#anyways I just needed to get this off my system but I am off to scribble and scrawl and make sense of the murk | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

medicinemane · 24 days

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And maybe you'll be like "but if you don't trust businesses, how can you trust welfare?"

I fucking don't. My mom trying to get on food stamps fucked me up because a lady I never met without my permission got my SSN from my mom and started editing my files. My heart still races to this very second whenever I think about it, it kinda messed me up bad and I'll never ever ever see any kind of recourse

And I'm terrified that I'm gonna lose my medicaid just cause I inherited some money from my grandpa

And I've never even applied for disability cause it kinda doesn't matter finding out if I'd qualify or not cause of my depression, when the rules are so restrictive I don't know if I've even be allowed to keep my house

I do not fucking trust these things on a personal level. I feel like out of a lot of people I have the most to fear from them cause I'm on the edge of having things work, and that gets you punished

...but I need medicaid in order to have insurance (and when you strip out the finance side of medicaid, I love medicaid... they're honestly incredible insurance... I just... I just... dental is like 90% of why medicaid is so important to me, ever since I found out this state pays for it I've actually been able to do cleanings which is important to me cause I can't always get myself to brush)

And I think things like disability and food stamps are pretty damn important on a personal level, and honestly are also good for the economy cause they get people spending... it's practically a free cash infusion into the economy, cause these are people who need to buy stuff

There's just so much important stuff welfare does that it's worth dealing with government

No, what I want is more accountability so if someone gets my SSN from a 3rd party like my mom they're held to HIPPA styles standards where that's not ok to access my files without my permission (She changed my fucking address and tried to get medicaid to investigate me for fraud! Never even met me)

Like have some accountability there and in every situation

Secondly I want less punitive focused rules. I'd frankly prefer bezos get on disability than smack down some poor sod cause they got $2000 in the bank or cause their friend lets them live with them for free

If there's gonna be a cut off on these programs, it needs to be a solid step above the poverty line, cause... by definition I assume poverty line denotes kinda the minimum expected income people can reasonably live off of, and if you take away benefits people are gonna lose a chunk of money to covering that stuff themself, so you need a buffer before you kick people off

I don't fucking trust the government for a second, I've actively been fucked by them and on a personal level I avoid everything but medicaid and only that cause everything but the money is pleasant to deal with and I kinda need it (honestly if I was rich I'm not even kidding that I'd rather give medicaid like $400 a month than some insurance company, I sincerely like them as insurance)

But I'd trust them a lot more if they were less punitive, less out to hunt me down and gut me cause someone handed me a fiver or cause I started to get on my feet, and if government employees had concrete rules they had to follow that were actually transparent and enforced

Like 90% of my problems with welfare go away if they're held accountable and there's less "catch the welfare cheats" mentality going around

I don't trust the government in the slightest, but sadly there some jobs it kinda has to do, so I'd just rather force it to be an open book where the public can keep an eye on it and if they step out of line there's consequences (sort of like I don't trust most mega corps but happen to sometimes need stuff from them... did you know literally every cell service provider has been illegally selling shit like your location data to random people like bounty hunters, and the FCC just slapped them with a fine that's 0.02% of their yearly incomes and debated even doing that? I even can offer a source on that)

...I don't trust much of any authority cause they constantly fail me and kinda screw me. Don't trust doctors either, but I still gotta go to them, you know? ...they're just... they're real bad at listening... so many systems need systemic change

(You know who I really don't trust is the cops. I could point to so many examples. My uncle doesn't trust cops either, and he's an ex Fire and SWAT paramedic, he worked with them and we still got into a long conversation where he basically tore into them far better than I can)

(I don't trust authority that's not accountable)

