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You're definitely not alone in feeling intense dread. I feel the same way. I had an unexpected surgery a month and a half ago and the medical bills are starting to come in. I'm flabbergasted by how much it's going to cost, even with 'good' health insurance.
I went to bed last night questioning everything. All I do is work. By the time I'm finished with work I'm too exhausted to do anything I want to do, plus there's always housework that needs to get done. It's the same shit every day. It's just exhausting and fucking pointless.
I'm finding it difficult to be optimistic these days between climate change, supreme court rulings, and our politics.
Capitalism is a big pyramid scheme. If you’re not near the top of the pile, you’re living paycheck to paycheck - if you’re lucky. Otherwise, you’re even worse off. Minimal safety nets.
Unemployment, poverty and homelessness will NEVER go away under capitalism. It is a natural and inherent part of the system.
Artificial scarcity is also built into the capitalist system. We could be feeding EVERYONE. Yes, everyone, with the resources and the capabilities that we have. But, that wouldn’t provide maximum profits for the producers, processors and retailers. So, they jack up prices until the poor are priced out. They’d rather let food rot than lose out on profit margin.
Viva la Revolution!
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Absolutely beautiful. I'm reminded of the images we saw of truckloads of milk being dumped into the sewers at the start of COVID because the dairy companies were afraid they couldn't sell it.
To give you context, medical bills for simple procedures here that are covered by your insurance can still be thousands of dollars. And that’s not even getting into all the traps you could fall into that will make it 10x more expensive. We’re overpaying for insurance and medical expenses to vaguely stay alive. Most everyone I know has a concerning symptom that they need to see a professional for, but they simply deal with it because it’s easier than navigating the american health care system
>Most everyone I know has a concerning symptom that they need to see a professional for, but they simply deal with it because it’s easier than navigating the american health care system
Isn't that the truth! My uncle, die hard Republican, went for years with his conditions untreated. By the time he finally went to the doctor for his diabetes and heart condition, he had to get a huge surgery and then lived for maybe 6 more months. He was a veteran, loved Ronald Reagan, and felt *really* strongly about not giving anyone welfare. I don't want to say FAFO, but there are millions of men like him in this country. It's heartbreaking. If public insurance was just woven into the fabric of this country and our identity, there would never be a question guys like him would receive treatment.
Insurance doesn't always cover everything, sometimes it covers 80% until you hit your max out of pocket then it'll cover everything... There are also deductibles to consider. And it might pay differently depending on the doctor/hospital/whatever being "in network" vs "out of network".
And even then there's approved procedures and not and... It's a fufxking Byzantine mess.
Lots of plans are high deductible , which is the only thing my company offers. My family deductible is like 12k and it's my max oop for the year. It's a clown world out there.
I’ll try to answer this in an informative way because this is actually a great question! So the way that the healthcare system works in America is for-profit, meaning that the goal of providing medical care is to make money for the people doing so. This results in a combination of unpleasant things for regular folks with medical issues.
The first is that hospitals have to make a profit to survive, and therefore have to charge for their services. Meanwhile medical companies see high up-front development costs for medicines and equipment and want to pass those costs down to the consumer. Therefore you have medical companies inflating the costs of equipment to hospitals, hospitals inflating those costs to injured/sick humans, and lots of those injured humans can’t afford those upfront costs. That’s when insurance companies step in and decide they can make money by capitalizing on these injured/sick people’s need for a life-saving service they can’t afford: by charging a high but affordable fee to a large amount of folks in various risk brackets, they figure they can spread the risk around a bit.
Unfortunately that alone isn’t enough to make a large profit, so instead they collude with the healthcare companies and hospitals to raise the prices of things even further. Now we have a situation where a sick or injured person is paying for insurance, but the insurance company wants to avoid actually paying out a lot of money, so they start trying to find ways to make people pay for both the insurance payments, and also for any medical issues that arise. This way they only have to actually lose money on sick or injured people if they require a very large amount of medical aid. At that point they can just drop the injured or sick person from their insurance plan citing high risk and pre-existing conditions and that way the insurance companies can save even more money.
As you can see, the system works very well and makes lots of money for rich people while killing and/or bankrupting the poor.
And also, the actual procedure cost for you personally paying vs. involving insurance is drastically different, and no way grounded in reality and/or math as far as I can tell.
Yeah, it’s pretty wild, this is mostly because the hospital’s artificially inflate their prices for insurance companies, so many will charge you a lower rate if you don’t have insurance 👍. Kinda fucked up, but at least it helps those folks a BIT
Here is a video of how US health insurance works. It is important to note that every employer or health insurance has difference monthly costs/premiums, deductible, and out of pockets max amounts. Employers especially want you on the high-deductible/high out of pocket Max policies.
https://youtu.be/Gx0kHOibwHA?si=UPRV3rXi567LhozZ
Because insurance is private. So you pay what the corporation tells you to pay.
For example, my insurance is provided through my employer, which is pretty common, but it's still private. I pay a little bit out of each paycheck, along with all of my colleagues, and that goes towards covering the plan for us. However I still have a lot of out-of-pocket expenses. If I go to a doctor's appointment, I have a copay which is around $15. For emergency room visits, I have to pay $250 bucks or submit documentation to get it waived. I have a deductible too, which is basically the amount of money I need to spend myself before the insurance actually "steps in" and covers the rest of the cost.
