There's really only failing, then learning, then death

My kids have me listening to way too much Disney music lately....

Cannabis

It all needs to get a lot less complex and confusing. I know the complexity is a byproduct of the defederated nature of the whole thing, but it's also the primary thing limiting growth. The fediverse is never going to grow to anything other than a tiny niche if it isn't immediately understandable to people who have 0 background in tech.

It is, in fact, possible to quite smoking. I was a regular smoker for a decade. My fiancee asked me to quit, so I did. Haven't had a cigarette or vape since. That was over a decade ago.

Yes, it's difficult, and not everyone is able to quit as easily as I did. But don't pretend like it's impossible to quit.

Because second-hand smoke doesn't exist...

Second hand smoke isn't a biohazard? It literally causes cancer...

Fun fact: Monopoly was originally called "The Landlord's Game" when it was created and was meant to teach people about the fundamental absurdity and contradictions inherent in the capitalist system of land ownership. It was later co-opted by a family member of the creator who sold it to Parker Brothers. They renamed it Monopoly and turned it into the commercial success it is today.

Mental asylums as they existed in the US before the 80s were often little more than glorified prisons. They did all kinds of horrific things to people which today we would consider torture.

That said, most people (not all, but most) who were in mental asylums were there because they had very real issues they needed real treatment for. Most people were not getting the treatment they needed, but that doesn't mean they didn't need something.

The mental asylums absolutely needed a lot of reform. Most probably did need to be shut down, or, at the very least, the entire staff needed to change and they needed a completely new philosophy of care. What this country absolutely did NOT need is to just throw all those people out onto the streets to fend for themselves. It seems to have been a lateral change for the people who needed help and a negative change for the rest of the country.

I'm not sure I would use the term "mental asylum" as that has a lot of cultural connotations I don't think we need or want to bother with. However, I do think the federal government should provide massive amounts of block grant funding to states to open new facilities which can provide inpatient services to people who suffer with mental health problems. These should be founded on a care-first framework, not the torture prisons of yore.

He didn't seem to care when he got dozens of kids killed by measles in American Samoa, but now that it's white kids in the metropole he changes his tune...