I first got online in 1992. This gives me quite the view of internet history.

When I wonder why there are hardly any successful, popular, creative internet projects anymore, I always circle back around to how much less money there is at the lower tiers of the economy (anything below $1b).

It's always money.

Those without any money are extremely stressed, sick, and/or dying, and don't have time to contribute to projects or explore the work of others.

Those with jobs are working more hours to make ends meet, and have less time to spend on exploring other people's projects or making their own.

Those with small investment capital at the low-end are far more rare than they were. The filtering process for investing big is warped into being all about whatever the hype trend of the day is, which is always a finely honed grift.

In 1997, when I was just starting my tech career, poor single parent, my rent was $500/mo. Even as a single parent of a special needs child, I could make rent on my $7/hr. I had enough breathing room to chase the next thing online, which was always free of cost and almost always just some website made by some guy in Notepad. I could make my own little website or server that did this or that on old hardware that was cheap or free.

In spite of the spell Facebook has cast on the population, there are still plenty of people with ideas and willingness to make and use cool new things, and old unenshittiified technology to built it on. There is, in fact, a thriving indieweb out there that I have not had energy to explore.

I've got plenty of my own ideas, too, really cool things I want to contribute. But you know what I'm doing instead? I'm using my last sick, exhausted breath looking for freelance editing work from a pool of other writers who are just as broke as me.

Money equals time. It all comes down to a lack of money circulating at our layer of economy.

#IndieWeb #AbuseCulture #enshittification

RE: https://mastodon.social/@ChrisJagged/116346728020760075

Not only that, but historically, abuse culture will promote assholes to top scholar positions who will then write the history books. Just as we all were raised, in the future everyone will be tricked into singing their praises.

Unless we do something to change this dynamic.

#AbuseCulture

Christianity primed white people to feel guilty when certain Pavlovian bells ring.

Accused? Wrongdoing even subtly implied? Guilt! Shame!

Then, if it's a respected authority doing the implying (be it parent or priest), we're primed to submit.

If we don't respect the authority of the "accuser," well, were primed to see them as the enemy in the all-or-nothing good vs evil war. "My authorities haven't called that a sin so who is this person anyway??" And we lash out. At women, POC, queers, disabled, and often, even ourselves.

What, you're white but never were Christian? Sorry, but you were programmed this way, too. (If you feel mad at me, that's the programming.)

Christianity's way out from guilt and shame is impossible. It doesn't work. It's designed to make you feel forever ashamed and in debt to Jesus — or rather, the religious authorities who represent him. That's how they get you.

We aren't allowed to emotionally mature to know how to handle our own feelings when we've done wrong. We're forever dependent children on the religion. We go to confession, do the penitence, feel a few days of relief, then go back to feeling guilty. No matter how well-meaning any particular clergy, this is by design.

Now suddenly here's these people I don't respect out of unexamined implicit bias dumping more crap on me.

Aren't I bad enough? Haven't I submitted enough? What am I supposed to do about it?

I'm hamstringed. My white brain has been lobotomized wrt how to handle this. But also, I've been told by trusted authorities that I'm not a racist, so I'm not!!! Out comes the Karen.

Colonialism=Christianity=Corporatism

It's all the same system.

Freeing ourselves from this system means freeing those whose oppression we enable.

Because it's all the same thing.

#AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon #exvie #exvangelical #antiracism #antifa

A LOT of the times that people treated me like I was crazy was when I resisted oppression they had normalised. They saw me "making a fuss" about "nothing" and punished me with everything from judgemental looks to death threats. Often, I couldn't articulate why I was acting out. No one would have listened anyway.

But looking back, it's just so clear that in this society, and in my family, having instinctual reactions against things that feel off, that feel oppressive or that violate boundaries, was considered crazy and was punished.

#ableism #sanism #AbuseCulture #SocialJustice

A characteristic of abuse that I want to see more emphasised is the abuser's feeling of being entitled to dish out consequences (punishment) to others.

I say this because sometimes lists of red flags or abuser characteristics or descriptions of abusive personality traits either leave it out or throw it in as a side sentence, easily overlooked.

But that's where the line of abuse is!

Being triggered by someone wearing a green shirt? Not abusive!
Yelling at someone for wearing a green shirt? Overstepping and can be part of a pattern of abuse!

Believing that God put you on earth to teach heathens the gospel of bruschetta brunch? Not abusive!
Taking people's phones away until they learn and recite your favourite bruschetta recipe? Abusive!

Or, for a less absurd example:

Being triggered when your child doesn't obey because you have trauma around that and your nervous system turns on the alarm sirens? Not abusive!
Making your child feel guilty for not obeying or for triggering you? Abusive!

🧵

#abuse #AbuseCulture #RedFags #entitlement #MentalHealth #MentaIlness

Trauma therapy that doesn't actively fight economic injustice and poverty and its causes, sucks and is useless and ends up doing more harm in the form of subtle victim blaming and reinforcing toxic (capitalist) messages.

Poverty causes dissociation. If you're poor, you have to constantly endure discomfort and unpleasant physical and sensory input.

You have to sit on chairs that hurt your butt and back. You have to sleep on cheap foam mattresses that do the same. Your walls are thin and you hear your neighbours and have to walk on eggshells to avoid getting in trouble. You have to eat and drink the cheap stuff that just doesn't taste as good and doesn't satisfy your true needs. Your clothes are ill fitting, give you gender dysphoria and you probably don't even have a sense of what a pleasant texture would be for you because you could never make that a factor. Household chores are all on hard mode because you don't have the fancy appliances that could help. You probably have to cope with disabilities that go unaddressed and unaccomodated. If you have work, it's probably of the back breaking kind. You're much more likely to breathe polluted air and drink polluted water.

I could go on. The point being, these things are all obvious and anyone who knows anything about trauma, dissociation and grounding can understand how they'd make people dissociate. They cause a background level of dissociation that is hard to overcome as long as the causes are still in place - and arguably not desirable to overcome.

But that same dissociation also makes any other therapeutic intervention or healing approach that much less effective.

Poverty is violence. Poverty is trauma. Poverty is injustice. Healing trauma means fighting the injustice and indignity of poverty. ✊

#trauma #TraumaHealing #poverty #MentalHealth #AbuseCulture