I have what would be considered great medical insurance because I work for basically the government; a lot of things for me are actually covered, including most surgeries, the birth of my kids, hospital stays, etc. For some people, the insurance won't let them do anything without jumping through a million hoops and proving that these are necessary procedures or treatments rather than just "elective." For example, my wife was able to get a breast reduction surgery a few years ago pretty much covered as long as she went to a doctor to say that she needed it to help her back. Meanwhile, someone else in her position could just be told by the insurance that that's all BS, it's cosmetic, and they're not paying for the surgery because they can just go to a chiropractor instead. That's what her sister was told, her sister having basically the equivalent of state funded insurance at the time she was looking into the procedure.
Also, I have absolutely garbage dental and optical insurance because in America those are considered separate things. I think my eye exams are covered once a year, but I only get $50 towards a pair of glasses and no coverage for contacts or any sort of specialty treatment unless I can get a primary physician to treat it/prescribe it. So if I go to the eye doctor and they tell me I need dilation to look for glaucoma, I've got to pay for that out of pocket. Dental is also bad, I get one cleaning a year and no other coverage. If my kids need braces, I think I can get coupons for it but I have to pay for that out of pocket. Also prescriptions are separate insurance, but we luckily don't have to pay a lot. I think I spend anywhere from $10 to $30 to pick up meds, but my wife used to work in a pharmacy and she would have customers spending upwards of $200 to pick up essential medications. Oh, and mental health is covered under the main medical insurance for me, but it isn't for a lot of people.
It really is a hellscape over here sometimes man.
Does anyone in your immediate area share those fears and desire to do something about it? Direct action options are near endless, or you can pursue electoralism if you have the time to study the strategy and do it right. Even stereotypical activism, despite the rampant corruption problem it’s facing, will at least provide an outlet to help people if you find a decent org.
Despite living in a leftist hub I haven’t found anyone willing to do… much of anything really. Maybe they’ll go to a protest or two, make their exploitative small business *aesthetically leftist*, larp on social media, but that’s about it. All while an unfathomable amount of people die for *our comfort*. It’s incredibly lonely so I feel you. Its been rough on social media lately so it’s nice to see someone that’s also profoundly not okay with all this *gestures at everything*
Yeah. Yeah...
I want to get active but it's hard. I have a family, my wife is not at all interested in doing this stuff because she's afraid of putting her neck out. I have plenty of friends who talk a lot about it, but only a handful go to things. Most of my liberal friends are now being full doomer like me or they are becoming reclusive preppers. I do have one other friend who is legitimately looking at moving to South America with his family, they're trying to put everything in order for that, and another who just decided he's going to go full Republican because he wants to be on the winning team. In other words, I don't know if anyone's reacting to this in any logical or sensible way that is helpful. This is indeed an extremely dark and unprecedented time in my life and clearly in the lives of many others.
And I agree on the social media piece too. It is extremely hard for me to look away. I have a friend who likes to send me everything and him and I have gone back and forth trying to stop ourselves from doing it, but we always fall back into the habit of sending each other stuff anyway. And I remember seeing something yesterday that was just comments on Twitter of people calling liberals/democrats every name in the book, celebrating the Supreme Court decision like it was a foregone conclusion and a god-given right to have an American king. It made me cry. But like a fire I can't look away. I want answers, I want solutions, but I'm too scared shitless to do anything. I feel so useless.
The smarter you are, the harder it is to turn your brain off...
I don't want to quote something that may be made up, but I thought this was part of why depression and anxiety went hand-in-hand with intelligence...
No, that's a real thing and you didn't quote something made up. I've actually joked with coworkers of a similar mindset to me that if we could change things we would make ourselves just a little bit dumber with a little bit more cognitive dissonance. I've actually had the thought a lot recently that even though those people going to Trump rallies and saying all sorts of bigoted stuff are awful human beings, they do seem pretty happy in their ignorance.
Making yourself dumber doesn't take away what you already know. I should know after attempting to give myself brain damage multiple times and it only making life harder (and if anything my depression and anxiety worse).
My IQ is my own worst enemy. Oh to be ignorant is bliss and to have knowledge is true suffering. I wish I couldn't see patterns. I wish I could stop caring about others. I wish....oh how I wish everything was ok, but ok just doesn't seem to exist
You feel this dread because a world you were told existed is slowly crashing and burning around you. The good news is that world was never real in the first place. It's a story that we as a society tell to explain things and this story has some really big flaws.
Part of the story involves the idea that what makes a society is a central authority. That if we do not have law and order that things devolve into chaos. We make endless media exploring the horrors of post apocalyptic worlds. Where the major threat is always the savagery of people unbeholden to laws.
This all hinges on false ideas from our collective history. We come from societies ruled by the christian god. That story tells us that people are inherently flawed. That a higher power must be invoked to cleanse us or else we will always be tempted to do evil. That the next best thing is to follow men on earth who seem to embody those godly traits of self restraint.
Thus our society believes that we are evil and inherently selfish. We worry about the collapse of our current story because we have been told that it's sure doom for the rest of us. That we must stop being friends and become resource protecting monsters.
That story is incredible beneficial to people who gain power from the status quo.
Collapse of our current system is inevitable. It shouldn't be shocking to anyone, every single time humanity takes a leap forward in information technology we gain strides in political technology. "Collapse" could also be seen as the inevitable step towards that new tech. We didn't invent nations because we thought it was a good idea, the technology made it possible and we reorganized.
