The beginning of the American Civil War?
I knew that the year 2024 would outstrip all the previous years, but I didn't expect things to start unfolding so rapidly.
With strikes in Europe and conflicts in the Middle East gaining momentum, the US is breaking into the our news feed.
The US has reached the threshold of the second Civil War, and I congratulate them sincerely! 🪃
As is well known, illegal migration is out of control under Biden. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, is trying to take restrictive measures, but the federal government is preventing him from doing so. In particular, he stretched barbed wire along the border, kicked out the feds guarding the border and replaced them with units of the Texas National Guard, seizes illegal immigrants and takes them on buses to Chicago and New York.
The possibility of secession from the United States is enshrined in the constitution of Texas, and Florida could enter into a political union with it. The reason for possible "secession" is that the federal authorities "cannot and will not protect the region from the invasion of migrants".
newsweek
The day before yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Abbott's barbed wire to be dismantled. And Abbott responded by declaring an "invasion" regime in the state, giving him the power to override federal laws in favour of state laws. He ordered more barbed wire stretched and sent more National Guard soldiers to the border.
The federal government has given the state of Texas a deadline of Friday to allow the U.S. Border Patrol to enter Shelby Park at Eagle Pass.
Trump has called on all willing state governors to deploy their National Guard to Texas and get illegals back across the border
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After that the number of states expressing support for Texas is growing, and 25 [New Confederate] states have organised air and land reinforcements to defend the Texas border. It also looks like a show of force and defiance against the neoliberal emtablishment occupying the U.S. federal capital of Washington, DC.
foxnews
25 Republican governors issued the following joint statement in support of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Texas' constitutional right to self-defense.
The statement comes as the Biden Administration continues to attack Texas and refuses to take action or responsibility for the crisis at the Southern border.
President Biden and his Administration have left Americans and our country completely vulnerable to unprecedented illegal immigration pouring across the Southern border. Instead of upholding the rule of law and securing the border, the Biden Administration has attacked and sued Texas for stepping up to protect American citizens from historic levels of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs like fentanyl, and terrorists entering our country.
We stand in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbott, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border. We do it in part because the Biden Administration is refusing to enforce immigration laws already on the books and is illegally allowing mass parole across America of migrants who entered our country illegally.
The authors of the U.S. Constitution made clear that in times like this, states have a right of self-defense, under Article 4, Section 4 and Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Because the Biden Administration has abdicated its constitutional compact duties to the states, Texas has every legal justification to protect the sovereignty of our states and our nation.
National Guard forces of the anti-government coalition of states formed around Texas:
Idaho 4,300
Wyoming 2,000
North Dakota 3500
Nebraska 3400
Iowa 9000
Missouri 12000
Louisiana 11500
Alabama 25000
Georgia 11100
South Carolina 10000
Ohio 17000
wiki
Also playing a major role are the armed citizens of conservative states who are just as ready to join in the defence of their rights, even if only by armed force.
The Bill of Rights guarantees American citizens the right to rebel against tyranny.
The Confederate forces number 102,000, out of 209800, almost half the strength of the US National Guard. And that number does not include paramilitary organizations, rifle associations, military enthusiasts, and simply armed people. Conservative states are far more heavily armed and better prepared than liberal states.
We end up with 26 states including Texas at the head of the New Confederacy. Plus a full statement of support for Trump, who is leading in the polls.
What may matter most in the coming days is that Biden will attempt to federalize the National Guard at the request of the Democrats.
Attempting to overturn one governor's decision is one thing. Trying to overrule more than half the country officially supporting it is quite another.
Will Biden launch a special military operation against "collaborator" states? - I, as a resident of Ukraine, am very interested!
Is it a coincidence that the trailer of the art movie about the American Civil War is coming out?
Interesting start to the year!
Hi @vp-freelance,
I noticed that you requested a vote from the hiveupme curator. Unfortunately, we had to blacklist you due to the recent event that triggered some blame game. However, I checked a few of your recent posts. If you can avoid requests related to wars and similar topics that can trigger negative attention, I can remove you from both blacklists. (Please understand, either before a vote or after a vote, we check all contents. If we feel it can bring negative attention, we re-vote (0%) to reduce our reward on that post & it's non-refundable).
