What would count as a definition for you?

What is an address broker?

Cutting down the Amazon rain forest, mistreating your workers, mistreating animals, perpetrating genocide, driving a country into fascism, to just name a few. There’s probably more stuff I’d consider evil.

Here’s a rather specific example of greenwashing I had to do with, of the kind that’s a bit silly and very wide spread and almost impossible to avoid, but has a huge impact on where I live: I was doing a translation for a paper producing company. Their brochure was describing how they were caring for the forests that produce their paper and how they were championing the protection of the environment. They made it sound like they were planting and caring for some kind of fairy tale forest full of wildlife and biodiversity. The reality: all they ever plant is eucalyptus monoculture that by now covers half of the country and is one of the main causes of wildfires getting worse every summer.

Another example that I do not have personal experience with but that I imagine must be very difficult to navigate is being a programmer and working on some tiny snippet of code for something that has the power of causing unimaginable harm to society - like most of financial and stock market stuff, or election winning manipulating algorithms.

My kitten is called Maxim Schnorky. According to him a certain amount of ethically doubtful compromise is okay if that keeps the cat food coming in.

I can’t tell you why anyone in their right mind would do this but apparently they do. Although usually there will be more people going from the more expensive city A to the cheaper city B.

You misread. My argument is “most tourists bad, most tourism bad”. Considering the crisis situation we are living in, especially climate change, people should ask themselves whether seeing the world is really that important. Questioning the tourism industry as a whole sure makes people defensive. I’m not against people seeing other places at all, I’d rather not have it happen in the way it’s happening now as it’s stupidly destructive and selfish. Can we set up things in a way where you can rather spend several months immersed in a different culture than rushing to somewhere for the two measly weeks your employer lets you out of your cubicle? Or is that too radical and we’re doomed to forever keep building ugly resorts and turn everything into AirBnbs?

I’m pretty sure that those who have fucked up Barcelona, Lisbon, Mallorca, Ibiza, most of the Mediterranean and countless other places around the world were more than a select few idiots. Beautiful beaches (before all the resorts are built), cheap partying (before all the tourist traps open) and must-have-seen culture (before they have to protect the famous artworks from being destroyed by the masses) are the reasons why most people travel abroad. It’s a bad habit and people should really ask themselves if the nearest lake isn’t just as relaxing - or even more relaxing - than yet another place far away destroyed by its own desirability. And then they still have the gall to get whiny when their beautiful resort surrounded by ‘nature’ burns down in a wildfire and they have to shorten their vacation! Planet is on fire but it obviously has nothing to do with my cheap Ryanair flight!

I’ll judge you for any holiday destination that you travel to for anything but visiting family. Did you make your own country so ugly you have to go somewhere where it’s still nice, causing the place to become a resort desert? Can’t afford booze in your own country so you have to annoy the locals by ambling along their beaches in drunk shrimp mode? Want to explore the latest ‘cool’ city making rent unaffordable for locals in the process? Just stay at home and make sure it’s a place you don’t want to run away from.

I think it will keep following the cycles of “Make small gadget larger —> Make larger gadget smaller —> Make small gadget larger again …” and “Turn several gadgets into one —> Turn one gadget into several —> Turn several gadgets into one again …” to make sure you have to replace your gadgets for new gadgets at regular intervals. They probably will find some new annoying feature to add to all your appliances once everything from your phone to your kitchen sink has a touchscreen and a WIFI connection.

Sorry for being rather acidic, I got hung up on the “this one post tells me enough”, it sounded arrogant to me and my answer to it was over the top and unnecessarily unfriendly. Thank you for trying to help and giving advice. I really hope my reaction doesn’t put you off trying to help others online in the future!

You’re latching on to one half ironic thing I wrote so you can prove that something is seriously wrong with me? Maybe you need to talk to a professional? Lack of object permanence is one of many symptoms of autism. It makes my life a little more difficult because I sometimes have to remind myself that I can and should continue to connect with people not in my immediate surroundings. I do not literally believe they disappear and I’m sure my other answers must reflect somehow that I’m not a delusional solipsist. But hey, whatever supports your self importance.

Wow aren’t you a genius armchair psychologist to learn enough about people’s mental state in only one post - are you aware how condescending that sounds?

I sometimes wish I could just drop all hope, but it always keeps popping up again. I’m a hopeless optimist, or maybe an optimistic hopeless person? ‘Healthy’ is a very subjective thing, there’s no ‘one fits all’ solution - you can pursue the most healthy activities in very unhealthy ways, and use the most unhealthy stuff to keep alive and somewhat happy, so what?

the transient nature of everything; the only constant is change, and it is inevitable

Thank you for your thorough reply, I’ve been checking the DBT page and there’s a lot of good stuff there!

It’s funny that for me the transient nature of everything is as much comfort as it is reason for concern and discomfort - I’ve always wanted some kind of ‘static’ situation or find ‘the right way of understanding life’, and it took me a while to come to terms with the fact that everything changes all the time, that there never will be a standstill, or arrival at some final truth, or a place where one can rest and trust everything will always stay the same. I guess this desire for things to ‘stay the same’ is also part of the autism, I call it ‘sticky thoughts’. I’m still learning to embrace that everything is and always will be moving and I slowly ease into just being more curious and feeling comfortable with letting stuff happen and not panic about it.

I wish my damn biology reminded me that I’m hungry before I reach the state of hangry doom - but hey I’m afraid of train tracks as well and always keep hydrated, and I managed to bake some yummy bread today that I actually like to eat.

That biological urge to stay alive might completely fuck up my retirement plan of jumping off a bridge when my body starts falling apart. I probably should make a better plan before I reach my 60s.

I have zero trust in prescription drugs and the people who prescribe them. I’ve seen several peoples’ lives destroyed. I’ve seen family members turned into literal potatoes and addicts by the trial and error fuckery that is psychiatry - I know I’ll probably be downvoted to hell for this but that’s what it is for me. If you think someone else can assess your brain better that you can do it yourself and that the pharmaceutical industry has your best interest in mind then we will have to respectfully disagree with each other. I know that psychiatric drugs and DSM-based diagnoses help a lot of people, and I respect that it works for them, but I’ll steer clear of that. If that’s called hard mode so be it.

I like that, I try to remember being curious every day!

I don’t watch the news at all and curate political stuff out of my feeds as much as I can. Thanks for the links, going to check them out!

Well it’s the 'tism and I am self aware about the issue, and I don’t think any therapist is just going to delete the autism from my brain by talking with them more, but thanks?

Before knowing about this new information I had the feeling that a badly torn and stitched together sheep’s udder with a really big hole started healing a lot faster when I stopped doing (in this order) Peroxide - Betadine - Omnimatrix - Charcoal and just went with Betadine - Omnimatrix - Charcoal. It’s very anecdotal data from one sheep, but I find it interesting to be confirmed by some science.