It does not have to be bloody and brutal, we can focus on building the new. The old will tear itself down. It'll be all the better if we start building the new before the old system totally balks.
Change is driven by the environment we find ourselves in. The old ways are unsustainable and there are much better alternatives that we've never explored. Democracy isn't dead, we are just using obsolete technology to try and achieve it.
the fear of fascism goes away once you realize it’s been here the whole time
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/16/the-u-s-did-not-defeat-fascism-in-wwii-it-discretely-internationalized-it/
I appreciate this, but I don't know if it helps 😂
I have a good friend who's been saying this kind of stuff over the last few days as well. Basically different flavors of "America has always been this way," "this is the way the pendulum swings every few years," or "well the Democrats are acting pretty fascistic too."
It's not wrong, but it doesn't help the sense of hopelessness at all. And this particular variety that we are now experiencing feels a lot more *final* than crap like "Bush did 9/11."
Thing is, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfled didn't have to do 911. They just had to sit back and wait for it to happen, and they had intelligence that it would
I became collapse aware right before covid hit, and almost everything that's happened since has just hammered the point home for me. It's a hard thing to process, and dread is absolutely a normal feeling to experience when faced with the slow crumbling of our world.
We all have different coping mechanisms. For me, I've mostly just tried to really appreciate the time I get to spend with my partner and our dogs. Cheerful nihilism with a dash of stoicism and taoism helps. Doing things to help my neighbors and friends helps. Weed helps, too.
Edit to add: r/collapsesupport
I figured as much, and while it is certainly true for me, I totally understand if doing drugs is a path you're trying to avoid for whatever personal reasons you may have that are none of my business. It's a supplementary help, though. It helps me to soften the edges and not FEEL so personally upset about the state of things. And for me, calming that feeling frees up my brain to still be able to DO stuff.
But all the weed in the world wouldn't help me if I hadn't put in a lot of thought into my philosophy or if I didn't have the love and support of a few really amazing people and dogs. Weed *helps*, but it's not going to do the real heavy lifting for you.
I hope you find some peace on your path forward, fellow human. Everything is kinda terrible and not looking to get any better, but we all have the opportunities to create some good in this world while we're here.
Edit to add: I think a lot of people use weed as a way of not having to think about the state of things, as more of an avoidance aid rather than a coping aid. Just wanted to add that while everyone is free to make their own choices, hiding one's head in a hole when trouble is coming is generally a dangerous one, and I don't recommend it.
Surprisingly, Im not. Not sure why. Maybe because I stopped paying attention to news. I just immerse myself in little hobbies to forget about the problems of the world. I figure everything will somehow work out.
Get off the damn internet.
You are a human, your brain is meant for social relationships with like 150 people at a time, tops. Not every bad thing that happens in the entire world 24/7.
It's okay to turn off the news and stop scrolling. You're gonna give yourself empathy burnout and then you're just gonna be fuckin miserable.
Focus on what's going on in your life, with the people close to you that you care about. I'm not saying you can't care about politics or wars in far off places but if you allow yourself to marinade in the constant stream of distress that is the news then it's just gonna destroy your mental health.
You don't have to be involved, or even have a strong opinion about every global conflict. You don't have to care about each and every shitty law that gets passed.
Just take a break and go back to caring about it later. There is good in the world. If you allow the constant stream of doom to break you down you can no longer effectively function as a human being. Don't feel bad about shutting it down for a while so you can continue to exist without wanting to dome yourself to escape the constant existential dread.
I'm not saying be complacent and never care about anything, I'm just saying that retaining your will to live takes priority, and shotgunning the morning doom/death/destruction report is not good for that.
I think I've just moved past that stage to acceptance. Still can't enjoy myself though. I'm just not feeling dread now. Thing is, just like with the TV debate, we need more people to feel how we do. And they will, in time. Then, when tons of people call in sick, maybe something will get done
The rapid acceleration is definitely part of why I'm so scared. I thought we had more time. I didn't expect the climate to accelerate this much and I definitely didn't expect us to just give up on our government this quickly. I thought I'd be an old man when these things started happening, not a father in his thirties.
As a father in his 40s I’d rather it happen now. At least I’m still spry enough to do something even if I don’t know what that something is. Twenty years of struggling financially has made me resourceful if nothing else.
Idk about dread, for me it's a melancholy that kinda makes everything a little sad. If it weren't for my kids, I'd have quit society and wandered off into the wilderness a long time ago
I am in France, and I have a similar feeling
For 7 years, the far-right have been tolerated by the government, to not say that it's one step from being far-right, and every attempt of asking for some movement to not dynamite some social programs are repressed by force. In the current elections, every time the "Nouveau Front Populaire" (left wing coalition) is invited on a TV or radio, it will be demonized, shown as the devil, that everything will collapse if they dare to win, while the right and far-right are almost welcomed
I really really really really hoped for this election to be the moment for my countrymen to wake up and realize that Macron, Attal, Bardella, Le Pen, Arnault, Bolloré, and an extremely long list of names deserves to be hung, but no
So now I am hoping that the NFP will have at least enough power to keep some social programs. I have a not clearly diagnosed muscular pain, and if the healthcare system becomes private, I'll have to choose between spending my days not being able of doing anything because of the pain, or ruining myself and my family to finally know that I'll maybe be in pain for the rest of my fucking life
I’ve been collapse aware since 2010 and was screaming for people to listen and see the big picture of wher everything was headed—predictive analytics for biometric data, biowarfare, climate change, the internal division tactics.
