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    1. Looking for advice on mother's deteriorating mental health

      Hey, I dunno if this is an appropriate place for this, and feel free to take it down if it's too direct/off-topic or what have you. I can't post this on reddit because my mom browses reddit and it...

      Hey, I dunno if this is an appropriate place for this, and feel free to take it down if it's too direct/off-topic or what have you. I can't post this on reddit because my mom browses reddit and it would be painfully obvious.

      So, as some of you may know, Backpage was a website like craigslist that got shut down completely due to complaints/reports of trafficking. In that shutdown, many people lost their jobs, my mother being one of them. My mom received a severance pay, and had to find work. Within that same timeframe, she also broke things off with a man whom she had been dating prior for reasons I still don't know. After having to sell her house, she tried to make it on her own, but then inevitably had to come and live with me and my Dad (Whom she had divorced about 10 years prior)). At some point a year or so ago, she had a nasty fall and hit her head, concussing her. Lately, she seems to be coming unhinged.

      Her behavior started with her continually retroactively accusing my father of cheating on her ~15 years ago on several occasions based off of information she swears happened but cannot corroborate. She has, in recent memory, been known to make false claims and, when presented with proof refuting her claims, to discard said proof and continue to push her claims instead. She has tried to get me to "remember" incidents over 10 years ago where she ran across "women who were his type". On top of that, she has accused my father of going into businesses she has applied for and telling them not to hire her. My dad wants nothing more than for her to get back up on her feet and get going. I have no idea why she would believe this.

      We had another incident where my little sister went downstairs to get something to eat, and used the microwave to prepare it. My mother interjected and told Ali that she shouldn't be using the microwave because she's afraid of the radiation it gives off. My little sister politely told her that that was bullshit and that she isn't worried. My mother then grew angry, told her something along the lines of "Fine, I'm not going to care if you die then", took her phone, and sent her upstairs (We all shave our rooms upstairs and she has her space downstairs, where the guest room is). This isn't the first time she's posited a completely ridiculous and baseless claim/conspiracy/concern, however I hadn't tried to refute it before.

      I texted my Aunt and debriefed her, and she said that she was aware of my mother's mental health declining, and she wanted to help, but I guess she said something my mom didn't like, because my mom has since blocked her on her phone, severing the only means of communication between them (She's 2 states away). My mom seems to keep doing this to people; saying and believing untrue/ridiculous things and becoming increasingly angry and hateful when she is refuted or called out on it. She has severed ties with her Aunt, the sister of my deceased grandmother, who tried to tell her she was wrong after accusing my grandmother of various things she didn't do. She doesn't have any family left that she hasn't pissed off.

      The only person left in my house who she isn't angry at is me, but I am supremely bad at handling these things and would much rather retreat into my room and not come out until it's all over. My girlfriend living with me is trying to provide support as well. This morning, my mother asked me to drop her off at a homeless shelter. She has a bed, food, clothes, a shower and restroom, and WiFi here, but she feels so much that my father is the root of all of her problems that she wants to leave at any cost.

      I don't know what to do now that my mother is slowly and surely losing her goddamn mind and is driving out everyone who loves her when they don't reaffirm her insane delusions and accusations. It hurts to see my father struggling to do something, because he can't just kick out the mother of his children; he still loves the woman he married. We can't tell her she needs to seek help, because that is interpreted as an insult and calling her crazy. I've tried, again and again, to tell her that we are all here to help her and we want the best for her but she seems to discard every good thing I say and pick out the worst, even if I didn't intend any kind of negativity. She's getting to the point where she's beginning to lose her temper with me and I'm afraid that that will be the final nail in the coffin. My father tried calling some place (I believe they specialized in mentally unwell people) and asking for advice, but when he asked them to call my mother and they agreed, my mother got angry at them and accused them of "collecting evidence" for my father. It's out of their hands if she isn't harming herself or others.

      I don't really know what I expect from posting this. Maybe commiseration, maybe sympathy, or advice, but I'm going fucking insane and do not have any prior experience to help me cope with/fix this and I would really appreciate if anybody does and they're willing to share

      21 votes
    2. What have you been watching/reading this week? (Anime/Manga)

      Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of. If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're...

      Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

      If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its Anilist, MAL, or any other anime/manga database you use!

      10 votes
    3. What were the best games you played this year?

      What made them great? Who would you recommend them to? Don't feel like you have to limit yourself to 2018 releases either. I'm interested in whatever you played and enjoyed regardless of when it...

      What made them great? Who would you recommend them to?

