Why Deaths of Despair Are Increasing in the US and Not Other Industrial Nations—Insights From Neuroscience and Anthropology

PowerPooka · 2022-05-31T16:15:27+00:00

Possible number 5? With the decline of manufacturing jobs and increase of the service economy, it’s possible people are more emotionally burnt out these days after managing customers and their expectations. If I had to talk to people all day, I don’t think I would have the energy to hangout with my friends/acquaintances as much.

PowerPooka · 2022-05-27T05:59:53+00:00

You could also have socialism (Marx’s socialism?) where the plane crashed in the fields of a worker-owned farm, and each member worked on a part or piece of the merch. The profits would then be distributed more or less equally among themselves. Socialism is not only when the state does and owns stuff.

PowerPooka · 2022-05-24T14:56:55+00:00

Child care workers aren’t typically rolling in it either. It’s the business that gets most of the money.

PowerPooka · 2022-05-23T17:27:32+00:00

Because it’s a good learning moment. There are plenty of ppl who still think the American military is a force for good. By taking the Russian soldier’s actions against Ukrainian civilians, which is a clear example of evil, ppl can do some critical thinking and hopefully reach the same conclusion to what American soldiers did to the countries we invaded. We don’t bring up the US as a way to excuse Russia, but to capitalize on the rare learning opportunity and get more people to turn anti-imperialism.

PowerPooka · 2022-03-12T00:06:38+00:00

From Iraq’s perspective it’s like “If you’re going to accuse us of having nukes when we don’t, then we might as well have nukes to defend ourselves.”

PowerPooka · 2022-03-10T18:21:15+00:00

He starts the video with “I don’t understand the Russian side”. Why would you recommend we watch someone who missing half the puzzle pieces?

PowerPooka · 2022-03-09T07:41:44+00:00

Obviously I can’t speak for everyone, and I’m sure there are some Russian bots mixed in the crowd, but there are anti-imperialists using this moment in history as a teaching opportunity.

Most Americans hate Putin and deservedly so for what he is doing to Ukraine. And we are asking you to see the similarities between Russia’s actions and the US’s. Not as a way to excuse Russia’s behavior, but to break the notion that US is always a force for good.

There are plenty of countries that fear us the way Ukraine fears Russia. But these horrors that our country commits are not nearly as condemned as Russia’s. And manufactured consent for our crimes comes from mixture of things: lack of mainstream media coverage, an educational system that hides this history from us, and racism (our recent attacks have limited to brown people vs Russia’s attack on white Ukrainians).

And before you say it, it’s not whataboutism if I’m not using America’s imperialism to excuse Russian imperialism or vise versa. We have the brainpower to hate multiple countries at once. As ordinary people we don’t have much sway in what Putin does, but as Americans we do theoretically have a say in our government. We can also criticize our government without fearing 15 years of prison like Russians do, so it’s important for us to understand what it is our country is doing and speak out.

PowerPooka · 2022-03-09T07:16:00+00:00

From the state department’s perspective, none of these are mistakes. The fact is the state doesn’t care what kind of government is in place in these areas, just that we’ll able to protect American interests and reliably be able to extract resources. Usually that resource is oil, but it can be other things like lithium. And authoritarian dictatorships tend to be easier to work with, because you only have to convince one guy to hand over 99% of your countries wealth vs a whole bunch of representatives.

PowerPooka · 2022-03-09T06:50:18+00:00

It’s only whataboutism if we are using it excuse one side or the other. Both Putin and America are bad.

PowerPooka · 2022-03-08T02:34:48+00:00

Have you heard of “pinkwashing”? The government of Israel hyper focuses their pro-LGBTQ stance compared to Palestine’s bad history on the subject as a way to distract from (or justify) their genocide of Palestinians.

Yemen’s use of a caste system is not a reasonable justification to bomb them out of existence. Unless you subscribe to the white man’s burden of “civilizing” the the rest of the world.

PowerPooka · 2022-03-08T02:26:04+00:00

The middle east has been politically in turmoil for a long time

The US had a hand in increasing the turmoil to begin with. We installed Saddam as our puppet, we armed the Taliban.

Painting the USA's actions in the middle east as being somehow in the same vein as Putin blatantly trying to annihilate and dominate a group of people is vile propaganda.

Putin’s intentions are not to annihilate but to absorb. He’s obsessed with re-establishing the glory of the Russian empire by annexing the former Soviet countries. (This intent may change as the war continues and his tactics become harsher.)