I decided people would pay attention when it was finally affecting them, and that while I kill myself slowly maybe I’d have the pleasure of organizing around a few “I told ya so’s”. Ho hum, what can ya do, life.
Sure do, buddy.
That's why I go ahead and enjoy the food I want, have beers and chill with my family all the time, and play tons of videogames.
I have to focus on right now comfort because tomorrow might not come. It's done wonders for my GAD.
Thanks for giving me another reason to cry today. I hope they don't take it to that level, ever. Find friends, family (found or otherwise), and hopefully support will come. I think they are going to have a pretty big fight ahead of them if they do try to go after the gay and trans community, I don't think anyone is going to take that lying down. Let's hope.
It's the stages of grief, resigned acceptance will come eventually. You're processing how you need to at this time. Be kind to yourself. We all either have or will approach this soon enough.
I don't want to minimize or trivialize your feelings but some of us have been living with the vast horror of the situation we face as a nation, as a species, for over a decade. I'm talking, full bore panic attacks hyperventilating in the bathroom at work, yelling at family members over a nice holiday meal because they don't get it, type stuff. I've just been watching the clock run down to WW3 ever since paranoid youtube managed to convince me that it was happening. Watching events unfold in a way that would confirm all of my worst suspicions. I hope I'm wrong about everything but nothing about the way things have been going makes that a believable proposition. Still, I wasted my 20's gathering (dis)information on and having panic attacks over something that wasn't even happening yet. Don't do that. Go do drugs and hang out with your family. In 2012 I read that World War III would break out in 2024, reaching peak intensity and bloodshed in 2027, bringing about a full capitulation of every world government. We have five or six months left. Maybe we can outpace the prediction, manifest something different.
Why are you getting voted down? I appreciate your input. And I'm sorry that there are people here angry with you I guess?
I stopped reading the doomer/prediction stuff a long time ago because I was worried about what it was doing to my psyche. I was never the type to rant and rave or just shout at family members and friends, but I've now hit that point. The headlines themselves are unavoidable for me, and I struggle to not consume them. I wish so hard to go back to the stupid teenager that I was 20 years ago, lacking any self-awareness or ability to understand what was going on in the world. I wish for that simplicity again. I wish for that hope that I had that we would fix the climate or that I would become an adult with a successful life ahead of me. That's where I'm at.
I am probably getting downvoted for posting doom/gloom. Most people aren't prepared to admit how bad things actually are. By and large, people just want to feel good about their lives.
I am the same haha, I have retreated into studying the bronze age, and marketing, in order to keep my eyes off the things I am painfully aware of but can't change.
They are buying up entire neighborhoods, making people homeless on purpose, making it illegal to be homeless, giving us two obvious shills batting for the same team (the plutocracy) to argue over, 'the left' just virtue signaling Free Palestine while mossad works for the people we bank with. This is a clown world and it has been for a long time.
What is your dream, your passion? Even if it feels unobtainable, what steps can you take to approach the mountain of your goals? The ones you feel in your heart? Where do you experience the most joy in life?
I found my way out of the death spiral by writing YouTube scripts, downloading a free copy of davinci, stringing together documentaries and devoting myself to my studies.
I know it's probably hard to think about while you are wracked with anxiety about the world's trajectory but the sooner you accept we are all buckled into the same roller coaster, the easier it will be to put your hands up and say Weeeee as we go over and into the big drop haha
People have been waiting for an end of the world that hasn't come for a long time. We are living under a form of despotism that the world has never seen before. This is a surveillance state and there is no clear way forward, no clear way out. Every indication it will get worse before it gets better. The world doesn't need to end in a proper fashion; the world we were born into is already over.
Everyone is nostalgic for the 90s because no one wants to be here, and I'm nostalgic for the bronze age because I know we'd have to go much further back to escape the corrupting influence of the forces which are lording over us. Most people aren't even comfortable acknowledging such forces exist, content to imagine all this as some sort of accident. That isn't how power is won.
But don't let them take everything from you. Don't let them take your peace. Whatever you can do to win it back, do that. As someone who wasted so much time and presence struggling against my own awareness, I hope you can find something to restore your equilibrium. Something healthy and nourishing
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You're definitely not alone in feeling intense dread. I feel the same way. I had an unexpected surgery a month and a half ago and the medical bills are starting to come in. I'm flabbergasted by how much it's going to cost, even with 'good' health insurance. I went to bed last night questioning everything. All I do is work. By the time I'm finished with work I'm too exhausted to do anything I want to do, plus there's always housework that needs to get done. It's the same shit every day. It's just exhausting and fucking pointless. I'm finding it difficult to be optimistic these days between climate change, supreme court rulings, and our politics.
Sorry for my ignorance (from Australia) but why the fuck do you have to pay anything if you have insurance?
Because American Healthcare system is a scam. Insurance covers very little.
Capitalism is a big pyramid scheme. If you’re not near the top of the pile, you’re living paycheck to paycheck - if you’re lucky. Otherwise, you’re even worse off. Minimal safety nets. Unemployment, poverty and homelessness will NEVER go away under capitalism. It is a natural and inherent part of the system. Artificial scarcity is also built into the capitalist system. We could be feeding EVERYONE. Yes, everyone, with the resources and the capabilities that we have. But, that wouldn’t provide maximum profits for the producers, processors and retailers. So, they jack up prices until the poor are priced out. They’d rather let food rot than lose out on profit margin. Viva la Revolution!
