What alternative would you propose for providing loans?

Making things affordable (or just priced within reason) if they are considered a necessity to live in society.

Yes, there are survival necessities ie. food, water, shelter. But in modern society, we can add Internet, phone, car (depending on where you live) or bus pass etc, and probably tuition for at least a bachelor’s degree.

If you want to buy a boat or some shit, then sure, you should have to take out a loan.

I truly don’t understand the college students who are paying insane tuition to be there to get a degree and they couldn’t care less. I don’t know if their parents are forcing them to go to college or what.

I know there is a shortage at the moment, but I feel your pain for another reason. I am an addict in recovery with add and I will never be able to take medication because the minute I even try to talk about my issues it’s “drug seeking.” But people I know who need to take controlled substances like benzodiazapines who are not addicts in recovery? They’re still treated like drug addicts, even when they have nothing in their medical history that would suggest that, and they never ask for refills early etc.

The opioid crisis drove us so far in the opposite direction that people who truly need a drug can’t get it, and drugs can’t be prescribed for the issues they were literally invented to help.

Also, Stratera is a non-narcotic option. It didn’t seem to do much, but may be worth a try if she hasn’t tried it yet.

So right after I signed up at the beginning of this year, they switched from HBOMax to “Max.” I paid for a year in advance, and of course when I signed up there was nothing about them switching to a new brand. All of a sudden it was full of trash reality shows and ID Discovery true crime. I have no idea what possessed them to do that.

Then once it switched over I stopped being able to stream any new HBO shows on mobile and customer service won’t refund me any amount. Not that I can even communicate with them effectively. It’s all “chat” with AI or people who have no idea what I’m saying. Half the shows still won’t play on mobile for me.

TL;DR I paid for a year of HBO. They changed their selection a few months in. I lost mobile access to a bunch of their shows. And now I’m losing even more features before the year is up. That’s quite literally not what I paid for.

How exactly is any of that legal? Genuine question. What about the Federal Trade Commission? Isn’t there fucking anybody regulating these corporations in the US?

I honestly think it’s better than Netflix (most streaming services are) and Hulu and definitely better than Prime.

It’s just that once they switched to Max they started focusing on reality shows and true crime and other such garbage.

This article was amended on 30 May 2019 to remove remarks by Paul Dolan that contained a misunderstanding of an aspect of the American Time Use Survey data.

Fuck, they really did him a disservice with this edit. He wrote a whole book based on the survey data.

because there are other examples

…ok? I guess I don’t get why there needs to be any comparison, since it inevitably ends up sounding like “oh, well this one wasn’t as bad as that one. Happens all the time.”

The Canary Effect is an amazing documentary about the genocide of Indigenous peoples in North America. It is free on YT. It was where I first learned how brutal the reality was and how devastating to the population. It also shows how it meets the UN definition of genocide. Amazing how we are raised in the US and this is not only ignored in history class, but is instead framed as Indigenous people living happily in Spanish missions and having Thanksgiving with pilgrims.

If you get a chance to read about John Trudell, he had a fascinating life. He was the spokesman for the American Indian Movement when they occupied Alcatraz in protest of the US breaking their land treaty. The government did not stop terrorizing him and his family after that. There’s also an amazing documentary about him but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. I think it may just be called “John Trudell.”

Both of these will make you walk away angry though.