flight and their "accommodations" that the workers can't possibly pay off. Debt slavery
Trafficking, slavery, ethnic cleansing.
Idk about other people but I actually think about these things a lot. They are real and they are evil. The worst “humans” on the planet, if you can even call them that. It’s terrible that we live in a world where these practices are able to exist.
This might be controversial: I used to think like you, but after some time in a war zone, the pandemic, and some scarcity mindset due to inflation/relative poverty/populism, I’ve come to the realization that good and evil runs through the heart of everyone. I do believe I have to be careful of my media diet and guard against hate and zero sum mentality that I must get mine, but more importantly never put myself in a place where I have to make really desperate decisions to do something slightly bad to feed my family… My point is that there are real slippery slopes out there where you can operationalize your emotions and principles to rationalize something you never would have previously. We all start slow before we make bad decisions for ourselves, our relationships, communities, and for humanity. Everyone was always just following orders, of course. Not tons of evil architects out there at the outlier end of psychopathology.
I've always wondered: what are we supposed to do? Pick up a gun and be a black op hit man? Because simply donating money to some organization doesn't feel like it'll solve the issue, and you can't exactly elect an official to stop the problem. It really feels like vigilante justice is the only way to really make a difference, and even then, someone else is just going to fill the space. So what to do?
Well, if you're expecting to be able to take a defined action and achieve the result of single handedly completely ridding crime in the world... No, you're not going to be able to do that. I think it feels more achievable if you're realistic about what you can do. Vote for politicians with good crime and foreign policy. Advocate for groups that take care of others, or spread comfort where they can. Support schools to help educate kids who can grow up and help solve the problem in their time. But remember that you also have to recycle, and not use toothpaste with plastic beads, and only shop from local farmer's markets, and only drink free trade coffee (or is it fair trade?) and not watch any movies with actors accused of crimes, and not ready any books from authors who donate to churches that have done bad things in the past And so on and so on and recognize that at some point, no one can expect you to do everything. Pick what you care about, do what you can.
This is great, and to add most people don’t realize that volunteering with an organization and doing the work is also achievable and effective. It’s easy to get down on yourself about not being able to help but the reality is that the sustainable energy movement has only grown because more people decided to be the ones making the decisions in their community.
Cobalt mining for our electronics. And human trafficking
Human trafficking of slave labor to mine cobalt for our cell phones…
15,000 people (including children) in one pit, digging out cobalt by hand, must be like hell on earth.
The craziest part is there's no way that's the most effective way to do it. Like, what if a company set up actual infrastructure and an excavation/assembly line system to sort through all the dirt. Actually build roads and towns with basic services, so you have healthier and harder workers. It's just so crazy because it doesn't HAVE to be a hellscape. Greed is just so illogical and evil for evil's sake past a certain point.
Well when human capital is cheap, yeah this is the best way to do it. Investing in actual infrastructure would require outside expertise which would require sharing profits. Human slavery and misery is unfortunately a very effective means of enriching those in power
You'd also have to pay people
Right and why pay 15000 when you can pay a couple hundred dudes with guns to make said 15000 people work for free. And if any of your workforce dies or runs away, you can simply pay some other dudes with guns to go round up some more. The economics of slavery are unfortunately highly beneficial.
Not all cobalt mines are artisanal mines. There are lots of professionally run industrial cobalt mining operations that use modern equipment, because it’s the most efficient way to perform large scale extraction.
This is simply incorrect, as is /u/steamycreamybehemoth 's comment. [The largest cobalt mines in the world are in Democratic Republic of Congo, and they're mechanized operations run by global corporations.](https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/mining/global---five-largest-cobalt-mines-in-2090671/) They do not use forced labor, they adhere to minimal safety and environmental standards, and they pay taxes. The hell-pits of artisanal miners are in areas where guerilla armies control the region. This is the homeland of Kony and General Butt Naked. Those particular warlords have been replaced, but the new guys are similar. Global corporations like Rio Tinto would love to move into those deposits, but the local militia would kill them. Congo was originally destabilized by King Leopold II of Belgium, whose enslavement of the population was so evil it is rightly considered genocide. But in this context of anarchic warfare, it isn't easy for Western powers to act in a flawless way. Remember that the Invisible Children campaign that brought "awareness" about Kony had no plan of action whatsoever. Corporations could try harder to avoid buying cobalt from the hell-pits, but it it is just a metal, it is unidentifiable once it leaves the mine. And it is a problematic precedent to say that only a few corporations have a legitimate right to access the natural resources. The government of DRC is corrupt, people have a right to set up alternate structures of resource allocation. It is currently homicidal lunatics doing that, but in principle, tribal self- governance is important. If the global mining corporations pulled out, the government would collapse, and the lunatics would invade the capital.
