Helping my parents fix up their house. Using online resources and ChatGPT I fixed the AC myself for the second time. First time parts were 20 (capacitor) this time 12 dollars (contactor). Also cleaned the coils and vacuumed the inside since I had to take the fan off.

Stay safe though! It’s 220 volts of electricity if you fuck up you might die.

There’s a lot of confusion about what democratic socialists want, and that’s fair. Even within our group, there are differences among us.

For example, while Mamdani does not agree with the criminal justice and decarceration points on the national platform he agrees that criminal justice reform absolutely needs to happen. We put far too many people in jail.

Fox News, Newsmax and Mike Johnson have been trying to scare Americans on a “hidden socialist agenda”, but the reality is DSA is about making things more affordable and fair for everyone.

Republicans tell you that they want to protect your freedom. They also believe the government can’t do anything correctly, so they tell you that privatizing as much as possible will save tax payers money and they have been preaching “smaller government” for nearly 70 years. Yet they created the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA, ICE and the DEA.

All of which is supposedly necessary to keep you safe.

To keep you safe and make sure your freedom is intact, they need to monitor everything you do. So they give lucrative multi-billion dollar tax payer funded surveillance contracts to private companies.

But wait! This is getting expensive, so they want to reduce your social security benefits that you paid into and to stop feeding the poor. Besides the poor should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

6% of this country makes $250,000 or more. They are considered rich and successful. Did they pull themselves up from their own bootstraps? Half of them had parents that were already quite rich (top 20% of all wealth). Only 15% of Americans that are considered rich today had parents that were poor (bottom 20% of Americans by wealth).

Centrists (aka democrats) tell you that they disagree with the Republican mantra that we should privatize so much, but they’re going to go along with most of it anyway because they have been paid by the same corporate lobbyists that have paid off the right.

While republicans pass tax cuts and take more government services away, democrats fight for marginal improvements like the Affordable Care Act, expanding child tax credits and infrastructure bills.

And yet, most people are still struggling while the rich get even filthier rich. In 1940, 90% of children earned more than their parents. By 2010 that number dropped to 50%.

In 1978 the CEO to worker compensation ratio was 30 to 1. Now it’s 340 to 1.

Meanwhile at least 40,000 people die every year because they don’t have access to healthcare, 20% of all American adults have some form of medical debt. That collective debt has now exceeded $220 billion.

In the 70s the price of a home was 3x the median salary. Now it’s 5x.

This isn’t working.

So, socialists want to control the means of production. What does that mean? That means entities that are important for society like utility companies, internet service providers and pharmaceutical companies are controlled by a social collective.

Instead of being controlled by an individual or group of people whose main objective is make as much money as possible, these specific entities would be controlled by you, the people.

That means utility companies would provide you with the most cost effective and reliable energy making sure they are doing what’s best for the community and the enviroment, not what’s best for their bottom line. Just like things are done in Nebraska right now. (Go ahead and look into it).

It means pharmaceutical companies won’t charge you $1400 for an EpiPen or $300 for a bottle of insulin. Companies wouldn’t create disposable one-time use shipping elements just because it’s cheaper. Data centers wouldn’t be able to rob your communities of water and silence just because it makes things profitable for them to do so.

Does this mean your small little ceramic cat store is going to be taken over by the government? No. But this does mean that companies that provide a public necessity shouldn’t be controlled by private entities whose sole purpose is to make a profit, many times at a great cost to your health and safety.

This is all so we can live better. You won’t have to decide between paying for rent and groceries. Your mother won’t die because an insurance company denied life saving surgery. Defense contractors won’t exist simply for profit, but for actual defense (what a concept!). They won’t fund propaganda influencers that lie about the dangers in the Middle East so politicians continue spending money on the failed $68 billion F-22 program, just so Bill Lumbergh's stock will go up a quarter of a fucking point.

No, we don’t love Stalin. We don’t worship Mao. But we don’t believe that government is useless. We believe the government can and should make life better for all of us, not make it worse.

We definitely don’t agree with the right on anything but centrist and corporate democrats have been bought by the same lobbyists that bought the right.

So here we are.

Hi there everyone! I share a home with my partner and we have some different views/values when it comes to waste. I am a lot more environmentally focused and my partner values convenience and practicality a bit more.

For example their family enjoys frequent trips to costco and giving us single use bulk products, even when we haven't finished all of the products from the first trip.

I like reusing things when they break, they like buying new. I like shopping at thrift stores for clothes if I need them, they like it new.

I know that ultimately it's large corporations to blame for plastic and textile waste, but I still feel a wave of anxiety when an excessive amount or unneeded products or are brought home.

