I remember writing a comment about invasive advertising by Instagram. Just shared some anecdotes about how a few extremely specific conversation topics soon became the topic for the ads I was seeing on Instagram, and pointed out that if they were in fact using background conversation to target ads, it would be extremely easy to automate with the voice recognition technology available at the time, so why would they ignore the opportunity if targeted ads are their main source of revenue?

It became one of my most down voted comments at the time, and I had about twice as many replies as downvotes, claiming all kinds of wild or easily disproven shit to disprove the idea that Instagram used such tactics. Was very fishy

If moving to a civilized country is a potential option for you, it could pay off looking into your genealogy.

I grew up in the US and moved to Norway after feeling like the country was nose-diving politically. I remember feeling serious shame for paying taxes to fund such horrendous actions, an unwavering sense of hopelessness, and even serious depression. I remember the first time I realised how much I felt like a foreigner in my own home country, and the existential dread those words brought with them, amplified by the fact that I felt like there was nothing in my power I could do to change that. It was so far beyond awful. I'm struggling to find the words that can accurately convey how bleak and worthless life in the US felt.

And I say this as a cis white man. I've heard horror stories, but I can't possibly imagine what it must be like for trans people in the US, especially in the past several years.

At some point I learned that because my grandmother was born in a certain EU country and fled during WWII, I qualified for citizenship of that country, just by proving my relation to her. It took some time, but I got the documents in order to put together my application, and left everything behind to move to Norway. With EU citizenship, you could move almost anywhere in Europe you choose. I chose Norway for many many reasons, but scandinavia in general is just so incredibly politically refreshing. Regardless of political views, the system itself just... Works.

Since you have 20+ years experience in your field, you might not even need to go though the process of getting a citizenship you may or may not qualify for as a birthright, depending on your profession. Many countries also have immigration laws in place making it extremely easy for skilled workers to relocate there, permanently. I know in Norway, the company hiring the skilled worker can essentially vouch for skilled workers, granting them the right of residency as soon as they're hired. And there are many companies which post job listings in English, without requiring you to know the local language, because... Well, damn near everybody here is completely fluent in English and has no issue speaking English, or even switching to English for entire groups of people, even if only one person struggles with Norwegian.

But anyway, I'm sorry you're forced to feel the way you feel living in your own home country. I can relate to parts of it at least, and even the sum of those parts was unbearable for me. So it saddens me to read messages like yours. I just wanted to offer a suggestion that worked to stop these feelings for me, and ended up being the best damn decision I've ever made in my life.

If you have questions or anything, feel free to send me a message.

Huh, we had 7 for our school district (one for each branch, and I think the army and navy had two), but my high school alone did have just under 3000 kids.

We had all 7 of these guys (and one woman) going from class to class every day for a month giving four 90-minute presentations per day to pander and force-feed each individual classroom of ~30-50 students a glorified recruitment ad. They even set up one of the portable classrooms as a recruitment office for that month.

I'm curious, did the recruiters hand out forms to kids under 18 that required parent/guardian signatures?

I'm asking because ours did, and I could swear that these forms were a sort of pre-enlistment contract that needed parent/guardian signature in order to waive the 18+ requirement for agreeing to enlist. So although we wouldn't actually be enlisted until we turned 18, we could agree to enlist beforehand with a parent's signature. But, as strong as that memory is, I still can't help but doubt myself because of how insane and illegal that all sounds.

What a disgusting video.

Greedy, manipulative, despicable behaviour like this is why I take no issue with people who just repair their broken things by ordering a new one on amazon and sending the broken one as a return for a full refund. I'm not sure how a person could even feel remorse while pissing in the face of a company pushing shit like this into their employee's faces.

A surprising amount of people I know like to upgrade their graphics cards this way, returning their old card in the new box, getting free cutting-edge upgrades as soon as they become available on amazon's dime. Seems to have worked pretty well for them over the years 🤷

Lots of people still think that introverts hate social interactions, or feel better without any social interactions at all, but we do need to be social. Some people get dogs or cats and that helps them a lot. But lots of introverted people will tend to find some way to mask the loneliness by distracting themselves that requires a lot of attention, or occupying themselves with something that emulates social interaction. Playing a game while watching twitch streams of that game can fill both of those roles, listening to the streamer and reading chat periodically. That can work in a pinch, but it's not a real solution. And I don't have a real solution, aside from "find your balance", but I know that's not helpful.

I can suggest something that I found to be a more effective distraction, though. And it even could lead to the first steps to a solution to introvert loneliness if you're lucky. You can try going to a local bar/pub on a slow day. It helps if you drink alcohol, but you really don't have to. And of course if there's a history of alcoholism in your family, you should definitely avoid the alcohol. Make sure to sit at the bar, because a lot of bartenders will start up conversation with lone patrons in their down-time, and the same goes for drunk people getting up to buy another drink, so you don't have to initiate if you don't want to. You can end up having a few interesting conversations in a night (or sometimes none at all), and go home either feeling good about going out on your own free will (I.E. Not being forced into a social situation), or exhausted from any overbearing social interactions and therefore a bit more content with going back to spending time by yourself for a while.