#anyway; if I'm a lousy cheat or whatever least they can do is give me a gun so I can solve that problem #shit makes me wish I was canadian so I could take advantage of their sick implementation of assisted suicide #what should be a system that gives people a choice about the quality of their life; and I don't think should be relegated to terminal illne #...there was... think he was dutch; had been burned by his girlfriend all over his body; was in constant pain #and he ended up using assisted suicide in the end cause he was just in constant agony... think that's his choice to make #but of course the canadian system concretely pushes people; mostly the poor and disabled; to kill themselves #not theoretically; as in literally says word for word to them 'you should really kill yourself; just sign here'#it's sick; it truly is #but for any americans that want to dunk on it; I'm telling you we're no better #we have the exact same miserable desperation and people (again; mostly poor and disabled) into despair #only difference is we don't offer assisted suicide #the underlying issues in the US and canada are so damn similar; so much of what's happening ends up being the same #you can't act smug just cause you only make people want to die instead of also offering to help #that's like saying that you're the good guy cause while you did everything you could to drive someone to the brink #get them fired; slash their tires; just cartoon level villain stuff to personally harass this person... at least you won't hand them rope #we have such similar systemic issues to canada; and I am explicitly telling you that like the people in canada that have said #'I can't take it anymore; disability doesn't cover my expenses and I can't get any help... I'm at my wits end so I'm gonna go die'#I'm telling you that I feel that same way; just without any eugenics agency I can call up #I'm really working to get things stable; but it feels like I'm teetering on the edge of falling into permanent failure #and... and I'll actually tell you the amount even though I don't like to mention money... makes me feel guilty #my gramps left me $27k; which sounds like a lot; but I got 20 windows that need redoing (house has a lot of windows)#...if they ended up being 1k each; that's most of the money gone; if they end up being more...#and I got a whole lotta other stuff I've been putting off like plumbing around here; need to replace that faucet #it's an amount of money that helps; but it's an amount of money that isn't gonna last #...that's like a year of bills; and my mom already needs me to pay like $400 to the propane bill since she got behind #I want to use it to... to try and really get my feet on the ground; but it might loose me my insurance... it makes me want to die #and not to be a selfish bastard; but if I could I'd like to try and take and invest a bit to maybe build some passive income #given that... that a job never seems to work out for me cause I fucking suck and cause like... my insomnia has me up at 5:30 am right now #mm tag so i can find things later

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piplupod · 29 days

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I've been wondering why MH workers have been treating me like I'm The Lying Liar when I talk about emotions and other people's reactions to things and I found out today (by glancing at a medical form that my counselor filled out for my intake at a program) that my psychiatrist actually did diagnose me with BPD and the psychologist who disagreed with that diagnosis and instead PROPERLY diagnosed me with ASD didn't get BPD taken off my file..... I'M SO PEEVED. and I doubt I'll be able to get BPD removed from my file because MH workers act like everyone diagnosed with a cluster B disorder is an attention-seeking liar. dragging my hands down my face. this is so stupid oh my god. any BPD symptoms that I do have are better explained by OTHER disorders I have 😭

#i just want to be clear that the way cluster B folk are treated is so bullshit and fucked up #but unfortunately it is the reality of the situation so I would really love to get that diagnosis removed #but now they think im the Lying Liar right off the bat so it's going to be impossible to get removed 😭#and to make matters worse... any BPD symptoms are either just ASD symptoms or the DID symptoms oh my god #but good fucking luck trying to get DID or OSDD diagnosed lmfao i am not even going to attempt that at this point #it doesnt need to be diagnosed anyways right now bc it will just make shit worse for me to have that on my records #one day maybe if i have a better support system and medical team but rn it'd be goddamn stupid to try #I'M SO PISSED ABOUT THIS WHAT THE HELL #i hate this psychiatrist so much fhdjdl he's so useless and condescending #unfortunately he's my only available option rn -_-#pippen needs 2nd breakfast

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galactichelium · 2 months

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I will not do the exercises given to me by my physio, whether that be because I forgot or I'm having executive dysfunction, and then be like "Man why am I in so much pain?"