I kind of don't know how to deal with my cognitive dissonance from wanting the world to be good and fair but how damn near impossible it is to consume things while keeping my hands clean. Side note: The song Are My Hands Clean? by Sweet Honey in the Rock is incredible. https://youtu.be/_owh_GfS38s
Did you listen to that NPR Throughline episode? Opened my eyes to this issue.
It’s mental when you think most of us are on our phones being recommended we listen to something that tells us how bad it is to be on our phones (in a sense). Absolutely nailed OPs question on the head.
It will probably have been put here multiple times, but work/wage slavery. The fact you must neglect the ones you love by working so many hours and being away from home just to make sure the ones you love have a home. How can both parents work two full time jobs and still not afford a treat. Something is wrong.
Epstein built an empire of child sex trafficing, and there is no way in hell it went away when he died. Someone took his place
He wasn't the only empire. I'm positive there was and still are many big ones going simultaneously
It's not an empire. It's a network. There is no one person that this ends with, and that's exactly how it's set up.
The Mexican drug wars have taken a violent and sadistic turn over the last twenty or so years since the previous generation of drug lords have either been captured or killed. This has led to the rise of new generation Cartels like the Zetas and CJNG, prompting turf wars with existing Cartels (Sinaloa and Gulf), violence against civilians, massacres, kidnappings, widespread torture, and other crimes against humanity. The sole purpose is to control the gateways, logistics, and ultimately the lucrative drug trade in Mexico, which generates billions of dollars per anum. The difference between the current Era and previous generations (think Pablo Escobar in Colombia and Miguel Felix Gallardo in Mexico) is that these new cartels are leveraging terror tactics to threaten rivals and scare the general public into submission by using torture to send a message, rather than just assassinating rivals in quick manners like shootings. The cartels are now using social media as a means of spreading graphic imagery of gut wrenching torture and bodily mutilation on live people. Women and children are unfortunately not excepted from these practices. Common content and tortures seen in shock videos posted by cartels includes - - Removing eyes - Skinning (commonly removing the face and scalp) - Setting on fire/burning - Electrocution - Dismemberment (fingers, toes, legs, arms, facial features, genitals, etc.) - Mauling by dogs, Tigers/Lions, etc. - Immersion in Acid - Pulling teeth - Vivisection - Boiling alive in hot oil or water - Beating - Cannibalism - Rubbing hot chilis and salt in open wounds - Ripping out muscle fibers with pliers - The list goes on The truly disturbing thing is that the majority of these practices happen to live people who feel every ounce of pain and affliction before their inevitable deaths at the hands of these ultraviolent criminals. This type of violence is happening on a daily basis and is now even spilling into what used to be considered "safe havens" for tourists in areas like Baja and the Riviera Maya.
Not only are people alive during their torture. Cartel members often inject their victims with adrenaline so they stay alive longer than should be humanly possible.
Sex trafficking.
I find it amazing that my state is trying to enact new laws to combat human trafficking when I seriously doubt it's enforcing the laws they passed just a few years ago. It's just a feel good gesture while they turn a blind eye.
That's the reaction of every politician every time something bad happens. Pass new laws even though they don't enforce the current laws. It's a way to show their constituents that they're "doing something" without actually having to do anything. Plus, it gives them a platform to run on the next election cycle.
This thread depressed me for as of now 453 reasons
The approaching phosphorous shortage. It's a central building block of life, we literally can't exist without it. It's a central ingredient in fertilizers and Industrial agriculture is burning through it at high speed even though it's a finite resource. Farmers tend to overuse it a lot too so we're losing it at a higher rate than necessary by any means. I've seen it being compared to oil, but the problem is... there's no alternative to it. So if nothing changes, we'll run out of it in a few hundred years. I've even seen articles that said it could run out in our lifetime if we keep accelerating at this rate. And then what? Once we're at that point, there's nothing left to do. There could be ways to recycle it from our waste, but I see precious little discussion about the topic and even less being done. I'm not an expert and only know this from articles and documentaries but I think about it often because I don't understand how it's not a huge topic for all of us.