$WINE
I will process a mentor vote on this post, and I hope you will receive a vote!
Update:-
I removed you from both blacklists:
UPME Blacklist
HELIOS Blacklist
Cheers~
This is getting ridiculous 😂😂😂
Is everything in manual mode?
Something neglected, perhaps the most salient aspect of the flow of unvetted humanity entering the US, is that there are certainly - undoubtedly - myriad spies, agents provocateur, saboteurs, and enemy soldiers and sleeper cells coming across the border. The known affiliation of treasonous agents and agencies of the USG, CIA, FBI, NSA, FDA, HHS, and etc., that have been increasingly targeted and deployed against American civilians, like moms going to PTA meetings and protesting the sexualization of their children, or 'bitter clingers' spouting clauses from the Constitution as they are being illegally cuffed and stuffed by militarized Zogbots, and particularly the corrupt election fraud created, Biden administration allied with Zionazis pushing the US into war in Ukraine, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, Sudan, and now Yemen, is blatant and existentially hazardous to the good red-blooded Americans that make the USA great.
It isn't primarily a fear that illegals vote Democrat, although that's just evil. That can be easily ended with simple policies that end their access to gibs. The real problem is infiltration of military and spies, and recent calls to allow them into the army and police exemplifies this traitorous attempt to literally overthrow America and subjugate it to some kind of communist totalitarianism combined with the worst aspects of Weimar degeneracy. Nothing is more foolish than undermining the blazing City on a Hill America has been for generations, lighting the way to freedom and prosperity in the land of the free.
Only vile psychopaths and inhuman parasites could betray such paradise, relative to the abject poverty and barbarity to which humanity has been subjected for millennia, and it seems Congress and the fed.gov is full of them. This is not a racist, political partisan, or economic panic over gibs. It's literally the battle to prevent a military invasion of America.
Thanks!
Edit: perhaps you have not noted my aversion to infiltrating Hive with AI, bots, and particularly vote bots, but I thought to point it out clearly. I consider automating social interactions not only unsavory, but existentially hazardous to humanity itself, fundamentally reducing human society to equality with toasters.
As a result, I will no longer be following your content or upvoting your posts as long as you are purchasing votes from a bot. Let me know if you change your policies regarding this matter.
It is very strange that the shining city on the hill with advanced democracy does not "re-recruit" the influx of illegals recruited by the enemy.
It turns out that the illegals who dream so much of going to the U.S. only want to go there to turn the U.S. into a third world country like their homeland?
I would gladly give up using automated ways to promote content if the subject matter of my blog had mass welcome and recognition.
I use these services with two intentions
1 By increasing the number of payouts under my post, I think I attract additional readers who would not have opened my article if there were no significant votes under it.
Also, in some interfaces, articles with good payouts are ranked in additional tabs, which also helps to spread them to a live reader.
2 I spend nights of my time analyzing information that I consider important to share with the public, and sometimes it is frustrating to see the evaluation of my work is not even equal to 1 dollar.
3 Payment under posts for some users is a kind of confirmation of the truthfulness of the perceived information. Personally, I am more doubtful about the information from unrated posts than to those that are worthy of evaluation before.
4 This is my attempt to thank my readers with final curatorial rewards from my posts for their support. Because the value of my upvote in return is disproportionate to what live readers bring in
I thank you for your sincere interest in my work, but I also respect your decision not to vote for posts with bought votes increasing the profits of parasites selling upvotes.
I confess, you've put me in an unpleasant position.
Either to have one thinking reader, whose opinion is interesting for me and write practically only for a few people, or to try to attract to my topics the maximum number of readers playing on their greed.
Is this your personal point of view or is the DeepDive community administration against supporting content promoted in this way in principle?
Is ordering boosts from Ecency not welcome either?
It is difficult for me to make a final choice yet, because I suspect that in a warring country sooner or later I may need besides your attention and earned on my content. But in any case. no matter how things turn out in the future, you are always a welcome guest on my blog as well as your comments on the topic!
