I had a site I was gunna buy stuff from ask me for a video selfie to “prove” I was over 21.

First if all, I wasn’t buying anything controlled, so thats ridiculous over-reach, and second of all LOL FUCK NO I’m not giving you, some random-ass e-commerce site, my fucking biometric data. That’s absolutely insane.

Needless to say, I blocked that site on my pihole, so it no longer exists to me as an option. Sent them a message letting them know they lost a rather substantial sale from that shit. I’ll do that for absolutely every one, same with ID or whatever else. I could just use the tricks kids use, but that still rewards them for this bullshit with money.

I’ll just stop using the internet if it becomes a thing everywhere. It’s not really worth being on anymore, for the most part, anyway.

Do you happen to have a citation for this? I’m interested because those are the exact opposite effects I need, (I need appetite stimulation and couchlock/relaxation for sleep), and the dispensaries I’m heading to in a couple weeks maaaaay be able to help with that.

Genuinely fascinating that people learned to read that stuff like language. I mean I guess it was language. Hmm I guess that sort of was the monitor… just really big analogue pixels…

Oh! My first dm assigned me the god-like magical being role! It started as a group campaign and ended up being just me and her husband, and I was super new to it, so she wrote out a whole thing that my character was unaware of, and the entire story became finding out about this.

My own backstory probably sucked, but my character was a fire genasi mix who was trained as a mage blade. She was purple with white eyes due to badly botching her familiar summoning spell, so she ended up with a thievy purple monkey (incapable of following directions, unless I critted the roll) instead of the phoenix she was aiming for.

The dm snuck a giant gem into my inventory thanks to that sneaky thieving monkey (which caused a lot of problems, as you can imagine of a familiar that doesn’t obey fucking anything.) it ended up being an artifact from her ancestors, and unlocking the secrets of it brought out my latent goddessness.

So that was a blast.

Thanks for bringing up those memories! It was so long ago now…

I’ve been doing these for years… they don’t work as intended for more than a year or two, and then become pretty unstable. Even the lady who created it went back to low-maintenance (as opposed to zero input) systems after a few years. Still with the dirt and all but not without water movement and stuff.

I just got a notice that a place I worked 12 years ago got breached and my info like full name and social was in it.

Cool. Idk why they even kept info that far back…

Even worse imho is that many private residences now have cameras that record the whole street and other homes. No, they aren’t technically allowed to, but they all do. I have a neighbor across from me who just put up a ring doorbell that fully monitors my entire property (small town lot directly across). They now essentially create records of every time I come and go from my own house. And Amazon, and likely whomever else wants it, has full access to that information.

Not cool. These should be flat out banned. I don’t care if you want to have an overhead camera pointed only on your property, but that’s not what these things do at all.

No you weren’t being unreasonable. They absolutely weren’t trying to help you out of the kindness of their heart, they were trying to seamlessly get your info by just keeping the conversation moving, and not asking if you -want- to sign up, to which yes or no are the only answers. When they ask for your number it’s weird to answer as though they asked a yes or no question, and that’s intentional.

I’ve worked retail, I was trained on canvassing sales (just trained, I quit before I started because it was super shady tactics I wasn’t comfortable with), that tactic is 100% intentional to get the info without you thinking about it. Some places even give bonuses if the employees sign up a certain number of people. Nothing altruistic about any of it.

When you don’t follow their script they get confused… because it’s a script. Not because they think you are mad; they don’t care about you as long as you don’t yell at them. You are just nameless face #545 of the day.

Whenever someone asks for my number or email I smile and tell them “oh, I don’t have an account with you, and I really don’t want one, but thank you all the same.” It’s direct and maybe a bit rude to some people, but they typically apply whatever discount anyway, and if they don’t, meh.

If they ask for zip code or address, I tell them they don’t need it, and with those I will get rude if I get pushback. This includes when I call for product support or something and just have a question. “No, you don’t need to know anything about me to answer my questions, and I won’t be providing it unless I feel you need it, regardless what you think or what your system says.”

I had a weird case of ringworm a while back that wasn’t touched by otc meds either, it didn’t look like rings with the red outer (I was a wrestler for years; I’m very familiar with ringworm), it looked like tight-skin scar patches and just kept spreading, but my partner had a totally typical presentation and otc creams did work for that. Then again the redness being absent may have been from the otc meds, they just couldn’t clear it.

I went to urgent care and asked for an oral antifungal once I hit 20 spots including on my scalp. The guy looked at it and said it was psoriasis, even tho I had no history of that, because “it would be an atypical presentation of ringworm” (yes but would this not also be a strongly atypical presentation of psoriasis, considering I’m late-30s, never had a flare before, this doesn’t itch, isn’t red, and isn’t limited to the normal regions of flares?? Just give me the damned med, moron.)

The oral antifungal took care of it in about 2 weeks, thankfully, which was still a bit longer than a normal round (had to go back for a second round)

Street dealing is desperation, a symptom, almost always socially inflicted.

If telegram is keeping the streets clean, that says a lot about the society in which it functions.

:)

(Every country has its own illicit market, it’s just where that takes place and what is restricted that matters… no legislation is ever going to rid the illicit market. Ever. It exists for a reason, whatever reason. Just make the majority of it (self-harm drugs and the like) legal and the illegal rings for other stuff are a lot easier to spot. Those will be the things that should be illegal, not drugs which primarily harm adults able to consent to doing them. Let’s do the Portugal method of decrim and social support. Even if it isn’t perfect, it’s good.)

I’d pay that subscription. 100%.

I like drugs. I guess I should install telegram. Do the dealers just populate themselves as a service or what?

Thanks, random netizen, for telling me about a method to obtain drugs of which I was unaware!

(Jk, it’s not popular enough here for that, but if it was… I’d still just use signal ;) )

I just say the following every time:

“Your mother would be so disappointed in you if she really understood what you were doing, wouldn’t she?

Ruining the lives of little old ladies, just like mama. She’s probably not well off either, right Mr scammer? I feel for you. Really I do. I’ve lived in poverty my whole life too, and it’s been a huge struggle just to get by. But me? I wouldn’t shame my family by scamming people just like us out of what little they have. My mamma raised me better than that. I’m sure yours did, too.”

I always get a reply meaning it definitely strikes a nerve, usually get some sort of bravado about how mama is proud because they bring home the money, and I just respond “if you tell yourself that enough maybe you’ll believe it someday, too!”.

But I don’t want to be totally heartless because a lot of them don’t have meaningful options, and I get that, and I’m not the ragey sort generally. Or at least I try not to be.