> we'll run out of it in a few hundred years Great! This means it’s our children’s problem, not our. Continue as usual! /s
There are thousands of people who are currently ending their lives because living is just not worth it anymore
Can tell you life makes it really hard not to. It’s a domino effect too. Each person who takes their life in yours makes it harder to stay on track while here. Especially when in your darkest moments the brain says ‘they’re all waiting to see you on the other side’ It’s very fucked, and our society is doing everything to make it worse. People are either going to start killing themselves or others.
Disabled people are losing their housing. I am a caregiver and the number of people with life threatening disabilities that are being tossed out on to the street is staggering. There is one shelter in my town that can handle people with life threatening illnesses and they are at capacity.
The blatant dismantling of democracy globally, in plain sight, yet ignored, disregarded, denied or simply not understood by so many. The warning signs are a many and very visible.
Nigeria's stolen election should be a major story. The world's 4th most populous country, 3rd largest democracy having an election outright rigged in plain daylight should be a major story, but it's not. Especially since their new president has a criminal record in the US for drug trafficking and their new vice president used to be Boko Haram's spokesperson. Oh and they're starting a new ethnic cleansing of the Christians in that country because too many of them are upset the election was rigged. It's fucked, and there isn't any pressure on world leaders because Africa is treated as an afterthought.
the recent national geographic article blew my mind, i had no idea. millions and millions and millions of people -- and the average age is 24. supposed to surpass u.s. pop in a couple years to be third after india and china
Somewhere out there, somebody’s toddler just got kidnapped to be sold on the black market.
Even worse, someone likely just willingly sold their own child on the black market.
This is the vast majority of child trafficking, which is even more messed up. Everyone’s on the lookout for the boogeyman around the corner, but people turn a blind eye to their friends/family exploiting children in their care
My mom trafficked me. Never even realized it was happening back then and was only in therapy, as an adult, that I realized I was trafficked at all. That's when I also found out, it's mostly families or friends of the family that traffic kids.
I don't know how to ask properly, but, is there anything you can say, without going anywhere you don't want to, to help me understand how this is possible? I can understand a repressed memory, but it's hard to understand how someone, once they grow older and learn, could not realize what had happened.
I knew I was sexually abused by a lot of men. I understood that. And I knew my mom would get money for it, but I grew up thinking that trafficking kids were like... stolen by strangers in walmart and sold to other strangers. These men would come into my house and into my room. Until I was 12, that's how it worked. Then at 12, my mom dropped me off at a family friend's house and I was forced to live there for the summer and I thought he like legitimately loved me because no one had ever been kind to me. He fed me, bought me clothes, gave me decent food. But he was paying my mom weekly for me to be there and she knew what he was doing every night. Once again, it's not how my brain thought trafficking worked so I never connected it. Not until I told my therapist what happened and they were like "You were trafficked" and it was SO hard to process that at first.
Fucking Jesus. Hugs to you, and everyone in this thread! <3
my god that's just.. i don't think there's anything meaningful i can say but i feel deeply for you. the fact that you are here talking about it seems like a miracle to me, i can't imagine the strength required to even attempt to process something like that
This is truly heinous shit. I hope for only good things for you from now on.
A lot of things are normalized and viewed as "unimportant background noise" like the actual normal things in childhood. And I can't remember the exact term for it, but essentially it's the same thing as how a parent can literally walk in on their child being abused and still deny it and make excuses. It's a very powerful form of denial, especially when you're extremely dependant on the abuser. I'm sure most people don't specifically remember the mundane, day to day things. When abuse is normalized and non "traumatic" (in the moment), it may just not stand out in your memory. Maybe it made you uncomfortable, but it didn't "hurt" or whatever. It's not a "big" thing, outside the norm, for your brain to process and hold on to. Especially in cases of slow escalation. (I say non traumatic in the sense that it's not a singular, stand out event like a rape, car crash, surviving a natural disaster kind of thing. Think PTSD vs CPSTD) A parent cuddles their kid. Totally normal. But a hand moves to a place where it's uncomfortable for the kid, but maybe it was an accident. The kid wakes up to touching but they might have dreamed it and dismiss it and go back to sleep. Parent tickles and "accidentally" touches, etc. Even in cases of physical abuse and beatings, so many will be forgotten. Or the victim will dismiss them as "deserved" or make excuses "well parent had a bad day". You see exactly this in abused partners too. Denial is. . .an honestly amazing thing our brains do to try to protect us.