#AUGH. Hate how I need to do exercises just so I can be in less pain + maybe reach an average level of strength #I have hypotonia so. Even my 16 year old sibling of whom I'm ~3 inches taller than is stronger than me #And I have noodle arms 😭 Which look especially silly compared to my stocky torso #I still need to try the other things the rheumatologist recommended #CBT therapy and a med she wants me to ask my psychiatrist abt to make sure it won't interfere with my ADHD meds #She also suggested hydrotherapy but. I'm a bit more nervous abt that considering I'm pre-top surgery.#My binders SAY that you can wear them swimming safely + are chlorine resistant but they say they're a lot harder to take off wet.#Which I worry means I'd need to get someone else to take it off of me. Which like. Augh. BUT YEAH anyway.#Iron text #Edit: Sorry a little bit more actually #My next psychiatrist appt isn't until late this month. And I am. Afraid to go through all the things I need to do to get to therapy.#With the public healthcare system you can get I think 8 psychologist appts for free per year if you get a mental health plan w your gp #But I think it also depends on the psychologist? Some might require you to pay regardless? I'm not sure #I've been to psychologists before but neither of them were that great and I'm worried it's gonna be similarly difficult now

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rin-enjoyer · 5 months

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i go back and forth on rin's elemental nature. i really think fire suits her for thematic parallels to sasuke reasons and also i just think fire is cool and suits her whole. perception of her self and being weird about purpose deal. but water is also cool because i think rin deserves to bloodbend. elaine kind of beat symbolism where she controls other people to try and come to terms with how she can't control herself. the way to resolve this is to take the path of "nature can warp under stress or whatever" and let rin's og nature be fire, so she has that in the entire og timeline and also the team 7 sensei au (good because those are the ones where the sasuke parallels are the Strongest) and then in the akatsuki!rin au the whole almost dying thing somehow leads to her nature changing to water. which works well because that's the au where she is the weirdest about control and also masks. 👍

#i am going to write up the timeline for the rin team 7 sensei au at some point i just need. to work out a few kinks #(the kinks are kakashi. in case you were wondering)#i know EXACTLY how rin would work in that situation lmao it's actually really fun because somehow she gets. better ? mental health?#also sasuke FINALLY gets to be a medic. and rin gets to address her complex feelings towards being pushed into a medic role by the system #its soooo good and also i kill off minato <3 man gets drawn and quartered by iwa and he DESERVES it!!! i lvoe him #anyways kakashi does do the whole tsukuyomi gig but i have no idea why. lmao. im figuring it out #it's not that i can't picture him doing harm. it's that i can't picture him dropping the singleminded loyalty #maaaybe i could get him in on a misguided itatchi type beat? but even that doesn't make sense #because like. hold on stick with me. he's danzo.#yaknow the kind of guy who devotes his soul to the village and will go against pollicy if he thinks its necessary but is still 100% loyal #i will have to write the sakumo danzo kakashi essay sometime. because oh baby.#anyways if you've read this far and don't wanna burn me at the stake for weird danzo opinions feel free to chat me up about kakashi #i am. open to aid on my understanding of him. not dead set on much.

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wutheringmights · 3 months

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#my digestive issues are literally under the most control they have ever been in my life and they are still ruining my life #woke up fine today. went to a coffee shop. had to leave after an hour #i had so many plans for today and now i'm stuck at home because i can't be too far away from a bathroom #i didn't eat anything that would trigger this. my gut just hates me i guess #earlier this month i have a risk food but i thought i took enough precautions to be safe and it fucked me up for like #2 weeks straight #i wonder what its like for people to not have to wonder about bathroom access every time they leave the house #i wonder what its like to eat normal foods without calculating how sick its going to make you #i wonder what its like to not have entire plans tossed out the window for reasons beyond your control #fucking sucks man #i hate ibs #in exchange for my terrible gut i do have a fantastic immune system somehow but weirdly that means i never take time off work?#ok so i am so good at just managing my issues that i just power through whenever im sick.#it's not like i can afford to take time off whenever i feel sick anyway and besides once you have to take multiple AP tests in high school #while in the middle of an episode you grow a lot of tolerance for being functional while sick #but then. i just i could have excuses to take days off because i have a cold or something. get a rest every now and then #but what illnesses i get beyond digestion issues are so slight that i can just. power through. i am never ill enough to take time off #and i get so worried that one day I will need that PTO that I can't convince myself to use it for like mental health days and ugh #this is more of a personal problem than anything but still. i wish i got sick like a normal person