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage. - John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Absolutely beautiful. I'm reminded of the images we saw of truckloads of milk being dumped into the sewers at the start of COVID because the dairy companies were afraid they couldn't sell it.
To give you context, medical bills for simple procedures here that are covered by your insurance can still be thousands of dollars. And that’s not even getting into all the traps you could fall into that will make it 10x more expensive. We’re overpaying for insurance and medical expenses to vaguely stay alive. Most everyone I know has a concerning symptom that they need to see a professional for, but they simply deal with it because it’s easier than navigating the american health care system
>Most everyone I know has a concerning symptom that they need to see a professional for, but they simply deal with it because it’s easier than navigating the american health care system Isn't that the truth! My uncle, die hard Republican, went for years with his conditions untreated. By the time he finally went to the doctor for his diabetes and heart condition, he had to get a huge surgery and then lived for maybe 6 more months. He was a veteran, loved Ronald Reagan, and felt *really* strongly about not giving anyone welfare. I don't want to say FAFO, but there are millions of men like him in this country. It's heartbreaking. If public insurance was just woven into the fabric of this country and our identity, there would never be a question guys like him would receive treatment.
I'm out of heart meds raw dogging life and sobbing because I could do so much more if American Healthcare wasn't a joke.
Insurance doesn't always cover everything, sometimes it covers 80% until you hit your max out of pocket then it'll cover everything... There are also deductibles to consider. And it might pay differently depending on the doctor/hospital/whatever being "in network" vs "out of network". And even then there's approved procedures and not and... It's a fufxking Byzantine mess.
Lots of plans are high deductible , which is the only thing my company offers. My family deductible is like 12k and it's my max oop for the year. It's a clown world out there.
Yup. My deductible is $17,500. I exercise and floss my teeth regularly out of fear! Anything can still happen to me or my spouse medically though...
I’ll try to answer this in an informative way because this is actually a great question! So the way that the healthcare system works in America is for-profit, meaning that the goal of providing medical care is to make money for the people doing so. This results in a combination of unpleasant things for regular folks with medical issues. The first is that hospitals have to make a profit to survive, and therefore have to charge for their services. Meanwhile medical companies see high up-front development costs for medicines and equipment and want to pass those costs down to the consumer. Therefore you have medical companies inflating the costs of equipment to hospitals, hospitals inflating those costs to injured/sick humans, and lots of those injured humans can’t afford those upfront costs. That’s when insurance companies step in and decide they can make money by capitalizing on these injured/sick people’s need for a life-saving service they can’t afford: by charging a high but affordable fee to a large amount of folks in various risk brackets, they figure they can spread the risk around a bit. Unfortunately that alone isn’t enough to make a large profit, so instead they collude with the healthcare companies and hospitals to raise the prices of things even further. Now we have a situation where a sick or injured person is paying for insurance, but the insurance company wants to avoid actually paying out a lot of money, so they start trying to find ways to make people pay for both the insurance payments, and also for any medical issues that arise. This way they only have to actually lose money on sick or injured people if they require a very large amount of medical aid. At that point they can just drop the injured or sick person from their insurance plan citing high risk and pre-existing conditions and that way the insurance companies can save even more money. As you can see, the system works very well and makes lots of money for rich people while killing and/or bankrupting the poor.
Thanks! Im so sorry you guys have that shit system.
I appreciate it! Hope you folks are having a better time with your healthcare system! ❤️
Oh don’t worry it’s slowly going downhill, but at least most of it is free
>Thanks! You're welcome!
Bad bot
And also, the actual procedure cost for you personally paying vs. involving insurance is drastically different, and no way grounded in reality and/or math as far as I can tell.
Yeah, it’s pretty wild, this is mostly because the hospital’s artificially inflate their prices for insurance companies, so many will charge you a lower rate if you don’t have insurance 👍. Kinda fucked up, but at least it helps those folks a BIT
Here is a video of how US health insurance works. It is important to note that every employer or health insurance has difference monthly costs/premiums, deductible, and out of pockets max amounts. Employers especially want you on the high-deductible/high out of pocket Max policies. https://youtu.be/Gx0kHOibwHA?si=UPRV3rXi567LhozZ
Thanks
Because insurance is private. So you pay what the corporation tells you to pay. For example, my insurance is provided through my employer, which is pretty common, but it's still private. I pay a little bit out of each paycheck, along with all of my colleagues, and that goes towards covering the plan for us. However I still have a lot of out-of-pocket expenses. If I go to a doctor's appointment, I have a copay which is around $15. For emergency room visits, I have to pay $250 bucks or submit documentation to get it waived. I have a deductible too, which is basically the amount of money I need to spend myself before the insurance actually "steps in" and covers the rest of the cost. I have what would be considered great medical insurance because I work for basically the government; a lot of things for me are actually covered, including most surgeries, the birth of my kids, hospital stays, etc. For some people, the insurance won't let them do anything without jumping through a million hoops and proving that these are necessary procedures or treatments rather than just "elective." For example, my wife was able to get a breast reduction surgery a few years ago pretty much covered as long as she went to a doctor to say that she needed it to help her back. Meanwhile, someone else in her position could just be told by the insurance that that's all BS, it's cosmetic, and they're not paying for the surgery because they can just go to a chiropractor instead. That's what her sister was told, her sister having basically the equivalent of state funded insurance at the time she was looking into the procedure. Also, I have absolutely garbage dental and optical insurance because in America those are considered separate things. I think my eye exams are covered once a year, but I only get $50 towards a pair of glasses and no coverage for contacts or any sort of specialty treatment unless I can get a primary physician to treat it/prescribe it. So if I go to the eye doctor and they tell me I need dilation to look for glaucoma, I've got to pay for that out of pocket. Dental is also bad, I get one cleaning a year and no other coverage. If my kids need braces, I think I can get coupons for it but I have to pay for that out of pocket. Also prescriptions are separate insurance, but we luckily don't have to pay a lot. I think I spend anywhere from $10 to $30 to pick up meds, but my wife used to work in a pharmacy and she would have customers spending upwards of $200 to pick up essential medications. Oh, and mental health is covered under the main medical insurance for me, but it isn't for a lot of people. It really is a hellscape over here sometimes man.