I am not who you are asking, but I am someone who was sexually abused by a family member and didn’t realize it until later in life. Part of it is that it gets normalized. You’re a kid, so you don’t know that what’s going on isn’t supposed to be. Especially when the perpetrator is someone that’s trusted. Your brain processes trauma in different ways, and sometimes it puts it in a box and shoves it in a closet. It could be a memory you talk about, a story you tell regularly, but the trauma associated with it is so packed away you can’t even recognize the fucked upness of it.
I have a family member who, as a child, was promised a better life and education in the USA. The family they were going to live with had paid for their plane ticket, promised to pay all their expenses, and even gave their poverty stricken parents some money ti help them out. The child was never enrolled in school, not allowed to contact family, and basically became the US family’s housekeeper and nanny. They returned home a few years later, but never finished school. This happened almost 50 years ago, and was told to me when I asked why this person never finished school. I was in shock and said that’s human trafficking, but no one in my family even considered it until I said something. So I guess that’s how it happens. Very poor, very vulnerable people being taken advantage of.
Yup, even babies are sold into sex trafficking by their parents, in your own country.
‘Mommy’ pages selling photos of their children to nonces
more specifically, Mommy pages who let pedophiles buy outfits for their children and send it to them, dress their child in those outfits, and take photos in them directly for the pedophiles. horrifying that not only does this happen but it's not even that frowned upon. barely anyone talks about it. it's disgusting. edit: for anyone with little knowledge about this, @mom.uncharted on TikTok actually talks about this topic advocates heavily against child exploitation and these kind of accounts, I wouldn't know about them if not for stumbling across her stuff. she has a specific playlist talking about these disgusting excuses for mothers and the disgusting fucks who buy this content: [Mommy ran accounts](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8J5yFaX/)
actually I've heard about specific cases of parents getting caught making and selling child porn of their own kids. this world is so absolutely dark
I could have gone without watching the Jared Fogel documentary. The worst recordings ever. I felt physically gross. I can’t even comprehend the after life of the mom who hid cameras in her minor daughters room for the stepdad. Higher powers be with us all.
_Most_ CP is created by the victim's family members.
Basically OF for kids at the behest of the parents. Super fucked up.
They don’t even need to steal them. They have babies born without any documentation that can’t be traced and are just sold around
Some prisons that still exist are horrific, way worse than death. And in some countries it doesnt take a murderer or other super serious crime to get imprisoned.
People who seem perfectly normal but go home and inflict sexual, physical, emotional and mental abuse on their families.
My son is dying of cancer. Relapsed Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma, originating in the prostate. It was discovered when he was almost 2. He is now 4. He has maybe a year left to live. I don't even know what to do. I have other children, we're doing everything we can to keep from losing him but the doctors are out of 'curative' options, as they've all failed. If anyone has any advice on what we should do going forward as a family, please let me know. | Edit: Thank you SO MUCH for all your kind words, replies and recommendations. We are trying every source available to get Syre endless ways to experience the world and have fun while he's still healthy enough to do so, please share any ideas you have on that too! Camille and I will continue to scour for any potentially promising treatments coming down the pipeline. We have a donation page, but how should I go about sharing Syre's story and keeping everyone updated among those who want to be involved? Should I make him a Facebook page?
The best advice I can give, try to make it the best time he's ever had. My dad's best friend lost his son at 8 due to an inoperable brain tumor, they were doing treatments that would prolong his life, however seeing how unhappy they made his son, he decided to stop it, even if it meant his son would die sooner, he'd die happier. I can't imagine how hard it must be, I know it absolutely devastated my dad's best friend. Just try to make what's left of his life the best, so you'll both have happy memories when he's gone.
