Category Archives: Coping With Capitalism

Localize Your Feed and Free Your Mind

Less News is good news

The alarm goes off, and I grope for my phone in the dark. As soon as I silence the auditory noise, I begin filling my eyes with visual noise. The daily scroll has begun. I cycle through headlines on the news feed, helpfully curated by algorithms that no human hand controls.

When that becomes too much, I flip over to social media and begin reading the headlines and hot takes regurgitated by a million countless cogs in a machine that is imprisoning us all. By the time I roll out of bed an hour later, my brain is filled with rot I can’t control, and I have lost all faith in not just humanity, but my own future.

This isn’t some dystopian fantasy; this is the reality for millions, if not billions, of people around the world. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be.

The 24-hour news cycle has created a trap that leads to personal paralysis. If everything is so screwed, then why bother? If you still have the energy to bother, to try to effect change, then where to start? For too many of us, where we start and where we end is by banging angrily on a keyboard. Adding to the noise, but not creating anything of substance. Certainly not creating any solutions.

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The Shutdown Is About to Get a Lot Worse for 41 Million People

And that includes my family

Last year, between the two of us, my partner and I earned $56,058. To put this in perspective, the median US income is around $80,000, and the median for my city is around $55,000. Granted, a large proportion of our local population are college students and retirees on fixed incomes. Further, our cost of living is higher than the national average, as well.

Our lower income is from a combination of factors. We are both middle aged neurodivergent women. We are both self employed, mostly, and patch together income from multiple sources. My income is primarily seasonal, and hers is very much tied to the vagaries of the national economy and political climate. LLMs (colloquially known as “AI”) have greatly reduced my income from its high of $60,000 a year in 2019. LLMs are now starting to encroach on my partner’s income, which is down from its high of $51,000 in 2023.

This means we are both in a low-earning period, and there may be no relief in sight.

We went on SNAP benefits last year (a.k.a. EBT or food stamps). It was a necessity, as we also partially support our 20 year old son and his girlfriend while they are navigating college. By support, I mean that they live with us and we cover the costs of housing and utilities. 

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Let’s Defund the Billionaires

I’m robbing them of my life energy, and you can, too!

You have heard it said before: if you don’t know what they are selling, then the product is you. Your attention, your custom, your life energy.

Does the Zuck care if you are there for pictures of your nephew or to find out about community happenings? No. The point is to get your eyes on the screen, your fingers scrolling, your brain reeling with things to buy or to believe or to fund.

Angry, sad, dissatisfied? Good, the easier it is to sell you and sell your wallet to the highest bidder.

Does Walmart and Kroger care that you simply want to feed your family a wholesome meal? No, they want your life energy to come to them via impulse buys, in store or in app, and they will tempt you with corn syrup, sugar, and bright colors so that you buy, buy, buy until you die, die, die.

As far as I can tell, we only get this one life. I want it to be my own, to live and to share with those that love me back. Not to sell, unknowing and unwilling, to a billionaire class that can never have enough until they learn what it is like to have too little.

Greed is nothing more than addiction under a different name, and none are greedier than a would-be oligarch that is rarely told no.

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