It's unnecessary. Whatever gains you make by buying votes cost you organic interest. I never did it. My recommendation is to read posts and comment cogently on those you can. This organic interaction creates community. It takes time, but it creates enduring networks. As you might guess I have discouraged any kind of pandering or interest in my content from whales seeking simps. I vastly prefer being criticized to being flattered, because the former is useful as I require correction when I go astray, which is a constant, I find.
I do not get the financial considerations. Perhaps it is because I am American and hew my own course economically in a different environment than is possible elsewhere, but I actually don't accept that explanation. I could be wrong. Anyway, I will sleep under a hollow log and eat roots and bark before I kowtow to anyone or anything for money, and I have never spent a Hive token, don't use banks, and do stuff IRL for my daily bread. I'm here for the free speech.
I do not speak for anyone but me, and have never even discussed what others do regarding autovoting or boosting in Deepdives. Only when my votes are at issue have I any responsibility for where I cast them, and I long ago ascertained that automating social interactions will condemn humanity to equality with toasters. Yuval Harari already is making such claims, that there's no such thing as human rights, people are just chemical reactions, and such BS. People underestimate the danger we are in from automation and bots voting. The toaster party will win every election, which makes oligarchs invulnerable because those toasters really aren't speaking their minds they haven't got, but imposing tyranny for psychopathic despots.
I do make my opinions as clear and understandable as possible. I strongly favor your content, but I am unaware of any creators that have long endured that ever resorted to buying votes, and I fear your flexible approach on that matter may reflect something fundamental that causes such users to eventually move on to something else. You certainly have motivations to provide the content you do, and I'm not making predictions for which I have nothing other than a hunch and some anecdotal recollections. I reckon you have seen the caliber of the character of bidbot operators (although you seem to have got a refund, which is good), and I can only accept you will proceed on your personal cognizance. I came here because I was outraged at outright fraud, but that is apparently resolved now.
I'm agin' wiles, of which bots are the most hazardous exemplar, and act accordingly as I can.
Edit:
Anyone so feckless won't be guarding my back.
It turns out that your beliefs place some kind of restrictions on yourself.
What about American liberty?
You are not actively campaigning against vote-selling services in the Hive, but you are willing to ignore content that interests you, just because someone who considers this content to be undervalued promotes it for their tokens, which were bought in the Hive ecosystem?
Why not Eсency, whose tokens can also be bought with cash, but bypassing the Hive ecosystem?
Although I am not American, but I am also a freedom-loving (Russian soul) and after thinking about it, I give you my answer.
I am very uncomfortable when someone puts some conditions on me trying to impose restrictions on my freedom of choice.
Based on my goals here - popularization of the point of view, which I believe to be true in the broad masses - it is more productive for me to buy votes by attracting the attention of "fools" who have not yet awakened, than to conduct meaningful dialogues with a very small number of adequate readers, who already understand cause-and-effect relationships.
From the soft power of "non-support" sanctions, it is not far to blindly handing out flags to all those who have bought votes, regardless of the content of the message being promoted. By the way, such a practice was already carried out on Seemit just on the eve of its fork
Of course, my family doesn't live off the profits from the Hive, but I try to maximize it in case I need to. I play by the rules of the Hive, perhaps written not entirely for the benefit of ordinary users, but I do not seek to cheat anyone or to take unfair possession of other people's property!
This is similar to asking a businessman:
I won't buy your goods if you make your markup on them.
Or otherwise, I won't buy your goods because you evade taxes according to the existing hole in the taxation system specially created by oligarchs for their own needs through, for example, charitable contributions....
My point is that as long as there are mechanisms for automating profits, people will strive for them, especially the lazy or stupid ones. I don't consider myself more stupid than the stupid, so I don't see the point of avoiding existing legal mechanisms for earning and promoting information.
Personally, buying votes won't prevent me from socializing with people.
If that's a problem for you, I'll miss our philosophical conversations
Are there any that don't? With authority comes responsibility.