      Don't feel like you have to limit yourself to 2018 releases either. I'm interested in whatever you played and enjoyed regardless of when it came out.

      41 votes
    4. Steam Awards finalists

      Previous discussion here Nominees for Game of the Year: “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” “Monster Hunter: World” “Kingdom Come: Deliverance” “Hitman 2” “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” Nominees for VR...

      Previous discussion here

      Nominees for Game of the Year:

      • “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds”
      • “Monster Hunter: World”
      • “Kingdom Come: Deliverance”
      • “Hitman 2”
      • “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”

      Nominees for VR Game of the Year:

      • “VRChat”
      • “Beat Saber”
      • “Fallout 4 VR”
      • “Superhot VR”

      Nominees for Labor of Love:

      • “Dota 2”
      • “Grand Theft Auto V”
      • “No Man’s Sky”
      • “Path of Exile”
      • “Stardew Valley”

      Nominees for Best Environment:

      • “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt”
      • “Subnautica”
      • “Shadow of the Tomb Raider”
      • “Far Cry 5”
      • “Dark Souls III”

      Nominees for Better with Friends:

      • “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive”
      • “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege”
      • “Payday 2”
      • “Dead by Daylight”
      • “Overcooked! 2”

      Nominees for Best Alternate History:

      • “Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus”
      • “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”
      • “Hearts of Iron IV”
      • “Sid Meier’s Civilization VI”
      • “Fallout 4”

      Nominees for Most Fun with a Machine:

      • “Euro Truck Simulator 2”
      • “Rocket League”
      • “NieR: Automata”
      • “Factorio”
      • “Space Engineers”

      Nominees for Best Developer:

      • CD Projekt Red
      • Ubisoft
      • Bethesda
      • Rockstar Games
      • Digital Extremes Ltd.
      • Square Enix
      • Capcom
      • Paradox Interactive
      • Bandai Namco Entertainment
      • Klei
      17 votes
    5. Do you use an alternative browser? Which one? Why?

      The big players today are Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. Then there are a load of alternative browsers from Vivaldi and Brave to EWW and elinks and w3m, and then things like Dillo and Netsurf....

      The big players today are Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. Then there are a load of alternative browsers from Vivaldi and Brave to EWW and elinks and w3m, and then things like Dillo and Netsurf. Do you use any of these alternative browsers? If yes, why, and why did you pick that particular one? I'd be interested to read why not, too.

      28 votes
    6. VR Suggestions?

      Looking for VR game suggestions. Turns out there's a lot of crap to dig through to get to the good stuff. Give me your best of the best. I'll start us off: Multiplayer - Arizona Sunshine, Pavlov,...

      Looking for VR game suggestions. Turns out there's a lot of crap to dig through to get to the good stuff. Give me your best of the best. I'll start us off:

      Multiplayer - Arizona Sunshine, Pavlov, Rec Room

      Single player - Sairento, Beat Saber

      7 votes
    7. Travelers - Season 3

      So season 3 got release by netfilx a few days ago, I've seen it and like it but kind of want to discuss so; anyone here watched it, thoughts? Anyone not seen travelers (no idea why no double L),...

      So season 3 got release by netfilx a few days ago, I've seen it and like it but kind of want to discuss so; anyone here watched it, thoughts?

      Anyone not seen travelers (no idea why no double L), it's a pretty good time travel show with fresh take on AI. Don't want to spoil too much but I think it's worth the time to see.

      8 votes
    8. What are the primary pressures leading us towards collapse?

      I’m trying to organize a series of statements which reflect the primary pressures pushing civilization towards collapse. Ideally, I could be as concise as possible and provide additional resources...

      I’m trying to organize a series of statements which reflect the primary pressures pushing civilization towards collapse. Ideally, I could be as concise as possible and provide additional resources for understanding and sources in defense of each. Any feedback would be helpful, as I would like to incorporate them into a general guide for better understanding collapse.

      We are overwhelmingly dependent on finite resources.

      Fossil fuels account for 87% of the world’s total energy consumption. 1 2 3

      Economic pressures will manifest well before reserves are actually depleted as more energy is required to extract the same amount of resources over time (or as the steepness of the EROEI cliff intensifies). 1 2

      We are transitioning to renewables very slowly.

      Renewables have had an average growth rate of 5.4% over the past decade. 1 2 3 4

      Renewables are not taking off any faster than coal or oil once did and there is no technical or financial reason to believe they will rise any quicker, in part because energy demand is soaring globally, making it hard for natural gas, much less renewables, to just keep up. 1

      Total world energy consumption increased 15% from 2009 to 2016. New renewables powered less than 30% of the growth in demand during that period. 1

      Transitioning to renewables too quickly would disrupt the global economy.