This helped me before I made a couple of friends (who I met at the pub) while living alone in a new city, after my distractions got stale. I say it's worth a try, but everyone is different.

It was hard to initiate that first trip to the bar though, it felt very, very weird. But halfway through my second beer, I felt mostly content with even just listening passively to background conversation. By the time I ordered the 3rd, the bartender had initiated conversation, and before I knew it that feeling of loneliness was gone. It's important to keep moderation in mind though, I could see that being very effective in catalysing a drinking problem. I did this 2-3 times per month, and that was just enough for me.

So ymmv, but it helped me a lot.

Came here to say something similar about touchscreens on phones. It's probably the most impactful innovation they've had, and ever will have imo. I can't ethically support Apple as a company and I haven't owned an apple product since the first iPod touch, but they absolutely deserve credit for this one.

Even if they didn't invent the touch screen, or even the touchscreen phone, they certainly figured out how to perfectly integrate touchscreens into mobile devices a fluid and intuitive user interface which served as a canvas on which to build pretty much anything you wanted in the form of a mobile app (a $200B+ industry which the iPhone absolutely catalysed the explosive growth of).

It arguably even began a significant change in the course of modern human interaction, due to how much more versatile and therefore more commonly used mobile phones with a similar UI basis became since then; because of that, increasingly popular social media platforms now had a new way to provide use for their platform (via mobile apps) on a device that pretty much everyone now had with them all the time. I don't think it's coincidence that social media use saw such substantially explosive growth soon after the iPhone and subsequent "copycats" were on the market.

So their innovation here was really the first step in a number of global paradigm shifts. It was just such a monumentally impactful step forward. Because of this I genuinely think that the iPhone is almost guaranteed to be in history books for centuries, like the printing press or the light bulb.

May not be interesting or new info (and the comments section of an ADHD meme are probably not the place for this anyway), but I just recently learned a very plausible reason why the trifecta seems to be so prevalent:

Rejection-sensitive dysphoria (RSD).

It's essentially an abnormally strong negative emotional response to rejection or failure, and it's very common in people with ADHD.

"Rejection sensitive dysphoria, while not a formal diagnosis, is also a common symptom of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, estimated to affect a majority of people with ADHD." Source (Wikipedia)

Basically, people with RSD go about their days constantly and disproportionately anxious about doing everyday things. If they make an absentminded mistake (which of course happens all the time with ADHD), they'll feel bad about themselves for it out of fear of disapproval from those around them, which only feeds the anxiety even more. If they mess up something more serious, it can be devastating.

Here's another link with some great info under the "Symptoms and Causes" section:

• It’s very easy for them to feel embarrassed or self-conscious.

• They show signs of low self-esteem and trouble believing in themselves.

• They have trouble containing emotions when they feel rejected. This is often noticeable in children and teenagers with this condition. Some may react with sudden shows of anger or rage, while others may burst into tears.

• Instead of losing control of their emotions outwardly, some people with RSD may turn their feelings inward. This can look like a snap onset of severe depression, and sometimes, it’s mistaken for sudden emotional shifts that can happen with bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.

• They’re often “people pleasers” and become intensely focused on avoiding the disapproval of others.

• They may avoid starting projects, tasks or goals where there’s a chance of failure.

• They compensate for their fear of failure or rejection by going all-out or striving for perfectionism. However, the downside of this is that they often experience intense anxiety and may not easily make self-care or downtime a priority.

So to sum it up, RSD affects a majority of people with ADHD, and can amplify anxiety due to fear of rejection/failure in many different forms, and any eventual rejections/failures that do materialise are met with a disproportionately negative emotional response.

Shit sucks.

I'll share some anecdotes below if anyone is interested, but the TL;DR is that it has an extremely strong effect on me, and I imagine someone might be able to relate, if they care enough to read lol.

Last semester, I failed all 3 of my classes because I couldn't keep up with the school work due to problems with my (at the time undiagnosed) ADHD. I remember falling behind and getting increasingly anxious about all the work I needed to catch up on, which only made me procrastinate my studies even more in order to hide from the anxiety and fear of failure/rejection that I knew I would feel when I became overwhelmed. I felt like an absolute idiot, especially because I recognised that logically, further procrastinating made absolutely no sense at all, and was definitely going to lead to failure in my classes. It got so bad that I could NOT make myself sit down and study, I was paralysed with anxiety every time I opened my laptop to study after working up the courage to make myself "just fucking start already".

