08-13-2023, 04:10 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-13-2023, 04:13 PM by Chinchillin777.)
As one (of no doubt MANY good folks belonging to this community) whose daily quality of life is directly impacted by/desperately relies on several types of reading material that I cannot simply get a hold of “elsewhere” or in person, this “trend” is immensely disturbing to me.
More and more I see financial services and institutions consolidating their holdings under vast “parent” companies, in effect reducing the overall “freedom of market choice”/relative anonymity of the individual using them.
With each merger, the “terms of service” are re-written to greater benefit said organizations and take power away from individuals, as well as creating a virtually interconnected “dragnet” that inevitably has a *much* higher success rate in identifying individual’s purchasing habits/repeatedly frequented vendors/companies, to the effect that it only seems like a matter of time before whatever current doors that remain open to be closed, often forever.
Major services that used to stand more or less alone or have minor partnerships like PayPal, national banks/accounts/cards offered by said institutions, eBay buying/selling & public info disclosures, major search engines like google, streaming entertainment platforms & distributors like iTunes/apple pay, cash apps like Venmo, Zelle, Wise (formerly transferwise), etc. etc. all seem to be finding more common ground & intersections, forming cross-platform agreements regarding record-keeping + open public disclosures/reports in response to increasing government pressure to yield to such inquiries, to the point where I’ve even lost track of “who” is owned by “what” and who stores/shares their information with one another ?
It cannot be a coincidence that as all of this is rapidly evolving and coalescing into some truly “big brother” levels of interconnection & data surveillance, our precious vendors are dropping like flies on an autumn morning’s frost. This truly terrifies me to my core, and as hard as I try to make do and focus on my own life as much as possible, I cannot just put my head in the sand and pretend I do not see some form of total oblivion taking shape on the near horizon, and meanwhile I wrestle with some of my most severe OCD / intrusive thinking patterns I’ve ever encountered, wishing I could tell myself that I am just overreacting, yet being slapped in the face left and right by red flags and warning signs in the form of ever-escalating financial premiums for the goods I’ve come to rely upon for nearly 2 decades now, ever increasing shortages in supply/more and more limited menu items, and yet again, the realization that a substantial swath of what I once knew of as golden lifelines have been cut or frayed to ribbons in recent months/years, contrasted by many many years prior of successful operations & very limited “turbulence”, all but guaranteeing an adequate level of stability on the whole.
I once (and still do) consider/recognize myself as fortunate, as though I have virtually no friends/family to speak of, I was left with more financial flexibility than many others, as Charon so adequately and characteristically laments, regarding ritually anyone unfortunate to be reliant on a single source of fixed income, worst of all from the government itself.
For so many years I was blissfully unaware of just how much more miserable life had the potential of becoming, as despite a *very* limited understanding of technology and how to protect one’s self against these aforementioned pitfalls (now literally being laid left, right, and center, as well as potentially beneath one’s own feet if one is not constantly on what now feels like a “forced march”) - which seems destined to echo the trail of tears in terms of sheer bureaucratic barbarism and soullessness in the face of persecuting some of the most disadvantaged and downtrodden citizens of this world who deserve only the exact opposite of the fates they are being met with ?
I’m not sure exactly when the ice really started to breakthrough at such an alarming rate (was it a year? No… more… 18 months? Two years? Three? I’ve long since stopped thinking in such broad terms and been grateful just to survive one month at a time.
At first I was optimistic, as it seemed there were at least a handful of “lesser”, but still very valuable/nigh essential resources and lifelines out there for most to stay afloat, and while luck can always be a bit crapshoot, it seemed like there was still enough of a “support infrastructure” to continue to help many of those most in need find there way.
More recently, however, I’ve since been gradually processing the grim realization that even such potential “saviors” are themselves being squeezed to the point of suffocation, as evidenced by such radical and prolonged (with no signs of respite ahead) increases in otherwise “standard” reading fare, with the more scarcely published magazines disappearing from print all together in a matter of months, if not less in some cases.
To me, this all circles around to a topic of discussion touched upon above (again, by Charon I believe), which is that those young and/or fortunate enough to be computer savvy have a definitive edge in this ever-emerging brave new world, because no matter how draconian the policies that stand may be, there are always those diamonds in the rough hiding in plain sight.