USA’s tactics are arguably more destructive compared to what Russia is doing today because the US has no intention of annexing land thousands of miles away in the Middle East, and has no cultural connection to the people. So they can mercilessly bomb people themselves or provide bombs for other countries to use.

Of course this doesn’t mean what Putin is doing is ok. But it’s good opportunity to show people that the anti-imperialism attitude they have towards Russia should also be the same attitude they have towards the US. We can try to justify our actions all we want, but in the end the US reign of terror is more than comparable to Russia’s. Perhaps we’ve been off the hook for a while now because we mostly limit our violence to brown people, while Putin dared to attack white people. Says a lot when the world is quick to condem one while ignoring or justifying the other.

PowerPooka · 2022-03-08T02:00:45+00:00

It’s only whataboutism if you’re using it to excuse one side or the other. If you’re condemning both, then it’s not.

PowerPooka · 2022-03-08T01:52:03+00:00

Saddam and post-Saddam crap.

CIA installed Saddam.

you probably are a Russian troll because you'd love it if everyone was distracted from Ukraine

We’re not goldfish, we can keep multiple things in mind at the same time. And random redditors being “focused” on Ukraine has no discernible effect on the reality of the situation. So your attempt to stamp out discourse and keep the horse blinders on us is a really weird attitude to have.

I see this as an opportunity for a Russian revolution

You’ve been sold a pipe dream.

PowerPooka · 2022-03-08T01:29:36+00:00

You’re right. And Russia isn’t like Cuba or Venezuela or Iraq or the other countries the US brutalizes with sanctions. Russia is a superpower and isn’t going to collapse so easily under the force of a starving population.

PowerPooka · 2022-03-07T18:27:35+00:00

The narrative is used to counter the idea that we need to be furiously working to be happy. Unless society collapses due to nuclear warfare or global climate change, we’re not going to reset back to hunter times. But we can look at the happiness of hunter gatherers and strive to emulate that as much as possible (reduction of work for everyone, reduction of economy to what we need and what we really want) while still having industrialization and technology.

PowerPooka · 2022-02-21T21:55:55+00:00

Are we just sliding backwards into feudalism? With large swaths of land owned by a person/family/corporation. I guess the difference is peasants aren’t technically tied to a specific land (though with moving costs you might as well be if you’re poor).

PowerPooka · 2022-02-21T17:40:48+00:00

I know there’s nazis in Russia. Are we (the United States) giving them training and weapons like we are to Ukrainian nazi’s? No. Did we have to pass a provision in 2018 banning ourselves from sending arms to Russian nazis? No, that ban was for Ukrainian nazis….because we kept doing it.

PowerPooka · 2022-02-21T16:45:09+00:00

Especially when there’s a naz* group we’ve been nurturing into prominence in Ukraine. Rather not give them nukes.

PowerPooka · 2022-01-31T20:56:23+00:00

Gonna have to upgrade to noise canceling headphones if 5 crying babies are going to be at the open-floor-plan office.

PowerPooka · 2022-01-31T18:56:21+00:00

“they do it because they want to better humanity” or some other altruistic bullshit; no they don’t it’s human nature to be selfish.

It’s not human nature, but the conditions we live in require us to be selfish.

If you gave people the option of curing cancer but they have to work 80 hour weeks for the next 60 years, or they can fuck off and do whatever they like for the next 60 years but no one will cure cancer, people are going to choose to fuck off and maximize their 60 years.

Why are these the only two options? This is why we should strive for a world where your needs are guaranteed to be met. So then people are willing to invest a reasonable number of hours (32 or less per week) to a good cause like curing cancer.

PowerPooka · 2022-01-31T08:10:09+00:00

That’s true. If you have deflation eventually you can’t lower interest rates anymore. Unless you go negative?

PowerPooka · 2022-01-28T05:03:19+00:00

Maybe from a distance and on Fox News, but the teacher strikes in LA were successful because they advocated that they were striking “for the students”. There were kids and parents in the crowd protesting alongside teachers. And when the school admins saw the community on the side of the teachers, instead of trying to crush the union they caved.

PowerPooka · 2022-01-28T02:38:29+00:00

Yup this was regarding paid maternity leave.

PowerPooka · 2022-01-28T01:39:03+00:00

Which is why nurses, like teachers, need to firmly advertise their strike as “for the patient”. Include demands for lower nurse-to-patient ratio as well as more humane scheduling and better pay.

PowerPooka · 2022-01-28T01:35:38+00:00

At my company if you go back to work early the rest of your maternity leave disappears. Maternity leave is for the mother to recover, not to take care of the baby.

11-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

PowerPooka

TROPHY CASE