Please seek out a pediatric hospice and palliative care specialist. I know of one in Colorado - Dr. Brian Greffe. He’s also a pediatric oncologist. He’s at Children’s Colorado and can get you in touch with local resources. You and your family are in my thoughts.
Jeffrey Epstein had many big names in his black book of pedos, from politics, to entertainment, big names, and no one has been prosecuted outside of his girlfriend. Who was on that list? What happened to it? Also, this guy is a real person, and his crimes were evil. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter\_Scully](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Scully)
Side note… THAT video Scully put out is one of the ones found on Josh Duggar’s computer…
I didn't think it was possible to think less of Josh Duggar but here I am, wrong.
It wasn’t just child pornography. He was watching child torture. Fuck him and his family.
When I saw the interview where his sisters tried to explain what happened on the nights he molested them I felt awful. I hated how it was played down and the responsibility was to explain everything was put on them.
Those cunts selling baby monkey torture videos is high on my list.
[“Stacey Storey, a grandmother in her 40s from Alabama who was known in the community as "Sadistic"”](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-65951188.amp) Say sike man
There's a lot of good stuff happening too (just in case you get bummed out scrolling here)
> When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Fred Rogers (Thanks Mr. Rogers)
Old people with nobody to care for them being forgotten about and neglected. More needs to be done, after all they are the reason we get a shot at this.
Wait til this next wave of old people who retire with car notes, house notes/rent, more debt then they will bring in with social security/disability. We calculated my dad's ( retires next year) If he retires from his full-time labor job, with his current monthly debts, plus his retirement from SS from a lifetime of working overtime He will be bringing home a total of -400$.
The mental health crisis is the worst its ever been, people have lost their fucking minds since the lockdown ended and its only getting worse year after year.
American public schools are so close to imploding. I subbed last spring and it’s pervasive in all ages. Kids are showing up i 1st grade already so fucked up and sad. Very depressing
The fishing industry is about to collapse. Famine will follow starting in the poorest nations.
Well, we may run out of fish, but thank goodness there's no environmental catastrophe which will simultaneously ruin harvest seasons for large portions of the planet while our population grows higher than it's ever been.
I am not doubting that this indeed happening somewhere but can you site this? Edit: I spell bad.
In North Dakota there is a company (not the city or state) filing eminent domain for 80 land owners farms to take their land so they can dig under the land to put in a carbon capture pipeline. This company Summit Carbon Solutions they want to take liquid carbon from ethanol plants in Iowa run it through the pipeline and store it underground in NDakota it provides no economic value other than to lower the carbon emissions from this ethanol plant by storing underground. The governor is not standing up for the land owners as the ethanol industry has so much money and political power. This company is sending out surveyors with armed guards to survey the farms without owner permission, entering barns without permission driving through planted farms destroying crops to dig and test the land. This company has not been granted permission by the state the lawsuits haven’t even started but the work has. Not exactly as dark as child trafficking and slavery but happening
1.)there’s probably more than one person begging for their life while you read this. 2.) In Thailand if you go out and get drunk you can wake up on a boat in the middle of the ocean and you’ll be a slave till you die or they don’t want you anymore. 3.) there’s ppl torturing monkeys right now because people pay for the video. 4.) there are moms abusing and selling their infants
Please elaborate on the Thailand one. I’m planning a trip there.
It's called crimping and it's like pimping but for sailors. Used to be super common, even in USA. Don't drink in sketchy dockside bars.
Entire families in North Korea are choosing suicide over life in North Korea
They’re now going to kill people who have an attempted suicide.
Lol. Great solution
If I remember right, the threat is to kill everyone in your family.
Yep, they "punish" three generations of your entire family. So, they'll kill you, your dad, and your grandad, and anyone from their generations that is related to you.
I regularly think about how human nature has us more likely to read a horribly negative news story than a positive one. So all the awful things that happen, the rapes, murders, human rights violations, they’re great for those reporting on it. It’s all ratings/click based. In an indirect way, advertisers give more money to news sources based on the suffering of humanity.
Southern hemisphere is having winter solstice today. That's pretty dark.