I think this discounts the extensive discussion I undertake regarding why I think it's insuperable. This doesn't even touch on the moral hazard I think is obvious and unavoidable when trafficking in votes, with which I am familiar from prior years dealing with that market before it was largely (and I had thought wholly) quashed. You were impacted by that moral laxity, albeit temporarily, and it is a natural accompaniment to that trade, as is rape to trafficking people.
I am doing no such thing. I am imposing restrictions on me (as you point out above), and what I vote for. If you pore back through my comments on the matter, other than pointing out why buying votes is a poor choice, I didn't more than recommend to you alternatives and reasons, and explain why I wouldn't be encouraging you to continue the practice of buying votes. I don't seek to restrict your words, but to gain you greater import of them. However, Guruasia is imposing restrictions on your freedom of speech, telling you what you cannot speak about when you buy votes. Lay the axe at the feet of the woodsman, not the grower intent only on the fruit of the orchard.
I donate 1/4 of my author rewards to other users, some of whom are flagged into negative rep, and that is why I support them posting despite their demonetization, the very opposite of your implication. It is their utter dedication to speaking the truth as they see it that I support, and they have not compromised their speech at any price. I think one of them has even flagged me, so vehemently did they disagree with me at the time, but that only more proves their absolute dedication to forthrightly speaking their mind, which is the kind of speech we need more of in the world, not just on Hive. Maybe with less invective and flaggotry directed towards me =p.
Did I ever imply I would throw flags your way? Did I make such threats in my scathing comments to Guruasia I would flag his account? I solely have spoken of the ethics and hazards of the vote market, and reasons for my unwillingness to support it. Perhaps cognitive dissonance is creating some discomfort internally regarding the matter, as you are going so far as to fabricate from hole cloth such complaints about my policy.
Another inapplicable and feeble attempt to mischaracterize being unwilling to support reducing human rights to those of toasters. DVs are not the opposite of UVs. The opposite of an upvote is no vote. A DV is comparable to a tax, reducing the net to a creator of their gross. Purchased votes then are comparable to bribing legislators to create legislation favoring your product and increasing your gross in your business example.
It is such ethical laxity and philosophical flexibility as is becoming apparent in your comments regarding my refraining from encouraging accounts buying votes as I am familiar with in both politics from lobbyists and their clientele, and buyers of favor in any market, but on Hive in my experience more particularly. This is a moral hazard I think you're facing, and I think you're flying too close to the sun to avoid burning your principles.
Quite. I do have a limited list of accounts I follow, and limited time to attend to their posts. Avoiding that latter ilk I find suits my browsing and intent to encourage good creators, and I think I will stick to them hereafter, and forthwith.
However, forthright speech is far more valuable than it's financial value, which is why I don't seek to monetize mine, while I am quite comfortable automating ditch digging or sawing logs for pay. I don't have a problem automating production. In fact, I quite encourage it. I fear monetizing speech, because that tends to encourage being popular, rather than being right, and I specifically recommend eliminating curation rewards completely, because it causes popular speech to be rewarded not because it's right, but because financial returns are potential by doing so. However, I neither wish to prevent speakers of merit from focusing their efforts on that endeavor, which requires they are supported thereby. Your circumstances suggest a need to create income online, and your writing may be the only means you have of doing that. Were I you I'd much prefer to get organic votes than purchased although that requires building an audience over the long haul, such audience is durable once you have it.
I am not such a speaker, not a professional author. The tokens I receive here I leave here. I did not come to your blog because I was attracted by the economic potential or with financialization intent, but to ethical and existential matters of far more import. You deliver information critically necessary to making decisions affecting life and death, informing support of policies that kill or save the lives of Ukrainians, and may well affect Americans the same way, sooner than we like. That is why I have undertaken this conversation with you, because I am sad that I cannot continue to support your content for the reason I cannot support your policy of buying votes.
You're discounting your ethical standards thereby, which I think discounts the lives at risk in the Ukraine and around the world, when you treat of such topic and buy votes to make it more lucrative to do so. It makes the question of whether you're taking positions because they're lucrative unavoidable to readers, and that is an accusation batted about in discussions too often, and with far too much cause - because many do speak for money and will say whatever is more profitable. You have critics and political enemies that will make any claim, use any lapse or fault to accuse you of deception. I have seen it. You throw fuel on their attempts to burn your content by buying votes.
