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I get two calls a day from a random phone number asking if I want to sign up for government health care or unemployment or to receive some kind of insurance. At this point, the root idea of getting help from the government is purely functioning in the service of scamming the elderly and people with poor English skills.
Cultural decay at its absolute worst. Not only are you told to be exclusively responsible for yourself, but you're made to fear any interaction with anything resembling a government entity.
I basically assume almost everything is a scam, because I'm almost always right. I hate the kind of person it's made me into, cynical, distrustful. I feel like I'm paranoid, but It's only paranoia when they're not out to get you.
At some point, you do need to interact with the outside world. When "everything is a scam" is a way of life, it ultimately means you cannot interact with the outside word to any meaningful advantage. Where does that lead us?
Do we all just become hermits?
Do we all just become hermits?
Mostly yeah, unfortunately. I have a small trusted circle of people and a slightly larger circle of people I'd potentially go to if I was desperate enough but beyond that everyone else can get fucked until they prove otherwise. We as a society really need to step it up and deal with all the scammy bullshit that is just allowed to happen if we want to be able to trust each other again.
I do in so far as I have to, I perform risk assessments and trust nothing and check everything, operating under the assumption that anything could have double motives and malice behind it. I've had to learn many times not to overuse occam's razor when dealing with outside entities like e.g. neighbours when trying to deal with disputes. Everyone is capable of anything, I just try my best to be ready for 'em when they come. Being a hermit would be good, but unfortunately capitalism prevents this for me for the moment.