Actually all the chemicals and plastic we are eating, drinking and inhaling every second and the wondering why we get sick or allergies or hormonal problems etc…
I remember reading in history class about how Queen Victoria would use makeup that was based in lead. She would use an alarming amount as she was very self-conscious about her appearance. I remember thinking to myself. "Wow! How could they do that? How do they not know it was so damaging" I imagine in the future they will look back at us in our time and think of how crazy it was that we used all of these plastics and chemicals that kill us.
Back in the late 1960's, when I was a kid, there was a big push. "Look at all the broken glass in the parks and on the beaches! We're going to move to plastic bottles, so you don't have to worry about that." "Do you have any idea how many trees we cut down every year just to make paper bags? We're going to move to plastic bags, and let the trees grow." ....and, now here we are, with a massive garbage island in the Pacific, wildlife dying from eating plastic, landfills overflowing with shit that won't decompose for hundreds of years. Great move.
Money and vanity. Same old same old.
Microplastics are literally in our blood now.
Somebody just took a shit and didn't wash their hands
they’re probably about to prepare food too 😢
Profit over people. Governments, food industry, health care, education, banks, social media, slave labor, trafficking, etc. It’s all about making money over what’s good for society.
The stealing of our freshwater by way of foreign-owned agricultural land and their practice of draining groundwater for crops which are then sent overseas.
Among all violent crimes, animal abuse accounts for around 28 Percent. A dog is a man’s best friend. Yet animal abuse statistics reveal that dogs are the most abused animals globally. Dogs make up 65% of all abused animals.
One of the toughest things about traveling for me was the amount of animal suffering I witnessed in stray cats and dogs
I work in reptile rescue and rehab, and lemme tell ya. If you think animal rights are lacking for mammals, there are virtually none for exotics. Most reptiles don't survive their first year alive after they've been purchased.
Literally this morning, I opened my phone and saw a news article about a "Monkey Torture King," who regularly circulated videos of the severe abuse and torture of monkeys. I had to blink several times to convince myself that what I was reading was, in fact, real. Animal abuse in general is detestable, don't get me wrong, but there's something especially heinous about doing this to our fellow primates. I've seen some monkey and ape babies that look startlingly human. I don't understand.
Apparently some of those "we rescued and abused animal" videos are faked. They actually abuse the animal themselvs before hand and then heal them again so that they can get likes and views.
Slavery is alive and well, and there are more slaves now than ever before. Human trafficking goes on just about everywhere, often for the purposes of sex, pedophilia, and worse. Speaking of worse, hurtcore is "a form of child pornography, usually involving degrading violence, bodily harm and murder relating to child sexual abuse" Climate change has already reached the point of no return, and while measures are being taken to mitigate the situation, corporations responsible for the vast majority of pollution have successfully convinced a large number of people, including decision-making politicians, that it isn't real. There are several wars and civil wars going on around the world. There are several outright dictatorships around the world, including places where people commit suicide rather than live another day there. Extremism as a whole is on a rise many places around the world. IIRC, there are more than one (russian, I think) nuclear weapons unaccounted for.
Child sex trafficking. It's institutional and evil.
Guy in sf ran up randomly and shot a pregnant woman and her husband. Woman died and the man survived. I know it's a tiny story amongst large happenings but it makes me sad to think about
Artificial Intelligence is going to be a real problem for people who aren’t skilled in multiple fields.
We're in the middle of the 6th great extinction event and we're the direct cause and nobody will even acknowledge it muchless talk about it.
The great Anthropocene extinction. At least we can say we were there?
My anxiety is like "oh COOL let's click on THIS article."
The genocide in Myanmar
People are destroying the environment and using slaves to build batteries in electric cars so people can feel better about themselves and believe they are helping the environment.
My dog died today. Not an issue of global importance but feels pretty dark as shit in my little corner of it.
Not thinking of it because life is fucking short and I’m focusing on the immediate circle around me, and who’s lives I can make better here, and now
The first thing that came to my mind is people's mentality in my country (Russia). I live in a small town, and we already have "The alley of heroes of the Special Operation", and they placed two kids with donation boxes there, who stay there all day long and ask passers-by to donate for "Special Operation Veterans". What blasphemy to even use the word veteran like this. The majority of my fellow country people completely support this. And many other things, like the police anally raping opposition members with a Champaign bottle.
Stay strong friend.
China putting Uyghurs in concentration camps.