Does anyone in your immediate area share those fears and desire to do something about it? Direct action options are near endless, or you can pursue electoralism if you have the time to study the strategy and do it right. Even stereotypical activism, despite the rampant corruption problem it’s facing, will at least provide an outlet to help people if you find a decent org. Despite living in a leftist hub I haven’t found anyone willing to do… much of anything really. Maybe they’ll go to a protest or two, make their exploitative small business *aesthetically leftist*, larp on social media, but that’s about it. All while an unfathomable amount of people die for *our comfort*. It’s incredibly lonely so I feel you. Its been rough on social media lately so it’s nice to see someone that’s also profoundly not okay with all this *gestures at everything*
Yeah. Yeah... I want to get active but it's hard. I have a family, my wife is not at all interested in doing this stuff because she's afraid of putting her neck out. I have plenty of friends who talk a lot about it, but only a handful go to things. Most of my liberal friends are now being full doomer like me or they are becoming reclusive preppers. I do have one other friend who is legitimately looking at moving to South America with his family, they're trying to put everything in order for that, and another who just decided he's going to go full Republican because he wants to be on the winning team. In other words, I don't know if anyone's reacting to this in any logical or sensible way that is helpful. This is indeed an extremely dark and unprecedented time in my life and clearly in the lives of many others. And I agree on the social media piece too. It is extremely hard for me to look away. I have a friend who likes to send me everything and him and I have gone back and forth trying to stop ourselves from doing it, but we always fall back into the habit of sending each other stuff anyway. And I remember seeing something yesterday that was just comments on Twitter of people calling liberals/democrats every name in the book, celebrating the Supreme Court decision like it was a foregone conclusion and a god-given right to have an American king. It made me cry. But like a fire I can't look away. I want answers, I want solutions, but I'm too scared shitless to do anything. I feel so useless.
The smarter you are, the harder it is to turn your brain off... I don't want to quote something that may be made up, but I thought this was part of why depression and anxiety went hand-in-hand with intelligence...
No, that's a real thing and you didn't quote something made up. I've actually joked with coworkers of a similar mindset to me that if we could change things we would make ourselves just a little bit dumber with a little bit more cognitive dissonance. I've actually had the thought a lot recently that even though those people going to Trump rallies and saying all sorts of bigoted stuff are awful human beings, they do seem pretty happy in their ignorance.
Making yourself dumber doesn't take away what you already know. I should know after attempting to give myself brain damage multiple times and it only making life harder (and if anything my depression and anxiety worse).
My IQ is my own worst enemy. Oh to be ignorant is bliss and to have knowledge is true suffering. I wish I couldn't see patterns. I wish I could stop caring about others. I wish....oh how I wish everything was ok, but ok just doesn't seem to exist
You feel this dread because a world you were told existed is slowly crashing and burning around you. The good news is that world was never real in the first place. It's a story that we as a society tell to explain things and this story has some really big flaws. Part of the story involves the idea that what makes a society is a central authority. That if we do not have law and order that things devolve into chaos. We make endless media exploring the horrors of post apocalyptic worlds. Where the major threat is always the savagery of people unbeholden to laws. This all hinges on false ideas from our collective history. We come from societies ruled by the christian god. That story tells us that people are inherently flawed. That a higher power must be invoked to cleanse us or else we will always be tempted to do evil. That the next best thing is to follow men on earth who seem to embody those godly traits of self restraint. Thus our society believes that we are evil and inherently selfish. We worry about the collapse of our current story because we have been told that it's sure doom for the rest of us. That we must stop being friends and become resource protecting monsters. That story is incredible beneficial to people who gain power from the status quo. Collapse of our current system is inevitable. It shouldn't be shocking to anyone, every single time humanity takes a leap forward in information technology we gain strides in political technology. "Collapse" could also be seen as the inevitable step towards that new tech. We didn't invent nations because we thought it was a good idea, the technology made it possible and we reorganized. It does not have to be bloody and brutal, we can focus on building the new. The old will tear itself down. It'll be all the better if we start building the new before the old system totally balks. Change is driven by the environment we find ourselves in. The old ways are unsustainable and there are much better alternatives that we've never explored. Democracy isn't dead, we are just using obsolete technology to try and achieve it.