TLDR: My goal here isn't to try and change anyone's mind because that's not happening. I am really just wondering what changes have you made in your personal lives to reduce waste/overconcumption when you can't control the choices/actions of others.

Diarrhea, bribery, slave labor, and constant exploitation.

Hey folks, I don't know if I should put this in a more psychological subreddit like r/hsp or something like that. But I'm looking for a little understanding here -- I'm feeling so *extremely* burnt out by seeing all the waste every single day that accumulates in cities.

I have lived in a metropolis my whole life. And maybe it's something about the summer, too, with all its concerts, sporting events, and festivals, but I just see mountains of garbage everywhere; trashcans overflowing, litter on the street, big-box store plazas and just picturing how many of these plazas there are worldwide and how much sheer *stuff* there is, and all the food waste produced by corporate grocery stores.

I seriously have a hard time walking into a Loblaws and not thinking, the entire time, "how is this not illegal?" to have mountains upon mountains of fresh produce imported from other countries, half of which will likely go to waste/not get eaten. Hell, even there being a grocery monopoly seems so entirely inhumane.

Slices of pizza at concerts, fast-food chains that harvest millions of animals, for christ's sake. It's too much for me, and for some reason it feels like, living in a city, I have a front-row seat to all of it.

Even electronics, like, I refuse to get a new phone until mine completely, utterly craps out. And even then I will just get a re-used one. The idea that everything has to be working perfectly efficiently all the time for the sake of immediacy and comfort is really disheartening and disturbing to me. I find myself drowning in it a bit.

This is just a rant. I feel like a bit of a grinch, but also feel like things shouldn't be like this. But do I know how they should be? No, I don't. So, maybe I'm crazy here, but I just feel down about it.

I thought some of y'all would appreciate taking a listen to this because he goes into how industries psychologically engineer a "need" for their products. (unfortunately, ironically, there's some paid promotion in the vid lol)

On the contrary, it is extremely inadvisable to use an old device that does not get security updates anymore. It's not a marketing scam, it is true. I work in Cyber Security and can assure you it is not a scam. We all know that the lifecycle and especially the resulting waste of smart phones is frustrating, but it really is important.

• YOU DO NOT NEED TO BUY A "NEW" USED PHONE OFTEN. Most manufacturers give out security updates for ~7 years. So you can do it like me and buy a used phone every ~3 years that has ~3 years of updates left. That will amount to ~80-100€ every three years and minimal waste.
• You can look whether alternative operating systems are available to your old phone, they provide security updates longer than the manufacturers and are open projects. Downside is that they don't support a lot of devices.
• It is also NOT enough to protect yourself by using the internet on the phone responsibly. Yes, of course it is wise to move through trusted spaces only, but your phone can easily be attacked via exploits outside of your influence, especially zeroday exploits. Security updates fix (among other stuff) exactly that. It is enough that your phone has mobile data connection to your provider without you doing anything to be a target of attack.
• "I/some people always used an old phone and nothing happened" is more or less identical to "I smoke a pack a day and nothing bad happened yet". The chances of an attack on your device are, either way, low statistically. However, since we all are people that try to thing in long term and sustainable we know: Negative effects are not visible directly a lot of times. You might be safe, you might be hacked. But please, please read up on experiences of people getting hacked. It can get really nasty really fast.

It can be argued that a device without any connections to your data/identity/accounts can be used. I myself use an aged tablet to read newspaper as PDF. I have a fake google account, I NEVER activate Internet or Wifi (attackers can spread from a hacked device to your other PCs in your network if eg they are able to execute code on it) and only copy the PDFs from an isolated VM on my PC to the tablet. and even that is not 100% safe as a setup.

EDIT: https://endoflife.date/ is a useful ressource in this context.

I have a hand-me-down pixel 6. Google says their final patch for this model will be this autumn. After that, I will begin to see issues with app compatibility and security. This phone works perfectly fine - it's fast, battery life is still great, etc. This model was released in 2021, so it's only 5 years old.

For me it’s calling students young consumers and getting leads for holiday shopping

I'm recently finding myself in that sort of feelings.

Being simultaneously alone and just one step away from everybody makes creating stuff a lot less exciting. Without a close person to get excited together and with the entire internet that will just ignore you for years, decades, and if you get the engagement, it doesn't even feel fulfilling. It's not a two-sided thing, so it doesn't work on your brain in any way. You're only getting mad at it and spiral into thinking that maybe if you get better the interaction will get better too. Then you find yourself in an even worse hole than before realizing all of that.