And I suspect whom are no doubt FAR more visible/accessible to those that understand how to read between the lines, invest & barter with cryptocurrencies, create very complex/nearly untraceable encrypted signals that are unlikely to ever be identified as such (or even if so, “not worth the effort” it would take to get a peak at a single individuals virtual actions, sophisticated networks that can leapfrog around the world so fast that few can be sure where they really “are” at a given moment, or “will be” in the next to come… and surely countless other means of protection such as deep-web URLs kept in the most tight-knit of circles that have yet to have ever been “broken”, etc. etc.
(my sheer lack of further examples should tell you what side of the fence I’m on, and why I should’ve studied computers/IT at least as a hobby in college…)
But all that being said, without the proper knowledge base to adequately guard one’s self against the many dangers of the lesser-known aspects of internet networking & its sub culture, trying to explore and understand said aspects may even be a worse idea than more conventional means, as whomever is on the other end of those sites/marketplaces is likely to be about as ruthless as they come, or at least have that inherent capacity, even if not often exercised. The reason being, mainly, that dark corners often attract dark things, and most would not be dwelling in the darkness without a very good reason/means of fending off “unwanted” or just “unknown” potential guests.
I honestly don’t know what direction to turn to, as even my more robust financial position at present (more like past at this point…) is getting absolutely steamrolled by a situation of immense fear/fervent demand, which is running directly counter to the supply end of the equation.
Man, I really suck, here I was trying to make a single statement/straightforward train of thought, and now I’ve gotten myself so worked up just by writing that I’ve got a million and one signals crossed up in my synapses ?♂️?♂️ I really wasn’t trying to ramble on as such, but I feel like every-time I let my guard down or get my hopes up for a brighter future for all, I come across some text or personally experience a situation that absolutely takes the wind out of all my sails and really lays me low ?
All I can say is how sorry I am to those people who I know to be far sicker than myself, with far fewer resources with which to part/allocate, yet still manage to keep their heads up and “fight the good fight” regardless of the odds and/or sheer degree of adversity present. May the lord watch over you and bless you all each in your turn ???
More and more I see financial services and institutions consolidating their holdings under vast “parent” companies, in effect reducing the overall “freedom of market choice”/relative anonymity of the individual using them.
With each merger, the “terms of service” are re-written to greater benefit said organizations and take power away from individuals, as well as creating a virtually interconnected “dragnet” that inevitably has a *much* higher success rate in identifying individual’s purchasing habits/repeatedly frequented vendors/companies, to the effect that it only seems like a matter of time before whatever current doors that remain open to be closed, often forever.
Major services that used to stand more or less alone or have minor partnerships like PayPal, national banks/accounts/cards offered by said institutions, eBay buying/selling & public info disclosures, major search engines like google, streaming entertainment platforms & distributors like iTunes/apple pay, cash apps like Venmo, Zelle, Wise (formerly transferwise), etc. etc. all seem to be finding more common ground & intersections, forming cross-platform agreements regarding record-keeping + open public disclosures/reports in response to increasing government pressure to yield to such inquiries, to the point where I’ve even lost track of “who” is owned by “what” and who stores/shares their information with one another ?
It cannot be a coincidence that as all of this is rapidly evolving and coalescing into some truly “big brother” levels of interconnection & data surveillance, our precious vendors are dropping like flies on an autumn morning’s frost. This truly terrifies me to my core, and as hard as I try to make do and focus on my own life as much as possible, I cannot just put my head in the sand and pretend I do not see some form of total oblivion taking shape on the near horizon, and meanwhile I wrestle with some of my most severe OCD / intrusive thinking patterns I’ve ever encountered, wishing I could tell myself that I am just overreacting, yet being slapped in the face left and right by red flags and warning signs in the form of ever-escalating financial premiums for the goods I’ve come to rely upon for nearly 2 decades now, ever increasing shortages in supply/more and more limited menu items, and yet again, the realization that a substantial swath of what I once knew of as golden lifelines have been cut or frayed to ribbons in recent months/years, contrasted by many many years prior of successful operations & very limited “turbulence”, all but guaranteeing an adequate level of stability on the whole.
