Welp, got the weekend off and since computer doesn't work anymore, me has no entertainment.
Me is sad. 😞
Me is in a financial clasp.
If the phone gives in too (which, let's be honest, it's nearing it's natural death time) I'm majorly fucked. Let's hope it doesn't give in for a few more months at least. (until I finish thesis, at the very least)

... I think I'm gonna spend this weekend just being sad. 😞 And PMS, ofc. 😐 🔻

Crap.
Hopefully, things will get better soon.

Go outside? Walk in a park?

@iiii yeah. Maybe I should do that...

Umm.. chocolate? 🍫

@Cyanide no. Child labor and slavery just for that cocoa, so thanks but no thanks.

@NoMad Don’t be so dark. And don’t be so sad. Here, have some water. Water is fine, right?

@Cyanide water is fine, until some moron ruins it with forced labor 😒😒 #ThisIsWhyWeCantHaveNiceThings

@NoMad Fuck morons. You enjoy the water. And go get some fresh air.

You take hugs? What the heck, I'll hug you without permission 🤗 then you can call the police after. I'll bike away. Weeee 🚴

@iamai awww. I haven't been hugged physically in over six months, so yeah I'm touch-starved so not saying no to free hugs. 🤗

@rutee07 😅 I didn't think of my escape plans thoroughly. Anybody have a jetpack I can borrow?

@AkshayTolwani I'm saving up for a time machine, so no jetpack splurges in between. I guess I'll just have to let the police take me and serve time.

Replacing a phone? What about all of that unethical tantalum mining that you pay into by replacing a phone?

@NoMad so all those children worked so hard to make chocolate for you and you still won’t eat it.

@NoMad There is chocolate which is produced reasonably fairly. I usually order from tonyschocolonely.com, Dutch company. Can get pretty expensive though.

Cheap entertainment for me is usually food, booze & TV-series related.

Large amount of popcorn kernels with salt or some homemade caramel topping, or buttered noodles ($1/kg), a bottle of port ($4 cheap ruby is drinkable, cheap tawny/white port isn't), endlessly watch YouTube or Netflix.

But yeah, the most annoying part of running out of money is discovering that everything. costs. fucking. money -- and that the biggest challenge of being poor in western civilization is defeating boredom.

At least masturbation is free 🤷‍♂

@theKarlisK should get a backup before doing any testing, and I am yet to find the nerves to get backups.

@hardfault yeah nah. Let's drive down the price of chocolate until the big companies have to actually check where the chocolate is coming from and if the workers are treated fairly. Nestle, for one, was in that report of companies that are buying cocoa from forced labor companies.

@irene you make zero sense.

@theKarlisK needs further investigation. I have had no time for that. And now I'm on my period and got no brain/nerve for that.

@theKarlisK yeah yeah you've been saying stuff like that for over two years and you haven't been here even once. 😛

@NoMad yes i too saw that Netflix documentary “Rotten”. But i eat chocolate and i go damn “ forced labors are doing good job “

On serious note just take care , follow your heart, things will become better, this too shall pass

@theKarlisK ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ dunno. Made a wild guess. But I know it's more than a year and half.

@NoMad Previously you had made a claim about ignorance not being an excuse for doing something unethical. So if you are holding yourself to the same standards that you profess if I mention something you may do that is unethical you can both no longer do it and were complicit in doing it all along.

If it happens enough at some point you have to let that notion that passivity is an equivalent to being complicit. That idea that is poison. I don't like when people drink poison thinking it is good for them.

@NoMad @irene I think the comparison with smartphones is apt to a point... although chocolate consists for a very large part of contentious resources (cocoa, sometimes cane sugar or even palm oil), while phones contain small amounts of rare metals.

Also, with metals, the trading chains are complicated and in many cases it's impossible to buy directly from suppliers. A lot of companies are trying to "do right", even though "conflict-free" can turn into "blood metals" within the span of a week. There is still a lot of variation in effort between brands though.

https://enoughproject.org/reports/...

With cocoa, it should be simple (though expensive) to solve: You go to a farm, contract a local farmer, pay them a good price. You then regularly audit the farm for working conditions. You end up with $5 per chocolate bar, so be it.

Problem is: 99% of chocolate and coffee sellers just slap UTZ on their product (lax, failing certification) and call it a day.

@bittersweet what he does not understand is that in this day and age and as a young person who is not a hermit, you can't live without a phone, While chocolate is not a necessity. He just wants to feel superior by "exposing" hypocrisy, and gains nothing out of this argument except for satisfaction of bringing someone down. I wouldn't argue with him if I were you.

@bittersweet I know some people running a fair trade company (coffee/fruit/spices) and they push to build relationships with the actual farmers and purchase directly so they know where the goods come from. The company has gotten big. I don’t think they have been able to get into the chocolate market confidently.

@nomad The western world outsources oppression. You literally can’t do anything without it coming at the cost to someone you can’t see. Even throwing out your trash. So I don’t care about hypocrisy. I want to point out that you can’t beat yourself down for things outside of your sphere of influence because almost everything you can know is outside of your sphere of influence. Do the things that make the biggest impact and let the rest go.