As the exams came closer, it became more and more apparent that failure was now the only option I had left. As that reality set in and I had to face this failure, the self-image I like to create of myself as a respectable and relatively smart person just dissolved. I felt the self-rejection engulfing me, I imagined the disappointment from my family and peers, and I became cripplingly depressed within maybe 90 seconds of reality setting in. I felt absolutely worthless for months afterwards, lower than low. This is what finally got me to make the doctor's appointment which led to my ADHD diagnosis.

And something not so serious that happened years ago: While driving to work one day, I was running a tad late as usual, and couldn't shake the feeling that I was forgetting something. It was really stressing me out, and anxiety was making me try frantically to remember what it was, because the longer it took me to realise what I forgot, the longer the drive back would take, and the later I would be for work. At some point I decided to just take inventory of everything I had and see if it felt off. I started with the 3 pocket check— wallet is there, phone is there, keys are... Shit, I forgot my keys.

So I took the next exit to turn around, and raced home for my keys. I didn't realise for maybe 10 minutes that my keys weren't in my pocket because, well, they were in the ignition of my car, which I was currently driving. That dumb little setback caused me to be late for work. I still remember the shame I felt driving back, deciding on what lie to tell my boss so I didn't have to admit how much of a idiot I am. To make things worse, after I parked my car I discovered that I had forgotten my knife bag at home (I was working as a chef). It really made me feel absolutely worthless, and triggered a bit of depression afterwards. I can't remember how long the depression lasted, but it definitely hit me harder than it should have.

You can always pirate it. I mean you DID buy it so it's not "stealing" if you're playing a cracked version that only thinks you're online at all times

And even it is "stealing", fuck 'em 🤷

Same. I was a cook in a casino restaurant (bear with me), and when I applied for the job the head chef asked me "can you pass a drug test?" I said "oh yeah, I don't do any dr-", he interrupts me to say "I didn't ask if you do any drugs, I asked if you can pass a drug test. Yes or no?"

Well, turns out 2 line cooks had heroin problems, the head chef, sous chef, and morning lead chef were functioning alcoholics, one general manager was coked out of his fucking mind 24/7 until the last few days before payday, the other was taking about 3x as much xanax as anyone should, and the wait staff smoked approximately as much as Snoop Dogg.

Needless to say, that place was the definition of a runaway clusterfuck. Much of their problems were caused by the rampant drug use amongst the employees that could have been prevented if they were a little more thorough with the drug tests, rather than literally giving me the pee cup to take home and bring back later.

I still remember the first phishing website I ever accidentally visited, rnyspace.com

I'm certain it is. I sent an objection/data deletion request, and their "privacy info" pages are absolutely in violation of GDPR, because their forms are NOT reasonably accessible. I needed to use 3 separate mobile browsers and my desktop. When you finally get to the form, they ask some basic info, and the box where you're supposed to make a request ends by asking something like "what rights do you believe are being violated, and why?". The fucking gall on these cunts.

I planned on dropping some links, but they all have hard-coded non-functional redirects, which is intentional and absolutely infuriating. The redirects either just break like this one, which is suppose to be the one that contains a link to the form:

https://help.instagram.com/contact/117037592428568

Or they take you somewhere barely related, like this one which was the hidden start page for the form:

https://m.facebook.com/help/1221288724572426?wtsid=rdr_0bxiU4jakSVimlO8y

Or maybe it was this one? I can't remember, because it doesn't fucking take me to the page I saved the url for:

https://m.facebook.com/help/238318146535333?wtsid=rdr_0LKGtSJZTQyEH3R9N

Anyway, I'm mad if that's not obvious. If you happen to find the form, you can try opting out. I haven't heard back yet. Here's the thorough and crystal fucking clear message I wrote, feel free to copy/share it:

The rights granted to me as a resident of an EEA country and a citizen of an EU member state, which are outlined in the GDPR, would be violated if Meta is non-compliant to my requests and objections. I've noted the exact sections within the GDPR outlining my rights, just before each pertaining request/objection, to explain why I believe my rights and freedoms are impacted by the data processing (although, I should not need to explain why).

I am exercising my right to object outlined in GDPR Article 21 Sections 1, 2, and 6:

I object to the processing and collection of my personal data for direct marketing, and request that no further collection or processing of my personal data is carried out.

I am also exercising my right to erasure outlined in GDPR Article 17 Section 1 (b) and (c):

I request that all of my collected and/or processed personal data be erased.

I am also exercising my right of access outlined in GDPR Article 15 Section 1, Section 2, Section 3, and Section 4:

I request a full copy of my processed personal data, as well as any relevant details listed in each subsection of GDPR Article 15 Section 1.

If any of my personal data is stored under an email address other than the ones currently or previously associated with my account, then I will need the preceding requests and objections to be carried out for the personal data generated under each of the following: [all email addresses I've used anywhere in the past 20 years].

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