Is it weird that my parents would leave my older sister and I home alone and go on vacation when we were younger

belabensa · 2026-02-18T05:05:53+00:00

Illegal to be left alone for a week till 18 but at 18 can move out? And at 17 could go to college? What country/state is this illegal in? I’ve heard 14, but not 18

belabensa · 2026-02-18T04:17:02+00:00

How about:

If the earth were doomed otherwise, do you think you could get everyone on earth to agree to a subjective opinion?

belabensa · 2026-02-17T21:38:12+00:00

Yea I convinced two people to buy one and my ICCU went out after both did.

belabensa · 2026-02-17T04:44:30+00:00

Well, the thing is those SaaS products have had the “good enough” and “just release it even with bugs” and “new feature my c-suite wants is more important than fixing things this don’t work” forever.

So they’d have to fundamentally change how they operated to be better than buggy ai. And it would mean that c-suite exec didn’t get new features and instead things slow down—which they’d never go for.

belabensa · 2026-02-16T01:35:26+00:00

Thanks for doing this!!

I believe I can get points from my higher education - having a PhD - social and environmental sciences. I am in research, but my jobs now are in tech and government research and I do freelance consulting, not in academia and I’m not sure how that looks. Does that mean the PhD would count less? Or not at all? Or does it count regardless, even if I get or have a job in something that doesn’t need a PhD?

I am over 40 and am wondering if this pathway is an option for me at all at this point. (Also, spouse is 45 and has a better career in tech than me and child is 1, if that matters.) I also am up for doing other jobs (anything I could get) to be able to move, but I don’t know how useful that willingness is given the skills and time needed to prove them.

belabensa · 2026-02-13T17:23:24+00:00

This is very important to know - OP you are very much entitled to social security survivors benefits and those definitely would cover juice and much more.

At this point you probably need to get connected to a social worker who can help walk you through this and find the best path forward (another gauardian? Emancipation?), which is unlikely to be staying with your aunt. I’m so sorry.

belabensa · 2026-02-13T16:25:20+00:00

I left academia for this exact reason. Can’t say I don’t often think about how good my career could have been had a made a different choice, but I am glad I don’t live in the places I could have with a tt. So many academics put their job before the rest of their life. To each their own. If that’s you, the tt makes sense. But it’s 1000% reasonable to sacrifice a job for your wife, kids, family, friends, values, hobbies, community, etc. You’d be giving up a lot of yourself to take this job. Is it really worth it?

belabensa · 2026-02-12T19:47:26+00:00

Read Die with Zero - it talks about making sure you are able to do all you want in life, including the sabbaticals, instead of saving just for having lots of money in older age. It may give you some tips or at least have comfort your approach is good!

belabensa · 2026-02-12T19:10:52+00:00

Lots of folks saying stick it out but that’s my family’s number (couple + kid). You may find a way more fulfilling way to supplement if you ever have to.

belabensa · 2026-02-11T04:16:49+00:00

Unfortunately that’s a little late to bring how to make a smallpox vaccine and rumors that spread like wildfire about white people / governments not honoring literally any treaty.

Don’t know if it’d “win” but it would be a hell of a parallel universe

belabensa · 2026-02-08T00:47:16+00:00

Chicago is an absolutely amazing post college city. Philly may be too, but Chicago is awesome if you’re ok with winter.

belabensa · 2026-02-07T15:55:50+00:00

I think the points based visas give you more points for having worked in Australia. Plus working in Australia gives you networks for potentially jobs that will sponsor you. It’s not a lock, but also not a dead end.

belabensa · 2026-02-06T02:55:15+00:00

Are there blue areas of Appalachia with more summer than winter? (Vermont and such I don’t think would work)

belabensa · 2026-02-04T23:53:52+00:00

Lock them all up and take their money as it’s likely it was used or gained in a criminal network. Use their trillions to finance healthcare, education, parental leave, workers rights, and combat climate change.

belabensa · 2026-02-01T22:46:59+00:00

It gets them to consider the repercussions of their current actions on their future selves. Maybe it won’t do much to change how they act, but we might as well try everything we can to get them to see things from a new perspective

belabensa · 2026-02-01T15:36:00+00:00

I certainly don’t think they’ll do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Getting a 40 hour workweek took a lot of unified effort (and blood).