      A rush to build an new global infrastructure based on renewables would require an enormous amount resources and produce massive amounts of pollution. 1 2

      Current renewables are ineffective replacements for fossil fuels.

      Energy can only be substituted by other energy. Conventional economic thinking on most depletable resources considers substitution possibilities as essentially infinite. But not all joules perform equally. There is a large difference between potential and kinetic energy. Energy properties such as: intermittence, variability, energy density, power density, spatial distribution, energy return on energy invested, scalability, transportability, etc. make energy substitution a complex prospect. The ability of a technology to provide ‘joules’ is different than its ability to contribute to ‘work’ for society. All joules do not contribute equally to human economies. 1 2 3

      Best-case energy transition scenarios will still result in severe climate change.

      Even if every renewable energy technology advanced as quickly as imagined and they were all applied globally, atmospheric CO2 levels wouldn’t just remain above 350 ppm; they would continue to rise exponentially due to continued fossil fuel use. So our best-case scenario, which was based on our most optimistic forecasts for renewable energy, would still result in severe climate change, with all its dire consequences: shifting climatic zones, freshwater shortages, eroding coasts, and ocean acidification, among others. Our reckoning showed that reversing the trend would require both radical technological advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon. 1

      The speed and scale of transitions and of technological change required to limit warming to 1.5°C has been observed in the past within specific sectors and technologies {4.2.2.1}. But the geographical and economic scales at which the required rates of change in the energy, land, urban, infrastructure and industrial systems would need to take place, are larger and have no documented historic precedent. 1

      Global economic growth peaked forty years ago.

      Global economic growth peaked forty years ago and is projected to settle at 3.7% in 2018. 1 2 3

      The increased price of energy, agricultural stress, energy demand, and declining EROEI suggest the energy-surplus economy already peaked in the early 20th century. 1 2

      The size of the global economy is still projected to double within the next 25 years. 1

      Our institutions and financial systems are based on expectations of continued GDP growth perpetually into the future. Current OECD (2015) forecasts are for more than a tripling of the physical size of the world economy by 2050. No serious government or institution entity forecasts the end of growth this century (at least not publicly). 1

      Global energy demand is increasing.

      Global energy demand has increased 0.5-2% per year from 2011-2017, despite increases in efficiency. 1 2 3

      Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use. 1 2 3 4

      World population is increasing.

      World population is growing at a rate of around 1.09% per year (2018, down from 1.12% in 2017 and 1.14% in 2016. The current average population increase is estimated at 83 million people per year. The annual growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960s, when it was at around 2%. The rate of increase has nearly halved since then, and will continue to decline in the coming years. 1 2

      Our supplies of food and water are diminishing.

      Global crop yields are expected to fall by 10% on average over the next 30 years as a result of land degradation and climate change. 1

      An estimated 38% of the world’s cropland has been degraded or reduced water and nutrient availability. 1 2

      Two-thirds of the world (4.0 billion people) lives under conditions of severe water scarcity at least one month per year. 1

      Climate change is rapidly destabilizing our environment.

      An overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree humans are the primary cause of climate change. 1

      A comparison of past IPCC predictions against 22 years of weather data and the latest climate science find the IPCC has consistently underplayed the intensity of climate change in each of its four major reports released since 1990. 1

      15,000 scientists, the most to ever cosign and formally support a published journal article, recently called on humankind to curtail environmental destruction and cautioned that “a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided.” 1

      Emissions are still rising globally and far from enabling us to stay under two degrees of global average warming. 1 2

      Climate feedback loops could exponentially accelerate climate change.

      In addition to increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, many disrupted systems can trigger various positive or negative feedbacks within the larger system. 1 2 3 4 5

      Biodiversity is falling rapidly.

      The current species extinction rate is 1,000 to 10,000 times greater than the natural background rate. 1 2

      World wildlife populations have declined by an average 58% in the past four decades. 1

      The marginal utility of societal complexity is declining.

      Civilization solves problems via increased societal complexity (e.g. specialization, political organization, technology, economic relationships). However, each increase in complexity has a declining marginal utility to overall society, until it eventually becomes negative. At such a point, complexity would decrease and a process of collapse or decline would begin, since it becomes more useful to decrease societal complexity than it would be to increase it. 1 2 3

      25 votes