I hardly see any point in considering the financial value of money, or tokens, in making such judgments about war. I'm sure every man dying in a ditch would undo any transaction, however financially lucrative, if only the aftermath of that transaction didn't end with him in that ditch. Some people haply cause such soldiers' deaths so they can profit from the bullets that kill them. ~1M graves of Ukrainian soldiers demand recompense for the blood guilt of the profiteers that filled them. People that don't know you have to judge your words by their import - but also by why you speak. Some people will ask themselves if you are writing on the topic for money, an atrocity salesman. As I have very limited intellectual capacity, I try not to bother about things extraneous, and to spend my attention on matters of existential import more directly, particularly that involve people dying in trenches, or their cradles in Gaza, that I write about.
In fact, that is exactly why I forswear support for accounts that buy votes. Because by devaluing human society, though on Hive it may only end up involving flags or mutes at worst, making such ethical standards your practice here will carry over to affect IRL decisions, and you very well know that there is a real danger of dying in a ditch from human beings being devalued for lucre. There is a natural progression from chasing popularity as an author to making posts because they're profitable, rather than ethically sound, and there are innumerable examples of folks across the internet that have utterly debased themselves because they were paid money to do so.
Perhaps the biggest industry on Earth today is lying for money.
While I'm not saying you're heading down that path, it is something your decision to buy votes suggests you have greater comfort with than do I. Note I specifically avoided and denied I was implying you are liable to straying further down that path to populism for money, leaving that judgement of your ethics to you, while pointing out only that such a path is obvious and has dragged many to their irrelevance.
There is an inexhaustible list of things that are legal but unethical, even cruel and inhumane. It is best to make decisions based on what is right and proper rather than what is legally permissible, IME. Smedley Butler made a living waging war before he wrote 'War is a Racket'. In that book he expressed a deep regret that he killed people for corporate profits, and railed against those that had paid him to do it.
I hope that is a regret you never have.
Hello again.
Had to get my head together and get some things done.
My posts are usually shorter than our conversations.)))
I think emotion took over and some of the theses were not dictated by logic. Sorry if you saw aggression in my previous post of this thread.
Your comparison of bid-bots to human trafficking more clearly fits the description of the situation. I would even call it prostitution, with the difference that instead of a body, there is trafficking in votes.
We can treat prostitutes differently, it is their choice and their way, but I will not believe that in your environment there are no people who have used their services.
You realize that not everyone is endowed by nature with attractiveness, eloquence, charisma and enough self-confidence to be successful with the opposite sex. You don't stop social or business contacts with these people because they use prostitutes, do you? Or your principles do not end with the beehive and having learned about such a fact from the life of your friends or relatives you will somehow change your attitude towards them?
(if we do not take into account betrayal of a partner, in order not to distract from the topic, betrayal of a partner is not applicable to hive and bid-bots, unless there were some agreements).
In the Hive as it turns out differently than in life, you must necessarily choose a side. Сan not achieve success and support without losing neutrality. It is not possible to visit a prostitute in pleasure, and with spinster ladies to have hope for a bright future together...))))
About the flag wars, it was not about you specifically, but rather about the lynch court. As you may remember from past experience, one part of the fight against bid-bots was to pool activists into pools that offset the benefit of buying votes with their negative voting. The hint was just that and nothing more. And I never wrote anywhere that you threatened anyone with flags!
But trend leads to a situation... the whole storm is yet to come! Soon a lot of people will decide that they are no worse than Marketplace and instead of writing and curating they will start trading votes.
Figuratively, tomorrow, a user who you respect, whose reputation you don't question, will ask to use your unspent downvotes to counter bidbots and nothing more.
Knowing that he will spend them only within the predetermined limits, don't you authorise this curation trail with your posting key? I think I know the answer to that in advance.
about immorality.
I agree that prostitution harms the basic ideas of the Hive ecosystem, and takes us further away from fairness and objective distribution of grades, but shouldn't we adjust to the dynamically developing world here as well?