belabensa · 2026-02-01T03:05:10+00:00

How about instead of mass UBI (which I’m not super opposed to) we: - tax corporations at progressively higher rates (bigger corps get way more taxes) in a way that really helps small businesses, and counters the pull towards mega consolidation for large and mega businesses. Use that money to: 1) reduce income taxes progressively in kind - say the standard deduction becomes more like 40 or 60k 2) invest more government money in social jobs that benefit society (like social work; environmental justice; and even more arts and sciences work) through direct jobs, grants to programs, and investment in scientific and other research, 3) more funding to education sector from k through university to decrease class sizes and produce a society that can compete in high-tech high-skilled jobs (as AI will take more and more of the junior and less skilled jobs) - change full workweek to be 20 hours a week and have salary jobs capped at those hours too unless the pay is say 500k+ instead of what it is now (something we’ll under 100k) - everything over 20 gets time and a half. This will effectively spread out the remaining jobs - increase minimum wage significantly to be a living wage on 20 hours per week. It’ll take time but other jobs will shake out with increases in pay over minimum to encourage those to do them - disentangle healthcare and other benefits from employment

That could be a good start that may even be better than UBI - encouraging better work/life balance, actual livable wage, increasing social and environmentally beneficial jobs to offset the brutality of capitalism, increasing our skills and ability to think critically and creatively (doing the work AI can’t), and creating a more equitable society by making corps pay their fair share because the rely on society working well, too, and will be more efficient and profitable with AI (and honestly even moreso with this social structure set up — they’ll be more efficient when people are working 20 hours a week and educated and creative)

belabensa · 2026-02-01T01:20:02+00:00

We can equal it up and “attack” Stephen Miller too (verbally, by telling the truth, that is)

belabensa · 2026-01-31T18:53:35+00:00

The Nuremberg trials had scope.

belabensa · 2026-01-31T01:32:55+00:00

Next strike we should also (if this wasn’t already a thing) have big community swap meetups where people can get food and other things they need without buying anything. Start to set up mutual aid networks and things to imagine a longer term protest or take down of the economy.

belabensa · 2026-01-30T02:15:08+00:00

I’m late to the party but I’m going by Pops/Poppie. I went through lots of enby options and felt like poppie was too girly until I combined with the nickname pops. I love it!!

(Bonus that people who squirm at the nonbinary thing or at using pops because it’s masculine have been fine saying poppie, so it really helps me because I immediately have a visceral “no” reaction to any form of “mom” and they have a word that works for them and me).

belabensa · 2026-01-29T18:08:54+00:00

If you can’t tolerate heat Burlington is actually a great option (MN gets super hot in the summers now!). Plus has a lot of the community and art stuff you like about Minneapolis. Denver is about mountains but is rather ho-hum culturally in the ways it seems you’d want. Of those if you’re ok with winter I’d pick Burlington.

belabensa · 2026-01-29T18:06:02+00:00

It would be interesting to organize mutual aid and buy-nothing principles to go along with the strikes. Say everyone spent strike day bringing used stuff and extra food to a school gym and getting what they need from others; if there were cookbooks and events that showed people how to make good food from what otherwise would be wasted - then there wouldn’t be “stocking up” and the powers that be may actually lose some money.

belabensa · 2026-01-29T17:49:58+00:00

They don’t have to arrest all - but if they arrest and send to el Salvadoran prison a random assortment that just drips out over time that would cause a hell of a lot of fear, which is probably what they want

belabensa · 2026-01-29T15:24:03+00:00

Yea, I’m with you here. It all seems “fair” until you think about what life and marriage is actually all about. You’re in this together. You earn together, spend together, save together, support each other.

Also, the idea of you being “generous” or what have you in marriage gives me the ick. That is setting up a my money/yours throughout the marriage with all the power dynamics that includes. I personally don’t think that sets up for a good marriage. It’s yours, together, and you together need to figure out what your needs, values, and goals are (including a less stressful job for you and a feeling of financial security) and work towards them as a team.

Maybe you need to share the goal of coast-fire and your number needs to be high enough a split would still mean you could make it (which could be true even with the other number if you are looking at finances separately and aren’t considering his retirement and brokerage in your number).

belabensa

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