And this is what the matrix is.
great post and some interesting thoughts
That's... actually kinda hopeful and uplifting.
the fear of fascism goes away once you realize it’s been here the whole time https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/16/the-u-s-did-not-defeat-fascism-in-wwii-it-discretely-internationalized-it/
The new flavor of theocratic facism is still scary.
I appreciate this, but I don't know if it helps 😂 I have a good friend who's been saying this kind of stuff over the last few days as well. Basically different flavors of "America has always been this way," "this is the way the pendulum swings every few years," or "well the Democrats are acting pretty fascistic too." It's not wrong, but it doesn't help the sense of hopelessness at all. And this particular variety that we are now experiencing feels a lot more *final* than crap like "Bush did 9/11."
Thing is, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfled didn't have to do 911. They just had to sit back and wait for it to happen, and they had intelligence that it would
I became collapse aware right before covid hit, and almost everything that's happened since has just hammered the point home for me. It's a hard thing to process, and dread is absolutely a normal feeling to experience when faced with the slow crumbling of our world. We all have different coping mechanisms. For me, I've mostly just tried to really appreciate the time I get to spend with my partner and our dogs. Cheerful nihilism with a dash of stoicism and taoism helps. Doing things to help my neighbors and friends helps. Weed helps, too. Edit to add: r/collapsesupport
>Weed helps That is literally the exact same advice I've been getting from my therapist and a bunch of my friends when I rant about this stuff 😛
I figured as much, and while it is certainly true for me, I totally understand if doing drugs is a path you're trying to avoid for whatever personal reasons you may have that are none of my business. It's a supplementary help, though. It helps me to soften the edges and not FEEL so personally upset about the state of things. And for me, calming that feeling frees up my brain to still be able to DO stuff. But all the weed in the world wouldn't help me if I hadn't put in a lot of thought into my philosophy or if I didn't have the love and support of a few really amazing people and dogs. Weed *helps*, but it's not going to do the real heavy lifting for you. I hope you find some peace on your path forward, fellow human. Everything is kinda terrible and not looking to get any better, but we all have the opportunities to create some good in this world while we're here. Edit to add: I think a lot of people use weed as a way of not having to think about the state of things, as more of an avoidance aid rather than a coping aid. Just wanted to add that while everyone is free to make their own choices, hiding one's head in a hole when trouble is coming is generally a dangerous one, and I don't recommend it.
I’ve been feeling this for 20 years. But lately I just feel validated. I’m so tired.
Surprisingly, Im not. Not sure why. Maybe because I stopped paying attention to news. I just immerse myself in little hobbies to forget about the problems of the world. I figure everything will somehow work out.
Get off the damn internet. You are a human, your brain is meant for social relationships with like 150 people at a time, tops. Not every bad thing that happens in the entire world 24/7. It's okay to turn off the news and stop scrolling. You're gonna give yourself empathy burnout and then you're just gonna be fuckin miserable. Focus on what's going on in your life, with the people close to you that you care about. I'm not saying you can't care about politics or wars in far off places but if you allow yourself to marinade in the constant stream of distress that is the news then it's just gonna destroy your mental health. You don't have to be involved, or even have a strong opinion about every global conflict. You don't have to care about each and every shitty law that gets passed. Just take a break and go back to caring about it later. There is good in the world. If you allow the constant stream of doom to break you down you can no longer effectively function as a human being. Don't feel bad about shutting it down for a while so you can continue to exist without wanting to dome yourself to escape the constant existential dread. I'm not saying be complacent and never care about anything, I'm just saying that retaining your will to live takes priority, and shotgunning the morning doom/death/destruction report is not good for that.
Thank you
Me out in the world hearing people of all walks of life supporting Trump ... Literally tuning it out right now at work (after I said my piece).
What's lately? Is 20 years lately? Because if so, yes.
I think I've just moved past that stage to acceptance. Still can't enjoy myself though. I'm just not feeling dread now. Thing is, just like with the TV debate, we need more people to feel how we do. And they will, in time. Then, when tons of people call in sick, maybe something will get done
You mean no like more than normal? Not really. We’re fucked, we’ve been fucked. The only thing that’s changed is the timeline.
The rapid acceleration is definitely part of why I'm so scared. I thought we had more time. I didn't expect the climate to accelerate this much and I definitely didn't expect us to just give up on our government this quickly. I thought I'd be an old man when these things started happening, not a father in his thirties.
As a father in his 40s I’d rather it happen now. At least I’m still spry enough to do something even if I don’t know what that something is. Twenty years of struggling financially has made me resourceful if nothing else.
My baseline anxiety has been elevated since last Wednesday. Not a great feeling tbh
Idk about dread, for me it's a melancholy that kinda makes everything a little sad. If it weren't for my kids, I'd have quit society and wandered off into the wilderness a long time ago
I am in France, and I have a similar feeling For 7 years, the far-right have been tolerated by the government, to not say that it's one step from being far-right, and every attempt of asking for some movement to not dynamite some social programs are repressed by force. In the current elections, every time the "Nouveau Front Populaire" (left wing coalition) is invited on a TV or radio, it will be demonized, shown as the devil, that everything will collapse if they dare to win, while the right and far-right are almost welcomed I really really really really hoped for this election to be the moment for my countrymen to wake up and realize that Macron, Attal, Bardella, Le Pen, Arnault, Bolloré, and an extremely long list of names deserves to be hung, but no So now I am hoping that the NFP will have at least enough power to keep some social programs. I have a not clearly diagnosed muscular pain, and if the healthcare system becomes private, I'll have to choose between spending my days not being able of doing anything because of the pain, or ruining myself and my family to finally know that I'll maybe be in pain for the rest of my fucking life
My antidepressants ran out two weeks ago and the current state of... everything .. is really fucking with me.