I haven't noticed any systemic informational backlash on the Hive, outrage by Hive users, condemnation by witnesses of vote trading or HP rentals
What is the difference between your unwillingness to support publications, which for free rarely get the attention of whales and are not one of the top interests of readers, and the act of a Russophobe, who operating with something subjective removes a sold vote from an article he doesn't like?
Not that I was trying to change your mind about anything, but I just see it as another element of bureaucracy and injustice of the system:
Buy yourself more tokens, steak it - and set your own rules in your little social circle. Incentive those who obey the rules, punish or reprimand those who don't.
Buy yourself more power - take more responsibility!)))
Translate your point of view from the plane of the subjective, to the plane of written rules! Why not take more responsibility, if the situation allows you to buy more power tokens, and the people around you do not mind.
No money for tokens - well then choose voluntarily, within whose rules you will be comfortable... Capitalism, hule!
How much on a scale of ten would you rate the manipulability of the electoral system in the USA? Would Trump agree with your assessment given his experience in past elections?
This is to the toaster party thesis!
Maybe we don't need to transfer the imperfect democracy of hail on the hill to the Hive? And all the negativity connected with the lack of power tokens in the real world should be reflexed there - from the outside?
My philosophical flexibility has ensured my survival in this country for quite a long time and in my situation it is rather a plus. My principles do not impose any tangible restrictions on me precisely because I simply compromise with them at times when it is advantageous or dangerous for me, and vice versa - when it is necessary to insist on them!
I have been publishing interesting matarials here for a year, and as I guess, rarely thanks to anyone but you, my payments have reached any significant figures.
If now you're saying that you'll stop shaking my hand if I fuck prostitutes, then maybe I should repurpose my account to a cat-landscape content plan. 250 words of blah blah blah water and have a curated voice with a whole trailer of auto-voters.... No one fucks with your brain, everyone is nice and friendly. no flags, no canceled votes. that's what this whole situation makes me think. That's besides the negative impressions
My philosophical flexibility has ensured my survival in this country for quite a long time and in my situation it is rather a plus. My principles do not impose any tangible restrictions on me precisely because I simply compromise with them at times when it is advantageous or dangerous for me, and vice versa - when it is necessary to insist on them!
I have been publishing interesting matarials here for a year, and as I guess, rarely thanks to anyone but you, my payments have reached any significant figures.
If now you're saying that you'll stop shaking my hand if I fuck prostitutes, then maybe I should repurpose my account to a cat-landscape content plan. 250 words of blah blah blah water and have a curated voice with a whole trailer of auto-voters.... No one fucks with your brain, everyone is nice and friendly. no flags, no canceled votes. that's what this whole situation makes me think. That's besides the negative impressions
In peacetime I had no time or energy left after work to bring quality content here. Now I can't afford to go to work or do any business outside my home, because there is a great risk of mobilization with all its consequences. Tell me more details from a peaceful country with a functioning constitution how immoral it is to monetize my hobby by all available, legal methods on the platform.
What do you think is immoral for the people of Gaza to do to ensure their survival?
My survival does not depend on making money in the Hive, but maybe that's just for now!
Best Regards. Peace in your land!
I do understand your dilemma, and point out that there is no alternative to building an audience. You see how I do it. I find blogs I am interested in, read them, and comment cogently when I do. I am not the most successful user of Hive, but I do get some engagement in my comments, and some few upvotes on my posts. I do not seek upvotes, so have made no specific effort to gain them, but if I did seek them I would do it by the above method.
Regarding prostitution, I am all too familiar with it's many forms, having been married and being pretty fucked in my divorce. As an amoral youth I found having a string of working girls a fun and lucrative pastime, however, the emotional attachments disabused me of that hobby in short order, and schooled me on it's hazards. Little has more given me cause for regret, and I am an old man that awakes cringing at my shameful past too often.
