I just ran into someone who I went to school with (~3 years younger than me), whose family I used to know…

They’re very rich (definitely 1%ers), and extremely degenerate…

Her brother is now a tranny. Her father is an androgynous weirdo, and both of her parents are constantly high on designer drugs, every time I run into them (usually at concerts or music festivals, being obnoxious).

This girl… Tells me she has just bought a house. In one of the most expensive houses in my hometown. We’re talking $2M+, average…

So I ask her what she is doing.

“Oh, I’m a professional content creator now. I specialize in TikTok.”

This girl is ugly as fuck, overweight, and probably autistic (think Luna from Harry Potter, but uglier and less endearing). She’s also half-Asian.

I saw a program last night of another TikTok “content creator” in Ireland who was doing up a family mansion, for a few million…

How the fuck is this where we’re at, as a society?

Sure, “bank of Mum and Dad” and all that, but fuck…

Just makes me more depressed and frustrated, tbh…

Australia doesn't have birth right citizenship (Since 1986, apparently). Thus, as I was born after 1986, and legislation has recently changed, and owing to the fact that I do not have a current passport (long story), I now have to fill out an extremely detailed online application, and pay several hundred dollars, and then wait a month, to be sent "proof" that I am an Australian citizen by birth...

The thing is called a "Citizenship Certificate". Immigrants get one when they become citizens. I require this to then apply for a new passport.

This is despite my having my physical Birth Cert, and both my parents Birth Certs. And of course innumerate other forms of ID, both federal and state.

Just thought that was amusingly insane.

Abos don't have to do any of this, naturally. Even the ones born after 1986, lol. But yeah, it's nuts...

The online application system has been down for 24 hours, too, due to "overwhelming demand" for visas, apparently... Which means I have to pay more, now, because of EOFY "indexing".

All just a bit ludicrous, IMHO.

"Bureaucracy".

It's looking very likely (not certain, but increasingly likely, at least) that I will be moving there in a couple of months, to do a course, for 10 months.

I know that people will have varying opinions on Sweden, and its politics - certainly, I'm not a fan of a lot of it, but... It's definitely quite different to Aus, so there's that.

I would be living and studying in the sort of "Greater Stockholm" area, I guess. That part of the country, anyway (a couple of hours away), in a fairly small place.

I'm fairly well-versed in Swedish culture (more so than the average Australian, I would argue, anyway), having dated three Swedish women, having a few other Swedish friends, and... Exposed myself to Swedish media, I guess. But yeah, as an extremely sociable person, I think that is going to be... Interesting. I fully expect to not fit in, but that's ok. I am prepared for that.

But yeah, wadda ya think, people who've been there/are from Europe, or maybe have family there?

I'm not really going there "because Sweden". That's part of it, but it's also a course that is only offered there, so I figure why the hell not.

Would appreciate your thoughts, even if they're just "commie shithole", lol!

Private enterprise sub, taking people down for “visits” to the wreck site. Costs around $250K each. One of the people on board is a billionaire who also paid to go into space…

The whole thing sounds dodgy as fuck, from the way it was built, to how it operates, to how passengers are literally sealed in from the outside, this meaning that if the stupid thing surfaces, unless the mothership picks them up in time, they still die…

It’s such a comedy of errors, it’s the kind of shit that only the very rich, and the very naïve, could have allowed to happen…

Anyway, fuck knows, I hope they turn up alive and well, but damn… Next time someone proposes an extreme deep sea sub held together with parts from Walmart (quite literally), steered by a video game controller, and which apparently cannot communicate with the outside world while deep-submerged, and wants to charge $250K to go gawk at Titanic, maybe society should think twice..?

I mean, come on… 🤦🏻‍♂️

The church is one of the more (supposedly) "conservative" Anglican churches in this dumb fucking city. It was given by a woman from the "Centre for Public Christianity", which, I have established, is some sort of "Christian think tank" in this country...

It was utterly, utterly shit. Biggest turnout this church has had in decades, all for this woman to lecture us about how "Akshually, spiituality is the new religion, and Zoomers believe in ghosts, which is like, totally just as good as Jesus and going to church, ya know?"

Half of it was "statistics", and quotes from various shitty "eco-wiccan" authors and other "spiritualists". You could have taken the "Christianity" out of it, and it would have easily passed for a TED talk, or any "insert religion here" "look how woke we are" type speech...

It was horrible.

But the worst was the Q&A session afterwards. Questions were submitted through an app, and were then "voted on for popularity", before the extremely woke rector/host then selected which ones to ask...