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wonderfulxhappiness · 4 months

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vaniiii ehe hiya :3 umm we got a system sideblog if yer interested in seein more of us... but ummmm hiya !!!! i missed ya n im glad t' see ya... do ya got any advice fer copin wit' lack of attention from an fp.... we're okay but if ya got anythin it might be helpful for us :33 ehe i love yaaaa -🪴

MIIIIIKAAAAA!!!!!!!!! i missed u guys </3 i would love to see more of u tho i miss you guys when you're not around... although i guess technically you are since you said we're mutuals but skdghds

ough. tbh i've been pretty lucky insofar that i haven't had a lotta issues with that... but in my experience usually if i gotta be left alone for awhile distracting myself helps a lot? like. go down a wikipedia rabbit hole, or do a puzzle, or play a game you get super invested in. just something to focus on so you don't end up in your own head kinda thing yanno??? otherwise don't feel bad to just. ask for attention? like. it's not illegal to have human desires. and as long as your fp isn't busy or something they probably don't mind talking with you a lil :3 although idk for sure i know everyone has different relationships with their fp so ^^; do not listen to me if you know it'll cause you harm/strife/etc :< also naps. bc those pass the time reaaaaal quick. its like a lifehack. feeling bad? take a nap. you'll either feel amazing after or like you got smacked in the face with a trout ! oh and also like. doing schoolwork or smth productive maybe? thats not really fun tho so dskghds maybe pick up a kinda time-consuming hobby like crochet or cross-stitch or something where you can use that to distract yourself and have something to do with your hands :3?

but if its like. ur Already Feeling Bad i recommend like. watching a movie/tv show/etc that you really like or getting a Little Treat(tm) or something :3 curl up with a cozy blanket and drink some hot cocoa or tea or something !! its not like. a sure-fire fix. but i find the combo of distraction + comfort media + Little Treat tends to make you feel at least a lil better :3 also if it gets Very Bad just like. destroy some old school work you don't need or somethin. tearing papers to shreds is sooooooo fun. make sure u don't accidentally rip up something you need though skjghds it helps to calm down a lil and then you can work on relaxing a little more !! its not like. guaranteed. but sometimes gettin some of the destructive urges out helps

ily2 mika <3 i would die for u btw /lh

#at least i get destructive urges idk. i usually just rip up papers and stuff i don't need if i get like that #most of the time i can just deal w/ it via distractions (mmmm shitty mobile games) but !! sometimes u gotta Rip And Tear #most of my strats are just. distract urself. bc it gives you time to calm down and process stuff even if you don't realize it #so. ye. jus kinda be nice to yourself :3 it helps a little. perhaps get a plushie to cuddle with even #i have plushies my fp got me and i keep them on my bed and cuddle them when i miss them nd stuff #it helps a little !!! making yourself feel better can be rlly hard tho so don't feel bad if you struggle a bit !!#find some friends to talk to too if you can !!! it rlly helps to have people to talk to even if they don't entirely get it #just having other people around can help. i message with a few friends when my fp is busy sometimes and it helps keep the loneliness #at bay a little :3 but !! obv i cannot guarantee any of this will work for you !! but hopefully some of it is helpful at least !!!#I FORGOR U CAN'T PUT READ MORES IN ASKS. AUGH. this got so long srry mika ily #anyway !!! i am glad to see u :3 i was thinking abt u guys recently actually sdkghsd #i was worried u guys might've been one of the people in recent times that've blocked me or something orz #ily. stay safe. nd !! lemme know if i can help you guys somehow :3 #im not like the most versed in system nor bpd stuff but ! i have my silly little experiences to go off of #system anon 🪴#long post #<- j. just in case. bc this did get Long. oopsies