You do not build an audience when you buy votes. You hollow out your support by exemplifying laxity of principle. These aren't philosophical assumptions, but practical financial matters. Goodwill is the most valuable asset any person can have and I strive to maximize my attainment of it IRL. By my store of goodwill my many bills are paid, rather than with funds held in my accounts. I helped a little old lady yesterday with a leaky window without charge, halfway across the county. Her gratitude is far more valuable to me than the pittance of money I could have charged her, and I do a lot of work in that town, where her opinion of me is far better advertising than I could ever buy and put on a billboard.
I do not base my philosophy on theoretical musings, but on lessons that have left my gut clenched as if wrapped around a fist, weeping in the night, and despairing of repairing what cannot be fixed. I very much live by the advice I give, and sleep with fewer nightmares as a result. I have not perfectly replaced money with goodwill. I still have one bill I have to purchase money orders and pay monthly, but not only are my utilities, rent, and other bills paid, but food and other consumables, not only for myself, but for my inherited cat. In most cases these blessings availed me aren't pre-arranged transactions but simply the natural expression of goodwill of folks in my neighborhood that I have donated materials to build a wheelchair ramp to, stopped a leak, or just bemused that my cat follows me around like a dog during my daily rounds to ensure my neighbors' water isn't leaking or something.
I have always regretted using sticks, finding carrots not only more persuasive, but more palatable, particularly when the demons come calling, at 3am of a dark night. Your circumstances limit your means of earning goodwill, and I cannot comment cogently from experience of such circumstances. I can only point out that living in the rose garden I describe is living in a bramble hedge where thorns can tear flesh from your bones.
But, there are roses.
Very emotional and candid! This is really worth it - sharing sacred life experiences often doesn't always happen between close people. Children with their parents do not always have such a trusting communication.
I think the attitude to things is also a matter of subjective, depending on many factors, but mostly on upbringing. I'm sure someone else may experience situations that "tear at your flesh" with a different spectrum of feelings.
I realise you're a firm believer in your beliefs.
I'll try to let this account have a chance to break through without bid-bots while others are doing "business" tearing up the general pool of rewards.... But considering the date of account creation and the point where we are now, the bottom line is obvious - it will take me another seven years to reach a reputation level of 70 points at this rate and I'll need to stay up at night for another seven years)))).
From the position of financial prosperity it is easy to do charity and talk about the righteous path, but when you have no money to fix the roof or buy enough food for the family, and helping a needy granny is fraught with a nameless grave in the steppes of Donetsk, then in the second year of running away you start to look at things differently. There is a long way ahead to create maximum autonomy on your own land, and they shove sticks in my wheels at the very beginning....
Good day to you on the other side of the flat ball))
I am aware of the danger you survive. You cannot do as I just did and wade through the standing pools of floodwater, relics of the storm that has just passed here, to inspect your neighbors homes for damage, bubbling springs from broken pipes, with an eye to quickly resolving them. You can't.
You have a quick wit and a dexterity with English, in a place and at a time extraordinarily valuable to the right audience. You are here, and I understand why you aren't on Fakebook or Twatter, with a blue checkmark to betray you. But there are other venues, Telegram, Twitch, Substack, and more, where your insights and perspective may be better remunerated from livelier audiences. If you do that, I caution you to keep each unique and not merely repost from other platforms, so if one is compromised you don't lose them all. Surely by now you are practiced at getting Hryvnia into others' accounts, and aren't using your own. You can't share video, put a face to a name, as CRP proved, but you aren't facing the scourge, the cross, or the stake, as so many have in recent centuries. Great care needs to be taken over metadata, anecdotal details, and private information if you seek that path (I don't need to tell you, I suspect).
It is true you are like a one legged man in an ass kicking contest, but sometimes we cannot choose our handicaps and can only work harder than anyone else to get our licks in by being better than we thought we were. Becoming a father twisted my conceit and my insecurity both into crumpled balls and tossed them aside, and I became unrecognizable to who I was before. There isn't anything comparable to it, but it taught me that we can man up and tackle the impossible, because often the impossible is merely difficult once we cannot tolerate it. I used to bite my nails, chew them down to the quick. I changed so fundamentally that I quit that neurotic behaviour - and I didn't even know I had quit it until I had to cut my nails for the first time in years. All you can have is resolve to succeed and great skill in love to keep you alive, and I fear for you while I admire your proven success.