None of the chosen questions were "hard hitting". Not one. Instead, they were around "belief in ghosts", "how can the Church atone for its historical sins?" and, "How can the Church claim to want to bring more people in, when it has historically excluded groups such as teh gayzzz?"

No joke.

So then I stuck around for the "discussion session" afterwards, which included free alcohol and snacks (yes, I know), where I was then simultaneously guilted for "Not believing with adequate conviction" and "Not knowing the Church well enough" (by a recently ordained black woman "priest", who I think was also married, because insanity), and then told that "The culture war doesn't exist", and that "Conservative media, such as the Spectator (which I link here all the time) are mean-spirited and smug and bigoted, and if you read them, you must be, too!", by this stupid bitch who gave this lecture...

By this point, almost all the attractive and not-insane young'ns (there were a few, initially) had left, so I decided to fuck off, too. Only to be chased down the street by some psycho old woman who accused me of trying to steal her car, from a nearby house (I'm not black. This is not a regular occurrence. She was just insane. So I just swore at her until she stopped following me, ahaha)... Really capped off my night. A+.

Anyway... For fuck's sake, Anglicanism. This is how you want to stay "relevant" and attract people to your "broad Church".

No wonder it's haemorrhaging people faster than almost any other religious "group". What. A. Joke...

This might apply less if your brain is less broken than mine. Like, I’ve only just realized that having had three different Facebook accounts in the last 11 or so years (starting over again each time) is considered highly unusual, to most people… As is not having a “professional” career. As is being a “loner”/not really having a friend group. As is being perpetually single in your twenties. As is not having a degree. So…

I’m well aware that I’m far from “the norm”.

But holy fuck. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alienated from “normal society”, or so… Fucking isolated. Even compared to during lockdowns… Everyone I know is getting married, having kids, expressing the same damn opinions, and just generally… Moving on a path that I’m not sure I can follow…

I’ve tried. I’ve really, really tried, but it’s just like… When everyone around you says and thinks the same (apparently), and follows the same damn path, and then doesn’t include you in it (most hurtful thing: fucking none of them inviting me to their weddings. Not even my “best friend” growing up), it’s easy to feel like some sort of crazy freak…

Things seem to be getting more and more like this, too. Like, with how far away, collectively, society gets from its “roots”, or any sort of… Moral grounding, it’s hard not to feel like the crazy one…

I dunno. I’m spiralling. Today has been another reminder that I’m just… Probably not able to keep going, unfortunately.

But it’s hard not to already feel like I’m pushing against a giant wave of wacky bullshit that everyone else is more than happy to go along with, even if some of us drown in it along the way. 😔

Like, I don’t quite get this, but drawing up (or redrawing) congressional maps based on proportion of blacks living there seems pretty insane to me…

Like, the fuck? You guys do that now, lol?

This is worse in some industries (academia. Academia is fucked), and I hear it is even worse in the US, but my god is this ever frustrating…

It really shows you how low people think of you, when you’ve worked with them for some time/think they know you moderately well, and then you ask them for a reference, and they either flat out ignore you, or claim not to even know you “well enough”… 😔

Teachers (well, lecturers, tutors, et al) are particularly bad for this - “Oh, I worked with you on and off for a year. Soz lol, still don’t know you from a bar of soap.”

Look, I get it - it takes a degree of effort, and no one wants to be held accountable for “vouching” for someone else anymore, but fuck, everything requires them - Grad School, jobs, internships, everything.

If no one is willing to (legitimately) provide something so basic, how the fuck is anyone expected to even take that next career step??

This seems much, much worse than when I was last in this position (asking for academic references), 8 years ago, too…

Didn’t think we had slid that much, as a society, in that time, but… Yeah. 😔

Stupidly hard to work around, FML.

I’m talking firstly physical “safety”, as exemplified by (in the city I’m currently visiting) the removal of iconic local statues that have been in place for years, because “inclusive” idiots very suddenly decided they were a “trip hazard”… Because everyone is on their phones now, and therefore don’t look where they are going. 😑

Of course, this is just a symptom of a much, much wider problem, and only “works” because we’ve spent three years being terrified of a fucking virus, and all the tribalism that brought…

But this goes much further - you have “cultural safety”, you have “safe communications”, you have “safety on campus”, you have “LGBTQ+ safe spaces” - all of which comes back to our most bizarre obsession with the primacy of feelings and feeling safe, even if, in reality, you are probably less “safe” than ever…

Some of this is worse in Australia than elsewhere (the physical “safety” stuff here is probably the worst in the world), but a lot of the other ideological stuff originated in North America…

All in all, it comes back to that saying about “freedom vs temporary safety”, I suppose, but geese, what a bleak, sanitized, generic and utterly boring society we are building, FML… 😒