I once (and still do) consider/recognize myself as fortunate, as though I have virtually no friends/family to speak of, I was left with more financial flexibility than many others, as Charon so adequately and characteristically laments, regarding ritually anyone unfortunate to be reliant on a single source of fixed income, worst of all from the government itself.
For so many years I was blissfully unaware of just how much more miserable life had the potential of becoming, as despite a *very* limited understanding of technology and how to protect one’s self against these aforementioned pitfalls (now literally being laid left, right, and center, as well as potentially beneath one’s own feet if one is not constantly on what now feels like a “forced march”) - which seems destined to echo the trail of tears in terms of sheer bureaucratic barbarism and soullessness in the face of persecuting some of the most disadvantaged and downtrodden citizens of this world who deserve only the exact opposite of the fates they are being met with ?
I’m not sure exactly when the ice really started to breakthrough at such an alarming rate (was it a year? No… more… 18 months? Two years? Three? I’ve long since stopped thinking in such broad terms and been grateful just to survive one month at a time.
At first I was optimistic, as it seemed there were at least a handful of “lesser”, but still very valuable/nigh essential resources and lifelines out there for most to stay afloat, and while luck can always be a bit crapshoot, it seemed like there was still enough of a “support infrastructure” to continue to help many of those most in need find there way.
More recently, however, I’ve since been gradually processing the grim realization that even such potential “saviors” are themselves being squeezed to the point of suffocation, as evidenced by such radical and prolonged (with no signs of respite ahead) increases in otherwise “standard” reading fare, with the more scarcely published magazines disappearing from print all together in a matter of months, if not less in some cases.
To me, this all circles around to a topic of discussion touched upon above (again, by Charon I believe), which is that those young and/or fortunate enough to be computer savvy have a definitive edge in this ever-emerging brave new world, because no matter how draconian the policies that stand may be, there are always those diamonds in the rough hiding in plain sight.
And I suspect whom are no doubt FAR more visible/accessible to those that understand how to read between the lines, invest & barter with cryptocurrencies, create very complex/nearly untraceable encrypted signals that are unlikely to ever be identified as such (or even if so, “not worth the effort” it would take to get a peak at a single individuals virtual actions, sophisticated networks that can leapfrog around the world so fast that few can be sure where they really “are” at a given moment, or “will be” in the next to come… and surely countless other means of protection such as deep-web URLs kept in the most tight-knit of circles that have yet to have ever been “broken”, etc. etc.
(my sheer lack of further examples should tell you what side of the fence I’m on, and why I should’ve studied computers/IT at least as a hobby in college…)
But all that being said, without the proper knowledge base to adequately guard one’s self against the many dangers of the lesser-known aspects of internet networking & its sub culture, trying to explore and understand said aspects may even be a worse idea than more conventional means, as whomever is on the other end of those sites/marketplaces is likely to be about as ruthless as they come, or at least have that inherent capacity, even if not often exercised. The reason being, mainly, that dark corners often attract dark things, and most would not be dwelling in the darkness without a very good reason/means of fending off “unwanted” or just “unknown” potential guests.
I honestly don’t know what direction to turn to, as even my more robust financial position at present (more like past at this point…) is getting absolutely steamrolled by a situation of immense fear/fervent demand, which is running directly counter to the supply end of the equation.
Man, I really suck, here I was trying to make a single statement/straightforward train of thought, and now I’ve gotten myself so worked up just by writing that I’ve got a million and one signals crossed up in my synapses ?♂️?♂️ I really wasn’t trying to ramble on as such, but I feel like every-time I let my guard down or get my hopes up for a brighter future for all, I come across some text or personally experience a situation that absolutely takes the wind out of all my sails and really lays me low ?
All I can say is how sorry I am to those people who I know to be far sicker than myself, with far fewer resources with which to part/allocate, yet still manage to keep their heads up and “fight the good fight” regardless of the odds and/or sheer degree of adversity present. May the lord watch over you and bless you all each in your turn ???
It is Well with My Soul 