I prefer even poverty in paradise to lordship in a land lacking the blessings of civilization we enjoy today. My needs are met easily because there are so few of them. People that have not lived without refrigeration, running water, or electric lights and heat do not have any ability to imagine what life was like without them. I have been hungry enough to beat a porcupine to death with a broken rifle, only to discover it would make better underwear than it did stew. I have endured blizzards with nothing more than a candle for heat, and I have marveled at civilization, overjoyed when I came out of the woods. I flipped the light switch on and off, like a miracle, remembering pumping a lantern furiously while a bear gently huffed on the thin tarp between us. Be aware there are roses amongst the thorns.
I think you need to enjoy those amenities only a few months more before your circumstances will change, as the collapse approaches that nearly now. April, or May at the latest, will bring the dispersal of your enemies and the end of their threat to slaughter you in a ditch, and bring you a new batch of enemies, with different sticks to poke in your spokes.
A leak can do a lot of damage in that time, if you cannot afford to fix it, and that is pins in my voodoo doll, but any damage can be fixed after bombs no longer fly. There will be lots of fixing this summer, I think. In my workshop I have an arrangement of cunningly cut and chained plastic bottles hanging beneath a leaky spot (I just now remember I need to dump it after the storm) to keep a drip from rusting my tools. Perhaps you can try something like that to avoid the worst of the damage for a few months. I have long advocated table top means of production, aquaponics, solar panels, 3D printers and so forth, and it's a shame you have none to profit by. At least now you know why you should.
Endure for a little time more peace in war, poverty in paradise, and build goodwill in every way you can, because that is more precious than the fortunes of your enemies, for it comes with sound sleep and a clear conscience that will not trouble your gray head when it is too late to sleep at night, and the nightmares give you no respite.
I try to maintain as much confidentiality as possible realising the extent of responsibility for the people who depend on me. I do not make transactions from this account to centralised exchanges, I do not upload files from my computer to the network, I use VPN.... Thank you for your concern.
Of course I have buckets under the leaks so that I don't have any additional problems with the flooring. Because it doesn't rain often, this is not a major or critical problem. It is an example of hopeless financial distress caused by the temporary prolonged inability to go to work!
The problems were much more existential last winter with the rolling blackouts. I have furnace heating with pump circulation. If there is no electricity, I can't light the cooker at home for a long time - the coolant boils and can damage the heating circuit.
The battery removed from the car and the UPS from the computer helps to survive short-term power cuts, if you start the system just before the boiling.
No electricity problems so far this winter, but there are regular problems with the water supply. A few days in a row, when all the supplies ran out, we even had to drown the snow to water the animals. We were able to buy water for ourselves.
We don't have porcupines, but I realised that it's better not to use them for food) I saw a lot of wild pheasants around me....
Gotta go! See you in the chain.
Interesting stuff, though I still tend to think that the powers that be do not want a legit civil war. If that happens the economy will grind to even more of a halt. The U.S. military couldn't stop the guerilla warfare in Iraq or Afghanistan or pretty much anywhere for that matter and the American people are much better armed. But, who knows... It does seem like they want to reduce us to more of a 3rd world status and lower our standards of living and take more of our rights away, so it's not out of the realm of possibility in my opinion... But, I still tend to think the "rulers" don't want to go down that route as it could potentially disrupt their ambitions more than it helps.
It takes wars and upheaval to bring the economy to zero and force everyone to accept cbdc and maybe a world government.
It is necessary to bring the situation to absurdity, so that we beg Klaus Schwab to take everything away from us and make us happy!
Perhaps, though I don't think the majority of "normies" can handle it and it ends up creating a lot more fractures and factions opposed to their regime... I try not to rule anything out and keep my mind open to the possibilities, though I tend to think they want those in the U.S. especially to remain sort of "plugged into the Matrix". I guess time will tell though, hopefully we're both wrong and somehow the masses find a way to wake up and demand a more healthy future.
I hope so!