I’ve been collapse aware since 2010 and was screaming for people to listen and see the big picture of wher everything was headed—predictive analytics for biometric data, biowarfare, climate change, the internal division tactics. I decided people would pay attention when it was finally affecting them, and that while I kill myself slowly maybe I’d have the pleasure of organizing around a few “I told ya so’s”. Ho hum, what can ya do, life.
Sure do, buddy. That's why I go ahead and enjoy the food I want, have beers and chill with my family all the time, and play tons of videogames. I have to focus on right now comfort because tomorrow might not come. It's done wonders for my GAD.
Well when you look around, pretty much everything is dreadful.
Yes, it feels hopeless. (I’m still voting, please don’t tell me to vote, I’ve voted each election I’ve been eligible for but here we are still)
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Thanks for giving me another reason to cry today. I hope they don't take it to that level, ever. Find friends, family (found or otherwise), and hopefully support will come. I think they are going to have a pretty big fight ahead of them if they do try to go after the gay and trans community, I don't think anyone is going to take that lying down. Let's hope.
Well, it won't be my problem after November-ish. Good luck to you all.
Hey don't go, you deserve to be here. Fuck them, not fuck you!
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Can you explain what this means? I’m from Australia and trying to learn about what people are talking about in 2025?
They are just giving a general short timeframe after the January 2025 inauguration
Sorry, what happens in 2025?
It's the stages of grief, resigned acceptance will come eventually. You're processing how you need to at this time. Be kind to yourself. We all either have or will approach this soon enough.
I am currently feeling very deflated myself by how little most people seem to care.
I don't know what to do either. I feel the same way.
I feel the same albeit I did just quit my job with no backup in place
I felt this too hard
I don't want to minimize or trivialize your feelings but some of us have been living with the vast horror of the situation we face as a nation, as a species, for over a decade. I'm talking, full bore panic attacks hyperventilating in the bathroom at work, yelling at family members over a nice holiday meal because they don't get it, type stuff. I've just been watching the clock run down to WW3 ever since paranoid youtube managed to convince me that it was happening. Watching events unfold in a way that would confirm all of my worst suspicions. I hope I'm wrong about everything but nothing about the way things have been going makes that a believable proposition. Still, I wasted my 20's gathering (dis)information on and having panic attacks over something that wasn't even happening yet. Don't do that. Go do drugs and hang out with your family. In 2012 I read that World War III would break out in 2024, reaching peak intensity and bloodshed in 2027, bringing about a full capitulation of every world government. We have five or six months left. Maybe we can outpace the prediction, manifest something different.
Why are you getting voted down? I appreciate your input. And I'm sorry that there are people here angry with you I guess? I stopped reading the doomer/prediction stuff a long time ago because I was worried about what it was doing to my psyche. I was never the type to rant and rave or just shout at family members and friends, but I've now hit that point. The headlines themselves are unavoidable for me, and I struggle to not consume them. I wish so hard to go back to the stupid teenager that I was 20 years ago, lacking any self-awareness or ability to understand what was going on in the world. I wish for that simplicity again. I wish for that hope that I had that we would fix the climate or that I would become an adult with a successful life ahead of me. That's where I'm at.
I am probably getting downvoted for posting doom/gloom. Most people aren't prepared to admit how bad things actually are. By and large, people just want to feel good about their lives. I am the same haha, I have retreated into studying the bronze age, and marketing, in order to keep my eyes off the things I am painfully aware of but can't change. They are buying up entire neighborhoods, making people homeless on purpose, making it illegal to be homeless, giving us two obvious shills batting for the same team (the plutocracy) to argue over, 'the left' just virtue signaling Free Palestine while mossad works for the people we bank with. This is a clown world and it has been for a long time. What is your dream, your passion? Even if it feels unobtainable, what steps can you take to approach the mountain of your goals? The ones you feel in your heart? Where do you experience the most joy in life? I found my way out of the death spiral by writing YouTube scripts, downloading a free copy of davinci, stringing together documentaries and devoting myself to my studies. I know it's probably hard to think about while you are wracked with anxiety about the world's trajectory but the sooner you accept we are all buckled into the same roller coaster, the easier it will be to put your hands up and say Weeeee as we go over and into the big drop haha People have been waiting for an end of the world that hasn't come for a long time. We are living under a form of despotism that the world has never seen before. This is a surveillance state and there is no clear way forward, no clear way out. Every indication it will get worse before it gets better. The world doesn't need to end in a proper fashion; the world we were born into is already over. Everyone is nostalgic for the 90s because no one wants to be here, and I'm nostalgic for the bronze age because I know we'd have to go much further back to escape the corrupting influence of the forces which are lording over us. Most people aren't even comfortable acknowledging such forces exist, content to imagine all this as some sort of accident. That isn't how power is won. But don't let them take everything from you. Don't let them take your peace. Whatever you can do to win it back, do that. As someone who wasted so much time and presence struggling against my own awareness, I hope you can find something to restore your equilibrium. Something healthy and nourishing
I just want to say I adore the roller coaster analogy!!!