I appreciate your good humor since I think I came off as hostile

IMO the fact that fastfood jobs are considered temporary bootstrap jobs that you're expected to be exploited to hell is bullshit and an indication of the absolutely broken moral compass of the corporate world. We could do without fast food, but that doesn't mean we should pay them them minimum wage. Everyone deserves a livable wage no matter what they do.

I guess my perspective is that we're talking about what OP wants to do in the present world, not what she could do in a hypothetical utopia (or just fairer society). So yeah, fast food jobs could be less terrible and should be, but at the moment they are absolutely not something to aspire to or even to recommend in many places because, again, they don't even pay enough to live. Maybe OP is still living for free with a friend, in which case I guess it's better than nothing, but in general it seems bad as a survival strategy.

Speaking for myself as someone who was dismissive, my best contribution to the answers here is that it's reductionist to a seriously misleading extent. It seems like you have a couple of conditions contributing to your struggle, but it all gets reduced to "your number is too low." As others have alluded to, how much of that is your adhd? How much is from some condition you may have that hasn't been diagnosed because you have been unsupported throughout your life? I don't think anyone is denying that you have real neurological conditions that hinder you, they just doubt low IQ as being a meaningful description of what you're facing compared to something that gives a better causal explanation.

I'm sorry about how you were treated. That was fucked up and you didn't deserve it.

I don't think it's over for you, it'll just be difficult. You're clearly able to overcome (presumably with effort and time) some of what you talk about since this is pretty well written.

Alcohol is pretty hazardous on all levels (I assume that's what you cite as an addiction) but if you need pot to function, I see no problem with that besides it being another expense. It's probably worth finding a support group in your area with respect to the alcoholism, though.

As far as I know, low IQ, insofar as we treat it as a credible concept at all, doesn't correspond to not being able to do things, but it just taking longer to learn them. That's probably not much of a consolation with respect to all that you've been through, but it's relevant for looking forward because it means you don't need to write things off as being something "for smarter people," though there are definitely circumstances where the extra time it takes could make something not viable (like needing more time in college representing a significantly greater financial burden, possibly).

I think you can do it. Just remember that there is no shame in leaning on others; We're a social, cooperative species.

If everyone was engineers and lawyers we'd have major problems keeping shops and fastfood open.

Alright, this is a little condescending. I think OP can aim a little higher than that and frankly probably will need to if she wants a living wage.

The fast food industry is basically a way for corporations to extract a pretty significant amount of labor value out of teenagers and the most desperate in society and all for the end result of contributing to society's bad health. It's not like society would collapse without it, unlike something like carpentry.

Lastly, insofar as IQ is a valid concept at all, studies say low IQ alone doesn't prevent you from learning anything, it just makes it take longer to learn.

Edit: I apologize if it comes off like I'm going off on you, I just felt some things were worth noting. I like the rest of your comment.

I didn't realize Mohammed bin Salman is part of KHamas.

deleted by creator

Did UT make a post or is it just for us to divine the reasoning behind based on the site being stupid?

Edit: Best wishes, btw

Even if they did, the election was not remotely close. To suggest that such a relatively huge portion of the vote is fake (if you are thereby contesting the results) seems silly.

I thought the baby oil thing was to emphasize how it was just part of his standard proceedings to sex crime people (which, since it seems unclear by your post, he did actually do) in the same manner as a director having a couch in his office.

Obviously this isn't directed at you, TC

So, I don't give a shit about the controversy itself, but the way that the mods in a closed chat just hyped themselves up on saying "This is what white bros do" to each other and then handing down the pronouncement that some of the most popular communities are only for chauvinists and then masking their real motives with an excuse about the names is just awful. The disingenuousness, the insular snobbishness, the immaturity, the cynicality. It's just disgusting.

I have no further thoughts.

When a Marxist is trying to avoid saying "proletariat", that is the definition they will use, but that is absolutely not the common American definition.

tbf the "upper," "middle," and "lower class" naming convention is maybe-deliberately obfuscatory. Much better to describe things in terms of relation to production.

They don't really believe it, they just say it because it's convenient. If someone turned it on them like you describe, they'd (correctly) call it racist, because that would then be the convenient thing to say.

"Sanism," as it exists, is a bad term. "Clinical insanity" stopped being a real diagnosis almost a century ago and the term "sanism" gets applied to basically every mental condition, those having to do with the legal and (former) medical definitions of insanity and the much larger number that don't.

I like "mentalism" a lot more because the more prominent pop culture meaning of the term is worthless (it's just pop psychology) and free to be replaced, and it conveys the idea of a bigotry based on mental conditions without using antiquated language or getting into concerning implications.

I think there are valid criticisms here (and I have grievances with the other admins handing down pronouncements from on-high), but you're genuinely the most measured and professional admin on the site and it would be a shame to see you go.

I'd like to see the "twitter algorithms and data" that made 15 million former Biden voters stay at home.

It was much easier in many places to do mail-in ballots thanks to covid lockdown measures in 2020.

What did you think that montage was for, with the poor family and the rich family, with the one reproducing prolifically and the other failing to reproduce at all?

I think it's an unforced error to try to relitigate the Soviet Union with people, even if they bring it up, though it seems your friend didn't. I think it's better to be forward facing and the only time you really need to dwell on these sorts of litigations is if you're trying to figure out specific tactics, some historical group had a good solution, and your buddy is like "isn't that what evil people do?" In an interpersonal relationship and not an org, that will rarely come up.

The point of attack should be liberal philosophy, which seems to be a prominent phantasm in this person's mind and is very commonly what people get hung up on, and it's something that cannot be ignored. It's liberal philosophy that underpins all the justifications for the current world order, so if you want him to radically cut against that, it's more productive to argue, say, utilitarianism being the more rational framework compared to bourgeois natural rights that allow people to pretend it's an a priori moral law that they can buy up all the housing and then profit off of desperation.

Lastly, if you see they're in an anarchist direction, support that instead of trying to make them precisely what you are. From your description, it seems the most likely path to success in that department (if they ever move at all) will be from becoming an anarchist first and then learning about other forms of leftism. Or just let them do their thing and be an anarchist, since it's not like it's a divide that is terribly important when we are short a revolution.

dentist faction?

I don't see any confiscated toothbrush in her hand, so she's probably not working with the dentists.

Oh, I misunderstood your question, my bad. I read your wording as suggesting they were separate categories.

To answer your question, I think there's still a paleocon/neocon rift, so there's at least that much to distinguish elements of contemporary neoliberalism, but I think I agree with your implied thesis that the "left" wing of neoliberalism has withered to the point that it's at least quite difficult to distinguish it as having values distinct from one of the further right wing, it just talks about them differently.