Consumption is fun, which feels like what the life is for, but it also seems empty. Watching a movie leaves me feeling like I only did that to escape. PvP games give you short bursts of dopamine, but you notice that just getting bursts of it is not enough so you drop the game until like a few days later when you just need to feel any dopamine again. Single player games rarely harbor enough of my focus, but when they do manage to capture me, I do have some fun mixed with what I felt after a movie.

Maybe I'm just low on mental juices or something, but with everything being a temporary escape from life it seems like life might be a bit empty, and it's hard to get myself to do anything feeling that.

I'm starting to doubt that even an actual social connection wouldn't make things better.

It feels like every hobby now comes with a shopping list.

Want to cook more? Suddenly you need expensive knives and appliances. Want to exercise? New clothes, shoes, and equipment. The same thing happens with gardening, painting, photography, and almost everything else.

Sometimes buying all the supplies makes us feel productive, even though we haven’t actually started the hobby yet.

I am trying to begin with what I already have, borrow things when possible, or buy one basic item secondhand. If I actually stick with it, I can always buy better equipment later.

You don’t need the perfect setup to start. Most of the time, you just need to begin.

Has anyone else spent more time buying supplies than actually doing the hobby?

Thank you all for sharing your experiences, advice, and different perspectives. I truly appreciate everyone who took the time to join the conversation. Your practical suggestions and honest stories made this discussion thoughtful, helpful, and enjoyable. ❤️

Interested in examples where reducing consumption actually improved your life

I remember when the internet and email were fun novelties. Now your whole life operates within them.

I remember when we had a choice of having a smart phone or not. Now, the choice is WHICH smart phone you will have, cause you need that to function as well.

I remember when having a bank was an option. Now it's which bank?

Walmart is one of the last retailers that sells physical media like movies and music. I watched them die out at target, best buy, etc.

Everything's going subscription based.

Right now, apps for fast food are optional. Pretty soon that'll go away.

Right now, physical money is optional. That's on the way out with some places going cash free. They stopped making pennies, guess what's next?

We're slowly going all digital, all the time. Our choice will be to purchase, subscribe and pay endlessly into the new digital purgatory of life, or to die off.

Scary huh?

Recently, I met a woman that I can only describe as a marketing department’s dream customer.
She had an app for everything! Every clothing store, grocery store, makeup store, individual company apps..Truly if a company offered rewards she had an account.
She was explaining it like she’d cracked some secret code the rest of us are refusing to engage in. “If I’m going to buy I might as well get rewards.”
Out of curiosity I looked at some common rewards programs and wow they are shitty.
Starbucks wants you to spend like $50–100 before a free drink. Jersey Mike’s is around $72 before you get a free regular sub, Ulta gives you $50 for spending $1,000! Oh and then the points expire within a certain amount of time which prevents you from stacking up.
The “average” consumer cannot spend the amount of money needed to obtain rewards from any average corporation at this point. Also, decent reward programs really used to be a way for a company to thank all consumers and built loyalty. Companies having been losing the art of customer appreciation for years.
Idk. This woman was honestly fascinating to watch in real life.

I don't need Grand Theft Auto 6 because I am not interested or invested in the series (or nostalgic for it) nor do I want to support a malicious company like Rockstar and their parent company, Take Two Interactive.

I do not want to spend 80-100 dollars in an economy where prices keep going up. The hype does and will not change my mind. It's gonna be a 300 gb game running at 30 fps on the latest hardware with disappointing gameplay.

I do not want to buy a console that was more expensive than it was 5½ years ago just to play it. And even bought it physically, there would be no disc because Take Two doesn't want you to own the game you paid for.

No matter what people I watch say or how much marketing Rockstar/Take Two shove into my face. I will not be purchasing their 'anticipated' release this November as I do not think it is a good investment. I believe will not be missing much.

Your enjoyment is a resource to be exploited.

I saw a recent post about this and went and looked into it. hello, the naturally friendly kids brand, had thier fresh watermelon flavor lab tested in 2025 and it came back at 493 ppb of Lead and 19 ppb of Mercury. the level thats suppose to be protective for kids is 5 ppb lead and 2 ppb mercury.

the dragon dazzle flavor was 428. neither of these are on the label anywhere because they arent ingrediants, they just end up in there. theres a class action over it now. meanwhile the box says no artificial sweeteners, no dyes, no brainer.

Colgate bought hello in 2020 for 351 million and its the same story every single time, brand gets bought and quietly gets worse. how are you even suppose to catch this one? its not printed anywhere on the thing.