Chana

Hello, comrade! You are in no way alone. Alienation and lack of community is (get this, on the bear site!) a product of capitalism. The nuclear family and a temporary and fickle opportunity for school friends and all that, designed as one of the few means for handling basic social stability, it is also precarious and easy to lose or, for many, never gain.To then feel feel untethered like yourself. It is normal but constructed, and of course you are part of it and can try to fight against it, but it is mostly not your fault.

With that said, with (sometimes great) effort you can get tethered. Making friends? Mostly about finding other people that want a friend. Sometimes it is a shared activity and you just keep being friends even if you no longer share it. But the activity can bring you together. It could be socialist organizing, of course. But it could also be kickball or playing chess or free art lessons or volunteering at a community garden or fixing bicycles or riding a bicycle in a group or cooking food for people (Food Not Bombs etc) etc etc. Any activity you can do together, you will likely eventually find a person or three that you get along with. It might not be right away, you might need to "warm up" some rusty social skills, but it also probably won't take too long.

One nice thing about getting involved with organizing is that even the people who aren't your friends can be your comrades so long as the org is half decent. Avoid picking fights and instead go for just being liked and you will likely do pretty well, it's honestly more important than any technical competency. You will socialize with people and have connections in orgs and have it all happen on a regular basis, kind of like having work colleagues, but better because of sharing a voluntary mission. Basically, I think it is a good option to consider because you don't have to set the bar at "making friends" in an organizing space, ever, but you will still get tethered.

This also applies to volunteer spaces like the community garden or mutual aid, in their own ways.

Anyways, it's not easy because it is new people and you have to synthesize connection rather than having it created by the community itself, by default having you as a member. Atomization is real. But it is also just as complex to solve as actively seeking out mutual activity spaces. The difficulty is emotional, it is going out there and talking to strangers and getting used to certain kinds of conversations again. This is a hurdle you can get over!

I also agree with others that this isn't rock bottom, and I don't mean that dismissively. It means you have enough foundation to do this without it being just about having no feasible alternative! You have some gas in that tank, comrade. You can use it to get out there.

He's basically bringing back Deblasio technocrats and bringing in a FTC bureaucrat. Not 1 socialist. Nada.

He's doing the Obama thing but higher speed and with a DSA rugpull for style.

He publicly supported Hakeem Jeffries for speaker today and his transition team is like 75% ghouls.

I think Costco sells 12 packs of been burger patties in the $10 range.

Nutrient quality: it's a somewhat high protein junk food. Don't eat it too often. It's mostly pea protein and a high viscosity oil, fairly salty. It isn't going to have hormones like the actual animal product.

Health factors: mostly just the salt and high fat content to think about. And maybe think about how much pea protein you're in taking, as processed foods can amplify things like heavy metals in their concentrations. We aren't privy to their internal processes.

Environment: much less impactful than the animal product. Not sure whether it's more impactful than just eating the beans and oil in some other dish, mostly due to weight. If you buy your beans dry, beans probably win. If you buy your beans canned, then you have to compare impacts of transportating something concentrated and processed (fake borger) to something very un-concentrated and with lots of water (bean can). In my opinion this is where you should stop thinking about it because it leads to total process analysis in a system that is opaque and interdependent.

It's good to have and use that knowledge, but also don't forget that basically every single large vegan product company is owned by a company that creates and sells straight-up animal products. Morningstar (which itself sells egg products) is owned by the Kellogs mega conglomerate. Quorn is owned by Monde Nissin. Chao/Field Roast is owned by Greenleaf, which also owns Lightlife, and it's a subsidiary of Maple Leaf. To my knowledge, Tofurky is the only big one free of this.

Also don't forget to apply the same logic for whole food! Beans are the best! But who owns the bean brand? Usually some other megacorp that sells animal products. And the beans are often grown on farms with animal inputs (like fertilizer).

When you dig more than 1 level deep on supply chains and ownership, very little is actually free from animal exploitation. It is nearly impossible to actually rid your life of it, if that is the bar. However, we can do a lot that is practicable.

You can make a poll say anything based on who you decide to sample. I suspect they polled a lot of old people.

Stop explaining it I think that dog has a point

Leaving is the usual response to bad conditions when there is a lack of consciousness and movements to join. All oppressed people should unite and fight, but actually making that happen means that we need to organize with them, not that they need to have the correct realizations independently of us.

I'm always shredding sick jumps on my bike yo

I think it's very funny that toxic masculinity influencer culture has basically become "eat too many eggs".

Oh nice free money box don't mind if I do