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moe-broey · 1 year

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Shout outs to the stinky gang I found in the sewers last night

#splatoon #BEGGING you to ignore my scores it's NOT my fault i was plagued by one million glowflies 😭😭😭#seriously what the fuck was up with my luck last night. almost every single round had glowflies.#i swear there's like a sweet spot you wanna be too rank wise like. trying to get to profreshional 2 again.#but my luck was SO rancid last night i was blasted into overachiever. dear lord.#cannot stress enough that i am very average i cannot carry a team and i rely heavily on my teammates knowing what they're doing #which is a lot of words to say. yeah okay i'm not very good at video games sometimes. sad. sometimes i am good though. it depends.#i feel like my biggest problem actually is i tend to freeze up. or have processing lag.#which honestly is why i tend to play turn based games. some platformers with no stakes. and pvp is typically off the table for me LMAO #but splatoon is a very special game and for some reason i'm deeply into salmon run against all odds it's literally all i play LMFAO #anyways. needed to get the salt out of my system LMFAOO so sad so sad. war and hatred on planet earth ect ect #at least there is boysmell. and slime. and a rat. just one. that's all you need really

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larryjohnsoncosplayonthursday · 1 year

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last

for realsies

#HELLO IM VENTING AGAIN IM SO SORRY #i am sick of everything the usual but i just need some fucking therapy and my diagnosises are taking too long because the system is shit #over here and i feel like i am a literal walking disaster a hazard to myself are my meds even working anymore idk? someone needs to lock me #in a fucking wardrobe before i loose my shit and do something stupid as fuck at least im self aware ok were growing this is called growth #wow ok amazing spectacular #like tonight ive decided i hate everyone again i want to quit uni actually might do it this time i just applied for a random job for no #reason i have a job but if i have 2 then i can over work myself to the max so i dont have to go into uni #i have three weeks off so now im cutting everyone off who knows how long this episode is gonna last for #i am loosing my god damn mind i do not want to do anything everything is so hard why is everyone so pressuring #i stopped doing some of my stupid habbits but now im just going full circle again so im thriving rn live love laugh am i right guys or what #AND WHY CANT I JUST HAVE A THERPAIST WHO CONTACTS ME ITS BEEN SINCE OCTOBER U FUCKING BITCH GO FUCK URSELF #anyway im in huge amounts of pain too idk what i do in my sleep or something but my shoulders hurt so bad #i hate wet tags on clothes when they stick to you throws up actually #i had stale fucking garlic bread today and i want to move out but if i move out then things will get worse for me #why cant i maintain a normal friendship without loosing my mind and hating everyone i mean no one knows my friends are pretty good with me #they understand but i dont know #ive come to the conclusion that i am just a shit

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butimnotseventeen · 1 year

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#I’m having a really hard time atm and I just need to vent somewhere #I’m in so much pain!!!!!! and the scary thing is I know the physical pain is covering up all my trauma stuff #so if I can get to a better place with pain I’m gonna get hit with a bucket load of trauma #and I haven’t had therapy in weeks bc my therapist has been off and I want to message her again to figure out when my next session is #but I also don’t want to bother her #and my disability benefits are being re assessed again and even though I’m actually worse health wise now than the last time I was assessed #I’m still scared they will rule me more able and take money away and then I’d have to appeal and it’s all just fucking the worst #the uk disability benefits system is fucking evil so many people have died bc of it #and I am so screwed without it #if you’ve read this far thank you I hope nice things happen for you #anyway it’s my birthday next week and I’m gonna have one drink and probably watch a Taylor swift tour on the big tv

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donuts4evry1 · 1 year

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Yep, I’m marvelling at the fact that for the first time in ages, I actually finished /everything/ on my hw list to do for a day (instead of putting it off for tomorrow)

Anyways, before I sleep I just wanted to let the person in my inbox know that: Yes, I did see your ask and I am still getting ready to follow up on you!

Unfortunately, the answer to your question isn’t something I know off the top of my head, but there are ample resources about jellyfish nervous systems and higher-level organism brain networks for me to peruse through to give you a proper answer

Unfortunately, unfortunately, I am not as well versed in the nervous system as I’d like to be and I have to learn things from the bottom up. What’s the difference between the Central Nervous System and the Peripheral Nervous System? Jellyfish from the different classes of Cnidaria have different sensory organs and development levels of neural networks, so how does that factor into them being a “brain”? Jellyfish have some of the most developed sensory and neural structures for a phylum full of radially symmetrical organisms and it’s something scientists really want to get to the bottom of.

Anyways, I really do want to do your answer justice, so I am doing a ton of my own research so that I may give an adequate answer to your somewhat complicated question

#yes i don't actually know that much about the brain #i haven't learned about the nervous system since i was in 9th grade lol #yesterday I was turning my room inside-out trying to look for my Biology Honors notes to no avail. i am sad :(#we actually learned about the CNS and PNS and I'm pretty sure I wrote down a sensible answer #ALSO NAUT I HAVE YOUR PHOTOSET ASK TOO BUT I HAVEN'T GOT THE TIME TO GIVE A PROPER RESPONSE #I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT #I LOVE MACKENZIE NEALE SHE IS GREAT #SHE WANTS TO LOOK FOR THE CHRYSAORA MELANASTER??? HELL YEAH!!! GOALS!!!!!#she was doing a qna on youtube and i watched it ^-^#apparently she also did 2 polar dives which is awesome as frick #and also.... she worked for the Vancouver Aquarium :0 #which is in Western Canada iirc #hm #hmmmm #ANYWAYS ALSO IM SO PLEASED SEEING STAUROZOA #THOSE ARE??? SO INCREDIBLY RARE???? HOW DID THE AQUARIUM GET THEIR HANDS ON SOME????#AND WHY AREN'T THEY IN A LAB????????? /j #ok that's it #i needed to get this off my chest before i went to bed #jellyfish #mun rambles

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marklikely · 2 years

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saying this once again but phantom of the paradise shadowcast would fix me

#just put glasses on me i can BE winslow i am also tall and awkward and brunette #i cant sing but thats ok he has a robot voice for most of the runtime anyway. its fine.#i would also have a great time playing beef but i dont really have the body type for it..#avpost #i wish the songs were better as standalones so i could just like do a drag performance and get it out of my system but #the songs just arent really suited to that so it wouldnt be the same -_-#also i would have fun w making all the costumes bc every characters design is so damn good.#i need to know more (ex)theatre kids i feel like they would be able to help me pull this off #movie diary

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firewoodfigs · 2 years

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(another-nonsensical-ramble-in-the-tags-time)

#gearing up for another poetry submission tomorrow and the end of next week and. good Lord. the fear of rejection is so daunting #I haven't been able to write anything remotely sensible this weekend bcs I just keep thinking about how anything I produce will be awful and #worthy solely of rejection lol #feels like a different ball game whenever money comes into the picture too #I feel like capitalism is so deeply drilled into me that I struggle to conceive of anything that comes from me as good #unless I win a prize or a prize money of some sort #see also: the perils of external validation #someone once told me I have to delink the approval from the art but it is so difficult bcs in some ways sharing my poetry #feels even more intimate than confessing to some straight insensitive male who will just spout callous rejection without second thought #** more intimate and terrifying #and yet it's all just a marvellous fallacy designed to beguile is it not?#for starters I'm paid to work and I still think I suck at my job LMAO #jhkajksldas my brain's a mEsS im gonna tear my hair out at this rate #anyways I just needed to get this off my system but I am off to scribble and scrawl and make sense of the murk #*hops off da soapbox* <3

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phantomrose96 · 3 months

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If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.

#chrissy speaks #long post #-gestures broadly-

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